If you want to start a business, hide income, protect assets, and maintain privacy, Acorn Corporate Services is the place to go. For fees starting at about $600 a year, Acorn will start a shell company for you and help you take advantage of tax loopholes. For example, you can't deduct health insurance if you buy a personal insurance plan, and if you have a corporate plan you have to cover your employees as well. But if you have a separate shell corporation with no employees, you can shift some income over there (call it management fees) and use it to buy deductible health insurance for yourself.
Not only does Nevada offer low taxes and fees, which means you can avoid paying taxes in your own state, but Nevada also has very business friendly privacy laws. In fact, Acorn has gotten pretty good at this. If you go to the Nevada government entity search, you will find almost 25,000 different corporations with Acorn as the registered agent. By the way, of those companies, at least 94 have A. T. Mathis listed as the President, Director, Treasurer and Secretary.
It's not illegal. Actually, they are pretty smart. Most registered agents charge between $50-$100, so if Acorn can get people to pay twelve times as much, more power to them. 25,000 companies at $600 a piece? That's only $15,000,000 for nothing more than your name. Of course, most companies wouldn't use Acorn's name considering their history. That's why Acorn marketed themselves as BOSS Business Services, Inc and gave seminars throughout the country telling naive business owners how important it was to have their assets and privacy protected with a Nevada corporation. It wasn't until many business owners signed up with them that they began actually putting their name on things. Oh, and good luck getting A.T. Mathis to sign a change of registered agent form so you can get out.
Whether their management tactics or the loopholes they exploit are illegal is up to auditors. But there are two things we can count on with Geithner and Democrats in charge. No company with Acorn as the registered agent is going to be audited. And even if one was, Acorn wouldn't be the one to go down for it.
We thought Obama’s healthcare takeover was dead. We may be wrong.
One thing is for sure, we probably aren’t going to see a new bill. In order to ditch the current junk bill and prepare a new bill, the House and Senate would have to have some potential of actually agreeing with one another. With the pro-life Democrats in the House and not enough Senators willing to break their rules and use reconciliation to pass social policy, a new bill would be almost as likely than an actual bi-partisan compromise.
But Obama doesn’t need a new bill. All he needs is for the House to pass the bill that the Senate passed before Brown was elected in Massachusetts. There’s only one problem, and I highlighted this back in November: the Senate bill funds abortion and the House doesn’t want that.
Whereas the Senate bill funds abortion, the House bill makes it so that abortion cannot be covered by insurance companies. That is just one of the costs of government run insurance. When the people pay for your healthcare, the people can decide what healthcare you can get. In an act of uncharacteristic heroism, Representative Bart Stupak ensured that the House bill had an amendment that does not allow the government to buy our insurance if that insurance covers abortion. It was the only way Pelosi could get enough votes to pass their version. Since the government will soon fund every insurance company, companies would no longer be allowed to insure abortions. It would almost make passing the bill worth it.
Stupak had been the last line of defense against the House passing the Senate bill, but now he is talking about making a deal. What would a Democrat, willing to put his career on the line to protect the unborn, sell his soul for? In this case, nothing. Stupak instead is about to fall for the oldest trick in the book.
It’s like in the movies when the evil interrogator says “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll let you go free!” We all know what’s really going to happen. They can’t make changes to the Senate bill without the Senate having to pass it again, which won’t happen. What they can do is tell Stupak that if he votes for the Senate bill, they will pass a “fix” bill with his amendment. Obama has already been talking about passing a second fix bill because face it, he knows as well as we do that the current bill is crap. Even Steny Hoyer could only muster a “better than nothing” when describing the current healthcare bill. Stupak may be close to making this deal. He will vote for the Senate bill with nothing more than a promise from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that the Democrat leadership will write, pass and get a Presidential signature on a bill that says no government funded insurance plan can cover abortion. Come on Stupak, think about it.
If the Democrat party with complete control over both houses of Congress cannot pass their own healthcare reform bill, there is no way they will pass a second bill placing any sort of limits on abortion. If he lets this bill pass, it will be Stupak surrounded by millions of taxpayer funded aborted babies, with Stupak saying, “But you promised nobody would get hurt!”
Coming March 15th - March 20th, the second annual Conservative Constitutionalist Conference. In the Conservative Contitutionalist movement, we believe in the Constitution, we believe in debate, and we believe in the power that comes with the free exchange of ideas.
Last year we saw some great success with the conference and had authors across our political spectrum here on U4prez offer topics for debate. I would like to expand this year so that we can have an open and honest constitutional discussion on the pressing issues of today.
I will be contacting some people who I would like to see write something specific, but I am also open to ideas for topics to make this conference inclusive while inspiring honest debate. There is only one scheduled item sofar, so let's fill it up:
Tuesday 3/16 - 2nd Amendment Applicability on the Federal, State and Local Levels (Author:friday)
Other suggested topics:
Constitutionality of VAT Mandated Insurance Coverage Don't Ask Don't Tell
The media has proven it still wields incredible power. Senator Bunning has become the newest villain in the world of politics. While Rangel is taking corporate paid trips to the Bahamas, Pelosi is standing up for him, and Obama is ramming his partisan healthcare takeover through congress, the media is looking for a distraction. On the other hand, Senator Bunning has been attacked in every way possible by the media simply for expecting Democrats to play by their own rules.
Cnn.com wrote an article about how Bunning has always been abrasive and difficult to deal with. The Networks attacked Bunning for single-handedly laying off thousands of federal workers and “denying benefits” to America’s unemployed. ABC even tried to track him down to ask him why he is trying to hurt America’s most desperate.
So what is Bunning actually doing to make him slightly more evil than Satan? Bunning has blocked an unfunded bill in the Senate that would add $10 billion to the deficit to extend unemployment and funnel more money to road construction. No, this isn’t part of the trillion dollar deficit stimulus. This is more road spending above and beyond that.
As far as unemployment benefits, typically they are supposed to last for six months. Already they have been extended to nine months. This current, unfunded bill would make unemployment payments last up to a year. At what point do we stop calling it unemployment and start calling it welfare?
But Bunning’s objection is not to increasing road spending even beyond the trillion dollar debt stimulus. His objection is not to lengthening unemployment benefits. Republicans understand that under the current economic policies unemployment is not going to get better any time soon. Bunning’s objection to the Democrat $10 billion debt bill is that it violates the law that Democrats passed called Pay-go.
According to the rules that Democrats passed, Congress has to either cut spending or raise taxes in order to pay for new spending. It’s kind of like the rest of America. We all have to budget. If we want to buy that new TV, we have to stop eating out every night. But as I have always said with Democrat pay-go rules, they will either waive the rules or use them to increase taxes. Democrat pay-go rules have nothing to do with cutting the deficit or reigning in spending. They have everything to do with political hypocrisy. Bunning has stopped this bill to highlight this as Democrats seek to waive pay-go rules once more to pass more debt spending. Will it work?
As of writing this, Bunning has already caved and a vote will go forward on this bill. Instead of taking a stand with Bunning and highlighting the Democrat hypocrisy, Republicans chose to distance themselves from him and validate the media attacks. Apparently many Republicans would still rather spend our grandkids’ money than take a political blackeye from the media. After all this time, they are still almost as out of touch with America as the Left.
It’s pretty sad when the two biggest tax cheats in our country, not currently in jail, are the men responsible for writing and implementing our tax laws. Geithner, of course, is the Treasury Secretary who underreported thousands of dollars in unemployment taxes to the US Treasury before he became the boss there. Charlie Rangel, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, is responsible for helping to write the taxes that the rest of us Americans have to pay. Still, he has cheated with NY rental properties and overseas tax shelters.
Now Rangel is in even deeper trouble for taking corporate paid vacations to the Bahamas, in violation of House rules. Apparently he didn’t bother to question when he was given free tickets and a free vacation. The country is holding our collective breath to see if Pelosi will uphold her promise of the most open and ethical congress in history.
No, not really. I don’t think anyone expects Pelosi to tell Rangel to step down. Rangel was told by staffers three times that special interests were paying for his vacations. But still he insists he had no idea who was sending him to the Bahamas on free vacations. Come on. But no one expects Pelosi, who likes to fly her friends and family around the country in a military jet at taxpayer cost, to take a stand against an unethical Democrat for the first time in her career.
Americans have known about Democrat loose ethics for a long time. House Minority Leader John Boehner wrote a letter to Pelosi back in September of 2008 asking for Rangel’s resignation after it was discovered that Rangel was hiding $75,000 worth of taxable income in his Caribbean tax shelter, and using his rent-controlled New York property as a campaign office illegally. Many of us found it sadly ironic since two years before the Pelosi congress was ushered in when she was able to convince the majority of Americans that Foley was part of a culture of corruption while characters like William Jefferson were not.
The worse part about this congress is that things like vote-buying, bribes and favors are now considered to be just the way business is done in Washington. Nobody inside the beltway batted an eye at the Louisiana purchase or Ben Nelson buyout (two instances where votes for Obamacare were purchased with legislative favors). Many don’t even know that Rangel is also in hot water for keeping tax loopholes on the books for Nabors Industries in exchange for donations to one of his private charities.
We rid our government of unethical Republicans back in 2006. In 2010 we have a chance to clean out the Democrat party. Who knows, maybe one of these times politicians will get the hint.
Democrats love to say that healthcare is a right. Interesting since the Democrat plan is the one that involves the government denying healthcare. I'm sure we all remember Obama speaking about efficiency in his socialist system and telling Grandma to take an aspirin instead of getting a transplant.
We do have a right to healthcare. The government should not be able to tell you that you cannot have healthcare. If Grandma can afford a heart transplant through her own finances, her insurance, or her family, the government should not be in a position where they control the system and can tell her no.
On the other hand, we are responsible for our own healthcare. We have a right to not take care of our health. We have a right, whether our government recognizes it or not, to smoke and drink ourselves to death and eat pure lard covered twinkies while watching Law & Order reruns for 24 hours straight on the couch. Technically, we should also have the right to pursue happiness and property without being forced by the government to pay for the healthcare and welfare of those who enjoy their rights while failing to take care of their responsibilities.
We have the right to life. Along with that, we should have the right to not be forced by our government to assist in depriving the innocent of their right to life.
We are responsible for our own healthcare and welfare. This is not a government responsibility. We have the right to life, we are responsible for how we live and maintain that life. We have a right to liberty. We are responsible for how we use that liberty and to protect that liberty for new generations. We have the right to pursue happiness, but we don't have the right to happiness. It is not the Government's responsibility to make you happy. It is the Government's responsibility to not stand in the way of your happiness. That is the difference between a free people and a government managed people.
No more benevolent dictators. It is time to trust the people. It is time to give us our rights and then trust us to be responsible to do the right thing with our rights.
Obama: Good morning. After a year of working across party lines with Republicans to come up with bi-partisan ideas, we have come up with a bi-partisan framework that stubborn Republicans refuse to support. Therefore we have come here together today to come up with ideas and hopefully find what we can agree on and build a bill that Republicans will support because it is very important. Both my daughters almost died because of various health issues. Democrats want to end illness, Republicans seem to want to keep it. So thank you Republicans, for coming and hopefully we can come to a bi-partisan resolution.
Prominent Republican: Well, Mr. President, thank you for having us. We truly do hope that you succeed, and not fail. But we respectfully disagree with some of your healthcare ideas, and hope we can come to a resolution. First though, we want to know that this won't be for nothing. We are hoping you can take reconciliation off the table and will actually work with us to come up with a good compro...
O: Wait, no one is talking about so-called reconciliation. Nobody has even mentioned it on our side. That is just lies from the Right. Go on.
PR: Well, we just, uh, ok. Well, we have some issues with a bill that increases spending by a trillion dollars, forces people to buy insurance and cuts medicare.
O: Our bill doesn't do that. Actually, it cuts costs, cuts the deficit, pays for everyone's healthcare, and cures all illnesses. Now to my Democrat allies.
Prominent Democrat: Thank you Mr. President. When I was home last time, I spoke to Jorge Espisito. Jorge is a business owner who can't afford health insurance for him or his workers. And he told me that one time he was walking home, and he was jumped by a Blue Cross Blue Shield representative who injected him with the AIDS virus! We have to get control of insurance companies. We have to reform healthcare now. We can't go back to the beginning. Facts are facts and those are stubborn things and we can talk about this and that, but it all comes back to facts.
O: Thank you, and I think that's a good point. We support limits on out of control insurance companies who attack people and inject them with diseases. Republicans used to support that, but I guess not when Democrats support it.
PR: Well Mr. President, the free mark...
O: We don't have time for talking points. This is a summit, not a campaign. My daughter almost died, don't you care?
PR: Sorry Mr. President. One idea we support is tort reform. So much of our costs go to frivolous lawsuits. With tort reform we could save some costs right away.
O: Really, there will be plenty of time for talking points. Let's stay on topic.
PD: Last time I was in my district, I talked to Shaniqua Jackson, a young mother who gave birth to a sick baby. The doctor amputated both the baby's legs just to get an extra $25,000! You Republicans want to take away her day in court? On top of that, the insurance company forced her to sell her home and her father's antique stopwatch just to pay for her hospital food and food for her legless baby. We...sorry, I get emotional...we must do this for the American people. We can't wait for a good bill. We have to pass what we have.
PR: Mr. President, I've noticed Democrats are taking twice as much time as Republica....
O: well, I am the President. My time doesn't count. And Democrats are the only ones saying anything that matters. Plus you keep going back to your talking points and attacks, so you don't get to talk as much.
PD: When I was in my district last time, I heard a story from Fred Smith. Mr. Smith is elderly and has to choose between eating human food or eating dog food and buying medication. He would tell his kids he has no money to buy his medications, but he is ashamed about troubling them to pay for his medications. We need to have the American people pay for his medications instead.
PR: Ok, well, on page 319 the Senate bill says that the government will set up a commission that determines when someone is too old to get medical car...
O: Well, listen. We aren't talking about the bills we have, we are trying to come up with something new. Besides, I thought Republicans supported efficiency in healthcare.
