Suppressed Truth in Government

Oliver Twist Redux

2011-12-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

"Please help! Bring back better food!" - Van Nuys High School student to Principal Judith Vanderbok

When Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House he proposed a capitol showing of the Hollywood classic Boy's Town as a means to gin up support for his proposed boot camps for troubled teens. The Left retorted that if Newt did a Boy's Town showing, they would counterattack with a showing of Dicken's Oliver Twist. Newt promptly dropped the idea, but in this exchange the Left demonstrated that they believe Oliver Twist is a hero after their own ideology.

Now, Oliver Twist paid dearly for his temerity in asking a work house elder, 'Please sir, may I have some more?" of the runny, grey, porridge the work house boys were forced to swallow.

Oliver would have been far better off to adopt the methods of deprived teens in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Confronted with a Michelle Obama endorsed and promoted lunch diet officially adopted by the District this past fall term - a diet featuring such yummy selections as vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles. - the kids are rebelling (participation in the District's lunch program has plummeted to just 13%). At Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, Frida Duarte, 16 described the fare as "Like dog food". Many have struck up a thriving black market in lunch items for teens crave. If only Oliver had thought of that.

Meanwhile the Los Angeles Unified School District Cafeteria Fund has imploded to a $20 million deficit catalyzed by the aforementioned collapse in student participation, a 1000% increase in budget for fresh produce the kids won't eat, and the gift of a gold-plated health-benefit package for part-time cafeteria workers, many who stand idle as kids scramble for black market, back-alley lunches.

All told, Michelle Obama's crusade against obesity seems to be having about as much success as Obama's crusade to tranform America into a booming green economy. Wasn't it Leftist Lincoln Steffens in 1919 who said of the newly comprised Soviet Union, "I have seen the future and it works."

Sources for this post include:
1.) "L.A. schools' healthful lunch menu panned by students", Los Angeles Times, December 17. 2011; http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-food-lausd-20111218,0,2593733.story

2.) "Michelle Obama’s Unsavory School Lunch Flop" http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/21/michelle-obamas-unsavory-school-lunch-flop/

3.) Wikipedia, Lincoln Steffens

Tea Party, New Party - What's the Difference?

2011-08-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

TEA Partier or New Partier...Can You Choose Correctly?

For the record, as of this writing (Barak Obama in the White House), there is an American-wide mainstream movement of grassroots protesters, encompassing millions of individuals and thousands of self-organizing groups called the TEA Party Movement (TEA is a backronym for Taxed Enough Already). The main focus of the TEA Party Movement is a rebuke of what movement members consider to be outrageous mandates, overspending and a radical agenda by an out of touch federal government with values similar to King George III (see Boston Tea Party in American history). The TEA Party is perceived to be reactionary by many liberal, left-of-center Americans and has been attacked accordingly and vigorously - on August 20, 2011 Representative Maxine Waters of California opined:

And as far as I’m concerned, the ‘tea party’ can go straight to Hell.” [1]

Now the Tea Party is not an official political party, it is, as described above, merely a grassroots movement, and yet it is the target of exceptional venom from the left. This is ironic since leftist idol President Barack Obama was himself at the very least supported by, and was possibly a "member" of, a party - not an official political party - whose aim it was to drag the Democratic Party to the left, just as the TEA Party seeks to drag the Republican Party to the right. That party, called the New Party, is amply described in this article by former left-wing radical David Horowitz - click on New Party.

[1] "Maxine Waters to tea party: Go to Hell"

Deifying Iliusion

2011-08-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

"From the dawn of civilization onwards crowds have always undergone the influence of illusions.

"It is to the creators of illusions that they have raised more temples, statues, and altars than to any other class of men."

Tower of Babel

Source: French social psychologist, sociologist Gustave Le Bon quoted ( p. 108) in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

The Deadliest Contagion is Majority Opinion

2011-08-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

The author of the sentiment expressed in the title of this blog is unknown, but the truth he asserted in not -Charles Dickens, in the wake of his one and only visit to America, observed that it appeared to him that in America the old tyranny of despotic monarchs had simply been supplanted by -

...a new tyranny of public opinion, fostered by a rancid press

Moreover, when the media have successfully concluded their work public opinion acquires the characteristics of a religious sentiment, as explained by French psychologist and sociologist Gustave Le Bon -

The sentiment has very simple characteristics, such as the worship of a being supposed superior, the fear of the power with which the being is credited, blind submission to his commands, inability to discuss its dogmas, the desire to spread them, and a tendency to consider as enemies all by whom they are not accepted.

A person is not religious solely when he worships a divinity, but when he puts all the resources of his mind, the complete submission of his will, and the whole-souled ardour of fanaticism at the service of a cause or an individual who becomes the goal and guide of his thoughts and actions.

Le Bon continues -

Today the majority of great men who have swayed men's minds no longer have altars, but they have statues, or their portraits are in the hands of their admirers...An understanding of the philosophy of history is only to be got by thorough appreciation of this fundamental point of the psychology of crowds. The crowd demands a god before everything else

Source: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Gustave Le Bon

Holding America Hostage?

2011-08-02T15:27:00.000-07:00

Singling Out Those Who Won't Raise Debt Ceiling

Tea Party conservatives of the 112th Congress were accused by all manner of leftists of "holding America hostage" by demanding spending cuts in exchange for their votes to raise the nations debt limit. Tea Partiers were also called "irresponsible" and possibly even "terrorists" (by Vice President of the United States Joe Biden). President Obama, during the run-up to raising of the debt limit on August 2, 2011 also had strong words for those who might block it, jeopardizing the nations ability to honor it's debt obligations. In consequence of all the above it ought to be easy for readers to guess which nationally prominent, currently elected officials (as of this posting), had this to say about raising the nations debt limit:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies...our federal debt has increased by...trillion(s)...That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China....,borrowed from American taxpayers...And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

The above quoted politician voted NO on raising the debt ceiling. Who was it? (Post your guess - first politician - in comment section.)

But as the rest of the world copes with the waves of U.S. debt, we are now all in the same leaky boat. There is just so much of our debt other nations want to hold. The more of it they accumulate, the closer we are to the day when they will not want any more. When that happens, slowly or rapidly, our interest rates will go up, the value of their U.S. bonds will drop, and we will all have big problems. We need both more awareness, and more understanding, of this fundamental threat to our economic well being and the global economy. … The President’s budget plans will bring that number to (many) trillion (by) the end of the next 5 years. This is a record of utter disregard for our Nation’s financial future. It is a record of indifference to the price our children and grandchildren will pay to redeem our debt when it comes due. History will not judge this record kindly. My vote against the debt limit increase cannot change the fact that we have incurred this debt already, and will no doubt incur more. It is a statement that I refuse to be associated with the policies that brought us to this point.

Who was this NO voter? (Second politician)

Given the explosion of debt in recent years, it is long past time for Washington to change the course and adopt a new fiscal policy. After all, the future of our economy and our Nation is at stake… If my (other political party) believe(s) that increasing our debt by almost (many) billion today, and more than (several) trillion dollars over the last 5 years, is the right thing to do, they should be upfront about it. They should explain why they believe more debt is good for our economy. How can the (opposing party) majority and this Congress explain to their constituents that trillions of dollars of new debt is good for our economy? How can they explain that they think it is fair to force our children, our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren to finance this debt through higher taxes? That is what will have to happen. Why is it right to increase this Nation’s dependence on foreign creditors? They should explain this. Maybe they can convince the public they are right. I doubt it, because most Americans know that increasing the debt is the last thing we should be doing. After all, I repeat, the baby boomers are about to retire. Under the circumstances, any credible economist would tell you we should be reducing debt , not increasing it. Again, on debt –Thomas Jefferson. These are his words: “And to preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt . We must make our election between economy and liberty–or profusion and servitude.” That was President Thomas Jefferson. …We are being asked to do what should not be asked of us, to increase the debt to almost (many) trillion. I hope everyone walking down to these desks today will understand what they are doing, what they are doing to our country.

Who was this NO voter? (third politician)

(Answers : 1st - Barak Obama; 2nd - Joe Biden; 3rd - Harry Reid. All quotes are from 2006 when George W. Bush was president.)

Hope for the Future?

2011-07-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

"Hope and Change"

"Young voters stampeded to the polls for candidate Obama in 2008, topping their 2004 turnout by more than 3 million and breaking, 2-to-1, in his favor. " (NationalJournal)

Now,

(t)wo years after the Great Recession officially ended, job prospects for young Americans remain historically grim. More than 17 percent of 16-to-24-year-olds who are looking for work can’t find a job, a rate that is close to a 30-year high. The employment-to-population ratio for that demographic—the percentage of young people who are working—has plunged to 45 percent. That’s the lowest level since the Labor Department began tracking the data in 1948. [1]

[1] "The Glum and the Restless"; NationalJournal, July 7, 2011

On United States Government Overreach -

2010-10-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

"Your chances of meeting an IRS agent are far greater than your chances of meeting anyone you voted for."
- Joe Sobran

Newt Gingrich & Ann Coulter for Supreme Court Justices, or Reclaiming Judicial Review from the Courts

2010-08-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

No thinking, informed person would argue that if a future Republican president were to nominate Newt Gingrich or conservative columnist (and former lawyer, law clerk and Senate Judiciary staffer) Ann Coulter to the Supreme Court their would not be a deafening hue and cry from the media elite and the leftist intelligentsia who most influence public opinion in America.

On the other hand no informed person with good memory will fail to recall that when the idea of Barack Obama nominating leftist-ideologue Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court (he nominated her for Secretary of State instead) was floated, hardly a whimper of protest was to be heard.

The plain and obvious reason for this dichotomy is that everyone, including most ordinary Americans, knows the left has little regard for the Constitution and blatantly nominates political ideologues to the courts to fulfill extra-Constitutional objectives. In response the right is expected, by most Americans, to serve as a firewall to protect against overly extreme nominees getting seated, and the right is expected to supply nominees that respect "rule of law" and judicial restraint. This strategy locks the right into a defensive posture since firewalls exist for defense and since even Fidel Castro can embrace "rule of law" - provided its his law -, and since any liberal can claim he or she was "restrained" as he or she handed down a decision gutting the Constitution.

Since the political right is supposed to stand for judicial restraint, for it to nominate ideologues to the court in the mold of Gingrich and Coulter would cause a political and media firestorm. But that is exactly what the right should do - nominate Gingrich and Coulter.

Since I am a conservative, for me to float this proposal will seem like blasphemy to my fellow ideologues on the right. The charge will will be that I am succumbing, under pressure from leftist gains in the courts, to compromise with a strategy, employed by the left, that abandons reverence for and fealty to the Constitution in exchange for sordid short term gain. This charge against me would be valid, totally valid, except for one thing - conservatives have forgotten that our Founders never authorized the courts to sit in judgment on the constitutionality of legislation (otherwise known as "judicial review"), nor would they have.

