Revising the Tenth Amendment [JHoward] | protein wisdom: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the Courts, to whom are entrusted the powers of reinterpretation. Congress shall hereby have the power to tax inactivity, provided such tax be punative."And from the comments: "Now eat your broccoli, peasant." Read More......
Government Medical "Insurance" - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Daily: "One of Ludwig von Mises's keenest insights was on the cumulative tendency of government intervention. The government, in its wisdom, perceives a problem (and Lord knows, there are always problems!). The government then intervenes to "solve" that problem. But lo and behold! instead of solving the initial problem, the intervention creates two or three further problems, which the government feels it must intervene to heal, and so on toward socialism.Read More......
No industry provides a more dramatic illustration of this malignant process than medical care."
Issa reveals wiretap docs from DOJ mole - TheHill.com: "Issa argued the information in the wiretap applications raises questions about whether Holder told Congress the truth. Holder has previously testified that he has reviewed the documents and concluded that nothing in them suggested senior DOJ officials should have known about the controversial tactics being employed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which ran the operation.Read More......
“The detailed information about the operational tactics contained in the applications raises new questions about statements of senior Justice Department officials, including the Attorney General himself,” said Issa in his May letter to Cummings.
“The affidavit reveals that the Justice Department has been misrepresenting important facts to Congress and withholding critical details about Fast and Furious from the Committee for months on end.”"
A Breach of Contract: "Once the courts – or the car dealer’s brother-in-law – define the range of the parties’ respective authorities, the mutually-exclusive logic of the 10th Amendment applies: if the government or the dealer is recognized as having expansive definitions of authority, there is very little that remains inviolate for the individual. The language of the 9th Amendment is more suitable to the argument on behalf of a broader definition of liberty. This provision reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This catch-all language suggests that the Ninth Amendment protections are far broader than the combined “rights” of all the other amendments. A reading of judicial history reveals only a very small handful of cases ever having been decided under this section. Of course, the words in this amendment are also subject to interpretation by state officials. This fact is what conservatives fail to understand when they bleat about wanting “to get back to the Constitution.” The government has never strayed from the Constitution; these words have been in that document from the beginning. They have, however, been interpreted according to the ever-changing preferences of those in power.There. And you thought I was an old crank? Even I couldn't top this one...
As the state continues to not simply eat away at – but to gluttonously devour – the liberty its defenders still pretend it is its purpose to protect, it is timely to consider the remedies available to individuals. As one who prefers the peaceful processes of a civilized society – rather than the violent and destructive means that define the state – my thoughts return to contract theory. I must admit, at the outset, that the make-believe “social contract” foundations of the state, reveal the wholesale breach of the obligations of both parties. The failure of the state to restrain its voracious and ruinous appetites is already a matter of record, even to its defenders whose intellectual dishonesty and/or cowardice will not permit them to express the fact. But there is a concurrent obligation on the part of those subject to state rule that finds expression in words carved onto the entrance to the Nebraska state capitol building: “The Salvation of the State is Watchfulness in the Citizen.” It was the failure of most people to live up to this standard that led me to write, a few years ago, about the need to impeach the American people! The “watchfulness” of most Americans is confined to such television programs as “American Idol” or “Dancing With the Stars.”"
Guest Post: The Supreme Court And Natural Law | ZeroHedge: "In lieu of the upholding of the Affordable Care Act, it’s now worth asking what the U.S. government can’t do to Americans. As of right now, a sitting president can call for the indefinite detainment and execution of both citizens and non citizens alike with no due process. The band of thieves known as Congress can force the public to purchase a good or service and order its goons to read private communications without prior consent or knowledge. The dollar is constantly inflated to the benefit of major financial institutions, thus destroying the purchasing power of the money Americans are forced into using. The American people are no longer afforded their rights to their property, privacy, or own lives. Those discretions are currently in the hands of the various marionettes of Washington. Whether it is occupied by outright fascists or closet socialists, the state has no regard for liberty in its incremental quest for omnipotence.Read More......
As Ludwig von Mises spent his life expounding:A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.In the world of centralized or constitutional government, rules are always made to be broken. The irony in today’s Supreme Court decision is that it was never given the authority to strike down federal laws under the Constitution. The power of “judicial review” was established by precedent in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) and was not explicitly granted in the language of the Constitution."