PD: I have a constituent who's grandfather died last year. Now, he is using his grandfather's old catheter as oxygen tubing because he doesn't have health insurance.
PR: Well, ok, that's gross. But on page 3,533 it says you can make people buy insurance and make businesses buy insurance or you will double their taxes.
O: That's not a mandate, that is simply making people pay their fair share.
PD: Last time I was home, I talked to Sarah Johnson who's employer wouldn't buy her health insurance. She went to the doctor's office and a doctor brushed past her as she walked down the hallway. Two days later she received a bill from that doctor for $10,000. She couldn't pay it, so now we all have to pick up the slack. That is why we have to tax people who don't buy health insurance. It's all about forcing personal responsibility. Plus, this bill will save or create three million jobs the day we pass it.
PR: Well, some of us might think that is a mandate.
O: No, no, it isn't. Our bill is a great bill, and most of the stuff in it is stuff that Republicans supported until we came up with it. But Republicans are unwilling to work with us. You are unwilling to change your mind on anything and are stubborn. We tried. We even had televised debates and conferences on C-Span (today counts). We let you have a voice, but you have done nothing constructive. You just want Americans to die. I don't think we have any need to try anymore to reason with you guys. You are heartless and the Americans should vote you all out in November. You leave us no option but reconciliation. With that, thank you for coming out and taking time to work with us. The end. No, I mean it, the end. Please leave now.
We’ve all seen the scary movie where the power is cut during the party and the young ditsy blonde decides it’s a good time to go out to the garage by herself to get more beers. And we all sit there and scream NO, It’s a trap! That is kind of like Obama’s “bi-partisan healthcare summit”.
When you hear “bi-partisan healthcare summit”, you might think it is a meeting between the two parties where they work together to come up with a new healthcare plan that the majority of Americans approve of. This is not the case. Today, Obama and his Democrats are announcing that they already have a new plan. And by new they mean just like the Senate plan but with more taxes and government takeover of the private sector. Oh yeah, and Obama cut back on the Union tax on cadillac health plans.
In fact, the new Obama plan still allows for backdoor abortion funding, still forces every American to buy health insurance from Obama approved corporations, and still costs a trillion dollars. The only new things are higher taxes on investment income and price controls. Because we know from the Carter years how well price controls work and nothing says “focused on improving the economy” like raising taxes on economic investment.
So you might be asking yourself why the Democrats would call a bi-partisan summit if they already have a partisan plan that many have suggested they are willing to forgo Senate rules to pass? The Democrats have painted the Republican party as the party of “no”. And they would love to extend the open arms of bi-partisanship and have the Republicans say “no” one more time. The trick is to appear to be bi-partisan without actually being bi-partisan. Dems have done it again.
It’s a win win situation. After all the backroom deals, one sided debate, and party member buyoffs, Obama can now claim that he is making a good faith effort to hold debates and meetings on C-Span. If the Republicans don’t show, he can say he tried and many Americans will actually believe him. If Republicans do show up, Obama can stick to his guns, claim Republicans are stubborn and refuse to work with him, and then pass the bill on reconciliation as a “last ditch desperation move” to get something done in this partisan country. If Republicans show up and do find a compromise, Obama will finally have what he has truly been looking for: shared guilt. When things go terribly wrong, like they did during the first two Pelosi years, Obama will have cover because hey, the Republicans voted for it too.
What can Republicans do? The only solution is something that has eluded them for 18 years. They need to communicate. The Republican plan is tort reform, portability so that you won’t lose your plan if you lose your job, ability to buy across state lines and increase price cutting competition, honesty in the industry, medicare fraud reform, and tax credits to people who truly can’t afford insurance so that they can choose their own policy to fit their needs. No public abortion funding, no public funding for illegal aliens, and no mandates to buy from government approved corporations. Obama is counting on his ability to out-campaign the Right. But after 14 months of seeing the results of Obama’s flowery policies, the Republicans may be able to win this debate with just the facts.
This is a short and not well written blog because it is actually a response to a thought expressed by HCP. Here is my question, and it's not the first time I've asked it, but why do soldiers need to tell each other what their sexual preference is?
For three years I was an employee of a religious organization. This organization provided youth camps, bible college, world missions, conferences for adults, and short term missions trips for teens. I've seen lives changed completely. I've seen marriages saved, drug addict gang members giving it up and coming as bible college students, and I've lived in a dorm with men who just a month before were in jail. It was and continues to be a great ministry that I was proud to be a part of.
However, this ministry had strict rules for staff. I had to be clean shaven, could not drink alcohol, could not even touch my girlfriend, could not go to the theater, could not dance (even at a wedding) and could not play with traditional playing cards. Doing so could mean being fired. It certainly wasn't representative of my values. It wasn't representative of most of the staff's values. I have no problem with dancing, theater, cards, or even having a drink.
However, I chose to be part of this ministry and therefore I chose to play by their rules. Many students complained to me about the rules and my response was always the same "You have chosen to be here and to make a commitment to follow these rules because you know the value of what you are receiving and doing here."
We don't draft gays. Every gay soldier is in the military because they have either seen what they can do for their country or what a military experience can do for them and they have chosen to give up their right to live where they want to, dress how they want to, and even say what they want to in order to be a part of our military.
We don't have laws about no gays in the military. We have laws saying that talking about your sexuality is just one more thing you must deny yourself if you want to wear the uniform, with all the privileges, duties, and hardships that come with it.
Would it be better if we just extended DADT to unmarried heterosexuals? I don't mean offense by these questions or thoughts, but as someone who has given up much to be part of something, I just wonder if some pro-gay rights individuals are projecting their agenda onto young men and women who are far more than just their sexuality and have chosen to make the necessary sacrifices to serve their country.
Harry Reid is probably pretty proud of himself tonight. And if Republicans behave as usual, he has good reason to be. After working and dealing with Republicans to come up with a bi-partisan jobs bill filled with tax cuts and unrelated pork programs, Reid has thrown the bill in the trash and drafted a new copy with just the tax cuts and infrastructure spending. The cost of his new bill is less then half of the old one. As AP put it, he has all but dared the Republicans to vote against the new bill.
This isn’t a bad move for Reid. If Republicans vote for it, he is already in a position to call the bill a victory for himself and the Obama administration. He can put “Taming the Republicans in a Tea Party Era” on his resume. If the Republicans vote against it, Reid can claim he offered them a bill with tax cuts, no pork and infrastructure spending, but Republicans were so partisan that they wouldn’t go for it. Nevermind that Reid was the one who scrapped the bi-partisan deal they had already arrived at.
Here is why the Republicans should play the hand he dealt them. The first inclination is going to be to attack Reid for throwing away their bi-partisan agreement. But what Reid stripped out of the bill was unrelated items and pork spending that we can’t afford anyway. He also stripped out popular Bush tax cuts and the Patriot Act which Republicans need to highlight separately instead of allowing Dems to sneak them in to other bills. What Reid has given them is not a perfect bill, but it is far better than whatever the socialist Democrat’s plan B might be. In other words, if Republicans reject this, the next bill will be more like the failed Stimulus bill. Many Republicans were calling for a payroll tax holiday over the Stimulus bill originally.
My advice to Republicans is to highlight that Democrats are now seeking tax cuts to stimulate the economy, an idea typically owned by the Right. Then they need to take the bill back to Harry Reid with a list of Stimulus pork that they can cut to pay for it. After all, aren’t we in the era of Paygo? If the Republicans play their hand right, we can see who is really bluffing. I’ll tell you right now, Pelosi and her House have already folded on Reid’s game.
Things are getting bad. Yesterday the Politico reported that if Obama gets the jobs bill passed it will be a much needed victory for him. Yes, the same jobs bill that is 80% tax cuts and credits and re-authorizes the Patriot Act.
Obama continues to blame his problems on the last 8 years, and he has a valid point. When Bush bailed out AIG, then AIG paid off Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs then became Obama’s number one contributor. The biggest failure of the last 8 years was Bush effectively and unwittingly buying Obama’s election with our tax dollars.
There is one thing the Obama Administration is not ready to blame on the last 8 years: his mission accomplished in Iraq. Yes, you read that right. Vice President Joe Biden has labeled the pacification of Iraq as one of the great accomplishments of the Obama administration. The only problem is that Iraq was pacified when Obama stepped into office. The only reason Iraq suffered a period of turmoil at the beginning of Obama’s administration was because he was so eager to prove that he could accomplish things he pulled our troops out of Iraq’s major cities shortly after arriving. The result was hundreds of Iraqi civilian deaths. In fact, if you analyze the deaths and civilian deaths in Iraq, what you will see is a steady decline in 2008, and then an increase followed by a decrease in 2009. 2009 deaths ended near the same level they ended in 2008.
It’s odd that Biden would declare Iraq to be one of Obama’s greatest accomplishments. Obama was the only major candidate in the 2008 election or Democrat primary who could claim that he did not support the Iraq war at any point in his political career. Biden considered the Bush policies that actually won the Iraq war to be a failure. He would have split the country up into three weak factions and then pulled our troops out and let the strongest bidder in the region take whatever mess was left. Speaking of the strongest bidder, this week Ahmidenijad has announced that Iran will be developing weapons grade nuclear materials in direct defiance of our President.
Biden might be right. Obama’s best accomplishment might be managing to maintain Bush’s successes in Iraq.
AP is reporting today that the new Jobs Bill that Obama is trying to put together is not likely to have much effect beyond adding another $33 billion to the deficit. Obama is hoping that the bill will provide a bi-partisan solution to our economic woes and will buy him back some of the credibility he once enjoyed. The main highlight of the bill is a tax credit for the 6.2% employer portion of Social Security on payroll for hiring someone who has been unemployed for 60 days.
The problem is that once again Obama is addressing the symptoms but not the real problem. Who is going to hire someone, pay them salary, health insurance and other benefits for a 6.2% tax credit just so that person can sit in their office and play solitaire while the phone stays silent? The reason people aren’t hiring is that there isn’t work. The issue isn’t that employers are drowning in work but can’t afford the payroll taxes. And with Obamacare, Cap and Trade, and the end of the Bush tax cuts on the horizon, no employer is going to hire someone they don’t need for a credit on their payroll taxes.
The bill is considered bi-partisan because it extends about $33 billion in popular tax deductions that Democrats let expire while fighting each other over health care. Republicans might consider voting for the $33 billion in ineffective payroll tax cuts in order to reclaim the $33 billion in tax deductions for state sales tax, teachers buying school supplies, tuition, etc.
The other reason Republicans might vote for the bill is because the Democrats, who complained for six years about the Patriot Act, have re-authorized it in this jobs bill. It will be interesting to see if the Left actually notices.
I have warned readers for a few months now that we are living in a government debt bubble economy and are heading for the second drop in a double dip. Some analysts are discovering that the market’s rally is built on nothing more than speculation and gaming. The market is actually being driven by short sellers.
A short seller is someone who borrows shares of a stock, sells them at a high price, and then buys them back at lower prices to return to their brokers. Many times this actually drives the stock prices down. Short selling was blamed for the initial market plunges a couple years ago. AP Business Writer Bernard Condon explains that in this case we are in a “short squeeze” which is driving prices up.
Ok, time for some layman terms:
To explain it more simply, short selling would be like this. On January 1st of this year, you pay your friend $100 to borrow his brand new Toyota with only 5,000 miles on it. You then sell that Toyota for $17,000. February 4th, that same model of Toyota has been recalled and has dropped in value. You buy the same model with 5,000 miles on it for $15,000 and return it to your friend. You made $2,000 on the deal and your friend made $100 bucks for lending you a vehicle in the exact same shape as the one he got back a month later. That is essentially a short sale.
A short squeeze is a little more complicated. Imagine you borrow 100 Toyotas from your friend and sell them all for $17,000 a piece. That model is recalled and drops in value. However, as you expect the price to drop further and hold off on repurchasing, the government institutes cash for clunkers and car buyers are happy to take their chances on a Toyota for $2,000 less than the usual asking price. The value goes back up.
Now it’s March and your friend wants the next month’s payment. He also sees that the value hasn’t gone down and wants to make sure you can repay him. He says that if the price continues to go higher you will need to reduce the number of outstanding Toyotas you have borrowed from him. As a result, you are now buying them back for more than you sold them for. Your purchases to cover your loan drive the overall price up even higher. This is the short squeeze.
The result is that worthless stocks are being driven higher in price as short sellers buy even more worthless stocks to cover their loans. The result, as Condon points out, is that companies who haven’t made a profit in years are seeing their stocks quintuple as bargain hunters buy cheap and short sellers are forced to then buy back high.
Eventually we will run out of short sellers who sold too low. When we run out of short sellers who sold too low, and the bargain hunters start to see a drop off in price gains, we will see a new round of short sellers who will be as deadly effective as the 2007 short sellers in driving the price down.
This coming market correction, mixed with the stimulus money running out, the deficit completely overwhelming us, and the coming tax increases in Obama’s budget will put us into a full blown depression in less than a year. We need a new economic course. Hopefully November will bring some fresh ideas to Washington.
Although the economy shrank overall in 2009, plenty of media outlets and Democrats are overjoyed to point out that the economy grew at a rate in the last quarter that was higher than we’ve seen since all the way back in, well, the Bush years. The 5.7% GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2009 was more than a lot of economists expected. Economists who know what happens when you throw trillions of debt spending at the economy weren’t too surprised.
Once again, debt does not equal wealth. Obama increased spending by 33% his first year while revenues fell. This year he is doing the same, even without unplanned stimulus spending. Every jobs bill Obama thinks up is nothing more than borrowing hundreds of billions more and throwing it at short-term government infrastructure projects. I still haven’t found out how many times you have to repave the same stretch of road before the government counts as a job saved or created.
If you lend a homeless man a million dollars at a high interest rate, he buys a house, and then the house drops in value to $800k, is his wealth growing? He does have an $800,000 house that he didn’t have before. I hate to say it, but our growth in the fourth quarter of 2009 is no different.