It was the court itself in the unanimous 1803 decision, Marbury v. Madison, that arrogated to the courts the power of judicial review. Even to this day, most of the work load of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court's, do not involve weighty questions that demand gut-wrenching introspection about the meaning of the Constitution. Our Founders were concerned that a judiciary be created where Americans could obtain justice under the law, not an judiciary that could sit in judgment upon a constitution crafted, in the final analysis, from the blood and sweat of patriots.

I believe the Founders did not authorize judicial review in the Constitution because they could not have conceived of granting such power to unelected jurists who played no part in creating the Constitution. The United States Constitution specifically declares the "people" to be the power behind the Constitution, and so it follows the Founders intended an informed electorate - an electorate who was permitted to vote directly for delegates to the Constitutional Convention -; the Founders intended an informed electorate to be the judge of whether or not any legislation Congress might pass was "constitutional" or not. To remedy unconstitutional legislation, all the people needed to do was apply pressure to their congressional representatives or return new representatives to Congress as terms of existing representatives expired.

How much worse, if indeed worse at all, would this nation be, or adherence to our Constitution be, if judicial review had remained the sole province of the people as judge, over and against what the federal courts have done? Would the people have declared constitutional a criminal suspects "right" to hear a reading of his rights upon arrest as the Court did in Miranda v. Arizona? Would the people have declared a criminal suspect the constitutional right to release if condemning evidence against him had been obtained in an illegal search? Wouldn't the people have been more likely, in the last example, to recommend the offending police officers by held accountable, instead of a vulnerable public? Or would the people have declared, as the Court did in Wickard v. Filburn, that a farmer growing wheat on his own land for his own private use could be enjoined by the federal government to cease that activity under the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution?

What is the point of playing by the rules, if there are no rules. Our Founders never intended judges to sit in judgment upon the constitutionality of acts of Congress. Whether it be sober, long-faced conservatives or pot smoking radicals sitting on the bench, neither is qualified to declare any law Congress might pass constitutional or unconstitutional. That judgment must be restored to the people.

Hope and Change in Obama's America

2010-08-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

Great Depression Bread Line

Now, fast forward to Barack Obama's America, 2010 -

A school district in Clinton Township, Michigan, part of Metro Detroit, with total population of 95,648, received almost 19,000 applications for 71 teaching jobs it recently posted, The Macomb Daily reported.

The openings were for entry-level teachers at a beginning salary of about $35,000.

"The number was really an eye-opener for us, and sadly, a sign of the times in our state," Diane Blain, district spokeswoman, told The Daily. Most of the applicants were Michigan residents.

Chairman and Cheerleader of Taxes Doesn't Prefer to Pay Them

2010-07-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

Charles Rangel, liberal congressman who has represented the 15th Congressional District of New York, located in upper Manhattan since 1971 has long been a bellicose supporter of the welfare state and an advocate for higher taxes.

In 1994 when the conservative-led Congress pushed for tax relief Rangel denounced the plan as a form of modern-day racism.

It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore; [instead] they say, 'Let's cut taxes.'

According to conservative writer and policy advocate David Horowitz:

In January 2007 Rangel became chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the U.S. tax code. In October 2007, Rangel and this Committee unveiled a proposal for the single largest tax increase -- on all income strata -- in American history. Dubbed the “mother of all tax bills” by Rangel, the legislation not only contained $1.3 billion in new taxes, but it also called for the repeal of the major tax cuts that Congress had enacted in 2001 and 2003; all told, the bill would have resulted in a tax hike of $3.5 trillion.

One year later, according to Horowitz:

...the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into Rangel's failure to report (and pay taxes on) $75,000 in rental income which he had earned from his beach property in the Dominican Republic. Moreover, Rangel owed back taxes for at least three years, and he was illegally renting (for his own uses) four rent-subsidized apartments in New York City -- at less than half of their market value -- while claiming his Washington, DC home as his primary residence for tax purposes. Though Rangel's income was too high to legally qualify him for any rent-subsidized units, he nonetheless rented three adjacent 16th-floor apartments which combined to make up his 2,500-square-foot home in New York, as well as a fourth unit on the 10th floor of the same building, which served as his campaign office. State and city laws stipulated, however, that rent-subsidized apartments could only be used as primary residences.

Moreover, in August 2009, Newsmax.com reported that Rangel had "failed to report at least $500,000 in assets on his 2007 Congressional disclosure form" -

[A]mong the dozen newly disclosed holdings revealed in the amended forms are a checking account at a federal credit union with a balance between $250,0000 and $500,000; three vacant lots in Glassboro, N.J., valued at a total of $1,000 to $15,000; and stock in PepsiCo worth between $15,000 and $50,000. The new [disclosure] forms report that Rangel’s total net worth is between $1,028,024 and $2,495,000 — about twice the amount listed in the original disclosure statement, filed in May 2008, which declared assets totaling between $516,015 and $1,316,000.

Primary source for this article: "Charles Rangel", DiscoverTheNetworks.org, (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2085&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fpmdtn+%28FrontPage+Magazine+%C2%BB+Discover+the+Networks%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail)

Could Smith be Right?

2010-07-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

Mark W. Smith, a former professor of law, founding partner of Smith Valliere PLLC - a Madison Avenue-based law firm in New York City -, regular political and legal commentator in the national media and a former semi-professional baseball player in his 2006 book Disrobed: The New Battle Plan to Break the Left's Stranglehold on the Courts, argues that conservatives should abandon the search for nominees to judgeships that espouse arcane legal principles such as judicial restraint, strict construction, or originalism and seat judges that declare their support in plain language for values that most Americans embrace.

Conservatives eschew demanding judges plainly state what they believe because they believe judges should be apolitical and strive only to be true to the enduring principles and values set forth in the Constitution. However, as Smith points out, the Constitution itself does not grant the courts the power of judicial review. In the act of taking upon itself the act of judicial review the court managed to cast itself in a hallowed role as impartial ultimate arbitrators of the meaning of the Constitution, invoking awe in the populace. And yet a casual review of what the courts have actually decided and why, reveals the pretense of impartially for what it is: judges are political animals and routinely make decisions - even decisions with Constitutional implications - proving it.

The courts arrogated the power of judicial review to themselves early in the 19th century. Once we accommodate our thinking to the reality that they do not have this power under the Constitution, we begin to see there is no reason to permit judges to refrain from telling us plainly who they are and what they believe. Any judge who would refuse to answer questions about what he believes - just as we demand from elected officials - can be confronted with the reality that the Constitution grants him no power of judicial review, so he can hardly claim the Constitution grants him grounds to refuse to make his views known lest he compromise himself.

It remains to be seen whether any elected official in Washington has the spine to take on the judiciary in this way.

Liar-in-Chief

2010-07-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

President Barak Obama on a description of a penalty imposed on Americans who fail or refuse to purchase federally mandated health insurance as a tax:

I absolutely reject that notion.

For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. [1]

But now that the health care overhaul and its individual mandate is being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations the Obama administration is arguing that they had the right to seize control of health care in America under authority granted by the United States Constitution to “to lay and collect taxes.”

[1] CHANGING STANCE, ADMINISTRATION NOW DEFENDS INSURANCE MANDATE AS A TAX, National Center for Policy Analysis; July 19, 2010

Another Installment in Obama's Promised 'Hope and Change'

2010-07-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

U.S. Shopping Center Vacancies Approach Record High

Obama's Empty Bank Account

2010-07-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

View this video -
Obama's campaign promise to end war in Iraq as his first act as President

What Jefferson Thought About Submission to Obama Style Heavy-Handedness

2010-07-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

Jefferson Faced the British, We Face Obama

Such men Jefferson characterized as:

"timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty"

Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 29: 1 March 1796 to 31 December 1797; Princeton University Press, 2002, 81-3

More Fruits of Obama's "Hope and Change" Campaign

2010-05-19T17:17:00.000-07:00

Nearly 40 million Americans received food stamps — the latest in an ever-higher string of record enrollment that dates from December 2008 and the U.S. recession, according to a government update....The Agriculture Department said 39.68 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, were enrolled for food stamps during February, an increase of 260,000 from January.

Source: Reuters

How's That "Hope and Change" Working for You?

2010-05-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

As of late mid May 2010, a full 15 months after Barak Obama signed his $750 billion "stimulus" bill:

"Homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are now the fastest growing group of foreclosures. Those borrowers made up nearly 37 percent of new foreclosures in the first quarter of the year, up from 29 percent a year earlier. The risky subprime adjustable-rate loans that kicked off the foreclosure crisis are making up a smaller share of new foreclosures. They made up 14 percent of new foreclosures in the January-March period, down from 27 percent a year earlier.

"The Obama (regime's) $75 billion foreclosure prevention program has barely dented the problem.

"Around 4.3 million homeowners, or about 8 percent of all Americans with a mortgage, are at risk of losing their homes. More than 4.6 percent of homeowners were in foreclosure, a record.

"More than 10 percent of homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association ().. That's a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago." [1]

[1] "Mortgage delinquencies drag on economic recovery; Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures break records, weigh on broader economic recovery" Associated Press (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mortgage-delinquencies-apf-3683370452.html?x=0&.v=6)

Prophesy Fulfilled

2010-04-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Irving Berlin

American's embrace Irving Berlin's song, "God Bless America" but remain oblivious to the possibility that God might do just the opposite.

What are some of the signs of God's displeasure with a nation? In the Bible, God promises the nation Israel that if it will remain faithful to Him certain benefits will accrue:

For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you. [1]

Simple logic dictates that the opposite of the above specified blessing would be for a nation to become indebted to other nations. How does America stand now:

The Congressional Budget Office just projected that over10 years, cumulative deficits will reach $9.7 trillion - a 250% increase - , and federal debt - at $20 trillion, up from the current $7.5 trillion - 90 percent of gross domestic product; nearly equal to Italy's.

Other than during the Second World War, such a rise in indebtedness has not occurred since recordkeeping began in 1792.

It is so rapid that, by 2020, the Treasury may borrow about $5 trillion per year to refinance maturing debt and raise new money; annual interest payments on those borrowings will exceed all domestic discretionary spending and rival the defense budget.

[1] Deuteronomy 15:6

Primary source for this article: "DISASTROUS DEBT WILL TEST AMERICA"; http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19245&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ncpadpd+%28NCPA+-+Daily+Policy+Digest%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

110,000 Troops...Mentioned Two Times

2010-03-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

Is there still a war in Iraq? Are U.S. troops still in harms way in Iraq?

You wouldn't know it listening to Barack Obama. As of this post, President Barack Obama has condescended to mention the war in Iraq just two times since 2010 began.

Moreover, American media seem to have forgotten the conflict they haranged George W. Bush over for years.