Nuance | protein wisdom: "Nuance"
Bill Buckner’s Legs - By Michael Walsh - The Corner - National Review Online: "Re: yesterday’s Supreme calamity, put me down in the Victor, Andy, and Jonah camp. There’s no way to rouge this porker of a decision from the chief justice as anything other than a stinging defeat for the forces of personal liberty. When you have to tell your troops that they “really” won, even as they flee the battlefield, you’re out of your mind.Read More......
As Professor Hanson notes, “rationalizing defeats is no way to learn from them.” Besides, counter-factual rationalization is the Left’s game; post-modern to a fault, they exist in an imaginary universe of dark shadows and dog whistles. So what if Roberts drop-kicked the Commerce Clause? The same end was accomplished by grabbing the taxing power instead, then helpfully rewriting the law and the administration’s own testimony to “correct” what Congress meant to say. "
» Supreme judicial activism in restraint’s clothing - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: "iconotastic | June 28, 2012 at 4:22 pmThis one is after my own heart... Read More......
“1. If it is a tax, why did it originate in the Senate?”
Doesn’t matter. Just because some irrelevant piece of paper states one thing, what really matters is what DC wants right now. Roberts signed on to that.
“2. What part of the constitution is construed to allow congress the authority to tax anything it wants even without having the authority to regulate it?”
The power of “We can do anything we like and you serfs just have to eat this cr@p sandwich and like it” That power. Right next to the power of “we can take your property and give it to whoever we d@mn well please”.
You seem to think that a piece of paper more than 200 years old is anything more than toilet paper to people in DC and their supporters in the provinces. How quaint."
First a quote from one of the better legal analyses of the Supreme Court ACA decision to come out quickly:
Legal Theory Blog: The Decision to Uphold the Mandate as Tax Represents a Gestalt Shift in Constitutional Law: "Today, it became clear that four of the Supreme Court's nine justices reject the academic consensus. As Justice Kennedy states in his dissent joined by Scalia, Thomas, and Alito:This is definitely a RTWT especially to enlighten people of a conservative bent how far un-tethered today's courts are from conservative's "quaint" notions that the Constitution still "exists".
"In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."
The alternative gestalt is no longer an outlier, a theory endorsed by a few eccentric professors and one odd justice of the Supreme Court. And because Justice Roberts believes that the mandate is not a valid exercise of the commerce clause (but is valid if interpreted as a tax), he has left open the possibility that there is a fifth justice who endorses the alternative gestalt.
We are only minutes into a long process of digesting the Health Care Decision. But in my opinion, one thing is clear. Things are now "up for grabs" in a way that no one anticipated when the saga of the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act began."
Dave Carter Does it Again - Ricochet.com: "Two posts below this one, Dave Carter's third sentence:Read More......The very idea that we sit on the edge of our seats, eyes toward Washington DC, waiting on the deliberations and dispositions of nine mortals to tell us how much of our liberty we get to retain is preposterous.You know what? That is the finest, most incisive, and most utterly compelling sentence of commentary about the pending Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare that I've read anywhere--and, like everyone here at Ricochet, I've been reading about it a lot.
Thanks, Dave. You just said it all."
Government runs ads to get more people on food stamps - Jun. 25, 2012: "NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- More than one in seven Americans are on food stamps, but the federal government wants even more people to sign up for the safety net program.Du'O. Read More......
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll. The campaign is targeted at the elderly, working poor, the unemployed and Hispanics."
Instapundit » Blog Archive » WELL, THAT WOULD BE EVIL. What If Walmart Sold 2500 Guns Illegally, Walked Them into Mexico, and Hi…: "WELL, THAT WOULD BE EVIL. What If Walmart Sold 2500 Guns Illegally, Walked Them into Mexico, and Hid the Documentation from Congress?Read More......
Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 6:52 pm"
Obama Fabricated Account Of Racially Persecuted Kenyan Grandfather - Investors.com: "The Obama Record: The most frightening aspect of this president may not be his radical ideology but his rank dishonesty in selling that ideology. Now he's been caught lying about family racism.RTWT. It's a nice introductory summary O lies for those just now wising up.
In "Dreams from My Father," his 1995 memoir, Obama used the story of his paternal grandfather's imprisonment and torture at the hands of British colonists in Kenya as an example of white cruelty. He claimed Hussein Onyango Obama was unjustly detained for six months before being released a crippled, lice-ridden "old man."
In fact, none of it is true, according to Washington Post editor and biographer David Maraniss, who traveled to Kenya to investigate the tale. His grandfather was not detained or beaten by his "white rulers," as Obama, writing as a 34-year-old lawyer, claimed."