In the fourth quarter of 2009 the market value of our domestic product increased by $221 billion. That’s not bad. It’s not quite as good as the 7.2% GDP growth Bush’s tax cuts produced, but it’s definitely better than the economic retraction we saw in the first half of 2009. At the same time though, debt spending increased by $260 billion in the fourth quarter.
So we borrowed $260 billion and the value of our domestic product increased by $221 billion. Meanwhile more than 600,000 jobs were lost in the fourth quarter. And lots of roads got repaved again. Oh yeah, and plenty of Democrat congressional districts got new duck ponds, skate parks, and honey bee insurance.
Now we have to pay for our borrowed growth. Someone finally read my blog and figured out that Obama is going to raise taxes by not renewing the Bush tax cuts. Obama has already written Cap and Trade (which would increase energy costs by thousands for each American family) into his budget. The sad thing is that with all these tax increases we still are expecting a $1.6 trillion deficit for 2011. This is only twice what Obama was projecting for 2011 when he took office. For the record, Bush’s worst deficit was just over $400 billion after a year of Democrat control of the Congress. Bush even inherited the tech bubble, loose fiscal policy, and a decimated terror intelligence community (who couldn’t stop 9/11) from the previous administration. By the way, if you think Bush inherited a surplus you haven’t been reading my blog.
Obama kept telling us that only government can fix the economy. Many believed him. Hopefully we have learned our lesson. The government doesn’t make money. The government doesn’t produce goods and services that people want at prices they are willing to pay. The government cannot produce growth. All the government can do is beg, borrow, and steal from some and benevolently hand out to others while calling it growth. If Obama has caused anything to change, hopefully it’s that we finally know better.
The buzz in Washington these days is still all about the arrival of Scott Brown and how the Republicans finally have enough votes to join the Healthcare debate. Meanwhile, a scandal is continuing to brew unnoticed. It turns out this President is engaged in the same unethical relationships as both his predecessors. And as I predicted, Tim Geithner may be taking the fall for it.
The White House relationship with Goldman Sachs first became news when Rahm Emanuel, now Obama’s chief of staff, was working for Bill Clinton’s campaign. Actually, technically Rahm worked for Goldman Sachs and volunteered for Clinton’s campaign. Goldman Sachs gave as much as they were allowed, had their employees give as much as allowed, and then paid the salaries of Clinton’s campaign staffers so that Clinton wouldn’t have to. At the time, they said they were hiring Clinton staffers for networking purposes. This loophole got the Clinton campaign around the campaign finance laws that Obama indignantly called out the Supreme Court for repealing.
The payoff came when Clinton bailed out Mexico and other countries through the IMF after Goldman Sachs had invested heavily in government bonds from those countries and stood to lose it all. This was just the first time the Government bailed out Goldman Sachs by bailing out what they had invested in.
The Bush administration destroyed it’s reputation as a free market, capitalist administration when Goldman Sachs alumnus Henry Paulson was handed sole control and responsibility of the TARP bailout process. Half of the left portrayed Bush as an imbecile, the rest saw him as some sort of evil genius. In this instance it actually was one or the other. But before those on the left cheer, it was the Pelosi/Reid congress who wrote Paulson’s financial regency into the TARP bill.
Several banks took large amounts of TARP funds. Goldman Sachs themselves took $10 billion, but many banks were told to take it to avoid creating a stigma on certain banks as worse off than others. Although the plan didn’t work and AIG, Citigroup, and a handful of failed banks have been destroyed in public opinion, Goldman Sachs managed to stay out of sight through the process. Although Goldman Sachs has set aside $11 billion for bonuses this year, AIG is the name that comes to mind when Americans think of evil banks who stole our money and spent it on outrageous bonuses. In fact, it is ironic that one of the greatest mouthpieces for the liberal movement, Michael Moore, shows up in front of Goldman Sachs asking for the American people’s money back. Moore’s own movie was funded by Goldman Sachs.
Speaking of AIG, they are now under investigation for what they did with some of the billions of dollars in taxpayer TARP funds they received. What they did was use the money to pay off some of their best investing partners who were going to lose it all. Guess who one of those major investing partners would be. In fact, Goldman Sachs was invited to the table when the government decided what to do with AIG.
Up next on Obama’s agenda is far reaching regulations to discourage banks from every doing anything that might make them a profit in the future. Obama is going to ride in on a white horse and make it so that banks will lend freely and with no risk. I have no idea how, but then again he has the best in the business like Tim Geithner. And Geithner is getting the best advice from his chief of staff, former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but as unemployment remains above 10% and the economy prepares to begin stage two of it’s double-dip, Goldman Sachs is about to have it’s most profitable year in the company’s history. If you are keeping score, you might think something was up.
On Wednesday, Obama will stand before the country and spin like he never has before. It’s been a rough month for Democrats.
The Scott Brown victory has made many on the left realize that Americans are upset. They haven’t figured out quite what we are upset about yet. But one thing they know for sure, if they don’t figure it out soon they might lose big in November. Robert Gibbs’ theory is that they voted for Scott Brown for the same reason they voted for Barack Obama. Americans want change.
Obama actually has come closest out of the Democrats in figuring out some of what we might all be upset about. The economy is terrible, the deficit is way too high, and one in ten Americans wants a job but doesn’t have one. Obama has tried already to fix the economy by increasing the deficit, creating revolving door jobs in specialized fields and tax-paid government offices, and punishing businesses and banks. But for some reason it isn’t working.
The economy is just one more area where Obama has promised and tried to deliver one thing and ended up doing the opposite. Obama had taken a break from the economy, perhaps out of frustration, to work on Health Reform. He worked very hard on a bill to make healthcare costs go down, expand availability, punish evil insurance companies, and bring open and honest government back to Washington. Instead, he ended up with a bill that raises healthcare costs, forces all Americans to buy from the evil insurance companies, leaves nearly 25 million still uninsured, and has been crafted behind closed doors by lobbyists and special interest groups. The good news is that the bill was defeated. The bad news is that Obama and his party are back to trying to “fix” the economy.
Obama’s new plan to fix the economy includes tougher regulations on banks who are already freezing lending, higher taxes and mandates on businesses who are already freezing hiring, and a mix of tax breaks for childcare and college loans. Unfortunately, working parents and recent college grads don’t hire people.
Obama is hoping that his populist approach will be the opiate of the masses. In his State of the Union address he will promise three year freezes on certain domestic spending programs. Even if that were to happen, he will make up for it with billions in spending and “stimulus”. But what you will hear on Wednesday is how he is cutting the deficit and making the tough decisions.
Next he will talk about punishing Wall Street fat cats and getting our money back. This is the Liberal way. Take our money away from us by taxing our employers and the products we buy, and then give it back through social and domestic programs. To us it appears that Obama is robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. But in the end, all they have done is make us comfortable as the life ebbs from our economy.
Obama will finish his speech telling us about his new domestic policies. Instead of pro-business tax cuts and incentives for growth, Obama is going to offer tax credits to the poor and middle class to make us more comfortable in our America. He will vilify those who break free and work their way into his America and announce how he plans to take care of us until enough employers can overcome his policies enough to start hiring again.
As Obama’s health insurance industry bailout teeters on the edge, Democrats are going back to the mantra that got them through the pork stimulus bill and cash for clunkers. It’s better than doing nothing. Better than nothing was the quote from Democrat House majority leader Steny Hoyer as even Massachusetts voters consider flipping Kennedy’s seat to a Republican and killing the Democrat filibuster proof majority in the Senate. The last time a Republican held a Senate seat in Massachusetts was 38 years ago. The last time Ted Kennedy’s seat was held by a Republican was 1946.
What was promised was an open and honest debate on universal healthcare that would cover every American, decrease the deficit, avoid rationing, keep Medicare intact, leave the freedoms of private industry untouched while regulating the evil corporations that cancel people’s insurance plans when they get sick, and of course make the Republican party finally obsolete. Instead, we got a bill that no one but Democrats, lobbyists, special interest groups and union bosses have actually seen. Deficits will increase by a couple hundred billion dollars, healthcare will be rationed, Medicare will be cut (according to the bill), and Obama approved insurance companies will receive a bigger bailout than the Auto industry and banks combined when the government starts penalizing you for not buying insurance from Obama approved private corporations. But it’s better than nothing, right?
Doctors, healthcare providers, and non-union members with high quality insurance plans will be taxed. Oh, and before the homosexual community pursues gay marriage much further they should consider that Obamacare includes a marriage penalty that will increase health insurance costs by as much as $2,100 more for married couples making $50,000 than couples who are simply living together. Oh yeah, and no free public option. But it’s better than nothing.
Part of the reason Hoyer might think the Senate bill is better than nothing is because it makes all American pay for abortion. The house bill actually protects pro-lifers thanks to Congressman Stupak, who is ironically a Democrat. The Senate bill does not have the same protections thanks to the now infamous Senator Ben Nelson buyoff. Democrats seem hellbent on making pro-life conservatives pay for abortions and organizations like Planned Parenthood who break parental consent laws and protect 31 year olds who get 13 year olds pregnant.
If anyone needed to see what healthcare rationing might look like, they need not look further than the H1N1 vaccine debacle. I don’t remember there being massive shortages of Viagra, Prozac, Riddlin or other popular privately produced and distributed drugs in recent history. But let’s let the government manage and distribute our healthcare. It’s better than nothing.
We can hope that a Republican could win in Massachusetts. We can hope that if he does the Democrats will respect Massachusetts law and not let soon to be former Senator Paul Kirk (Democrat, long time Kennedy friend, and temporary appointee) cast a vote for the bill after his term expires today. But I think Democrats have worked too hard for this. Obama can hardly stand up and give his State of the Union address without being able to tout passing healthcare. In the end we will end up with something that no matter how terrible it is, is “better than nothing”.
In yet another case of leftist bigotry towards the right, Martha Coakley, Democrat candidate for Ted Kennedy's seat, is suggesting that Christians who oppose abortion in all cases should not get jobs in Emergency Rooms. Apparently if you don't follow Martha Coakley's brand of morality then you should be subject to Jim Crow type restrictions on where you can work.
I wonder how Coakley feels about Creationists teaching science class? How about Christians who devoutly believe we shouldn't steal working for the IRS?
Has anyone else noticed that the Republican party is more politically correct than the Democrats? The southern Democratic party is making their resurgence after 150 years of hiding behind the NAACP and the amazing stereotype they have managed to create of the old white male Christian racist Republican. In fact, we have had to put up with lots of old white Christian racist Democrats telling us how racist Republicans are. Howard Dean comes to mind.
Harry Reid should resign for the same reason Trent Lott did, to save his party. Already plenty of Americans are wondering exactly what Harry Reid thinks Negro dialect sounds like. While black establishment Democrats are falling all over themselves to forgive Reid and protect him in order to save their party, more and more Americans are starting to realize that the emperor's clothing is nothing more than a white sheet. Before you get offended, maybe I was talking about Robert Byrd.
Reid is not going to win re-election unless he is a better liar than Clinton and Obama combined. The honorable thing for Reid to do is to admit that he is an old white Democrat racist and step down so that Democrats can find a candidate who actually has a chance to win and replace him. In fact, Reid lies about being pro-life, maybe he might try switching parties so that he can somehow give validity to the stereotype Democrats have been building for us all this time.
Everyone thought that Democrats putting forth a black candidate would prove once and for all that Democrats are enlightened, for civil rights (unlike when civil rights were actually an issue in Congress), and the color blind party. But what we discovered is the harsh reality that Democrats have been working hard to rebrand themselves ever since they realized that the majority of Americans want equality and civil rights for all. They have done whatever it takes to tie up the black vote and when they found a "clean and articulate" "light-skinned" black who doesn't speak in a "negro dialect", they jumped on the prospect.
Perhaps I am way off base and Democrats really are the party that doesn't care about race and doesn't play identity politics. Maybe Democrats do judge people by the content of their character. But you can't tell from listening to people like Harry Reid, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. And that is why Harry Reid should resign.
- Janet Napolitano talking about the Christmas Eve Bomber, Dec 27, 2009
“Our system did not work“
- Janet Napolitano talking about the Christmas Eve Bomber, Dec 28, 2009
In the news this past week, we learned that the terrorists who flew from Nigeria to the US loaded with powder and liquid explosives was trained in Yemen by Al Qaida operatives.
In a completely unrelated story, the UK Times Online is reporting that many of the Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been released are returning to Yemen and rejoining Al Qaida.
On the domestic front, in another completely unrelated story, President Obama is preparing to free more detainees from Guantanamo and help shut down this prison that has become a recruiting tool for Al Qaida. Those detainees will go home to their countries where one in seven rejoins terrorist organizations.
And in another completely unrelated story, President Obama will be sitting down today with his top security advisers and heads of agencies to try to figure out how someone from Yemen who trained with Al Qaida got into our country with explosives on a an airplane. And why is Yemen all of a sudden an issue? What is causing this increase in Al Qaida presence in Yemen? Somewhere there is a disconnect. Somewhere there is a breakdown in communication.
"I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right and that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions. I hold that the laws of 1850, commonly called the 'compromise measures,' are strictly constitutional and to be unhesitatingly carried into effect...I fervently hope that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our prosperity"
- Franklin Pierce, 1853 (from his inauguration speech)
Franklin Pierce was one of the three Northern Democrat pro-slavery Presidents leading up to the civil war. Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan put policies in place that expanded slavery and prepared the country for the South to leave through their inaction. They considered slavery to be a constitutional right, argued that it was the law of the land, and called those who opposed it fanatics. They praised their compromises considering peace and tranquility to be of more value than the freedom of the black man. Their goal was to provide compromises between the North and South in hopes to keep everyone calm and sedated in the face of the greatest horror in America's 19th century.
But where is the so-called "Progressive Party" in the face of the greatest horror of the 2oth and 21st century? Where does the Democrat party stand on the 1.3 million unborn babies who are killed in the womb without enjoying the rights provided to them by the fifth amendment to the Constitution?