Sauce for Conservative Goose not Sauce for Liberal Gander

2010-02-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

Anyone who lived through it remembers that among the three principal campaign themes of liberal Barack Obama's successful campaign for President was his attack upon the war in Iraq, detainees in Guantanamo, and the Patriot Act.

13 months after Barack Obama was inaugurated, and with his party firmly in control of Congress, here is how things stand:

War in Iraq still in progress, with over 100,000 troops still on the ground.

Guantanamo still open.

Patriot Act renewed under Barack Obama's signature, Feb. 27, 2010.

Boasts Can Take Over One-Sixth of the Economy - Health Care -, But Can't Build a Fence

2010-02-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

The Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats tried, and still hope, to take over the American Health care system; assuring Americans they can make health care more accessible, more efficient, and more affordable in America.

But they can't build a fence:

"An ambitious, $6.7 billion government project to secure nearly the entire Mexican border with a "virtual fence" of cameras, ground sensors and radar is in jeopardy after a string of technical glitches and delays.

"Having spent $672 million so far with little to show for it, Washington has ordered a reassessment of the whole idea. The outlook became gloomier this week when President Barack Obama proposed cutting $189 million from the venture.

"The Bush administration launched the project in 2005...Originally, the virtual fence was supposed to be completed by 2011; that date has slipped to 2014, largely because of technical problems.

"Among other things, the radar system had trouble distinguishing between vegetation and people when it was windy. Also, the satellite communication system took too long to relay information in the field to a command center. By the time an operator moved a camera to take a closer look at a spot, whatever had raised suspicion was gone." [1]

[1] Assembled from Associated Press news story, "Border Fence Plagued by Glitches, Long Delays", 2/3/10, by Jacques Billeaud

Obama's Information Czar Call for Taxing Free Speech - No Joke

2010-01-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

Global Warming Deniers

Cass Sunstein was appointed by President Obama to head up the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an agency within the Executive Office of the President. On page 14 of paper co-authored by Mr. Sunstein he proposes the United States:

Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate (conspiracy) theories

On page 4, Mr. Sunstein lumped objections to global warming with nut-ball theories like:

doctors deliberately manufactured the AIDS virus; that the moon landing was staged and never actually occurred

Of course the irony of President Obama's own information czar decrying lunatics who think doctors invented AIDS is that President Obama willingly attended church for 20 years pastored by a man who preached exactly that.

[1] "Conspiracy Theories", Harvard University Law School, Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper Series; University of Chicago Law School, Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper Series - Paper No. 199~and~University of Chicago Law School, Law & Economics Research Paper Series - Paper No. 387,
CASS R. SUNSTEIN, University of Chicago - Law School

We May All Rue the Day

2009-12-29T18:13:00.000-08:00

When the government representing you does things like win a civil war, or two world wars, it may be to your advantage to possess, store wealth, and trade in your government's currency. As the United States has done all these things it became, up until recently, a matter of unquestioned conventional wisdom for Americans to place their trust in U.S. currency. Likely, if asked, most Americans (up until recently anyway) would urge that it was part of the wisdom of the Founders to establish a national currency, supplanting the sovereignty of the colonies in minting coins. Probably few Americans would believe that, in fact, our Founders were almost certainly adamantly opposed to the idea of the federal government issuing paper money.

One proof of the Founders attitude toward paper money is the historical fact that the monetary system that prevailed in America in the wake of the ratification of the Constitution and up until the Civil War consisted of a potpourri of different types of money. According the Heritage Guide to the Constitution it consisted of:

specie (money backed by gold or silver), coins minted by the government; privately minted coins; certain foreign coins; and paper banknotes issued by state-chartered banks and backed by those institutions...The dominant form of circulating for most of this period was currency issued by state-chartered private banks and redeemable in gold or silver from the banks.[1]

Heritage goes on to point out that:

In general, the federal govenment did not issue fiat money (paper money not backed by specie) prior to the Civil War.[2]

James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" distained paper money for its "pestilent effects" [3].

In fact, Americans got stuck with paper money backed by nothing but the full faith and credit of the United States thanks to a series of Supreme Court decisions known as the Legal Tender Cases.

It ought to be obvious to the reader that when faith in politicians supplants the reality of gold bullion in securing the worth of a currency, then one finds oneself on shakier ground, particularly when one considers what passes for wisdom in Washington D.C. these days.

So, next time you are inclined to bless your lucky stars that you enjoy the legacy of the wisdom of men like America's Founders, recall that it was not the Founders who passed along paper money to you, but black-robed court justices in the late 19th century, justices that probably not better than 1 in 10,000 Americans could hope to name.

Citations
[1] Heritage Guide to the Constitution, p. 115

[2] ibid

[3] ibid p. 114

Police Powers - How Far We Have Strayed

2009-12-05T04:53:00.000-08:00

The Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution:

Congress shall have power To regulate Commerce...among the several States...

How many Americans are aware that in writing for the dissent (they lost by just one vote) in United States v. Lopez (1995) Supreme Court Justice Breyer argued that the federal government, as opposed to state governments, had the authority to regulate possession of a handgun near a public school since any disruption of classes would disrupt the learning process, and ultimately disrupt interstate commerce, since the kids would allegedly not learn the lessons they needed to learn to be productive members of society.

With this example of reasoning emanating from the Left, no American should suffer from any confusion about why we see the national government over-reaching to this day, including buying up auto companies and banks.

Truth is an Inconvenient Taskmaster...Why So Many Forsake It

2009-11-21T06:42:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama was swept into the highest office in the land on the chimera of promised "hope and change' accompanied by a program for economic recovery doomed to failure from the outset. See blog post on this blog titled Stimulus boondoggle, Sunday, February 8, 2009.

Now comes the reality hangover, nine months later:

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- California, Delaware, South Carolina and Florida registered record rates of unemployment in October as weakness in the labor market stretches from coast to coast...

Joblessness rose in 29 U.S. states last month compared with 22 in September, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Michigan had the highest jobless rate at 15.1 percent, followed by Nevada at 13 percent and Rhode Island at 12.9 percent.

The national rate last month reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent..

“We’ve had a surprisingly sharp jump in the jobless rate,” said Richard DeKaser, president of Woodley Park Research in Washington... [1]

[1] "California Was Among States With Record Unemployment", by Courtney Schlisserman, Bloomberg.com

George Washington on Public Debt

2009-11-17T18:44:00.000-08:00

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit...use it as sparingly as possible...avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt..not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. [1]

George Washington's Farewell Address, cited in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, p. 98

Oh, How Far We Have Strayed...

2009-11-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

Most Americans take federal spending on projects in their localities as a matter of course. Signs are popping up everywhere, even adjacent small town roadways, pronouncing that road repairs are being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The village in which I live recently announced it is applying for a $50,000 grant through the U.S. Department of Energy's "Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program", to replace perfectly good 175 watt street lamp bulbs with low wattage, high-efficiency LED bulbs.

Few Americans realize that for most of the first seventy years after our Constitution was adopted, the prevailing view was that the federal government had no authority to spend money on projects not in pursuit of strictly national interests. This view was founded on the then-prevailing understanding of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1; otherwise known as the Spending Clause:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...

Now while it is true that Alexander Hamilton understood the Spending Clause as granting the federal government "plenary, and indefinite" tax and spend powers, others - Madison, Jefferson and Monroe chief among them - disagreed and sought to limit Congress's power to spend "to purposes of common defense, and of general, national, not local, or state, benefit." [1] The restrictive view prevailed and in consequence, as late as 1857, American presidents such as Buchanan could still make the following observation about use of federal monies for local uses:

(it) would be to confer upon Congress a vast and irresponsible authority, utterly at war with the well-known jealousy of Federal power which prevailed at the formation of the Constitution.[2]

It should come as no surprise to most readers to learn that the most significant blow to a restrictive interpretation of the Spending Clause came during the presidency of New Dealer Franklin Delano Roosevelt, specifically through the Supreme Court case United States v. Butler where the Court declared that:

Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate...[3]

Since United States v. Butler the Supreme Court has not once struck down an Act of Congress as beyond the authority granted by the Spending Clause.

[1] President James Monroe, cited in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, p. 93

[2] cited in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, p. 95

[3] United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936), Wikipedia

$160,000 Per Stimulus Job?

2009-10-31T06:19:00.000-07:00

"Posting its results late this afternoon at Recovery.gov, the White House claimed 640,329 jobs have been created or saved because of the $159 billion in stimulus funds allocated as of Sept. 30....Assuming their number is right -- 160 billion divided by 1 million. Does that mean the stimulus costs taxpayers $160,000 per job?" - Jake Tapper, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent

One Simple Solution

2009-10-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Economists are now saying that:

even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years. This could add up to a 'new normal' of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans. [1]

One step that would bring relief to the unemployed almost immediately would be to put real teeth into laws that punish employers for knowingly or negligently (should have known) hiring illegal aliens. Jail sentences and heavy fines - akin to the kind the Environmental Protection Agency dishes out to polluting businesses - would frighten employers into genuine compliance with the law. Furthermore, to insure employers have no excuses, stimulus money could be spent to create a foolproof system for verifying that all job applicants are legal for work in the United States.

While it might border on inhumane to deport illegals who have established some semblance of a life here, it is not inhumane to deprive illegals of a job they are not legally entitled to, especially when American citizens are losing their homes.

[1] "Higher jobless rates could be new normal", Tom Raum, Associated Press (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_on_bi_ge/us_vanishing_jobs_2)

The Political Party for the Roosevelt's "Forgotten Man"?

2009-10-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

"Democratic members of the House of Representatives now represent most of the nation's wealthiest people, a sharp turnaround from the long-standing dominance that Republicans have held over affluent districts...Democrats now represent 57% of the 4.8 million households that had incomes of $200,000 or more in 2008. In 2005, Republicans represented 55% of those affluent households." [1]

[1] "In major flip, House Dems now represent richest regions",Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-10-13-House-wealth-gap-Democrats-richest-districts_N.htm)

Benign Governance?

2009-10-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste... This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before...(including in) energy, health, education, tax policy, regulatory reforms."
- Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama's new chief of staff, to a Wall Street Journal conference of top corporate chief executives [1]

What (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich) Hegel taught that intrigued the powerful then (at the turn of the 20th century) and now was that history could be deliberately managed by skillfully provoking crises out of public view and then demanding national unity to meet those crises - a disciplined unity under the cover of which leadership privileges approach the absolute.[2]

[1] "In Crisis, Opportunity for Obama", Wall Street Journal 11/21/08 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122721278056345271.html)

[2] Weapons of Mass Instruction, John Taylor Gatto, New Society Publishers, 2009, pp. 12-13

"God Curse America, Land that I Love"?

2009-09-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

US May Face 'Armageddon' If China, Japan Don't Buy Debt

Thursday, 24 Sep 2009 | 5:22 PM ET, JeeYeon Park
News Associate, CNBC [1}

If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:

...You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. The LORD will make you the head, not the tail.