Video: Green-tech stimulus recipient went broke … a second time « Hot Air: "This isn’t a recent case, nor the worst we’ve seen from the Obama administration’s green-tech stimulus bubble. However, it may be one of the most instructive about how governments don’t pick winners and losers in markets, but just losers. Genesis Poly of Mankato, Minnesota received subsidies from almost every level of government — city, state, and federal — to open its recycling center that transformed agricultural plastic waste into pellets used to create plastic goods. Both the city and state spent hundreds of thousands of dollars each, part of which got backstopped by $500,000 in Obama stimulus money. Meanwhile the federal Department of Agriculture guaranteed 70% of a $7.44 million loan to Genesis Poly issued in the fall of 2009.RTWT. Read More......
By the spring of 2010, however, Genesis Poly had closed its doors, swallowed by bankruptcy. For the second time."
New York Times to German Voters: “Drop Dead”. - By Andrew Stuttaford - The Corner - National Review Online: "If voters in Germany object to having their pockets picked on the scale that this would entail?This is why I'm trigger happy using the term "mental midgets" in referring to our "leaders". None of them are qualified to even run a lemonade stand. Read More......
Too bad: “Leaders” must be allowed to go ahead and pick those pockets anyway.
And to think that some people like to believe that one of the purposes of the EU has been to ensure that democracy remains firmly rooted in German soil.
It seems that The New York Times believes that the EU (or at least its currency union) should now be redesigned to do just the opposite. Disgusting."
Fast and Furious: Follow the Ideology | Power Line: "At PJTV, Bill Whittle makes the case that Fast and Furious was driven by Barack Obama’s and Eric Holder’s anti-gun ideology. The case is, I think, a persuasive one, as no one has offered an alternative explanation of why the administration would deliberately facilitate the shipment of thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels, with no effort to track them unless and until they were involved in the commission of crimes. If the administration didn’t intend that Mexicans be murdered with Fast and Furious weapons, then what was the point?"
Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "There is currently no HTTP status code to indicate you can’t access content because it’s been prohibited by a government agency. Tim Bray, a Google engineer, has proposed the status code “451,” in honor of the recently deceased author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, for use when an ISP is ordered by the government to deny access to a certain website."RTWT. Read More......
Instapundit » Blog Archive » UNDER THE RADAR: OSHA shooting range ruling points to agenda besides worker safety. UPDATE: Pro…: "UNDER THE RADAR: OSHA shooting range ruling points to agenda besides worker safety.Read More......
UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes: “People were warned and this may well have been prevented by blocking Michaels’ nomination to OSHA. How many Republicans voted to confirm Michaels? They chose comity with other Congresscritters over the legitimate concerns of constituents or share the radical views of Michaels. Is there any wonder why people would like to primary these clowns?”
Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:07 pm"
Charles de Gaulle, Monetary Crisis Ghost of 1965 - YouTube: "French President Charles de Gaulle warned in 1965 that the International Monetary System based on the United State dollar was a danger to the world. The danger he warned about 47 years ago is now too large to manage."
Moonbattery » Obama and Holder Knew About Gun Walking in 2009: "Anyone who thinks Obama and Holder were unaware of the Fast & Furious gunrunning operation must not have seen this press conference from March 2009:"
David Duke Endorses Charles Barron - By Nathaniel Botwinick - The Corner - National Review Online: "David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, has endorsed New York House candidate Charles Barron. He calls Barron “a dedicated anti-Zionist” who has “thrown the Zionist influenced media and the Zio-political establishment in a tizzy.” While he states that he does not concur with Barron on all of the issues, he “certainly [agrees] with Barron that Israel is the worst rogue terrorist state on Earth.” His eight-minute long endorsement contains other anti-Semitic canards involving the “Zio-masters working to divide and conquer America” and calls for action against the ultimate enemy, “Zionist globalism.” "Did I forget to mention that Charles Barron is black?
4 Pinocchios for Obama’s newest anti-Romney ad - The Washington Post: "Both the liberal editorial page of the Boston Globe and conservative editorial page of the Boston Herald urged Romney to veto the amendment, saying it would cost the state money. Romney agreed, saying the measure did not protect state jobs — the call center might have moved from India to another state — but “had the potential of costing our citizens a lot more money.” The Democratic-dominated Massachusetts legislature did not override his veto, even though it overturned 117 others, suggesting that there was little real support for the measure.RTWT. Read More......
When the food-stamp contract expired, the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance insisted that those jobs be returned to the United States. But they ended up in a call center based in Utah — just as Romney had predicted.