"The Democratic Party stands behind the right of every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of ability to pay... We believe it is a fundamental constitutional liberty that individual Americans -- not government -- can best take responsibility for making the most difficult and intensely personal decisions regarding reproduction."
- Democrat Party Platform, 1996
This "progressive" stance on abortion is now to become the focus of the debate on a national healthcare program that forsakes the constitution and forces citizens of the United States to buy health insurance from government approved corporations. What stands in the way now is whether our government, once of the people, will now be of the corporations AND Planned Parenthood. Will our government force all Americans, regardless of conscience, to pour our tax dollars into the coffers of the abortion factories? Once again, it is Democrats alone who will decide.
“The men who have brought us this [anti-abortion funding amendment] don’t single out a procedure that is used by a man, or a drug that is used by a man, that involves his reproductive health care, and say they have to get a special rider...There is nothing in this amendment that says if a man some day wants to buy Viagra, for example, that his pharmaceutical coverage cannot cover it...”
- Senator Barbara Boxer
While Harry Reid is comparing passing this universal healthcare bill to ending slavery, and the progressives are comparing killing the unborn to taking sexual performance enhancement drugs, hopes are beginning to slip away for a conscience protection in this bill. Unlike Pierce, who believed the people of the various States had the right to choose whether slavery was constitutional, Reid and Pelosi will make every American pay for abortion. Had Pierce commanded that the North fund the slave trade, those radical, regressive, and uncompromising abolitionist pests may not have waited for the South to secede or Lincoln to lead them.
So what will be the result when Pelosi finds Rep. Stupak's price? Already Senator Ben Nelson's vote on abortion was bought for $45 million, and there are more stimulus pork bills on the horizon. What will happen when you and I are forced to pay for abortion or face jail for tax evasion? Will Americans stand once again for true progress? Will we once again rise up for the rights of those who have no voice? Or will we choose to be as silent as those who have no choice.
I tried calling, but your voicemail box is full. Please vote no on this healthcare bill. I know you probably haven’t had a chance to read the final bill yet and may not get to before you vote on it, but according to Obama’s own Health and Human Services department this bill will increase the cost of healthcare by more than $234 billion. I can’t afford that, I know my boss can’t afford that and I can’t afford to lose my job because he can’t afford my healthcare.
In addition, I have friends who have healthcare coverage through a Christian Co-op that has always worked well for them. The Democrat health plan would penalize them for not buying corporate insurance and going through this co-op instead. Isn’t that a violation of our first amendment protections?
The deals made to secure this bill also violate the constitution. Our founders never envisioned a Medicaid program, but they certainly would never have accepted 49 states paying the bill for 1 in order to secure a Senator’s vote on a massive unconstitutional healthcare bill that forces us to buy from government approved corporations. Senator Nelson, that is Fascism, pure and simple. It is also indicative of how socialist governments work. Whoever does a favor for the people in power, gets favors from the people in power. That is not America and I am ashamed of your party.
I know your mind is made up. I wish you were up for election this coming year. Somehow we need change. We need to change course from this current administration’s goals.
Sincerely,
One voice in favor of a return to the Constitutional Democracy we once enjoyed
If your Democrat Senator voted yes on Obamacare for less than $45 million, your state got ripped off. This was what it took to get Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to shed his conscience and vote for an Obamacare bill that includes taxpayer funding for abortion.
In exchange for Nelson’s vote, Sen. Reid put a provision in the Democrat healthcare bill to make the other 49 states pick up Nebraska’s Medicaid costs forever. This is what it took to bring about a reversal of Nelson’s earlier heroic stance against a bill that will reverse years of US policy and force every American to pay for abortion. Nelson joins Landrieu from Louisiana and Lieberman from Connecticut who have each taken payouts for a yes vote on Obamacare.
You might be wishing that your Senator was as crafty as Nelson, or that he or she would hold out until the Democrat leadership offered your state a multi-million dollar buyout. The only problem is that buying votes through favorable legislation is unconstitutional.
Article I, Section 8:
…all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Article IV, Section 2:
The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.
Article II, Section 4:
The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Back to reality, I doubt Senator Nelson will ever face bribery charges. But maybe my own Senator will get some inspiration and dip into the bottomless well of our Federal Treasury for my state.
There is plenty to object to in this bill. Maybe my own Sen. Nelson (Bill Nelson) could go up to the leadership and tell them it’s a no go unless Florida is exempt from paying Medicaid forever. How about an exemption from the marriage penalty built into Obamacare? What about an exemption from new taxes on our hospitals, doctors, medical suppliers, pharmacies and insurance companies? Any Floridian can tell you that insurance companies have no issue with leaving our state when business stops being profitable.
My Senator could, like Ben Nelson did, pretend he opposes taxpayer funded abortion until we get a deal from Reid. How about something that guarantees that Floridians can still get a hip replacement after they retire. He could pretend that this bill will actually cut Medicare by $500 billion like they are promising and object until they allow Floridians to buy health insurance from whoever they want (like a non-profit co-op) instead of only Obama approved contributo…uh, corporations.
Citing how this bill will make the cost of healthcare go up $234 billion, my Senator could hold out his yes vote until they grant Florida an exemption from helping to pay back the increased deficit and interest this bill will create. Wouldn’t you rather pay income taxes at today’s rates instead of Obama’s emergency debt reduction rates of 2011?
Knowing that there are deals to be had, frankly I feel that I can’t vote for my Senator in the next election unless he can outsell the competition. Then again, I think that’s the point.
Officially, US taxpayers have bailed out Citigroup three times with 45 billion dollars. Unofficially, the number is much higher. Tim Geithner, who was supposed to be so perfect for the job that we could overlook his tax evasion that would have landed most Americans in jail, is to blame for most of the Citigroup mismanagement according to Henry Blodget writing for Tech Ticker.
Yesterday we learned that any income the government would have derived from the TARP deal with Citigroup has been negated by a private tax ruling that gives Citigroup a $38 billion tax break. Today we learn that when Geithner converted our preferred shares to common shares, he grossly overvalued them resulting in a $13 billion gift to Citigroup. That's $45 billion in TARP loans, $51 billion in free taxpayer handouts from Geithner.
Finally, Citigroup decided to pay back the remaining portion of their TARP loans by printing and selling more shares of common stock. The result is that after the dilution our 34% ownership is now only 26%. Now Citigroup stock is selling for the price of a Big Mac. What do you think, how much will shares sell for when the government decides to sell it's stake?
Howard Dean the Republican?
We had our suspicions back when Howard Dean, a professed Christian white male, declared that the Republican party was basically a "white, Christian party". Dean, who says his favorite New Testament book is the book of Job, might not have realized the irony of his statement when he made it.
Now Dean has become one of the obstructionists in the healthcare debate. Dean, like many of the Democrats in the Senate, has called out Obama for delivering a toothless piece of unaffordable regulation that fails to provide any sort of public option. As a matter of fact, whether the public option and abortion are left in the bill or taken out, Obama cannot scrape together 60 votes from the 60 Democrats in the Senate. Believe it or not, Obama blames the failure of his healthcare bill solely on Republicans.
Personal Pot Pizza
In Denver, CO you can now go to a restaurant and get your medical marijuana fix from the food you order. The Ganja Gourmet is putting cannabis in their lasagna, pizza, and many other recipes. You do have to present proof that you need the pot for medical purposes and don't expect any $5 deals. A personal pot pizza will run you $89.
The biggest obstacle for Ganja Gourmet is getting insurance to cover what their toasted patrons do after they leave. Most bars get this to cover their inebriated clients, but for questionable pot this insurance is much harder to get.
Ganja Gourmet owner Scott Horowitz came up with the concept of putting pot in every day foods after realizing how much weight he had gained eating marijuana infused brownies.
After Andrew Jackson, the nation's first unhyphenated Democrat, had created a boom economy by allowing barely restrained money printing, we experienced our first national depression in 1837. It was under those conditions that the second Democrat President took office.
"All communities are apt to look to the government for too much. Even in our own country, where its powers and duties are so strictly limited, we are prone to do so, especially at periods of sudden embarrassment and distress. But this ought not to be. The framers of our excellent Constitution and the people who approved it with calm and sagacious deliberation acted at the time on a sounder principle. They wisely judged that the less government interferes with private pursuits the better for the general prosperity. It is not its legitimate object to make men rich or to repair by direct grants of money or legislation in favor of particular pursuits losses not incurred in public service. This would be substantially to use the property of some for the benefits of others." - Martin Van Buren
"To Avoid the necessity of a permanent debt and its inevitable consequences...I have advocated and endeavored to carry into effect the policy of confining the appropriations for the public service to such objects only as are clearly within the constitutional authority of the Federal Government; of excluding from its expenses those improvident and unauthorized grants of public money for works of internal improvement which were so wisely arrested by the constitutional interposition of my predecessor, and which, if they had not been so checked, would long before this time have involved the finances of the General Government in embarrassments far greater than those which are now experienced by any of the States..." - Martin Van Buren
If we had another Democrat come along with such respect for our Constitution and intention upon fiscal restraint, I would be inclined to switch parties. Although Van Buren dealt with economic woes throughout much of his Presidency, caused by the loose money policies of his predecessor (which caused banks to tighten up credit and stop accepting paper money in exchange for gold, sound familiar?), he left office with $1.5 million in the bank and no national debt.
In the first chapter of his book "Why the Right Went Wrong", Patrick Buchanan praises the ideas of containment and deterrence as employed in the Cold War. Despite how many times he acknowledges that we were not attacked on our homeland during the Cold War, and his approval of our intervention after our boats were sunk in WWI and Pearl Harbor in WWII, Buchanan admits he doesn't know how his non-interventionalist hero Reagan might have reacted in the face of 9/11.
I agree with Buchanan on many things. I don't agree with Bush that we need to spread democracy in some sort of crusade of right versus wrong. That is no different than what the communists believed. That was one issue that kept the Cold War going strong. In fact, you might be able to make the argument that if the communists had succeeded in making our whole world communist, there would be no more war. Just plenty of knocks on the door in the dead of night and people disappearing without an explanation.
But what Buchanan and his followers so easily forget is the sentiment in our country and what we knew between 2001 and 2003. It's no mistake that Democrats and Republicans voted for the war in Iraq. Did Bush know that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction (at least not stockpiles of recently made weapons)? Did Bush know that Saddam was dying to be our ally if only we would ask him? Did Bush know that the pictures of his daughters in the torture sex rooms of Saddam's sons was a sign of love and respect? If Bush knew these things beyond the shadow of a doubt before the invasion, then he should be facing war crimes down the hall from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
That being said, as it has been said many times before, the question we need to ask ourselves as candidates is this: if we have been attacked on our homeland, have gone to war with the forces who attacked us, have actionable intelligence that an unstable, foreign adversary is developing nuclear weapons and could have ties to our enemies who we are at war with, and they give us absolutely no reason to think otherwise, would you as President make the decision to protect our troops and our homeland and give such a country a binding ultimatum that if they do not display their peaceful intentions we will invade? If not, why not?
Again, because I know a certain Buchanan parrot will try to change the debate, this has nothing to do with imperialism, spreading democracy, invading for resources, invading to save the people of a country other than our own, or anything else like that. This has nothing to do with what Bush might have said before, during or after the invasion of Iraq, much of which I don't agree with. The question is would you attack a hostile nation that is (according to your intelligence) stockpiling nuclear weapons and intending to sell them to your enemies. Don't complicate things, its a simple question.
I wasn't surprised when the emails came out regarding Global Warming scientists cooking the numbers to get the warming trends they wanted. I wasn't shocked to hear that Al Gore's home uses twenty times the energy of your average American home, or that he used CGI and special effects to make his Global Warming movie. I knew pretty much right away that Global Warming was at best an exaggeration.
It wasn't that Global Cooling had turned out to be fake. It wasn't my just my general skepticism towards government science either. I'll admit, my religious views and idea that God does exist and wouldn't let mankind wipe themselves out by not recycling and driving big cars played a small role.
But the real reason I knew Global Warming was a hoax before the emails proved it was basic classical philosophy. Many of the same arguments that the famous skeptics and empiricists used against miracles and divine supernaturality fit so easily with Global Warming.
Take the first three points of David Hume's critique of miracles:
People are very prone to accept the unusual and incredible, which excite agreeable passions of surprise and wonder. Kind of like when scientists who we believe and trust tell us that if we don't change our ways the earth will be unlivible in 10 years. Or when we watch movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" where Global Warming causes a massive hurricane/snowstorm that wipes out the United States.
Those with strong religious beliefs are often prepared to give evidence that they know is false, "with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause". Kind of like how those who religiously believed in Global Warming were upset that their numbers were not showing Global Warming like they wanted them to, so they adjusted them.
People are often too credulous when faced with such witnesses, whose apparent honesty and eloquence (together with the psychological effects of the marvelous described earlier) may overcome normal skepticism. For example, when Global Warming is presented in the format of a Nobel Prize winning documentary, or calmly presented as fact with flowery speech by a national leader we all love and trust.
Then of course, there is always the question of what the teller has to gain. For Al Gore, Global Warming was the salvation of his failed political career. Instead of being the butt of jokes, Gore was transformed into the potential savior of the world.
Then you had all the scientists who avoided being ostracized and made millions in government contracts to produce hockeystick charts. Scientists who dissented were banished from the scientific community and treated as if they had said something completely inane like that we didn't come from monkeys. Some Global Warming scientists suggested jail-time or other punishments for scientists who didn't join them.
And of course, we have government programs like Cap and Trade. Our ailing budget would receive a major inflow while creating millions of "green" jobs. Battery cell companies and wind farms were receiving billions of capital inflows from investors with dollar signs in their eyes, like Buffet. Corn futures had gone through the roof as we converted our food supply into environmentally friendly fuel. How could you take all that away by showing the premise of warming to be faulty?
And finally, you have the world. All the third world countries just waiting for the US to limit her economy and redistribute hundreds of billions to third world countries (who don't produce measurable carbon emissions) through Kyoto and the UN. Now our President is in Copenhagen as the world prays that the fraud will hold up long enough for them to get their hands on a piece of our economy through international climate taxes. And we are still to gullible to say no.