...However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

...The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail. [2]

Largest United States debtholders from least to most (numbers in billions):

15.) Luxembourg - $104.2
14.) Commercial banks, savings banks and credit unions - $107.4
13.) Russia - $119.9
12.) Insurance companies - $126.4
11.) Brazil - $139.8
10.) Institutions in the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Panama and the British Virgin Islands - $189.7
9.) The oil exporters: Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria - $191
8.) Britain - $214
7.) Private and local government pension funds - $456.4
6.) US state and local governments - $522.7
5.) Individuals, government-sponsored enterprises, brokers and dealers, bank personal trusts, estates, corporate and non-corporate businesses - $629.7
4.) Japan - $711.8
3.) Communist China - $776.4
2.) Mutual Funds - $769.1
1.) Federal Reserve system of banks and other US intragovernmental holdings - $4.785
[3]

Totals from top fifteen creditors:
U.S. debt in strictly U.S. domestic hands: $5.31 trillion
U.S. debt in mixed U.S. and foreign hands: $2.1 trillion
U.S. debt in foreign hands: $2.5 trillion

John Kenneth Galbraith a Canadian-American economist and a leading proponent of 20th-century liberalism and progressivism; on U.S. debt shortly before his death in 2006:

Can democracy survive when its financial roots have been cut? The American citizenry has lost its pride of place as creditor of the American state. The proportion of U.S. debt owned directly by Americans has fallen to below 10%; in 1945 (when the debt was more than twice as large in relation to GDP as now), citizen-creditors just about held it all.

The scale of public debt is not the issue,” contends Galbraith, “but its ownership is. Can a country -- whether the United States or any other -- be truly democratic if it is in hock to banks and foreigners? [4]

Citations

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/33004753

[2] Verses from Deuteronomy 28

[3] "The Biggest Holders of US Government Debt", CNBC.Com slideshow (http://www.cnbc.com/id/29880401/?slide=1, accessed 9/25/09)

[4] "U.S. Debt In Foreign Hands, Russia to Buy Fannie and Freddie, Financials to Fall Again, and More!", Algora Financial's "Five Minute Forecast" (http://5minforecast.agorafinancial.com/us-debt-in-foreign-hands-russia-to-buy-fannie-and-freddie-financials-to-fall-again-and-more/; accessed 9/25/09)

The Outcome

2009-09-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

The Causes

Self-deluded thinking notwithstanding, one of the two - and there are only two - major causes of the current worst-since-the-Great-Depression recession in America was the energy price spike of 2008. This price spike siphoned off $1 trillion from American pocketbooks and transferred it overseas. This transfer of capital depressed domestic economic activity (always a bad thing), but at a particularly bad time - when Americans were engaging in reckless speculation in residential real estate, enabled by lax regulation. Depressed economic activity ignited a chain reaction of mortgage defaults that led to the financial crisis of late 2008.

Consequently, two pre-recession policies could have forestalled the current recession: First, energetic development of domestic oil resources and refining capacity; Second, aggressive regulation of the sub-prime mortgage market.

The Outcome

Now, every informed American is aware that government, especially government under Obama, is more than willing to address the regulatory oversights in the financial sector. Indeed, history is proof that when times are bad economically, Americans are more than willing to allow leftists to re-characterize Wall Street - which had previously been seen as a source of blessing - as the devil. So, whatever the motives, Americans can rest assured that one of the two causes of this Great Recession - inadequate regulation of the mortgage markets - is being addressed by government.

But what about the price of oil? The oil price spike of 2008 was principally driven by supply and demand considerations. Increasing demand for oil from emerging economic powerhouses like China and India contrasted with the successful demonization of oil-resource development (oil combustion allegedly driving global warming) led market speculators to correctly - though for consumers: regrettably - conclude that oil prices must rise, and high.

While oil prices have come back down, 100 percent of the cause of this drop has been world recession-decline in demand. The fundamentals of supply and demand for oil remain. Expanding world economies require expanding sources of energy. For present, oil is the world's greatest source of energy. More must be found and developed. Is that happening?

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Wednesday voted against an attempt by Republicans to keep in place a plan by the Bush administration to allow oil and gas drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

The 56-42 vote killed a proposal by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., that would have blocked the Obama administration from pursuing its own policy on offshore drilling.

Last year, with gasoline prices soaring, Republicans sought political momentum by advocating new offshore drilling.

"Remember last summer where almost all of America said, 'This is ridiculous, drill here, drill now. Let's use our own resources and not be held captive to foreign interests,'" Vitter said. "Do you remember that?"

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar disappointed pro-drilling advocates last week when he said that he's in no hurry to make a decision on whether to allow offshore drilling in federal waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Salazar said he's uncertain whether the Interior Department will seek to put a new five-year drilling plan in place before the existing leasing program runs out in 2012.

While the Interior Department is considered unlikely to adopt the Bush-era proposal wholesale, which was released on its last working day in office, it remains unclear whether the Obama administration will allow any expansion of Outer Continental Shelf drilling.

The current plan is in place until 2012, so legally the department has until 2012 to redo a plan on the Outer Continental Shelf, Salazar said. [1]

The Implications

Policy decisions like the Senate vote on the Vitter proposal is reminiscent of the near lunacy in governance precipitating the decline of the British Empire. Not only will failure to look for and develop oil ensure crippling energy costs in the future, the transfer of wealth to oil producing nations hostile to democratic values ensures America's adversaries will only grow stronger and bolder. Both domestically and internationally America is slitting her own throat.

Citations

[1] "Senate Blocks Bid to Keep Offshore Drilling Policy: Senate votes against an attempt by Republicans to keep in place a plan by the Bush administration to allow oil and gas drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts", Associated Press, Thursday, September 24, 2009 (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/24/senate-blocks-bid-offshore-drilling-policy/)

Not suppressed truth, but truth worth repeating

2009-08-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

"The public national debt, made up of amounts the government owes to the public, including foreign governments, stood Tuesday at a staggering $7.4 trillion. White House budget officials predicted it would reach $17.5 trillion in 2019, or 76.5 percent of the gross domestic product. That would be the highest proportion in six decades."

- Huffpost - "Unemployment, Deficits To Be Far Worse Than Stated: White House", JIM KUHNHENN | 08/25/09 11:22 PM

Only rock-throwing radicals "represent" America

2009-08-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

"...they're not really representative of America" - Senator Arlan Specter, Democrat, on citizens - many of them elderly - at town hall meetings protesting President Barack Obama's proposed health care-system overhaul, August 2009. [1]

Judy Woodruff, Chief Washington Correspondent for "The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour," interviewing Mrs. Dan Quayle, wife of Vice-President of the United States during the latter's bid for a second term as Vice-President in the early 1990's-

Quayle: (speaking of 1960's radical Abbie Hoffman) "I don't think he is representative of the 1960's youth."

Woodruff: (disquieted) "What are you saying?"

Quayle: "That he (Hoffman) wasn't representative of youth in that era."

Woodruff: (insistently disquieted) "What are saying?"

Quayle: "Simply that no one man represents an entire generation."

[1] "Specter: Protesters Don't Represent America", By John Amick, Washiington Post, (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/08/specter_protesters_dont_repres.html)

True progressivism lost?

2009-08-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Raymond Moley, closer advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a chief architect of the New Deal, said this about progressivism:

The great surge toward orderly and progressive economic reforms that gained impetus during the sixty years following the (Civil War) has had few parallels in modern times...It was Roosevelt's special fortune that he became President when, in economic calamity, progresssivism at last won the adherence of of majority of our people....But (under Roosevelt) perhaps the most serious injury that has been done to the cause of orderly progress has been the impairment of the nation's unity by the repeated suggestion that benefits can come to one group only at the expense of others. Progressivism depends upon cooperation, not upon conflict. It looks to the creation of an an increasingly large number of shared values, not to the establishment of "an economy of maintenance" which can do no more than redistribute wealth that already exists.

Even a conservative can warm - if only slightly - to Moley's definition of progressivism before FDR corrupted it.

Moley's insight on the damage FDR did to America's unity, not only exposes what is wrong with progressivism today, but it exposes the fundamental flaw in modern progressive thought. The typical modern progressive, usually godless, has never had an encounter with, and lacks a comprehension of, the Man who fed thousands with a few fishes and loaves of bread. The one true God is a God of multiplication, not addition and subtraction. He did not err when He commanded mankind, in the Garden of Eden, to "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth...".

The modern progressive is a worrywart, a handwringer, constantly fretting about what in the world we are running out of; including now, cool air. His view of the earth's resources is limited because his view of his own existence is limited. The grave is his destination, and so he frets, also, over his health. He has no concept of - or if he does have a concept he snorts in derision at - our God who in infinite and for whom the entire universe is too small an abode.

Moley writes as if true progressivism was hijacked. He was wrong. Progressivism progressed to its natural resting place - within the embrace of those whose vision is stunted, for whom mankind is akin to a large species of locust devouring the earth's limited resources. It is ironic that a philosophy of "progress" should be embraced by those who see nothing but limited vistas and finite resources. So too, it is logical the homosexuality should be embraced by progressives; an activity involving a preoccupation with rear ends - and no procreation - by those who see nothing but dead ends.

Wisdom to live by

2009-08-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

The Suppressed Truth family of blogs, as clearly explained, is about exposing truth.

No doubt, many take exception to the allegation that their government, their representative in Congress, or their political icon, past or present, does not, or did not, speak the truth. Raymond Moley, close advisor to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a chief architect of the New Deal, was more pragmatic. The author of many of Roosevelt's most important speeches, and personal witness to and counselor on, many of Roosevelt's most important decisions Moley could, after all, say this about truth in politics and government:

Essentially the politician is dealing with illusions and images...It is the art of the politician to create imagery. He is concerned so much of the time with the effect of his words upon his hearers that he tends to forget their exact meaning. Words are for him the brush of the artist, the chisel of the sculptor, not the sensitive film of the photographer. And because he must reckon less with what is true than what people will believe is true, his mind comes to impose upon itself an interpretation of the facts favorable to his purposes. [1]

Now, while in the fight for power in politics the progressive has certain advantages, probably more advantages, over the conservative, he - the progressive - is vulnerable in one key respect: The progressive having less faith in God, and more faith in what man can accomplish, is more prone to actually believe what his progressive political representative is telling him. This is sad. While it is true that the conservative endures a more painful life, for truth is a double-edged sword, he lives a more grounded life, one less susceptible to painful disappointments; for if he - the conservative - allows his political spokesman to allure him with fairy tales, he never entirely loses touch with the reality that he is merely dreaming, and has not passed into a new reality.

[1] After Seven Year, Raymond Moley, p. 394

Deficit Spending - Policy of Angels or Demons?

2009-08-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

The notion that when faced with a national emergency and minimal cash-on-hand a nation, our nation, has a moral obligation to borrow and spend to address that emergency is now little questioned in America, and even much of the world. Probably no elected official who serves in national government in America could remain there long if he was not willing to vote yes on deficit spending in emergencies, including economic recessions.