As we mentioned, we recounted this ancient Massachusetts history before, giving the campaign Two Pinocchios. So we were very surprised that the Obama campaign cited that critical Fact Checker column as a source for the ad in its back-up materials. "
Ace of Spades HQ: "This is bad because conservative Super PAC money is a threat to democracy! Negative ads should never be paid for by third-party donors with legal donations. Democracy can only survive when negative ads are purchased with unverified credit card donations, some of which may have illegally come from non-citizens.FMD Junior you ask? If this was a story about Mitt Romney's mother do you think you would be able to miss it?
Aside from enjoying the schadenbonery goodness of this, there are two things we can take away from the story: 1) Obama is now having to build and maintain a large paid network this year, meaning he's spending money for people to do work that was done willingly by enthusiastic volunteers four years ago and 2) The Obama campaign is much more worried about fundraising than they're letting on and feel the need to instill some panic into their donor base this early. Either way, this news and the Obama campaign response is another sign that this isn't 2008 and Mitt Romney is no John McCain."
Du'O. Read More......Those Fast and Furious documents must be dynamite | Power Line: "Even with his fawning press, [Presdient Obama] will pay a price for this one. He knows this, meaning that the documents now to be withheld must be dynamite. They have to show either that Holder knew what was going on with Fast and Furious and approved it, or that he directly committed perjury in his Congressional testimony, or both. I just can’t see any other explanation for such a risky move.UPDATE: Some have speculated that Obama’s intervention means that the president himself has something to hide."
Wasn’t the Washington Post just covering big time the 40th anniversary of Watergate? I wonder how much coverage this one will get.
The Widespread Economic Myths Destroying the Economy | The Big Picture: "In 2008, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) – often described as the central bank for central banks – said that failing to force companies to write off bad debts “will only make things worse”.
Indeed, Bernanke, Krugman and other mainstream economists from the left and the right who encourage more private debt are only creating a debt trap … where people take on new debt to try to pay for the old debt, and end up in a worse situation than they started:"
Click through to the post to see the animated version of this gif -- it's perfect.
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Ace of Spades HQ: "There's no possible way Iran (or any other targeted country) can benefit from knowing the virus' tricks and tasks and Trojans, I guess.The only thing here is that O Duce is too stupid to understand any of these details well enough to leak them. And I'm shocked that any of the idiots he has hired would either.
Take that Bluetooth thing. A closed system does not have any connection to the internet, so even if you have a keylogger installed on it, how do you get that information back to you?
Well, it appears that the virus sends a signal to a portable device with a Bluetooth, the sort that someone might take into the area. And then when that device is brought home, it sends from there.
That's a neat trick.
Now, how many Bluetooth-enabled devices do you imagine Iran will be permitting near secure computers in the future?
How about none?
This scandal just ticked up a notch, because the leakers are continuing to leak, even while being investigated, and even leaking more critical information. They must be found and arrested at once."
Kissing the Feet of the Masters of Europe - By David Pryce-Jones - David Calling - National Review Online: "The masters of Europe have always been a small band of men determined to impose their idealized political vision even if this proved akin to a dictatorship. Fortunately stopping short of violence, they were very like the Bolsheviks in mistaking their fantasy of unity for reality. It took eighty years and much suffering to be rid of the Bolshevik fantasy. The best that can be said of this election is that if the Greeks don’t manage to rid themselves of the euro fantasy others will do it for them."RTWT. Short and sweet. And foreboding. Read More......
Obama to celebrities: “You’re the ultimate arbiter” of this country’s direction « Hot Air: "President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited the home of actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick for a joint fundraising appearance on Thursday night, during which the president offered the gathered stars a rather frightening piece of flattery.Read More......The intimate dinner banked about $2 million, with 50 people paying $40,000 each. …
Speaking in a dimly lighted, art-filled room, Obama told supporters they would play a critical role in an election that would determine a vision for the nation’s future.
“You’re the tie-breaker,” he said. “You’re the ultimate arbiter of which direction this country goes.”"
Small President, Small Man | Power Line: "President Obama’s penchant for blaming everyone but himself for his administration’s failures (pre-eminently George W. Bush, of course) has made him something of a laughingstock. He has, of course, a serious problem: his record is too poor for him to talk about it, and he has no plans for his second term other than more of the same. So he defaults to the blame game.