A healthy economy is one in which people receive benefits for providing goods and services that people want at prices they are willing to pay. Only a healthy free economy provides the proper allocation of resources and freedom of the individual. We no longer live in a healthy free economy.
In 2008 we saw the beginning of a full fledged economic melt down. Banks had been forced to lend to people who couldn’t afford to pay them back, auto makers were selling cars that no one wanted at prices no one could afford, housing had become unaffordable and builders had built more homes than could be filled in a year, and Wall Street high-rollers had bet that the economy would continue growing like crazy forever. In a normal, healthy and free economy we were due for a market correction. Individuals would shift from building more houses nobody wanted or could afford to building other things or pursuing other things that people do want or need. Automakers would cut costs and build cars people want or need. Wall Street fat cats would lose a lot of money and need to invest better in goods and services people want and need instead of hedged bets on things no one wants. Yes, it would be painful for a while but we would emerge better for it.
Unfortunately, free markets is not the path we chose. When everything started going downhill, President Bush said that he was going to stop being a capitalist so that he could save capitalism. Of course, all the rational Americans heard that and let out a collective scream of frustration. If you would like to read my portion of the collective scream, just take a look back in my blog.
The frustration we experienced when Bush lent hundreds of billions to irresponsible banks who were operating under irresponsible regulations was nothing compared to the frustration we experienced when Obama took a trillion dollars we didn’t have and handed it out to states, local governments, and Democrat special interests. Then there was the frustration of President Obama taking money that was supposed to be lent to banks and giving it to auto makers just to turn around and sell those auto makers overseas while giving the profits to the unions. Then there was cash for clunkers. Then there was the reinflation of the real estate bubble through the first time home buyer credit (which has been extended and expanded). All of this was unfunded and created a greater deficit in one year than Bush had generated in almost 8 years.
But it had the desired Keynesian effect. Obama borrowed over a trillion dollars, signed our name on the loan, and then spent the money like a madman. He bought the goods and services that nobody wanted at prices no one wanted to pay so that the people who produce such things could continue to get paid. The result was that as 3.6 million jobs were lost, he could take credit for saving half a million. The trillion dollars in debt spending pushed our economy into a quarter of “growth”. People who otherwise couldn’t afford high priced homes bought them instead of waiting until the price naturally came down. People who couldn’t afford cars bought them all with borrowed government dollars. And now, Obama is taking credit for turning around our economy.
Here’s the problem, borrowing a million dollars doesn’t make you a millionaire. Obama borrowed a trillion dollars and spent it on stuff that does not produce economic growth. Joe Biden made it sound like there are millions of Americans who would be gainfully employed if only there was a bridge to the store they want to work at. Obama made it sound like building a skatepark meant hundreds of permanent jobs, not a handful of revolving door jobs. At the end of cash for clunkers, auto dealers are right back where they started except now their cars cost $3,500 more. When the first time homebuyer handout finally ends, real estate will be right back where it started except that houses will cost $8,500 more. When Obama finishes dolling out hundreds of billions of dollars in pork stimulus, the economy will be right back where it started, only a trillion dollars further in debt. It’s no fluke that despite all the stimulus jobs saved we are at 10% unemployment. Our economy is so subsidized that the government cannot end any of these costly programs without burying us in every market correction we have postponed in this downturn. We have been on life support so long we forgot how to breathe on our own.
Fortunately, Obama has recognized that we have a debt problem. Of course he blames it on the last eight years, although his debt increases are projected to be twice Bush’s. But Obama has come up with the oddest solution to fixing our debt. He plans on borrowing another couple hundred billion dollars and spending it on goods and services that nobody wants or needs in the form of more stimulus infrastructure projects that do not produce growth. For many of us, frustration and anger are turning into pure disbelief.
Any business owner, manager, or 2nd grader knows that you can make money by investing in things that produce growth. But when the CEO of a failing business declares that the solution to all their problems is to build a nicer sidewalk in back of the building, repaint the lines in the parking lot, and put new wallpaper in the bathrooms, you know it’s time to sell that stock. When he decides to pay for these infrastructure improvements by borrowing from his competitors, firing his managers and salespeople, starting a union, and promoting the janitors to executive positions, it has become a company only a Democrat could love.
Obama’s solution to our continued economic woes is to throw more money at the problem. It’s the Democratic way. Just like Bush destroyed capitalism to save it, Obama is cutting the debt by increasing deficit spending. Who knows, maybe in the magical world where free healthcare handouts result in lower deficits and higher taxes on energy creates more jobs, borrowing and wasting more money on special interests will produce permanent growth.
It’s that time of year again. Retailers are making projections based on their black friday sales, ION Television and the Hallmark channel are competing for how many original Christmas movies about a dog and a retarded kid they can produce and air, every commercial is holiday related, and people are out in droves to buy their second cousin the perfect gift that will show you care enough to think of them, but not quite enough to actually know what they wanted. Think knitted snowman sweater or quirky tie. Oh, and be prepared to get Christmas/Holiday cards from your local realtor, auto dealer, department store, and dentist because they care so much about you.
It’s also the time of year when you start getting emails from AFA and other Christmas conscious groups telling you who’s been naughty and nice this year when it comes to mentioning Christmas in their advertising. (For the record, Gap’s “Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go Solstice” ad didn’t cut it. Mostly because it’s annoying.)
Personally, I don’t care. Does saying Merry Christmas under the threat of a boycott really mean that you are wishing people a Merry Christmas? Or does it have more to do with you looking at your daily sales figures and hoping that you have a Merry Christmas? Christmas is what it is, whether the retailers acknowledge it or not. Come to think of it, what does Christmas gain from us fighting so hard to make sure a bunch of atheist retailers commercialize it?
Still, there are certain grinches who take their anti-religious sentiment too far. For example, Principle Erik Brown of a school in Waterbury, CT has decided to ban all religious and secular references to anything that might resemble a holiday, celebration, or any other sort of happy thing that might cause kids to take a five minute break from shooting up and shooting each other to sing some sort of deeply religious carol about peace on earth. As consistent as he is efficient, Christmas trees weren’t the only thing axed. Even typically secular symbol Santa Claus was removed out of fear of offending someone. Apparently only bland depression is unoffensive.
Brown did allow for a party celebrating winter; that time of year in Connecticut when the trees are bare, the sky is gray, the ground is brown, and it’s too cold to take off your heavy coat but not cold enough to snow. That’ll get the kids in a festive mood.
Brown was fearful that the sight of bright colors, evergreen branches, red bows, and colored lights would offend some children. A jolly fat man who gives out presents to good little boys and girls I suppose could be offensive to the bad kids. And the greatest gift of all, the gift of salvation and peace with God through Jesus Christ has been offensive enough to some people to cause them to enter churches around the world and open fire, or worse.
Did it ever occur to him that banning Christmas might be what the majority of Americans finds offensive?
Only government can build a rocket that would take us to the moon. I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard that argument recently being applied to universal healthcare, the economy, ending global warming through oppressive taxes, etc. Of course, this begs the question, why would any private enterprise want to go to the moon? For the billions of dollars we have spent to send a man to the moon, the best thing we can claim out of it are some cool pictures and stories, definite proof that the Earth is round, an early real estate claim on lifeless rock (with no ocean view), and that we got there before the Soviets. (Mommy, Mommy, what’s a soviet? Ask your Grandpa, dear)
On the other hand, we put men in conditions that OSHA would never allow today, lost several men and women in rocket related disasters, violated all sorts of affirmative action quotas with our majority white male astronaut population, and probably caused more global warming with each rocket launch than you could in three lifetimes with your SUV, regular lightbulbs, occasional steak dinner, and failure to recycle. When you start paying an extra $150 a month in your utility bill to fund Cap and Trade legislation, you can at least look up at the moon at night and say “hey, someone’s been there.”
I suppose that’s really why only government could go to the moon. Not so much that NASA costs hundreds of billions of dollars with almost no financial return, meaning that no one would invest in it unless under compulsion. More that with all the government regulation of private enterprise, only a government entity could get away with building something that burns tons of fossil fuels to create a hazardous explosion strong enough to send a group of white males into space. If NASA had the same EPA regulations as the US private auto industry, we’d eventually have to sell our space shuttle production to Fiat too.
Can only government solve our economy? That was the claim when Bush bailed out the banks. That was the charge from the Obama administration when they put together the $700 billion dollar pork stimulus bill. Only the Government could take us to the moon, therefore, only the government can fix the economy. We weren’t borrowing enough to keep our economy rolling along, so the government borrowed for us. We weren’t buying enough cars and houses, so the government kept those bubbles artificially inflated through subsidies. We weren’t getting jobs, so the government took our money and hired a bunch of us on short term government projects (in some cases in districts that don’t even exist).
Can only government make sure everyone is insured? Why not, only government could make sure that everyone had a decent retirement. Now our seniors get Social Security and they are no longer the poorest demographic in our country. Instead, the poorest demographic are young people. But at least those young people will grow up to have Social Security some day. Right?
Get ready, the stage is set. Only government can reduce unemployment. Already Obama has attacked small businesses for being so greedy that they are not hiring people. Nevermind that if you hire someone for $12 an hour you will end up paying twice that to cover their Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, unemployment compensation tax, workers comp, and lawsuit when you discriminate against them and fire them for not showing up.
Actually, in this case, only government can reduce unemployment. They can do that by no longer increasing unemployment. Unlike a walk on the moon, in many cases hiring more workers can be very profitable. When the economy is good and people are buying your products, unless you have no profits because you are paying them all in taxes, you are going to invest in a larger workforce. It’s economics 101.
Unfortunately, the government is not interested in building a strong free economy. We have a government that runs on the premise that only government can regulate businesses, only government can create jobs, only government can solve a crises, and only government can ensure your healthcare, welfare and retirement. We have a government that made teens, college students, and veterans as unemployable as convicts and people with massive disabilities by artificially increasing the wage base in every state regardless of that state’s economy. We have a government that takes 15% of your income straight off the top in order to fund your grandparents retirement. We have a government that illegally and unconstitutionally favors union bosses in exchange for votes. And of course we have a government that levies oppressive taxes on small and large businesses so that we can build large rockets and buy billions of dollars worth of fossil fuels to hurl them into space.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not a critique of NASA. God knows I appreciate the childhood dreams of seeing the Earth from space, a weightless environment, and wearing one of those cool space suits. And we have many great technological inventions from our space explorations, such as dried ice cream and the ability to fly nuclear warheads all the way around the world in matters of minutes. But when it comes to things that have tangible value to our real lives, such as creating jobs, insuring our families, saving for retirement, and borrowing at levels that are in line with our values and comfort level, I think we should be able to manage such things on our own.
I don’t think anyone would have difficulty conceding that a President with only a couple years of national political experience and a record of voting “present” should surround himself with strong and active advisers who can help him run the country. But at what point does advising turn into an outright takeover of unelected secretaries? This dangerous precedent set by the TARP legislation under the Bush administration is now becoming the norm.
When the economy neared a terrible collapse, or at least a short-term and painful correction, conservative capitalist President George W. Bush decided to give up both conservatism and capitalism and set aside a several hundred billion dollar slush fund of our tax dollars to bail out major bank CEOs so that they would continue to lend to companies who couldn’t afford to pay them back. Subsequentially, the Democrat party reversed years of their own party’s policy by attacking banks for being greedy and making loans to people who couldn’t pay them back. What they used to call community reinvestment had become white man’s greed running a world in need. This of course led to the bi-partisan TARP legislation.
Who did congress and our President decide should handle ALL of the TARP funds and decision making? The Secretary of the Treasury. Of course, that was back when the Secretary of the Treasury wasn’t an incompetent tax cheat…he was merely incompetent. After Obama was elected, Tim Geithner became the man in charge of unrestrained government waste. Having perhaps financed a car at one point, Geithner mistook GM and Chrysler for banks and proceeded to funnel billions in bank bailout tax dollars to them. Of course, when this didn’t work, he sold the companies at a discount to the overseas competitors of the last standing American auto giant and gave the proceeds to the union bosses who put his boss in power.
With the new health bill, we will see this story replayed with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Obamacare will see the HHS Secretary become responsible for regulating the insurance industry (a task formerly and constitutionally delegated to the states), determining where government will fund and provide abortions, cutting or expanding medicare and medicaid without congressional authorization or oversight, determining how much private insurance companies can charge for premiums, and deciding how your care should be rationed. Devon Herrick, a health care expert at the National Center for Policy Analysis, says that Obamacare “…lists 1,697 times where the Secretary of Health and Humans Services is given the authority to create, determine or define things in the bill,”
I don’t remember Kathleen Sebelius or Tim Geithner being on the ballot. In fact, Sebelius was not even Obama’s first choice. It just so happens that Tom Daschle had managed to reach the golden amount of tax fraud to disqualify himself from the position. We will never know how close Geithner came to that magic number.
The idea of tax cheat Tim Geithner running the bailouts and pork stimulus has already become a frightening reality. The idea of pro-abortion, liberal Kathleen Sebelius running your health insurance and doctor’s office is on the doorstep.
Next on the horizon? Cap and Trade: the legislation that will turn our nation’s energy sector over to Energy Secretary and Global Warming devotee, Dr. Steven Chu. He already is already a member of the Nobel Prize club for his work on recently debunked Global Warming “science”. On the bright side, at least we haven’t seen Press Secretary Robert Gibbs making appearances on the Letterman show or catching footballs in United Way commercials. Nice to know Obama is doing something to earn his paycheck.
This morning on C-Span, they had a conservative and a "progressive" (euphemism for liberal) discussing the Afghanistan war. I was a little surprised when liberal Adele Stan suggested that we should get over the stigma of nation building because that might be what is necessary in Afghanistan. With Obama preparing to announce that he actually has a strategy in Afghanistan, we might be finding that nation building is the perfect solution for Afghanistan after all. Won't the Bush haters feel silly when Obama endorses the Bush doctrine. Then again, maybe Obama doesn't know what the Bush doctrine is.