So deeply held is this conviction about the need to resort to deficit spending, especially among liberals, that it begins to seem that deficit spending in emergencies is the natural, inevitable, fruit of the eternal verities. Many would probably argue that it is nothing less than consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Consequently, it would probably surprise some Americans to know that prior to Herbert Hoover, no American president saw the need to intervene on behalf of the jobless during economic busts. [1] It would probably surprise even more Americans to know that Franklin Delano Roosevelt made, in his first campaign for President, excoriating Hoover's unprecedented Depression-fighting deficit spending a major theme -

...(the $1 billion increase in federal expenses during the four years of the Hoover administration) is the most reckless and extravagant past that I have been able to discover in the statistical record of any peacetime Government anywhere, any time. [2]

Moreover, it might come as shock to many Americans that Roosevelt, while President, was brought around to deficit spending on public works very reluctantly, though relatively soon, but for direct relief payments to the destitute only after five years as President. [3]

It would seem then, that deficit spending, rather than the natural reaction of the compassionate man, is a relatively recent phenomena in American history. Scrutinized more carefully we find that Christ did counsel one man to sell everything he had and give to poor, but we find no instance of Christ counseling anyone to indebt himself to relieve another. In fact, the apostle Paul wrote to friends:

"Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed..." [4]

What is more, Solomon wrote that to indebt oneself for another was exceedingly unwise:

"My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor,
if you have struck hands in pledge for another,
if you have been trapped by what you said,
ensnared by the words of your mouth,

then do this, my son, to free yourself,
since you have fallen into your neighbor's hands:
Go and humble yourself;
press your plea with your neighbor!

Allow no sleep to your eyes,
no slumber to your eyelids.

Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the snare of the fowler." [5]

Time will tell if Barak Obama's pledging the American taxpayer to the tune of $23 trillion [6] will prove to be the policy of angels or demons.

Citations
[1] Historical assessment by Herbert Hoover in his memoirs as quoted in audio download version of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, Robert P. Murphy; Regnery Publishing, 2009 (44th minute)

[2] FDR quoted in New Deal or Raw Deal?, Burton W. Folsom, Jr., Threshold Editions, New York, 2008, pgs. 213-214

[3] After Seven Years, Raymond Moley, pp. 173,375

[4] 2 Corinthians 8:13

[5] Proverbs 6:1-5

[6] "Bailouts could cost U.S. $23 trillion", By Eamon Javers, 7/20/09 3:19 PM EDT; Politico (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25164.html; accessed 7/21/09)

Statism; fascism; Barak Obama and F.D.R.

2009-08-06T14:06:00.000-07:00

It has been pointed out on this and other Suppressed Truth blogs that fascism was well-regarded in America during the first half of the 1930's - Roosevelt hosted Mussolini's closest advisor to private tea during her whirlwind tour of America -, and fascism only fell out of favor after Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, and after the movement became associated with anti-Semitism. It has also been pointed out on these blogs that it is remarkable that the New Left in America love to label their enemies to the right as "fascists", - remarkable since it was the Old Left had that embraced it.

Now fascism and statism are closely related.

Statism is defined as:

A political viewpoint "that sovereignty is vested not in the people but in the national state, and that all individuals and associations exist only to enhance the power, the prestige, and the well-being of the state. [1]

Moreover statists envision:

A major government or state role in the direction of the economy, both directly through state-owned enterprises and indirectly through the state-directed economic planning of the overall economy. [2][3]

The fascist of statism goes just a bit further in that it:

...repudiates individualism and exalts the nation as an organic body headed by the Supreme Leader and nurtured by unity, force, and discipline. [4]

Now, Raymond Moley, founder of the Roosevelt's "Brain Trust", and perhaps the man most responsible for fashioning the so-called New Deal, years after he defected from the Roosevelt administration still had this to say about a F.D.R. and a managed economy:

"In several of his campaign speeches F.D.R. had touched upon the idea of substituting, for the futile attempt to control the abuses of anarchic private economic power by smashing it to bits, a policy of cooperative business-government planning to combat instability of economic operations and the insecurity of livelihood. The belief...that it was the duty of government to devise, with business the means of social and individual adjustment to the facts of the industrial age - these were the heart and soul of the New Deal. Its fundamental purpose was an effort to modify the characteristics of a chaotic competitive system...If ever a man seemed to embrace this philosophy wholeheartedly, that man was Franklin Roosevelt" (emphases mine)

Note first, the belief that private economic power equates to anarchy. I think most Americans would agree that when they have more private econmic power, their own lives because less chaotic, not more so. F.D.R. never relinquished the private wealth that gave him that "power" and he aided and abetted his own children in multiple get-rich-quick schemes (see blog, F.D.R. - The Man and the Myths).

Note secondly, the call for "cooperative business-goverment planning". Mussolini facism pioneered this cooperation and then called it "corporatives". Hitler described this idea - "corporatives" - in his book Mein Kampf as a concept that would eventually "take the place of ruinous class warfare".[5}

So, it is clear that Franklin Delano Roosvelt was a statist, and very close to being a facist, and it doesn't take much power of observation to see the close similarity between F.D.R. and his policies and leadership style, and Barak Obama and his.

Citations [1] - [4] from, "Statism", Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statism; accessed 8/6/09)
[1] "statism" Political Science Dictionary. Editor Jack C. Plano. Dryden Press, 1973
[2] "statism" Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy. Taylor & Francis, 2001. p. 1475
[3] "statism". Merriam-Webster.
[4] ibid [1]

[5] The Fascism Reader, Aristotle A. Kallis (cited in "Fascism", Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-136; accessed 8/6/09)

Perfect Storm of Economic Disaster Brewing

2009-08-04T16:17:00.000-07:00

A perfect storm of economic disaster is brewing. Consider these ingredients:

First,

Despite President Obama's prediction that it will create new jobs, the global warming bill passed by the House of Representatives will mean fewer jobs by 2030 than if Congress did not act at all, according to the first comprehensive study of the measure by the federal government - Washington Times, 8/4/09

Second,

The recession is starving the government of tax revenue, just as the president and Congress are piling a major expansion of health care and other programs on the nation's plate and struggling to find money to pay the tab.

The numbers could hardly be more stark: Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion.

Other figures in an Associated Press analysis underscore the recession's impact: Individual income tax receipts are down 22 percent from a year ago. Corporate income taxes are down 57 percent. Social Security tax receipts could drop for only the second time since 1940, and Medicare taxes are on pace to drop for only the third time ever.

The last time the government's revenues were this bleak, the year was 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression - Associated Press, 8/3/09

Third,

"The world economy cannot sustain any further rise in the oil price, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist warned as oil prices rose toward a record high for the year.

Fatih Birol told the Financial Times that prices higher than about $70 could dampen a world economic recovery....

The real problem, he said, was declining investment in oil production, which if anything had worsened in recent months.

'If there is a continuation of declining investment in the upstream sector, in a few years’ time we may have major difficulties.'" - The Financial Times Limited, 8/3/09

Fourth,

A series of bailouts, bank rescues and other economic lifelines could end up costing the federal government as much as $23 trillion, the U.S. government’s watchdog over the effort says – a staggering amount that is nearly double the nation’s entire economic output for a year. - Politco 7/20/09

Fifth,

Taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt and other government promises, a USA TODAY analysis shows...The latest increase raises federal obligations to a record $546,668 per household in 2008...That's quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt combined. - USA Today, 5/30/09 [1]

The Democrats in Washington, and nationwide for that matter, are cooking up a recipe, which if not halted is going to result in an economic cataclysm such as the world has never seen.

[1] Author's note - The number $546,668 is for federal obligations only, and does not include obligations taxpayers have to state and local governments, including unfunded health care liabilities for state and municipal workers, which may amount to an additional $1 trillion or more.

Declining investment in oil production

2009-08-04T03:26:00.000-07:00

Global economy at risk from oil price rise

By Kate Mackenzie The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: August 3 2009 17:35 | Last updated: August 3 2009 19:33

"The world economy cannot sustain any further rise in the oil price, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist warned as oil prices rose toward a record high for the year.

Fatih Birol told the Financial Times that prices higher than about $70 could dampen a world economic recovery....

Mr Birol said poorer countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa would be particularly hurt by higher energy prices. 'They will go through a . . . vicious circle of debt as they did a few years ago in order to finance their oil imports,' he said....

The real problem, he said, was declining investment in oil production, which if anything had worsened in recent months.

'If there is a continuation of declining investment in the upstream sector, in a few years’ time we may have major difficulties.'"

The Financial Times Limited 2009

What Caused This Terrible Recession?

2009-08-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

"The first 12 months of the U.S. recession saw the economy shrink more than twice as much as previously estimated, reflecting even bigger declines in consumer spending and housing, revised figures showed.

The world’s largest economy contracted 1.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the last three months of 2008, compared with the 0.8 percent drop previously on the books, the Commerce Department said yesterday in Washington. Gross domestic product has shrunk 3.9 percent in the past year, the report said, indicating the worst slump since the Great Depression." - Bloomberg.com, by Bob Willis (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNivTjr852TI; accessed 8/01/09)

The above is just more evidence to remind the reader that the financial meltdown on Wall Street (leading to the bailouts) in the late fall of '09 did not cause the current recession. The key factors were:

1.) Record high, critically high, oil prices

2.) Clamping down on credit by the federal reserve to dampen rampant speculation in residential real estate.

Under the Democrats, essentially noting has been done about cause number one, which means high energy costs may keep killing economic rebounds indefinitely unless more is done to search for, and develop, fossil fuel resources, and to develop nuclear power.

Fall-back argument falling away

2009-07-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

Point out to almost any leftist that the most prominent examples of state run economies - the old Soviet Union, pre-Thatcher Great Britian - are testimonies to the failure of socialism as a political experiment and they will quickly point to Sweden as the true example the world ought to really follow. Well, now we have this news from Sweden:

Sweden's Public Downsizing
Forbes.com, Anita Raghavan, 08.03.09, 12:00 AM ET

Think the answer to America's problems is bigger government? Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg has seen the result up close and says it's not pretty for the economy or investors.

Anders Borg has a message for those who look to government to take over health care, rescue the financial system and run troubled corporations: I have seen the future--and it doesn't work.

As the finance minister of Sweden, Borg is the chief financial officer of a country long known as a walking billboard for a social welfare state. In Borg's view, the 1970s and 1980s were lost decades for Sweden. Left-leaning politicians pushed government spending, excluding investment outlays, from 22% of gross domestic product in 1970 to 30% in 1980. Real growth fell from an average of 4.4% annually in the 1960s to 2.4% in the 1970s and remained low for the next two decades.

"Like many societies, we went too far in our welfare-state ambitions," say Borg (pronounced "Bor-ee").