Michael Ramirez contrasts Obama’s small-mindedness with some of his predecessors:"
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Articles: One More Dubious Story in the Obama Family Saga: "If Obama met Ndesandjo in Africa as claimed, that first meeting would have been more than twenty years prior. As related in Dreams, they met twice, at length both times, and in some depth. There should be no forgetting the two poignant, detailed visits with a new-found brother, visits that consume three pages of book space.Only his Ayers-dresser knows for sure... Read More......
In sorting through this story, it is hard to know what is true. Best guess: Obama visited Ruth and pulled a few details about Ndesandjo from this visit and from his half-sister Auma's recollection.
As I wrote last year, "This kind of fictionalization would not be particularly troubling were it an anomaly. It is not. It is the norm. No one really knows where the lies begin and end.""
OBSERVATIONS ON POLITICIANS: "G. K. Chesterton: "It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.""Read More......
Walking in Scott Walker’s footsteps - NY Daily News: "POTTFULLOFPITH 01:10 PMRead More......
Jun 12, 2012
Something else to think about on the private/public imbalance. Did you ever notice that public employees don't save? They have new(er) cars, boats, second homes, take more vacations, etc. They spend what they earn now because they know the pension arrangements are going to support them later. The absence of saving is one more related thing that arises from and compounds the public/private imbalance: How many readers are worried about paying for college? Public sector parents don't worry as much, BECAUSE they have no savings. No savings means, perversely, that when they fill out those financial aid forms, they LOOK poor, or worse, and they move to the front of the line in terms of scholarship or grant eligibility. Neat, huh?"
Obama Doubles Down on Lies About Spending and Debt | Power Line: "We have written several times about the Democrats’ claim that Barack Obama is somehow a fiscal conservative. The claim is doubly risible, in that 1) the Obama administration has run up spending and debt totals that dwarf those of any other presidency, and 2) Obama has never aspired to be a fiscal conservative, or to impose any sort of fiscal restraint. On the contrary, he has always pressed for as much spending and debt as he could wring out of Congress. His budgets are so ridiculous with respect to both spending and debt that in the last two years, not a single Congressman or Senator of either party has voted for them. So for Obama to now claim the mantle of a tightwad is one more sign of his campaign’s desperation."Read More......
Obama Wants To Control The Economy While Making Sure Business Is Blamed For Any Failures - Investors.com: "Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous — something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.... like nobody else can. You don't have to RTWT. You can also choose to live your life in a permanent state of ignorance... Read More......
Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the "greed" of the insurance companies.
The same principle, or lack of principle, applies to many other privately owned businesses. It is a very successful political ploy that can be adapted to all sorts of situations.
One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.
Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely — and correctly — regarded as being on the political left. Jonah Goldberg's great book "Liberal Fascism" cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists' consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left's embrace of the fascists as their own during the 1920s.
Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left."
Of Krugman and Diocletian - Peter C. Earle - Mises Daily: "It is certifiably true that Krugman doesn't "defend" Diocletian's economic policies; rather, those advocated by him match those tried by Diocletian almost precisely. The Nobel Prize economist calls vociferously for higher taxes, which was a specific policy objective of the Roman emperor. He goads policy makers to create more money and target higher levels of inflation — which Diocletian did, with clearly adverse outcomes. Diocletian's massive buildup in both state-funded construction projects and a broadened state officialdom correspond neatly with Krugman's specification of greatly amplified state-employment initiatives.Read More......
But the inept tax, inflation, and price-fixing approaches of Roman emperors can, in part, be excused by virtue of their having had little history to consult alongside a limited number of economic theories, all of which were grounded in pantheistic theology. With 2,000 years of recorded history between the 3rd-century calamities of the Roman Empire and the present day — plus a handful of recent, well-documented economic crackups perusable amid a wide range of discredited economic theories — what excuses can Krugman offer?"
Professor Obama’s Take on the Economy - By Victor Davis Hanson - The Corner - National Review Online: "So we are in an interesting paradox: All empirical evidence points to the worldwide failure of the blue-state model (e.g., California, the southern Mediterranean, anti-Walker Wisconsin), and yet Barack Obama’s entire career, from community organizing, to the state legislature, to the Senate, was predicated on just such a protocol of public borrowing to provide expansive government entitlements and jobs in exchange for a loyal political constituency, with the debt, in redistributive fashion, to be serviced by wringing more revenue from the suspect private sector that is always doing “fine.”Read More......