Already pundits are predicting that Obama will recommend nation building in Afghanistan (though he probably won't use that term), and that he will attempt to paint an unrealistic rosy picture of Afghanistan in order to stir the country and give us all warm and fuzzy optimism about our prospects. Sound familiar? Think Bush on Iraq in 2005.
Most liberals have a short memory. Because of this, it's hard for them to follow exactly what has been happening in this war. I don't think most Americans would suggest that we should go to war with any country in order to do nation building and build them into what we think they ought to be. Democrats spent several years convincing the majority of the voting public that this is the reason Bush went to Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't think any American would suggest that it is our duty to spread democracy through war. Liberals won in 2006 on the premise that this is why Bush took us to war.
But that simply isn't true. Bush went to war in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaida. Almost all Democrats voted for it, and agreed with it so long as it was politically expedient. Bush went to war with Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. Most liberals voted for it, most liberals supported it, and in fact even today most liberals (including Obama) agree that Saddam was a threat to the US and should have been removed. But in their progressive minds, they were able to separate removing Saddam and the Taliban from the aftermath for political purposes. If only I were that evolved in my thinking.
Now Obama is in a bind because he is in charge, whether he realizes it or not. He now has the choice of whether we should leave Afghanistan to the Taliban and Iraq to the most powerful faction between Al Qaida and Iran, or if we should take on the dreaded and politically unpopular task of nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq. My guess is that after destroying Bush's political career over Bush's decision to nation build, Obama will do the same thing.
Just remember this, when Obama blames Bush for the necessity of nation building in Afghanistan and says it's the fault of the last 8 years, remember that Obama is basically saying that it is Bush's fault that we defeated Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan and removed Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Without accomplishing those missions, we would not need to nation build. We would also be far less safe.
For more than 200 years we have enjoyed the presumption of innocence, double jeopardy protections, miranda rights, and American civil liberties. It’s what separates us from foreign non-uniformed enemy combatants who violate the rules of war. We are entitled to a trial with a jury of our peers. We are entitled to protection against self incrimination. There are laws and procedures that must be followed, warrants must be procured, and so on in order for the most obvious and damning evidence to be allowable. Criminals go free sometimes, but because of that we have a legal system designed to protect the innocent above all.
In a move that can only be described as rash and perhaps emotionally driven, President Barack Obama decided to move Khalid Sheikh Mohamed’s trial to New York City and to make it a civilian trial. In that one move, Obama granted constitutional rights to one of the most terrible terrorist masterminds of our time. The only reason Khalid Sheikh Mohamed does not share the same infamy as Osama Bin Laden is that Bush caught Mohamed, but not Bin Laden. In most cases, including 9/11, they stand accused of the same crimes.
What President Obama may or may not have realized is that the rights that we enjoy as American citizens under our constitution have been put all in for a game of chance played by twelve jurors and a judge. Can a judge, under our constitution, allow evidence collected contrary to our laws? Can a judge allow a non-mirandized, tortured convict to stand trial? Can twelve impartial jurors be found in New York City where Mohamed murdered nearly three thousand Americans?
The answer is that Obama already knows the score. In different statements made by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, KSM has already been declared guilty and given the death penalty. Both have announced that he will be found guilty and executed, or he will be returned to a military prison and given a military trial. For the first time, the presumption of innocence that Americans have enjoyed under our constitution has been made null and void by a sitting President who is charged with protecting and implementing our constitution.
You might be asking yourself, if the trial against KSM fails and he is sent back to a military prison to face a military trial, why didn’t we just do that in the first place? Here is where my worse suspicions may be confirmed.
Rahm Emanuel once said that we shouldn’t waste a crisis. It is an opportunity to fundamentally change our system, to do things we normally wouldn’t and destroy laws and traditions we have held dear for years. Apparently the feeling in Washington is that we shouldn’t waste a tragedy either. By putting this trial in a civilian court, we have the perfect bad guy that every American hates. No American would cry if Khalid Sheikh Mohamed was denied certain rights such as the presumption of innocence. No American in New York City is going to organize a “Free KSM” rally at the court house because he wasn’t read his rights or the evidence was collected as if it was some sort of military operation, not civilian police raid.
By making KSM public enemy number one and then giving him a constitutional civilian trial, Obama has created the perfect precedent to supersede the precedent of all of the constitutional rights previously mentioned.
We can only pray that this was nothing more than a bumbling act of complete incompetence. But I would expect more from the former head of Harvard Law Review and constitutional scholar.
In the past few months, my wife and I have finally begun our God-given quest to adopt our first child. We have both seen this as God's will for our lives since before we were even married. We came to this decision through different ways, my wife knew a rainbow family who had rescued children from many countries and backgrounds. I was struck by a short story of a man walking along the beach throwing starfish back into the ocean where they would survive. Someone came up to him and asked him about the futility of this action, noting that there were so many and he couldn't possibly make a difference. As he threw another into the safety of the ocean, he responds "I made a difference to that one."
That is what we want to do. Even if we can only make a difference to a couple, there is nothing that any child could ever do to not deserve a loving father and mother. For us, we are adopting from Ethiopia. It is a country whose poverty many Americans wouldn't even understand. Some children in Ethiopia do not have parents, others have parents who cannot even put enough food in their mouths to keep them alive. We can't save them all, but perhaps we can save one or two.
In preparation, we have been taking adoption classes, including classes on mixed race families, which is what ours will be. In these classes, we are learning about how people are going to question us. We are learning how people will ask us why we decided to adopt interracially. They will ask us if that is our real child. And some will be downright racist. It is something we are preparing ourselves for as a white couple preparing to adopt a black baby in the south.
Apparently we are not alone. Recently, football player DeMarcus Ware and his wife adopted a white hispanic baby after several failed attempts to have their own. While this has been a great blessing for them, there are now websites and blogs popping up with critics of their adoption. They aren't criticizing them for adopting, but for adopting a child of a different race. Many of the blogs are arguing that there are so many black children in the foster and social systems that black parents should adopt their own kind to help even things out.
I don't think orphans care all that much about the numbers game. I don't think an orphan wakes up in the morning and says "Boy, I hope the black kid in the next room gets adopted first so that we can even out the national racial adoption statistics."
I also don't think that the color of your skin should qualify you or disqualify you from having a good family with good loving parents. Now I know that alot of parents think that way. I know that mixed race children are considered special needs children because people are less likely to adopt them because of it. That is a failing of us as a society that each family needs to evaluate and correct on a personal level.
But when someone adopts a child regardless of race or racial differences, that is when we should celebrate, not nit pick their decision based on the racial preferences of your community. Those who are criticizing Ware for adopting a white hispanic child are no less racist than the white people who will talk behind our backs when we adopt a black child.
The worst kind of racism is the kind that tells a child they don't deserve parents because that wrecks some sort of statistic, disturbs some racially preferred community balance, or stirs up prejudices among ignorant people.
Every child deserves a good home, and I pray that every child gets one. Until they do, the only qualification a child should have for deserving loving parents is that they don't already have them.
If you've been wondering where the 650,000 jobs Obama has saved or created are, we finally have an answer. According to Recovery.gov, they are in the 15th congressional district in Arizona, the 42nd district in Connecticut, the 1st and 99th in the Virgin Islands, the 69th and 99th in the Northern Marian Islands, and the 99th district in Puerto Rico. Here's the only problem: like the 650,000 jobs, these congressional districts don't exist.
So where is the money going? Or better yet, what happens when the government passes universal healthcare but can't pay for your care because they are paying for health insurance in the 42nd congressional district of Connecticut? Speaking of government incompetence, have you had your H1N1 shot yet?
150 million doses are needed to cover all of America. The government promised that by now we would have 40 million. They have actually provided 11 million. The H1N1 virus has reportedly caused more than 1,000 deaths and more than 20,000 hospitalizations. It's been nine months since the first case of H1N1 was reported. Obama's CDC makes Bush's FEMA look good.
With a health insurance plan that will increase costs, cause another 5.5 million jobs to be lost, increase the deficit another $250 billion, raise taxes on all Americans and take away our healthcare choice, you would think we wouldn't need glaring examples of government stupidity to let us know that government is not the answer.
Perhaps the most ironic thing about the Democrat health bill is that when the Stupak-Pitts amendment is removed, and Americans are required to buy government approved health insurance and pay taxes, you will be forced to pay for abortion. If you don't you will go to jail. Imagine that, the party that always argues that we can't make aboriton illegal because then you would be sending expecting mothers to jail, now supporting sending us to jail if we don't pay for abortion.
Oh, and don't forget the real winner of the week, bringing non-uniformed enemy terrorists to New York City to be tried as civilian criminals. But of course, Holder made this decision only after consulting the best legal experts...his wife and brother. Who knew when Obama hired him, he was hiring the whole family.
Kind of makes you wonder, when the government can't afford your life support anymore, which member of Kathleen Sebelius' family will be deciding to pull the plug?
In 1942, eight Germans arrived in New York with the mission of destroying civilian targets including aluminum plants and bridges. The Germans were sure to wear their Nazi uniforms after landing and departing from their submarine until they were able to hide. They wore their uniforms in case they were caught.
Two of the eight decided to defect from the mission and turn themselves in. In fact, one of them went to Washington DC to turn himself over to the FBI. He had to pour out the $84,000 he had as a budget for his mission onto the FBI agent’s desk for him to believe that their mission was for real. It was certainly a pre-9/11 world.
Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt charged the saboteurs with violating the laws of war, correspondence with or giving intelligence to the enemy, espionage, and conspiracy to commit these crimes. Roosevelt ordered that they be tried by Military Commission and the Supreme Court backed him up in Ex Parte Quinn. This is despite their lawyers arguing for a civilian trial.
All eight were sentenced to death. Roosevelt granted clemency for the two defectors, giving one life in prison and the other (who had turned them all in) thirty years. Six years later, after the end of the war, Truman used his Presidential pardon to set the two defectors free and deport them back to Germany. The others were put in the electric chair.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not a US citizen. In 1993 he masterminded a plot to blow up the World Trade Center. Six Americans were killed and more than 1,000 were injured. He conspired to commit other acts of terrorism and planned acts of terrorism. Then on September 11, 2001, Mohammed’s most terrible plan came to fruition as he directed hijackers to fly airplanes into the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and planned for another plane to strike which was brought down by the passangers into an empty field in Pennsylvania. 2,995 people died on September 11, 2001.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did not have a rank or uniform. He was not a US citizen subject to US civilian laws. As a non-uniformed enemy combatant of a country or group that has not been invaded, he is not subject to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. There is absolutely no legal reason that Mohammed should receive a civilian trial.
Unfortunately, our current President and Attorney General disagree. Barack Obama, who is not a shell of the man Franklin Roosevelt was, has decided to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York City, where he killed more than 2,000 people, to face a civilian trial. Mohammed will be granted all the same rights and constitutional protections as any American citizen who has committed criminal acts against the people of the United States.
President Obama fails to realize that we are in a war. Even if Bush failed to secure a properly worded declaration of war from our congress, foreign radical islamic terrorists have failed to recognize the technicality and continue to claim American civilian and military victims at home and abroad. Now, Holder must find an impartial jury in New York who have not already made up their minds about Mohammed and 9/11. By the time he finds an impartial jury, Mohammed will have died of old age. Either that or Holder could pick a jury out of Obama’s advisors who seem to have already forgotten 9/11, or have no opinion on whether it was right or wrong.
Perhaps the bigger issue is Mohammed’s treatment. He was brought to a prison outside of US territory and they held him down and poured water on his face. A US citizen who is treated such a way would rightfully receive concessions in their civilian trial, or even have the trial thrown out. War criminals also should not be treated such a way. We have the Geneva Conventions to regulate war and to ensure that troops are treated with respect, especially when they are captured. However, the Geneva Conventions do not apply to non-uniformed enemy combatants. The other reason we would normally avoid making prisoners stand in an uncomfortable position for 8 hours (like you do at work every day) or having water poured on their face is because we wouldn’t want our troops treated that way. For Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who said that he beheaded “that jew” Daniel Pearl himself, I don’t think pouring water on his face would change how he would treat our troops.
What Obama has done, by ordering a civilian trial in New York City, is and should be recognized as an incompetent blunder by this President. By making it a civilian trial, Obama has done nothing short of declaring the war on terror to be over. The only problem is that it wasn’t our war to declare over. Will allowing Mohammed to gloat in a New York City courtroom while Obama blames the mis-trial on the last 8 years prevent the next Ft. Hood? Will putting the Bush administration on a de facto trial for pouring water on terrorists’ faces make terrorists stop being terrorists? Or will this victory for Mohammed and his terrorist companions please the radical terrorists as much as it will Europe and the radical left?
With Obama’s early withdrawal from Iraqi cities, months of waffling on Afghanistan, and now shear incompetence with these trials, even New York liberals may be starting to question if Obama is really the man they want answering the phone at 2am.
Late Saturday night, House Democrats and one Republican passed HR 3962. This more than 2,000 page bill included payoffs to many of the more conservative Democrats who were sitting on the fence, but still it only squeaked by. Despite the bill’s passage, there was one major victory for conservatism in the bi-partisan Stupak-Pitts amendment that bans federal funding for abortion. The amendment reflected a shift in social values in the US, highlighted by a Gallup poll earlier this year showing that the majority of Americans oppose abortion. The amendment enjoyed the support of 69 Democrats.
Democrats may not have realized this, but the Stupak-Pitts amendment goes much further than HR 3962. In fact, that one amendment is a knife in heart of the Democrat universal healthcare agenda. Unwittingly, Democrats have helped make HR 3962 non-implementable.
Under HR 3962, health costs and health insurance premiums will go through the roof. Democrats pay for universal healthcare by taxing healthcare universally. They tax insurance companies, tax doctors, tax health product manufacturers, tax pharmaceuticals, and of course, tax you. What do they do with all that tax money? They give it back to us disproportionately so that we can all buy insurance. Through this wealth redistribution, healthcare costs far more but the government subsidizes it. Without the government subsidy, most Americans will not be able to afford these higher rates.