These days President Obama is overseeing the largest increase in the U.S. government's share of the economy since it was conducting a world war almost seven decades ago. Economic stimulus, bailouts and expanded health care will all have to be paid for someday with either taxes or inflation. Borg is pushing Sweden in the opposite direction, encouraging the legislature to cut taxes, cap spending and privatize parts of health care...

Borg was born into a family of Social Democrats. He became disenchanted after concluding the indulgent government was turning Sweden into a "boring, stagnant society." Borg's idols were free marketeers Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

After studying political science, economic history and philosophy at Uppsala University, Borg worked for four years as a political advisor to then prime minister Carl Bildt. Following Sweden's 1990s financial crisis, when it bailed out its own banks, he became a securities analyst. The first thing he noticed was how little faith investors had in Sweden because of the size of its government sector. He came away a firm believer in free markets and sound government finances. [1]

[1] http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0803/international-invest-guide-obama-sweden-public-downsizing_print.html (accessed 7/28/09)

Barak Obama, F.D.R. and Kooky Bureaucrats with Awesome Power

2009-07-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

Shared Leadership Characteristics - A Propensity for Nominating Nutballs

Barak Obama's nomination of Harvard professor Cass Sunstein for "Regulatory Czar" (Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Budget and Management), is one more evidence of President Obama's little noticed eerie emulation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt approach to administering the executive branch.

Roosevelt's Kooks (Just a Sampling)

Few Americans are aware of the many crack-pots that Roosevelt was pleased to offer power during his administration. Perhaps most dangerous of all F.D.R.'s selection was Henry A. Wallace for our 33rd Vice President. [1] The whole truth about Wallace was never really made plain to the American people because as Republican opponents were about to spill the beans on Wallace, the Democrats counter-threatened to expose the extra-marital affair of the Republican presidential nominee. This counter-threat kept the lid on about Wallace. Wallace was a religious seeker, spending most of his early life exploring other religious faiths and traditions. He eventually seemed to find what he was looking for in the person of Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh, otherwise known as Nicholas Roerich, a Russian painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, and traveler. During the 1939 presidential campaign a series of letters that Wallace had written in the 1930s to Nicholas Roerich was uncovered by the Republicans. Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru" and signed all of the letters as "G" for Galahad, the name Roerich had assigned him. Wallace assured Roerich that he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla" - a Buddhist term roughly equivalent to the kingdom of heaven — would create an era of peace and plenty. Wallace dismissed the letters as forgeries, but could not dismiss the plain evidence of a long infatuation with Roerich dating back to the 1920's. With the nod from Roosevelt, Wallace lobbied Congress to support Roerich's Banner and Pact of Peace which was signed in Washington, D.C. by delegates from 22 Latin American countries in 1935.

Whatever one may think of Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh it is unlikely the American people would have taken kindly to having as their president (F.D.R. was in declining health in 1939) a man who called Rerikh "Guru", and who was looking forward to "Northern Shambhalla". [2]

Now Wallace, once seated as President of the Senate and Vice-President of the United States was also named chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare. This board was charged with the awesome responsibility of ensuring wartime America got its share of the world's resources needed to produce victory while at the same time denying our enemies their share. Wallace named a Milo Perkins as Executive Director of this new Board. Wallace seemed to find Perkins resume sufficient to hand him awesome power. Milo, a vegetarian, teetotaler, and hater of tobacco, didn't bother with college and went on to make a tidy sum for himself selling burlap bags.

Of course the Board of Economic Warfare had to have an economist on staff so Wallace and Perkins chose foreign born Maurice Parmalee, author of several books including Farewell to Poverty and Bolshevism, Fascism and the Liberal Democratic State. In the latter book Dr. Parmalee renders it feasible to introduce a planned social economy in the United States much more rapidly than had been done in the Soviet Union. Dr. Parmalee wrote,

The superficial paraphernalia of capitalism can be dispensed with more quickly than in the Soviet Union.

Parmalee also wrote a book called Nudism in Modern Life. In the book the doctor revealed his interest in a science called Gymnosophy, a cult of ancient Hindu hermit philosophers who went around with little or no clothing. Dr. Parmalee urged widespread nudism,

wherever feasible in office, workshop or factory...Convent and monastery, harem and military barrack, clubs and schools exclusively for each sex will disappear and the sexes will live a more normal and happier life.

Dr. Parmalee felt that,

these gymnosophist nudist colonies furnish excellent opportunities for experiments along socialist lines ... Customary nudity is impossible under existing undemocratic, social and economic and political organization.

Parmalee was eventually sent packing and a new chief economist and another nudist, Dr. John Bovingdon, was brought in. Chief among his resume highlights was a job he had held in communist Russia as journalist.

In time The Democratically controlled Un?American Activities Committee gave Wallace a list of 35 Communists in the Board of Economic Warfare. [3]

Obama's Picks

In Barak Obama's choice for Regulatory Czar, citing just one example, one see shades of F.D.R.'s propenisty for kooks. Cass Sunstein "wants to establish legal 'rights' for livestock, wildlife and pets, which would enable animals to file lawsuits in American courts."

On the less kooky side, but on the "pitch the Constitution and free speech" side Sunstein has also written a book, "On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done." It has been suggested Sunstein threatens to tweak libel laws for the Internet and make online writers, particularly bloggers, legally responsible for falsehoods and rumors that get generated in cyberspace. Sunstein calls for a 'notice and take down' law that would require bloggers and service providers to 'take down falsehoods upon notice,' even those made by commenters. [4]

As another example, Barak Obama nominated, and got appointed on March 19, 2009 - with little fanfare - John Holdren as "Science Csar". Now Holdren has degrees from MIT and Stanford and headed a science policy program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government for the past 13 years. He also co-authored a 1977 book, “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment,” Holdren called for a “Planetary Regime” to enforce mandatory abortions for population control and limit the use of natural resources. Holdren wrote:

There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated. It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society....The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits...(and)sterilizing women after their second or third child...(and a) long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin (at puberty and then) might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births....Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?

How We Got to This Place

Few Americans seem to realize our Constitution invested in Congress exclusive authority to appropriate funds and enact laws. F.D.R. overturned all this with his invention of bureaus and agencies with the power to spend money and implement regulations which act upon Americans like laws, with much less, or even no, accountability to Congress.

Presidents like Obama relish the chance to name Czars with awesome power never envisioned by our Founding Fathers. It is this author's opinion that the reason Roosevelt did and Obama does, nominate kooks, is that kooks are far less likely to resist orders from on high that push the envelope of progressivism. Few ideas seem extreme to a kook.

Citations

[1] Of course Wallace was nominated at the 1939 Democratic National Convention, at which F.D.R. was not present, but Wallace was definitely F.D.R.'s (and Elenor's) pick.

[2] Henry A. Wallace, Wikipedia (accessed 7/22/09)

[3] Board of Economic Warfare, Conservapedia, (accessed 7/22/09)

[4] "Obama Regulatory Czar's Confirmation Held Up by Hunting Rights Proponent", By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, FOXNews.com, July 22, 2009

If the church spent $1,000,000 per day since the crucifixtion of Christ

2009-07-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

The Crushing Burden Suspended Over Our Heads

To put in perspective how much money Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats have put the American people on the hook for in "bailing out" the economy (and shoring up the Democratic Party), consider - if the church Christ established during His first advent, spent, worldwide, $1,000,000 a day until the date of this blog posting, the amount would not even amount to $1 trillion dollars.

Mr. Obama has committed the American people alone (no help from the rest of the world) to $23 trillion in bailout funding. [1]

Another way to measure the enormity of Obama's bailout is to consider that World War II cost $4.1 trillion in 2008 dollars.

Can Barak Obama and the Democratic Party be Held Soley Responsible

The crisis precipitating the "bailouts" began in the weeks just preceding the November 2008 presidential election which brought Barak Obama to power. Prior to the election Obama issued no statement in opposition to any of the steps the Bush administration was taking to deal with the crisis. After he became President Elect, Obama was fully consulted on all ongoing measures employed by the Bush administration, and was reserved full discretion by the Bush administration on how one-half of the $737 stimulus package was to be spent. Finally, on July 14, 2009 Barack Obama freely accepted full responsibility for the economy and all measures the United States government is taking to rescue and improve it -

"I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, ‘Well, this is Obama’s economy,’ ” the president said before an overwhelmingly supportive outdoor crowd at Macomb Community College. “That’s fine — give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe." [3]

[1]"Bailouts could cost U.S. $23 trillion", By Eamon Javers, 7/20/09 3:19 PM EDT; Politico (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25164.html; accessed 7/21/09)

[2] Ibid [1]

[3] "Obama Attacks on Economy and Seeks Billions for Community Colleges", By JIM RUTENBERG Published: July 14, 2009; The New York Times

Herbert Hoover: The Historian & Prophet

2009-07-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

Excerpts of Herbert Hoover's address to the Republican National Convention in 1939, referring to Europe in the years immediately preceeding and following World War I:

"In every single case before the rise of totalitarian governments there had been a period dominated by economic planners. Each of these nations had an era under a starry-eyed man who believed that they could plan and force the economic life of the people. They believed that was the way to correct abuse or to meet emergencies in a system of free enterprise. They exalted the State as the solvent of all economic problems.

"These men thought they were liberals. But they also thought they could have economic dictatorship by bureaucracy and at the same time preserve free speech, orderly justice and free government. They might be called totalitarian liberals. They were the spiritual fathers of the New Deal.

"These men are not Communists or Fascists. But they mixed these ideas into free systems...These men shifted the relation of government to free enterprise from that of umpire to controller. Directly or indirectly they politically controlled credit, prices, production of industry, farmer and laborer...They controlled private business by government competition, by regulation and by taxes. They met every failure with demands for more and more power and control...Then came chronic unemployment and frantic government spending in an effort to support the unemployed. Government debts mounted and finally government credit was undermined. Out of the miseries of their people there grew pressure groups - business, labor, farmers demanding relief or special privilege. Class hate poisoned cooperation."

Hoover was describing precisely what is happening in America today under the leadership of President Barak Obama and the Democratic Party that controls both houses of Congress.

Conspicuous Consumption & The Democrats or, Intelligence and Foolishiness

2009-07-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

Jungle Behavior

Many readers will be surprised to know that an entire school of economics is devoted to the idea that man, as a product of millions of years of evolution, displays in the management of his personal finances, not rational behavior springing from needs and wants, but irrational behavior - chasing after social status without much regard to his own happiness. This irrational behavior is driven by the primitive jungle instincts: emulation, predation. Other terms for this belief system about man and his use of money are: "conspicuous consumption" (lavish spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth), and "keeping up with the Joneses".

Early mentors of this school of economics - called "Institutional Economics" - were Thorstein Veblen and John R. Commons, and one key figure who carried the torch for this faith was John Kenneth Galbraith a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism and progressivism and participant in the Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations.