Obama knows no other way, and so his adolescent exasperation is always with a supposedly thriving small business or corporation that for some reason or another won’t pay for his redistributive dreams. If only that “doing fine” private sector would not sit on “trillions” of dollars, resist spread-the-wealth higher taxes, fight Obamacare, and whine about needed new regulations, then, presto, we would have plenty of money to give a pre-Walker Wisconsin or insolvent California — and everything would be just fine."
Obama’s data advantage - Lois Romano - POLITICO.com: "CHICAGO — On the sixth floor of a sleek office building here, more than 150 techies are quietly peeling back the layers of your life. They know what you read and where you shop, what kind of work you do and who you count as friends. They also know who your mother voted for in the last election.I get such a belly laugh out of libs and their vaunted protection of your "right to privacy". That would be right up to the point where it's not to their political advantage and not one iota more.
The depth and breadth of the Obama campaign’s 2012 digital operation — from data mining to online organizing — reaches so far beyond anything politics has ever seen, experts maintain, that it could impact the outcome of a close presidential election. It makes the president’s much-heralded 2008 social media juggernaut — which raised half billion dollars and revolutionized politics — look like cavemen with stone tablets."
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Brit Hume: "Doin' Fine" Was No Gaffe: "But there has been general chatter on this point. The left has been making this argument on blogs for months. The left has been claiming for a year that the private sector is "doing fine," we just need to give money to state governments so that the Democratic Client Class of bureaucrats can be spared any cuts in benefits.Time to funnel more money to buy the election O course... Read More......
They view this as a type of stimulus spending -- the best kind, because it flows into the hands of the Democratic Client Class.
So this did not come out of nowhere. This as been written about, and argued, and urged, for a long time.
Obama made a mistake, but he did not "misspeak." His error was to say aloud the talking point he's been reading -- and believing -- for months."
Detroit: The Moral of the Story - By Kevin D. Williamson - Exchequer - National Review Online: "The third lesson is moral. Detroit’s institutions have long been marked by corruption, venality, and self-serving. Healthy societies have high levels of trust. Who trusts Detroit? This is not angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff. People do not invest in firms, industries, cities, or countries they do not trust. Corruption makes people poor.Welcome to the third world. Read More......
What is true of Detroit is true of the country. Our national public sector not only is bloated and parasitic, it is less effective, less responsible, and less honest than that of many other developed countries, including New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and Germany. I am not an unreserved admirer of Transparency International’s global corruption-perceptions index, but I believe that it is in broad outline accurate."
API copyrights are dead: "Beware of the ‘Black Swan’ fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you – with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the ‘Gigo Law,’ i.e., ‘Garbage in, garbage out.’UPDATE: And another:
Inductive logic is much more difficult – but can produce new truths.
— Lazarus Long"
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. — Lazarus LongI need to go back and refresh my Heinlein... UPDATED AGAIN: OK, Just one more:
Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. — Lazarus LongI could have sworn I had posted this one before but I can't find it now... Read More......
If Catholics Come Together To Make More Ads Like This, Results May come - Ricochet.com: "I missed this some (been out since March) how but it's pretty bold.
Watch it in big screen Hi Def."
Instapundit » Blog Archive » JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Obama is wrong. The private sector isn’t ‘doing fine.’ UPDATE: Bob Cor…: " Bob Corker: President Obama Is Offering Proposals That Are “An Insult To American Intelligence.” Watch the clip — the usually mild-mannered Corker is really going after Obama hammer-and-tongs here."
Ace of Spades HQ: "I'm sure you're as surprised as I am that the press missed a few things in 2008.And that they kill people? Today his rival Muslim terrorists ... tomorrow who knows? Read More......
Stanley Kurtz got the minutes of the meeting.In late October 2008, when I wrote here at National Review Online that Obama had been a member of the New Party, his campaign sharply denied it, calling my claim a “crackpot smear.” Fight the Smears, an official Obama-campaign website, staunchly maintained that “Barack has been a member of only one political party, the Democratic Party.” I rebutted this, but the debate was never taken up by the mainstream press.
Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed a “contract” promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party while in office."
Bada boom. Read More......“He Could Be President Now If He Wanted To Be” | Power Line: "Most ominously, there are the national-security leaks that are becoming a national scandal—the “avalanche of leaks,” according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, that are somehow and for some reason coming out of the administration. A terrorist “kill list,” reports of U.S. spies infiltrating Al Qaeda in Yemen, stories about Osama bin Laden’s DNA and how America got it, and U.S. involvement in the Stuxnet computer virus, used against Iranian nuclear facilities. These leaks, say the California Democrat, put “American lives in jeopardy,” put “our nation’s security in jeopardy.”Those last lines are brilliant. They pretty much say it all."