The Stupak-Pitts amendment makes it so that not only can the government not offer abortion in it’s cheaper public option (which do not be mistaken, will put every other insurance company out of business), but government cannot subsidize abortion in other insurance plans. At the much higher health costs under HR 3962, this will make abortion a luxury that only the rich will be able to afford.
Already Democrats are in full revolt against one another. One side realizes that their radical attempts to use federal funds to pay for abortion will destroy their party’s power. For some Democrats it is even a violation of conscience. On the other hand, the more liberal wing of the party realizes that without catering to the radical factions in the party they will lose their base.
One thing is for sure, a final bill cannot have the Stupak-Pitts amendment in it. When the government is paying for or subsidizing every approved health insurance plan, and the government is not allowed to pay for or subsidize abortion, then abortion has been effectively killed in the United States. On the other hand, a Democrat style health takeover bill will not pass the Senate without an abortion amendment and barely passed the House with one. Either the abortion amendment or the healthcare takeover has to go.
I know we are in a difficult economy right now. I also know that many states are struggling with their own finances. So we definitely appreciate all the state contributing $230,000 in stimulus dollars to my state to create DVDs highlighting Florida's scenic highways. Along with other necessary projects, like our turtle bridge, we have really been grateful for the sacrifice you all are willing to make to provide jobs to DVD manufacturers and people who drive our scenic highways and take video of them.
Now, I know the stuff on these DVDs can easily be found on youtube, or simply by driving our actual Florida scenic highways, but think of it this way: this $230,000 is fighting global warming. You can't pull up youtube on your car's DVD player, but now you can sit in your car and watch a DVD of Florida's scenic highways without ever leaving your garage. You can feel like you are driving our scenic highways without wasting all that gas.
Anyway, thanks for the money. I'm sure none of you could think of anything better you might have done with it. And thank you Obama for providing hope to our highway video-tapers.
Democrats love to tell Republicans how without the moderates Republicans will become the permanent minority party. If you've been reading my blog, you know how I feel about that concept. But I think it's time to question the established and accepted paradigm that the Republicans are the small tent party.
39 Blue Dogs were not enough to stop the passage of the most leftist, socialist bill to come out of this Democrat house. The Pelosi health bill increases spending by $1.3 trillion dollars and is a guaranteed job killer. However, actually saving jobs is not on the menu at the DNC. Instead, on the menu is $750 billion in new taxes to pay for healthcare, $210 billion in new deficit spending, $1,700 per family in Cap and Trade taxes, sin taxes on all Americans to affect social change, federal funding for abortion overseas and here at home (don't worry, it will be in the final bill), federally funded health insurance for illegal aliens, and a return to a pre-9/11 mentality. There is nothing moderate about the DNC agenda, and they are already feeling the pain in election losses.
In 2006 and 2008, Democrats went after moderates. They lied and made magic wand promises about all the things they were going to give Americans, while lying and promising about the values and ideas they would protect. Biden laughed it off when a reporter asked him if Obama's goals were socialist. When Obama was questioned by an average citizen, the Ohio Democrats went on the attack, illegally pulling Joe the Plumber's personal information and using it against him. Obama did not run on ideology, platform, or plans. He ran on a feeling, on buzzwords, and on a hell of an ad campaign. Meanwhile he made McCain look like the old, wishy washy out of touch candidate that he really was. It worked beautifully.
But after filling their tent with moderates and disaffected Republicans like David Brooks and Chris Buckley, Democrats quickly pulled up stakes and dragged the tent to the left.
Now with 10.2% unemployment, Obama already has several more job killers on the horizon. Healthcare, Cap and Trade, extended unemployment benefits and other liberal plans will keep the unemployment rate high, while moving more of the country on to the government rolls. That isn't America. That isn't what even the moderates want. I can't think of any moderate who would rather have a monthly welfare check, free government healthcare, and subsidized necessities instead of a job and opportunity to succeed without punishment. Can you?
A Gallup poll in May of this year showed that the majority of Americans are now pro-life. In all 31 states where gay marriage has gone to a public vote, the people have chosen to protect traditional marriage. This includes red, blue and purple states. According to Real Clear Politics, two thirds of Americans disapprove of this congress, over half believe our country is on the wrong track, and according to Gallup, Conservatives outnumber Liberals two to one in this country.
If Obama's policies pass, unemployment will still be well over 10% by November, 2010. If Democrats don't find a way to ditch their leftist policies, find Democrats in Name Only (Blue Dogs) to run in alot of these districts, move to the right, and get a bigger tent, they will become the minority party and stay there for a while.
As you may have noticed, I am running as a Republican in 2010. We finally have an opportunity after the conservative wins in 2009 to take back our party in 2010. I will be working with the U4prez Republican leadership to continue to return the Republican party to Conservative Constitutionalism.
I know this will ruffle some feathers, and I am prepared for that. I hope instead that those who are not enemies of conservative constitutionalism will see this as an opportunity to strengthen our coalition and to return our government to growth and prosperity.
The Republican Party has put together an alternative to Pelosi/Obamacare, and it has been scored by the CBO. You can get all the details here. As Democrats argue that Republicans are the “do nothing” party who is only out to oppose any and all reforms, I thought it might be nice to look at the Republican plan and dispel such a myth.
This bill that the Republicans put together doesn’t have a shot at passing. The “do nothing” Democrats already have their bill. They don’t have enough votes in their own party to pass it yet, but they are working overtime to put together enough bribe money from your tax dollars to get those votes. If you are wondering what I mean by that, see any of my earlier posts about pork and earmarks. See especially, Obama’s Stimulus plan.
However, even though it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, here is a quick breakdown of what might have been, and what possibly could be after 2010:
Cost:
Pelosi/Obamacare is set to run us about $1.3 trillion according to the CBO. The Republican plan? $61 billion.
Length:
Pelosi/Obamacare is 2,032 pages sofar. The only reason anyone knows this is because someone looked at the page number on the last page, not because someone has actually read the bill all the way through and counted. The Republican bill? 219 pages.
Lower Health Insurance Costs:
According to the CBO, not in the Democrat plan. Through higher taxes on insurers and health providers, the Dem plan will actually increase the cost of insurance premiums. Then the government will take your own money and give it back to you in the form of controlling subsidies to make you buy insurance.
On the other hand, the Republican bill, according to the CBO, should cut family premiums by up to $5,000 per family and small business premiums by up to 10%.
How about fiscal responsibility?:
Yeah, remember? That thing everyone wants but no party can seem to achieve? Pelosi and Obama keep talking about how their plan will cut the deficit. But that is only because they took $210 billion out of the bill and made it a separate unfunded bill. By the way, that is about three times the total cost of the Republican bill. The Democrat bill also increases taxes on Americans, in a recession, by about $750 billion dollars.
According to the CBO, the Republican bill reduces the deficit by $68 billion, cuts government healthcare costs over the long term, and cuts costs immediately without raising taxes.
Will Obamacare make unemployment worse?:
Since 2007 when Democrats took over, unemployment has increased by 5.3% to the current rate of 10.2%. Will Pelosi/Obamacare help? Not according to the CBO. According to the CBO, the Democrat health plan by itself will cause 5.5 million jobs to be lost over the next ten years. They do this by forcing businesses to buy health insurance or face a new 8% tax based on payroll. How do you, as a business owner who can’t afford a company policy, avoid this tax? Simple, cut payrolls.
Republicans on the other hand have no employer mandate and instead allow businesses to pool resources and negotiate lower cost plans from health insurance companies.
Rationing and Death Panels:
Ok, so “death panels” is a drastic and perhaps overly dramatic term. How about government mandated waiting lists if there are insufficient funds to pay for healthcare costs? How about a Health Advisory Board to determine what treatments and benefits the government will cover? How about a Comparison Effectiveness Research Commission that determines which treatments your doctor can use based on what the government thinks is effective and what the government is willing to pay for? How about a Health Choices Commissioner who gets to decide which doctors and hospitals can participate in government or private plans? That along with end of life counseling is certainly enough to make the case that the Democrat bill contains rationing.
States’ Rights:
Constitutionally speaking, the Democrat bill is a monster. While still not allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, the Democrat plan forces states to pay an extra $34 billion, according to the CBO, in unfunded Medicaid costs. Once again, the entire Republican bill is $61 billion.
Abortion Funding:
Last and most important, the Democrat bill mandates that I pay for abortion with my tax dollars. The government-run public option will be mandated to cover elective abortions. The Democrat plan requires that at least one insurance plan in every market cover abortions. And people who enroll in the government-run plan will be paying for abortions directly through their premiums.
The Republican plan prohibits federal funding for elective abortion and does not mandate abortion coverage.
I don’t suppose it will take Democrats a whole year to finally pass their health insurance bill. But if it does, maybe we can change the game in 2010 and give the Republican option a shot.
Democrats continue every election cycle to try to tell Republicans how to win elections. When you're arch enemy starts giving you tips on how to defeat him, you should be suspicious. Yet Democrats keep offering friendly advice. No thanks.
Democrats keep telling Republicans that we need to make our tent bigger. We need more liberals in our party. We need to get away from issues that kill our party like smaller government, the right to live, and of course family values. Americans don't want that. As long as we stay the party of small government, focused on that 200 year old constitution and this crazy idea that men are born equal, not that they need to be made equal by the government, we will remain the minority party.
But who are the moderates anyway? One thing is for sure, they are not reliable. For example, take Dede Scozzafava. After spending months telling everyone she is a conservative and a die-hard Republican despite her liberal record, she finally drops out of the race and endorses the liberal Democrat over the Conservative party candidate. Or how about Colin Powell and a number of other moderate Republicans who begged the Republicans to put forth a moderate/liberal candidate for President and then proceeded to endorse the liberal Democrat.
Moderates are people who think the government should provide every social service imaginable, while still thinking the government should spend less and tax less. They think abortion on demand is terrible and tragic, but should be safe and legal. They think partial birth abortion should be illegal because it is the murder of a living baby, except in the case of rape, danger to the mother's life, poverty, or a real good sob story. They vote for the incumbents if their life is going good and they are generally happy. They vote against the incumbent if they've had a bad day, or if the opponent has a strong chin and more rugged facial features.
They vote based on color, gender, negative advertising, popular fads, and shiny lights. They support short wars, aid for Africa (even if it's borrowed from China) and environmental reform, whether it actually helps the environment or not. They love federal grants and then complain about how the government wastes so much money. Generally, they are incompetent and uninformed.
But they still vote. Why don't I want them? Think about it. When Republicans stuck to their conservative principles and presented them eloquently, they won. When conservatives won, Democrats ran blue-dog conservatives to compete with Republican conservatives. When Democrats started winning again was when Republicans started going after liberal moderates and Democrats ran conservative blue dogs. Then in 2008, Democrats ran socialists and ultra-liberals while Republicans ran liberals and wishy washy, unreliable moderates. Republicans were killed in a landslide.
Democrats weren't trying to broaden their tent in 2008. They ran on a genius graphic design team, color, good looks, discontent and fluff. It had nothing to do with them being pro-big government, pro partial birth abortion, pro overseas abortion funding, pro debt, and anti-military. It had everything to do with advertising, discontent, and the fact that we were involved in two wars that had lasted longer than a year each. Now, because Democrats have stuck to their principles, the entire Washington Republican movement is stuck on this stupid idea that they need to broaden their base and become more liberal if they are going to win elections.
What Newt Gingrich and other Washington Republicans don't understand is that when you pick up your tent and move it to the other side of the field, you leave your base out in the cold and they stop voting for you. And when you get to the other side of the field, they don't vote for you either because they already have a tent. As for all the people in the middle, whether they go right or left has absolutely nothing to do with values or issues.
Think about it. If you truly believed that the thing growing in a pregnant woman has the intrinsic value of a wart, then how could you ever vote for anyone who would suggest that a woman's right to remove that wart should be limited? Yet, Democrats won the majority on the backs of pro-life blue dogs. If you truly believed that the constitution should be the basis of our government and that politicians should uphold their vow to uphold and implement the constitution, then you would never vote for a big government candidate who borrows $1.5 trillion from China to buy local infrastructure projects and subsidize or buy private industries.
Moderates are going to continue to look for the next shiny thing that looks good and talks sweetly. Run and vote on principle. If both sides ran on principle, Conservatives would get 40% and Liberals would get 20%. I would rather have them coming over to our side to get votes while losing their 20% base than the other way around.
It’s one thing when a politician walks into town and declares that a defendant should go free because the law he is accused of breaking is wrong and should be repealed. It’s completely different when the prosecutor shows up to the trial and makes that argument.
If I were Alberto Gonzalez, I would be pretty upset right now at what current Attorney General Eric Holder has been allowed to get away with. Gonzalez was the one who was forced to resign after firing members of his staff, which is apparently only kosher if you are a Democrat.
Holder began by setting the bar low enough that he would never be fired for a minor offense such as letting go under-performing staff. He also has already shown he knows how to play the race card, making him one of the new untouchables.
But isn’t it beyond the pale for the top attorney in our nation charged with prosecuting our laws to come out like a political candidate against our laws? Isn’t it the job of an attorney to represent his clients according to the laws on the books? In Holder’s case, he represents the people by prosecuting the laws of the United States that have been passed constitutionally by the houses of Congress and signed by the President of the United States.
What would you think if you were on the jury of a trial where the prosecutor began his case by denouncing the law that had been broken by the defendant as wrong and in need of being repealed? Do you think the judge would even allow the trial to continue? Certainly that prosecutor would be looking for work very soon.
That is essentially what Eric Holder did Friday night in a speech before the University of Maine. Maine is a state that is considering whether or not to make gay marriage a legal reality. The law that Holder must uphold and prosecute until it is repealed by an act of Congress or the court system is the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Democrat President Bill Clinton. As of right now, it is still the law of the land.