Robin Hood Lives

It should easy for most readers to connect the dots between American politicians subscribing, or sympathetic, to the "conspicuous consumption" theory of economics and their policies which tend to seek to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Such politicians, from Lenin to Mao Tse-tung to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Barak Obama found or find an audience every time they point to the lavish excess that many of the wealthy enjoy and contrast it to the squalor in which the poor live.

Robin Hood - A Saint or a Crook?

At first blush it might seem obvious that the rich indulge themselves beyond their needs, and such wealth out to be spread around a little. However, another school of thought in economics - the neoclassical school - argues that man is an efficient spender, that most of his expenditures make sense in satisfying a genuine need or want, and that the satisfying of those needs and wants creates jobs and wealth for everyone. According to this view, while no one needs a yacht, the purchase of one creates enormous economic activity.

Pioneers Overlook Signs of Earlier Inhabitation

It should surprise no one that pioneers of the jungle school of economics were more influenced by Darwin than the Bible. Thorstein Veblen, for example, was "agnostic and viewed church a waste of building space, and the clergy a group paid to do nothing useful." [1]

Too bad Veblen or Galbraith or F.D.R. or J.F.K. or Obama didn't/don't bother to read (or at least, believe) the Bible, for in it they would discover that thousands of years before Darwin or the theory of evolution, arguably the wisest man who ever lived, and certainly one who believed in the God of Bible, proclaimed that man, a creation of God, owing to ordinary sinfulness was disposed towards conspicuous consumption -

And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor - Solomon, King of Israel (960 to 922 B.C.) [1]

Is a Peacock Morally Repugnant?

Perhaps few creatures typify the behavior which institutional economists and subscribing American presidents attribute to man than the Peacock. Many other animals manage to effect procreation without the overweening display employed by the Peacock. And yet, this author is not aware that anyone has ever tried to make the case that Peacocks should amend their ways. All people of sense understand that Peacocks are merely doing what comes natural to them. So, how can institutional economists, or Barak Obama [3], make the case that man, who is merely acting upon the instincts he has evolved over millions of years, should amend his ways? What moral code, except the moral code of the jungle, can they point to that man should subscribe to? Solomon, on the other hand, was consistent - in his life and writings he acknowledged a heavenly Creator, and Solomon deplored certain aspects of man's behavior by comparing it to the standards that the Creator had established.

Citations

[1] Thorstein Veblen, Wikipedia (accessed 7/15/09)

[2] Ecclesiastes 4:4; see also Ecclesiastes 5:10,11

[3] During a campaign event in Oregon in May (2008), Obama said we have to "lead by example." "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times," he said. "That's not leadership. That's not going to happen." Source: FOXNews.com, Tuesday, February 03, 2009 (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/03/obama-getting-heat-for-turning-up-thermostat/; accessed 7/15/09)

Of reactionaries and progressives

2009-06-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

For the uninitiated, "reactionary" is a label for a person otherwise described as a conservative; a right-winger, and in America - a Republican. A progressive is otherwise known as a liberal; a left-winger, and in America - a Democrat.

The word reactionary derives from "reaction" and the supposed tendency in conservatives to "react" with hostility to proposals for change in culture, or more particularly, in government. The word progressive derives from the word "progress" and the fondness liberals have for change in just about everything, especially culture and government.

From whence do these divergent tendencies - progressive versus reactionary - arise? In my case - a conservative -, while I was raised in conservative West Michigan to Republican parents, I am not aware that anybody ever made an effort to teach me to resent change. On the contrary, my high school civics teacher - a Mr. Ryan - bent over backwards to teach me and the rest of his students to embrace labor rights and other New Deal ideals (brainwashing is not too strong a term to describe his methods). There is also the fact that two of my three siblings thoroughly embraced progressivism and the third as well, to a greater or lesser extent. They grew up in the same community, had many of the same teachers, so why the difference?

I submit for the reader that the reason for the difference springs from a worldview which either embraces God as the creator, and the world a temporary abiding place, or which minimizes God's role in the world, and as creator, and therefore elevates human potential as a remedy for man's problems, and views earth as an enduring home that must be preserved for almost limitless future generations.

Now, if it is said of me that I have an inborn - more at: God-given - tendency to "react" with hostility to liberal notions of "progress", than I wear that label with pride. Let it be said of me - nay, let it be engraved on my tombstone - that in culture and government I embraced the belief that I am God's creature, placed on this terrestial sphere for a little while, and more concerned that I not use up the natural resources entrusted to me, God was concerned that I develop character, and treat my fellow man as I would have wanted to be treated.

Let it also be said of me, that as I walked in obedience, that God was my supply and provision, and that I did not "fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday." If there were enough room on my headstone, perhaps this could be added - that I sought to be a wise steward of the earth's resources, not husband them for an eternity that will never be. That I did not seek by cleverness to provide security for myself or my fellow man at the expense of someone else. That I repudiated the notion I am entitled to equality of outcome with my fellow man, but embraced the notion of equality of opportunity, before God and country.

It is supposed to be a source of shame that in governing, Republicans have less policy prescriptions, and would even "turn back the clock" on so-called progess that has been made. It is not a source of shame - rather it should be a source of shame that persons who can reasonably be expected to take care of their own needs leech off others. If one defense can be made for those who leech, it is possibly that he is sometimes, or often, denied the abundant resources that God has supplied mankind for "subduing" the earth. Progessives seal off those resources, storing them up for generations that will never be born. The real purveyors of hope are not "audacious" politicians, but those with an abidiing trust in God and His plan for earth and mankind.

The Decline and Fall of Relativism and, Is There Still a War in Iraq?

2009-06-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

Has anyone noticed, now that Barack Obama is president, and the liberals are firmly in power in Congress, that there has been less carping everywhere about relativism (the notion that there is no absolute truth?) Could this be so because those who control the media and educational institutions (and hence the flow of information) don't want the public now, under this regime, to question the absolute truth of the efficacy of liberal policy prescriptions?

Furthermore, has anyone noticed that the incessant drumbeat in opposition to the war, prosecuted by Bush, in Iraq has quieted substantially. While I don't watch television news I do read the headlines in newsprint and electronic media and perishingly few make any mention of goings-on in our war in Iraq. This compared to an avalanche of daily news right up until the day Bush left office. Could this be because actually resolving the problems in Iraq and getting our troops out very quickly (Obama's chief campaign promise) made for good campaign posturing, but actually doing something about it would not only prove very difficult, but might damage Mr. Obama's, and the liberal's, current good will among the electorate?

Similarly, does anyone recall how the homelessness epidemic that sprang up quickly under Ronald Reagan miraculously disappeared in the twinkling of an eye, under Bill Clinton?

For the record

2009-06-13T05:45:00.000-07:00

When the second most powerful person in the United States government portrays seeking more of the kinds of energy - gasoline and natural gas - that most Americans use to fuel their homes and cars, and that provides perhaps the only viable alternative to coal in generating America's substantial electricity needs - nuclear -, as "tired policies", and the political opposition warns about the consequences of such characterizations, the American people cannot say they were not warned. For the record, this is what Republican Congressman Mike Spence had to say, and here is House Speaker Pelosi's response -

WASHINGTON – Republicans on Saturday slammed a Democratic bill before the House that seeks to address climate change, arguing that it amounts to an energy tax on consumers.

In the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address, Rep. Mike Pence said Congress should instead open the way for more domestic oil and natural gas production and ease regulatory barriers for building new nuclear power plants.

"During these difficult times, the American people don't want a national energy tax out of Washington, D.C.," the Indiana Republican said.

Pence reiterated what GOP lawmakers have been saying for weeks: that the climate bill being considered in the House capping releases of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would lead to much higher energy costs and accomplish little to counter global warming if other nations do not act as well. The bill's supporters counter that the increased costs can be minimized.

Pence outlined the alternative proposal that he and several other House Republicans unveiled earlier this week. The GOP plan included no mandatory limits on greenhouse gases — something that supporters of the Democratic bill argue is essential to reduce the risks of global warming.

Still, Pence maintains the GOP plan will promote nonfossil energy use.

"The Republican energy plan calls for more domestic exploration for oil and natural gas, renewed commitment to clean emission-free nuclear energy, investments in renewable and alternative energy technologies and incentives to spur greater conservation among individuals and businesses," he said.

The GOP plan calls for using revenue from more oil and gas drilling to promote renewable energy such as wind and solar; it also makes it easier to get approval to build more nuclear power plants. The proposal also sets a goal of doubling the number of nuclear reactors over the next 20 years.

When Pence introduced the GOP measure [1], the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called it "the same tired policies embraced" for years by former President George W. Bush "at a time when Americans are seeking new solutions to rebuild our economy and break our dependence on foreign energy sources."

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press Writer – June 13, 2009

[1] Text of Pence introducing measure in Congress-

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the American Energy Solutions Group (AESG), today unveiled a comprehensive energy solutions plan, the "American Energy Act:"

"Back in Indiana gas prices continue their steady rise and utility rates are going up. During these difficult economic times, higher energy prices are the last thing struggling families need - yet that is precisely what the national energy tax bill moving through Congress would force on every working family, small business and family farm. Some estimates suggest millions of jobs would be lost as manufacturers ship their plants to countries with less stringent regulations, hurting not just Hoosier workers, but the environment as well.

"It is clear that for the sake of our environment and our economic security, we need a better plan than a national energy tax. That is why I am proud to introduce the work of the American Energy Solutions Group, the ‘American Energy Act,' which offers more affordable energy, more jobs here at home, and a cleaner environment. This plan will increase our energy supply through an ‘all of the above' energy policy, instead of trying to depress demand through government control.

"The American Energy Act is centered on domestic exploration of our natural resources, and a renewed commitment to safe and emissions-free nuclear energy. According to the Department of Energy, the safest and most efficient way for utility companies to control carbon emissions is to increase their supply of nuclear energy. We lay down a national goal of licensing 100 new nuclear reactors over the next twenty years by streamlining a burdensome regulatory process and ensuring the recycling and safe storage of spent nuclear fuel. We also increase domestic supply by lifting restrictions on the Arctic Coastal Plain, the Outer Continental Shelf, and oil shale in the Mountain West. Revenues generated through domestic exploration will support innovation in renewable and alternative energy sources, like wind and solar technologies.

"This comprehensive energy solution creates jobs, makes energy more affordable, and helps clean up the environment. But the greatest strength of this solution is that it calls forth not only the natural resources of this great land, but it taps into the unlimited resource of American ingenuity."

"Distinguished for character more than heroic achievements"

2009-06-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is a quote by 1928 Irish-American Democratic candidate for the President of the United States, Al Smith, regarding outgoing Republican president Calvin Coolidge.

That quote explains why Coolidge is reviled in the today's popular imagination, and dismissed as a cipher by most presidential historians - these days "that which is vile that is honored among men."[1] We prefer instead the demagogue, and not only that but the immoral demagogue.