This isn’t the usual—this is something different. A special counsel may be appointed.
And where is the president in all this? On his way to Anna Wintour’s house. He’s busy. He’s running for president.
But why? He could be president now if he wanted to be.
Meet The Oil Shale Eighty Times Bigger Than The Bakken - Forbes: "From just 60,000 barrels per day five years ago, the Bakken is now giving up 500,000 bpd, with 210,000 bpd of that coming on in just the past year. Given the availability of enough rigs to drill it and crews to frack it, there’s no reason why the Bakken couldn’t be producing more than 1 million bpd by the end of the decade, a level that could be maintained for halfway through the century.So will Greenpeace thugs try to knock off Vladimir Putin to stop this? Now this will be truly entertaining to watch... Read More......
But as great as the Bakken is, I learned last week about another oil shale play that dwarfs it. It’s called The Bazhenov. It’s in Western Siberia, in Russia. And while the Bakken is big, the Bazhenov — according to a report last week by Sanford Bernstein’s lead international oil analyst Oswald Clint — “covers 2.3 million square kilometers or 570 million acres, which is the size of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico combined.” This is 80 times bigger than the Bakken.
Getting access to the Bazhenov appears to be a key element in both ExxonMobil and Statoil‘s big new joint ventures with Kremlin-controlled Rosneft. Exxon’s recent statement says the two companies have agreed “to jointly develop tight oil production technologies in Western Siberia.”"
Walker, Unbowed - The Editors - National Review Online: "His enemies spent a year and a half preparing to take their best shot at him. And a combined total of $100 million or so later, they missed. They missed because voters are starting to understand that governing through crisis requires someone willing to make unpopular choices, stand up to entrenched interests, and hold the line against loud and determined opposition.Read More......
Quite simply, Wisconsin voters realized that if they no longer had Scott Walker, they would have to invent him. "
A Smashing Victory In Wisconsin | Power Line: "Wisconsin looks to exceed our fondest hopes, as everyone has called the race for Scott Walker. With 60% of the vote now counted, Walker leads 57%-42%. That is way too big a margin for the Democrats to make up through fraud. The TV headlines to the effect that “Governor Walker Survives Recall” are really misleading. Walker didn’t just survive, he trounced the greedy union bosses who were fighting for their lives, as it turned out that a clear majority of union members were paying dues only because they were forced to do so. Public sector union membership has plummeted by more than 50% since membership became voluntary in 2011."I expect we'll wake up tomorrow to find Holder and O Duce have declared the election racist and brought suit to annul it or some damn thing.
Honor Among Thieves - By Michael Walsh - The Corner - National Review Online: "As I’ve noted here (apropos of Wisconsin) and elsewhere, the best way to understand the modern Democrats is as the unholy love children of 1930s big-city political/gangster machines and 1960s Alinskyite Communists — now out and proud. But Obama, their chosen candidate, only had first-hand experience with the Alinsky crew; he’s too young to remember Tammany Hall and the heyday of the Daley Machine in Chicago. Oh, he’s got the brass-knuckles part down, all right (that’s part of Alinskyism) but he’s twice now violated the first rule of gangsterism: respect your elders.We can only hope. But can we learn to love the Hillacious gargoyle behind Alinsky's door #2? Read More......
That’s something that the Hot Springs–raised Clinton understands deep down in his bones. He grew up in a town dominated by my gangster, Owney Madden, was boyhood friends with the son of Madden’s lawyer, and often sat in Madden’s headquarters, the Southern Club on Central Avenue, watching the gangland greats come and go; to top it off, Clinton’s mother, Virginia Kelley, was one of Madden’s nurses. “Bubbles” was an open, check-your-guns-at-the-door city, nominally run by its corrupt mayor, Leo McLaughlin, but, like Arkansas itself, completely controlled by Madden and his New York associates, including Frank Costello.
Insiders know there’s no love lost between the Clintons and Obama, and that — since revenge is a dish best eaten cold — it was only a matter of time before Billy would introduce Barry to the joys of payback. That moment is now upon us."
The Ugly Truth About Social Security Is Revealed - Forbes: "Speaking to USA Today about deficits, Horney explained why Social Security should not be counted as part of the U.S. budget deficit. It shouldn’t because Congress can alter its liabilities by reducing benefits or raising taxes. Or, as Horney more bluntly put it, “Retirement programs are not legal obligations.”Read More......