But Holder decided to tell the students there that it was a bad law and should be repealed. Isn’t that congress’ job? If Holder wants to make political speeches, maybe he should run as a politician. Making public what laws he likes and dislikes, as the Attorney General, based on his own personal opinion is a serious ethical violation. If Gonzalez could be forced to resign for firing his underperforming staff, then shouldn’t Holder face consequences for betraying the public trust and voicing his personal feelings about the law he is responsible to uphold?
Obama's fuzzy math should be a clear warning to all Americans that you cannot trust this man or his numbers.
Obama has posted a story on his facebook page touting the 650,000 jobs he has saved or created. He has been spreading this lie ever since he wasted a trillion dollars of our tax dollars, printed dollars and China loans on honey bee insurance and duck ponds.
The fact is that we are down 3.6 million jobs so far this year. That's six times what Obama claims he has saved or created. We have not had a single month with positive job growth. Unemployment is at 9.8%.
Boy genius needs to get his head out of the clouds and come back to earth. Whatever they are doing in Washington, it ain't working. He is completely out of touch with the real world.
Now, liberals, socialists, Democrats, and 'moderates', before you get all upset and tell me I should give him a chance or whatever other crap, answer this honestly: Would you have let Bush get away with this?
Don't lie to me. I remember the fuss you guys threw when Bush's unemployment reached 4.7%.
While millions of Democrats scream that the US Government has an obligation to research and study stem cells with my tax dollars, I am actually doing something. While Democrats lie about Republicans opposing stem cell science and research and skip their meds to play on our emotions in this dishonest debate, I am actually funding stem cell research and so can you.
That is the beauty of our capitalist system. This past week, I bought shares of a stem cell company that stores and researches stem cells. It deals with umbilical cord stem cells, not embryonic stem cells, so I am not funding what I consider to be unethical and inefficient. The best part is that while I fund this research of my own free will, in a way that I feel is ethical, I also have the opportunity to collect on my investment and be able to put that money aside for retirement, college, or the adoption that my wife and I are currently working on.
I am not a CEO. I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I am not a Wall Street fat cat. I am just a regular American like you. I work, I save, and I choose what I want to support with my dollar-votes. If you want to support embryonic stem cell research, you can buy the stocks of those companies. There are even stem cell companies with stocks selling for less than a penny a share.
When you talk to our socialist friends, like Imagine89, you would think this would be his paradise. They talk about democracy, about people determining what happens in our country through their votes. Then they call capitalism evil, anti-Christian, and fascist. It doesn't make sense to me.
I have written previously about why I support a Liberal Healthcare Co-op, why I am against government faith-based initiatives, and why I think charity should be up to the individual. Today I am writing to tell you that I support ethical stem cell research, and my support won't cost you a dime in taxes.
Democrats have received plenty of negative press when it comes to certain provisions in their healthcare system that will create rationing. In fact, we are already seeing rationing of the new H1N1 flu vaccine. We have plenty of Tamiflu (stockpiled by the Bush administration), but to get an H1N1 shot you must fall into specific categories of government priority. This is not a different concept from what Sara Palin called "death panels" because Washington bureaucrats will decide who gets treatment and who doesn't.
Most Democrats have fled from or mocked the idea of death panels. But one Democrat Congressman is embracing the term whole-heartedly. Rep. Barney Frank, who is one of the major players responsible for the failure of our housing industry in 2007 and our banking industry in 2008, is endorsing the idea of Government euthanasia. But he isn't talking about death panels for individuals who the government thinks are too old for free healthcare; Frank is talking about putting down large, bloated and un-popular Wall Street giants who the government deems to be no longer financially sustainable.
It's the big government alternative to bailouts. With bailouts, the government took hundreds of billions of our dollars and used them to prop up companies who would probably have failed without them. It was an unconstitutional usurpation of public funds to keep private industry afloat. Frank's idea is a panel that would identify struggling companies and then take the guess work out of whether they might fail or not by simply mandating a government shut down. Rep. Frank has said himself, "There will be death panels enacted by this Congress, but they will be for nonbank financial institutions."
Barney Frank realizes that announcing death panels to euthanize citizens for being too old or too sick is not a popular idea. However, government killing off bloated Wall Street corporations who are a drag on the system gives liberals chills up and down their leg and makes most ignorant consumers feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
What Frank and Democrats don't realize is that the CEO of AIG is not the only employee of AIG. AIG had 116,000 employees in 2008. Now, I understand that is only a third of the jobs Obama's economy has lost every month on average since he took office, but that is 116,000 lives affected. In addition, AIG has thousands of stockholders. Warren Buffet is not representative of the majority of stockholders in the US. The majority of stockholders in the US are middleclass working families who have retirement accounts such as 401k plans, IRAs, college savings plans and so on.
When AIG fails, it is bought by a stronger company or it declares bankruptcy and re-organizes or shuts down. But that is the natural course of the free market. It is not a decision made by a bureaucrat in Washington DC, probably based on political contributions recieved, to liquidate 116,000 jobs and turn people's retirement into toilet paper. When exactly would the government decide that a company is no longer viable? When it starts to look bad? When it is in bankruptcy? Tell that to Delta Airlines, Winn Dixie, United Airlines, Texaco, and other US companies who have survived bankruptcy.
I am not a proponent of bailouts. I don't believe in too big to fail. But I also don't believe in capital punishment for private industry. When it comes down to it, euthanizing America's employers to ease the shock of major corporate failures is just as unconstitutional as taking up a collection from the tax paying public to keep those corporations on life support. When you have a party in control that deals in earmarks, corporate contributions, and big government involvement in private industry, corporate death panels are fundamentally dangerous to our free society.
Now, I know the argument that will be pushed here. Non-bank financial institutions affect the very foundation of our monetary system. An unexpected collapse could destroy our economy, send society back to the stone age, and leave a billion Americans unemployed and roaming the streets like zombies. America's economy is not resilient because the federal government rescues it. America's economy is resilient when those unemployed Americans wandering the streets have the freedom and opportunity to market, make and sell goods and services that people want and need. America's economy is resilient when Americans can take risks and expect to be rewarded exponentially for those risks. Corporate death panels belong in a Fascist country, not America.
If AIG's failure would destroy America's monetary system, then that sound more like a failure of the semi-constitutional Federal Reserve system than of free market capitalism.
Republicans are at a turning point in our party development. In 2006 and 2008 when many of my conservative friends chose to sit home or vote third party, I told them that major Democrat wins would change the argument. It has. No longer is the question big government versus small government. Now the question has become who can run big government better. Not surprisingly, the voters are turning to the big government experts to run our big government and the Democrats are winning elections.
Charlie Crist ran as a small government conservative, and in fact passed tax cuts and spending cuts which created a ripple effect throughout all of Florida resulting in spending cuts and more efficient government. Crist has certainly done a good job and certainly deserves strong support against any liberal Democrat.
However, when Obama was elected and began working on his $1 trillion stimulus, Crist was there standing by Obama's side pledging support. When other governors like Bobby Jindal were taking a stand, Crist was scoring political points with the new leftist Washington. Crist went from a Jeb Bush Republican to a George Bush Republican. We can do better.
Marco Rubio is running as a true conservative with small government, conservative family values. He is a free-market, states rights conservative and may actually qualify as a conservative constitutionalist. The Conservative Constitutionalist Movement is officially endorsing Rubio for the Florida Senate in the Republican primary. Now is our chance to make a difference in the Republican party.
Most know that I have the highest respect for Newt Gingrich. In fact, if I had my way he would be President right now. He is without a doubt a fellow Conservative Constitutionalist. But I have a bone to pick with Newt. This morning on C-Span, Newt reiterated the grand ole' party's new big tent strategy. Specifically, he spoke about Republican Deidre Scozzafava in a special election in New York's 23rd congressional district.
The issue is that Deidre makes most Democrats look conservative. As Newt points out, she is an NRA member who has promised to vote against tax increases. She has also promised to support John Boehner over Nancy Pelosi as House leader. Phew, what a relief!
On the other hand, Deidre falls socially in line with John Kerry and Barack Obama, has ties to ACORN, and has been endorsed by the leftist Working Families Party. She supports Obamacare and generally falls in line with the Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins brand of the Republican Party. In other words, she is a RINO.
So why would Newt support her over her conservative opponent Doug Hoffman? Because Newt lives in a two party world. In Newt's world, it's Republicans versus Democrats, not conservatives versus liberals.
You would think that as Newt recounted stories of Republican betrayal, he might begin to recognize a pattern. He spoke about how he had raised a lot of money to get Arlen Specter re-elected, and then Specter switched parties. Newt recognized that Democrats didn't win in 2006 and 2008 on new ideas, Republicans were fired for not championing the conservative principles they were elected for. Yet Newt still chooses to endorse the idea that you have to accept people who endorse infanticide, unconstitutional programs, and out of control spending as long as they have an (R) after their name.
This partisan understanding is how politics have been run for decades. But what Newt and older Republicans don't understand is that the up and coming generations identify themselves as conservative, liberal, progressive, moderate, centrist, constitutionalist, and socialist. Most young voters identify with a party because it is closest to their unique ideology, or because it was the party of their parents.
Joe Lieberman should be a great lesson to conservatives. Lieberman ran against a fellow Democrat and won because he represented the principles of the majority of people in Connecticut. Because of it, he was able to keep Connecticut blue and keep Democrats in charge, but at the same time he was able to prevent the radical code pink wing of the party from claiming a major victory and setting the agenda.
Four years ago, I would not be writing this post. We had seen Ross Perot rob Republicans twice in a row against Bill Clinton. Most conservatives figured it would be better to have a liberal Republican in office than a liberal Democrat. But when liberal Republicans began getting more liberal than Conservative Democrats, that theory went out the window. What we discovered was that the majority of conservatives could not vote for a pro-abortion, pro-big government, anti-constitution Republican.
When Republicans started acting like Democrats, conservative voters stopped voting. When they moved the big tent to the left, it left the right out in the cold. Newt thinks that conservatives will remain the minority so long as conservatives refuse to bite the bullet and vote for liberals with (R)'s after their name. The fact is, as long as Republicans keep acting like Democrats, no one will be fooled by their party affiliation.
I figured I may as well prepare you now for the Democrat campaign of 2010. I don't know what they will name it. All I know is that it will be themed on two things, tax cuts and responsibility. The responsibility portion will come from Obama and the Pelosi/Reid congress saddling us with across the board tax increases, an enhanced estate (death) tax, cuts in credits and deductions, and additional tax fees for the "super rich". They will label it what America is crying for most right now; deficit reduction. Nevermind that they are the ones who gave us this deficit through bailouts of companies too big to fail followed by $1 trillion in wasted stimulus spending.
So where, you ask, do tax cuts enter into this? It comes from a different way of thinking. I tend to think of things in black and white plain english. If you are paying more taxes this year than you were last year, taxes have gone up. This administration does not think that way. They think in relative terms. Taxes don't go up and down relative to where they are now, they go up and down relative to where they ought to be. Right now, taxes are already down. By letting Bush's tax cuts expire, they aren't raising taxes, they are just putting them back where they belong.
I'm not joking. Everything I have just said is straight from Nancy Pelosi herself. She describes the tax increase that will come from doing nothing in 2010 not as a tax hike, but as "eliminating a decrease that was already there". Get it? They aren't raising taxes, they are just stopping taxes from being not raised. And with $1 trillion in stimulus spending, $1 trillion healthcare fiasco, and cap and trade, they will need to end all the tax decreases they can. Why stop with the Bush tax cuts? Isn't it about time to let the Reagan tax cuts expire and go back to Jimmy Carter's 70% marginal rates? Would 70% be zero on their relative number line? Can we assume anything above 70% would be a tax increase?
It's really too bad we didn't know this caveat in their thinking back when Obama promised no tax increases on those making less than $250,000. Who knew at the time that he didn't consider ending tax decreases to be the same thing as tax increases. Has anyone done the research? If you make more than $171,550 this year, that puts you in the 33% bracket. That is one of the two top brackets that will not be getting a renewal of the Bush tax cuts according to Obama. But don't worry. If you make between $171,550 and $250,000, you aren't getting a tax hike of 3%. You will just no longer be having a tax cut of 3%.
So where do the tax cuts come in, you ask again? Simple, if pre-Bush is normal than leaving tax rates for the lower brackets at Bush's levels will become Obama's tax cut. Still with me? Yes, that's right, Bush didn't just cut taxes for the rich. When Bush cut taxes, it was across the board. Bush cut every tax bracket, including the lowest from 15% to 10%. Then he increased the child tax credit and child care credits for working families. Then he eliminated the marriage penalty, provided AMT relief, and reduced and planned to phase out the death tax. Think that sounds good? Well get ready because Obama is going to renew many of these tax cuts resulting in the Obama Tax Cuts of 2010. And you better believe Democrats are going to run on it in 2010.
But here is where it gets technical. Obama may bet on the general ignorance of the American voters and raise taxes across the board while still claiming to be handing out tax cuts. Here's how it will work. When Bush cut the tax rates, he also adjusted the margins. What does that mean? Bush adjusted what level of income you have to reach in order to hit the next marginal tax rate. Look at the chart at the bottom.
Under Clinton's tax rates and margins, if you reached $43,050 you began paying 28% on each additional dollar. Under Bush's tax margins you didn't reach the next bracket of 25% until you reached $65,100 in income. As an example, if Obama leaves the Bush tax rates intact except for the top two brackets, but does not renew the actual dollar points where you find yourself in the next marginal tax bracket, it could result in a 5% tax increase for anyone making between $0 and $16,050 or 10% for everyone making between $43,050 and $65,100 and so on.
I'm sure those who are still even reading this immensely technical and probably boring blog might be skeptical or thinking that I am just being an alarmist again. But don't forget, the administration has already declared that penalties for not buying health insurance, embedded Cap and Trade taxes, sin taxes such as the Soda tax or Cigarette tax, and a variety of other programs that increase government revenue by taking money from the middle class are not actually tax increases. And as we learned from Stephanopolous' interview with Obama, trying to say otherwise is nothing more than a sign of desperation.
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