The seemingly obvious response might be “Now they tell us”, but that would be a bit overdone. Indeed, though American-style liberals and other water carriers for the welfare state would rather we not know this, we have no legal right to the dollars we hand over to the federal government in the form of Social Security payments. We never have had any legal right, and Horney should be credited for telling the truth."
Exclusive - The Vetting - Senator Barack Obama Attended Bill Ayers Barbecue, July 4, 2005: "Obama's presence--as a U.S. Senator--at the Ayers barbecue has been confirmed by another source, who told Breitbart News: "I too saw Obama at a picnic table in the Ayers/Dohrn backyard, munching away--on the 4th of July."
The fact that Obama socialized with Ayers and Dorn contradicts the statement that Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt gave the New York Times in 2008"
Are Low Interest Rates Good? | ZeroHedge: "In a perfectly succinct follow-up to Last Friday's Santelli-Kaminsky CNBC-aberration discussion of the now status quo financial repression (low interest rate / QE environment), this two-and-a-half minute clip asks and answers the seemingly simple question of whether low interest rates are good. Borrowing and saving are really about whether to consume more now or later (or more later and less now) and we agree with Professor Antony Davies that these decisions are best left to individuals - and not the nanny-state/Fed. Each person's judgment of what is best for them is replaced by the Federal reserve's judgment and the free market interest has become a thing of the past (for now). Lower rates don't mean more spending; they mean more spending now and less in the future."
Reality: No Match for Television | Power Line: "I saw this on InstaPundit yesterday and have been meaning to write about it. At the Atlantic, Garance Franke-Ruta notes Gallup polls that indicate most Americans think around a quarter of our population is gay. The mean is 24.6%, up from 21.7% just eight years ago. An astonishing 35% believe that more than one-quarter of all people are homosexuals. In fact, the number is around two to three percent. So the average poll respondent is off by 1,000%."This is why innumerate socialist charlatans like our dear reader get so far. Never mind the epic math fail -- which is by the design of the elite. Common sense has gone completely missing.
Belmont Club » Just Saying: "There are certain circles where no one is surprised at venality. They are only shocked by the lack of it. In rough towns honesty looks as out of place as duck on a bicycle. When you fit in nobody notices. For example, on a day when job numbers were reported to by abysmally low, the Daily Caller reported that the President was “raising $5 million at fundraisers in Chicago this Friday – including one co-hosted by Marilyn Katz.”Read More......So who is Marilyn Katz? According to the New York Times, she’s the person who gave Obama “entry into another activist network: the foot soldiers of the white student and black power movements that helped define Chicago in the 1960s. As a leader of Students for a Democratic Society then, Ms. Katz organized Vietnam War protests, throwing nails in the street to thwart the police.”
The Chicago Tribute also noted that Katz, “once advocated throwing studded nails in front of police cars, back in the SDS days when the group was alleged to have thrown cellophane bags full of human excrement at cops and cans of urine and golf balls impaled with nails.”"
Miserable May jobs report suggests U.S. in recession red zone « The Enterprise Blog: "Fred says:Read More......
June 1, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Recession- your neighbor loses his job.
Depression- You lose your job.
Recovery- Obama loses his job."
Merkel Rejects Debt Sharing as Obama Urges Action - Bloomberg: "With Europe’s debt crisis cited last week for canceled IPOs, weaker-than-expected Chinese manufacturing figures and a rise in the U.S. jobless rate, Merkel rejected joint debt issuance in the 17-nation euro area as a solution, saying “under no circumstances” would she agree to Germany-backed euro bonds.But it's only a matter of time until she folds of course... Read More......
Now, some “come along and ask for euro bonds, saying all we need are equal interest rates and everything will turn out all right,” Merkel said in a speech to members of her Christian Democratic Union in Berlin yesterday. Instead, what’s needed is an economic overhaul to tackle the lack of competitiveness in Europe, she said."
Roger L. Simon » America Gets a Wake-Up Call: "Reading the unemployment numbers for May (can you imagine what the real ones would be?), your lefty-liberal friends should be ashamed of themselves — at least those that aren’t committed, Cloward-Piven style, to the fall of the U.S. You know, those who wish to bankrupt our country so that it can be rebuilt as a glorious socialism… like, say, Czechoslovakia circa 1962.Read More......
But what we have may be worse than Cloward–Piven. It’s accidental Cloward-Piven. Cloward-Piven out of ineptitude.
I don’t need to see Obama’s hidden college grades. I know he’s a failure."
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