[1] Pslam 12:8

Forced labor or murdering undesirables; it can't happen here?

2009-05-30T05:24:00.000-07:00

A preceding post is a USA TODAY analysis that shows that each household in America is on the hook for over $500,000 in federal obligations. Needless to say, many Americans utterly lack the capacity to repay their share of those obligation, while providing for their own needs and repaying their own personal obligations.

Nevertheless, as long as the U.S. economy is relatively healthy, payments on the federal obligation will be made.

However, what happens if real systemic trouble comes to our economy, for example such as that experienced by Germany during the Weimar Republic, a regime burdened, like the U.S. government, by massive financial commitments.

Some facts about Weimar:

"The Weimar Republic had some of the most serious economic problems ever experienced by any Western democracy in history. Rampant hyperinflation, massive unemployment and a large drop in living standards were primary factors. In 1923–1929 there was a short period of economic recovery, but the Great Depression of the 1930s led to a worldwide recession. Germany was particularly affected because it depended heavily on American loans. In 1926, about 2 million Germans were unemployed - this rose to around 6 million in 1932. Many blamed the Weimar Republic. This was made apparent when political parties on both right and left wanting to disband the Republic altogether made any democratic majority in Parliament impossible.

The Weimar Republic was severely affected by the Great Depression. The economic stagnation led to increased demands on Germany to repay the debts owed to the United States. As the Weimar Republic was very fragile in all of its existence, the depression proved to be devastating, and played a major role in the NSDAP's (Hitler's) takeover.

The Treaty of Versailles was considered by most Germans to be a punishing and degrading document because it forced them to surrender resource-rich areas and pay massive amounts of compensation. These punitive reparations caused consternation and resentment, although the actual economic damage resulting from the Treaty of Versailles is difficult to determine. While the official reparations were considerable, Germany ended up paying only a fraction of them. However, the reparations did damage Germany's economy by discouraging market loans, which forced the Weimar government to finance its deficit by printing more money, causing rampant hyperinflation. In addition, the rapid disintegration of Germany in 1919, due to the return of a disillusioned army, the rapid change from possible victory in 1918 to defeat in 1919, and the political chaos may have caused a psychological imprint on Germans that could lead to extreme nationalism, shown by Hitler." [1]

Now, is it inconceivable that in America, if systemic economic trouble comes, that like Hitler, our government will find it desirable to eliminate (murder) citizens who cannot contribute to the general welfare - the habitually unemployed; metal & physical defectives, and so forth? I think it is conceivable - If an an average American is faced with the prospect of paying back $1 million if federal obligations instead of $500,000, because his loafing or simple-minded neighbor will not, or cannot, a trip to the concentration camp for that neighbor where he will be forced to contribute or exterminated may seem quite agreeable to that American.

[1] Weimar Republic; Wikipedia (accessed May 30, 2009)

Federal obligations at $546,668 per household. Does anybody care?

2009-05-30T04:19:00.000-07:00

Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY (May 30, 2009)

Taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt and other government promises, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The 12% rise in red ink in 2008 stems from an explosion of federal borrowing during the recession, plus an aging population driving up the costs of Medicare and Social Security.

That's the biggest leap in the long-term burden on taxpayers since a Medicare prescription drug benefit was added in 2003.

The latest increase raises federal obligations to a record $546,668 per household in 2008, according to the USA TODAY analysis. That's quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt combined.

"We have a huge implicit mortgage on every household in America — except, unlike a real mortgage, it's not backed up by a house," says David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general, the government's top auditor.

USA TODAY used federal data to compute all government liabilities, from Treasury bonds to Medicare to military pensions.

Bottom line: The government took on $6.8 trillion in new obligations in 2008, pushing the total owed to a record $63.8 trillion.

The numbers measure what's needed today — set aside in a lump sum, earning interest — to pay benefits that won't be covered by future taxes.

Congress can reduce or increase the burden by changing laws that determine taxes and benefits for programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., says exploding debt has focused attention on the government's financial challenges. "More and more, people are worried about our fiscal future," he says.

Key federal obligations:

• Social Security. It will grow by 1 million to 2 million beneficiaries a year from 2008 through 2032, up from 500,000 a year in the 1990s, its actuaries say. Average benefit: $12,089 in 2008.

• Medicare. More than 1 million a year will enroll starting in 2011 when the first Baby Boomer turns 65. Average 2008 benefit: $11,018.

•Retirement programs. Congress has not set aside money to pay military and civil servant pensions or health care for retirees. These unfunded obligations have increased an average of $300 billion a year since 2003 and now stand at $5.3 trillion.

(emphaseses mine)

_________________________

And in a related article, this cheery news:

Bond Vigilantes Confront Obama as Housing Falters
By Liz Capo McCormick and Daniel Kruger
May 29 (Bloomberg) -- They’re back.

For the first time since another Democrat occupied the White House, investors from Beijing to Zurich are challenging a president’s attempts to revive the economy with record deficit spending. Fifteen years after forcing Bill Clinton to abandon his own stimulus plans, the so-called bond vigilantes are punishing Barack Obama for quadrupling the budget shortfall to $1.85 trillion. By driving up yields on U.S. debt, they are also threatening to derail Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s efforts to cut borrowing costs for businesses and consumers.

The 1.4-percentage-point rise in 10-year Treasury yields this year pushed interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages to above 5 percent for the first time since before Bernanke announced on March 18 that the central bank would start printing money to buy financial assets. Treasuries have lost 5.1 percent in their worst annual start since Merrill Lynch & Co. began its Treasury Master Index in 1977.

“The bond-market vigilantes are up in arms over the outlook for the federal deficit,” said Edward Yardeni, who coined the term in 1984 to describe investors who protest monetary or fiscal policies they consider inflationary by selling bonds. He now heads Yardeni Research Inc. in Great Neck, New York. “Ten trillion dollars over the next 10 years is just an indication that Washington is really out of control and that there is no fiscal discipline whatsoever.”

Investor Dread

What bond investors dread is accelerating inflation after the government and Fed agreed to lend, spend or commit $12.8 trillion to thaw frozen credit markets and snap the longest U.S. economic slump since the 1930s. The central bank also pledged to buy as much as $300 billion of Treasuries and $1.25 trillion of bonds backed by home loans.

For the moment, at least, inflation isn’t a cause for concern. During the past 12 months, consumer prices fell 0.7 percent, the biggest decline since 1955. Excluding food and energy, prices climbed 1.9 percent from April 2008, according to the Labor Department.

Bill Gross, the co-chief investment officer of Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co. and manager of the world’s largest bond fund, said all the cash flooding into the economy means inflation may accelerate to 3 percent to 4 percent in three years. The Fed’s preferred range is 1.7 percent to 2 percent.

“There’s becoming an embedded inflationary premium in the bond market that wasn’t there six months ago,” Gross said yesterday in an interview at a conference in Chicago.

Shrinking Economy

Bonds usually rally when the economy is in recession and inflation is subdued. Gross domestic product dropped at a 5.7 percent annual pace in the first quarter, after contracting at a 6.3 percent rate in the last three months of 2008, according to the Commerce Department.

This time it’s different because the Congressional Budget Office projects Obama’s spending plan will expand the deficit this year to about four times the previous record, and cause a $1.38 trillion shortfall in fiscal 2010. The U.S. will need to raise $3.25 trillion this year to finance its objectives, up from less than $1 trillion in 2008, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., one of 16 primary dealers of U.S. government securities that are obligated to bid at Treasury auctions.

“The deficit and funding the deficit has become front and center,” said Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research LLC in Chicago. “The Fed is going to have to walk a fine line here and has to continue with a policy of printing money to buy Treasuries while at the same time convince the market that this isn’t going to end in tears with fits of inflation.”

‘Potential Benefits’

Ten-year note yields, which help determine rates on everything from mortgages to corporate bonds, rose as much as 1.71 percentage points from a record low of 2.035 percent on Dec. 18. That was two days after the Fed said it was “evaluating the potential benefits of purchasing longer-term Treasury securities” as a way to keep consumer borrowing costs from rising.

The yield on the 10-year note rose one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 3.47 percent this week, according to BGCantor Market Data. The price of the 3.125 percent security maturing in May 2019 fell 3/32, or 94 cents per $1,000 face amount, to 97 4/32. The yield touched 3.748 percent yesterday, the highest since November.

The dollar has also begun to weaken against the majority of the world’s most actively traded currencies on concern about the value of U.S. assets. The dollar touched $1.4169 per euro today, the weakest level this year.

Bond Intimidation

Ten-year yields climbed from 5.2 percent in October 1993, about a year after Clinton was elected, to just over 8 percent in November 1994. Clinton then adopted policies to reduce the deficit, resulting in sustained economic growth that generated surpluses from his last four budgets and helped push the 10-year yield down to about 4 percent by November 1998.

Clinton political adviser James Carville said at the time that “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”

The surpluses of the Clinton administration turned into record deficits as George W. Bush ramped up spending, including financing of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bond vigilantes are being led by international investors, who own about 51 percent of the $6.36 trillion in marketable Treasuries outstanding, up from 35 percent in 2000, according to data compiled by the Treasury.

New Group

“The vigilante group is different this time around,” said Mark MacQueen, a partner and money manager at Austin, Texas- based Sage Advisory Services Ltd., which oversees $7.5 billion. “It’s major foreign creditors. This whole idea that we need to spend our way out of our problems is being questioned.”

MacQueen, who started in the bond business in 1981 at Merrill Lynch, has been selling Treasuries and moving into corporate and inflation-protected debt for the last few months.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in March that China was “worried” about its $767.9 billion investment and was looking for government assurances that the value of its holdings would be protected.

The nation bought $5.6 billion in bills and sold $964 million in U.S. notes and bonds in February, according to Treasury data released April 15. It was the first time since November that China purchased more securities due in a year or less than longer-maturity debt.

Obama’s Confidence

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who will travel to Beijing next week, will encourage China to boost domestic demand and maintain flexible markets, a Treasury spokesman said yesterday.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president is confident that his budget and economic plans will cut the deficit and bring down the nation’s debt.

“The president feels very comfortable with the steps that the administration is taking to get our fiscal house in order and understands how important it is for our long-term growth,” Gibbs said.

Investors are also selling Treasuries as the economy shows signs of bottoming and credit and stock markets rebound, lessening the need for the relative safety of government debt. And while yields are rising, they are still below the average of 6.49 percent over the past 25 years.

‘Renewed Appreciation’

The world’s largest economy will begin to expand next quarter, according to 74 percent of economists in a National Association for Business Economics survey released this week. The Standard & Poor’s 500 has risen 36 percent since bottoming on March 9, while the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks say they charge each other for three-month loans, fell to 0.66 percent today from 4.819 percent in October, according to the British Bankers’ Association.

Three-month Treasury bill rates have climbed to 0.13 percent after falling to minus 0.04 percent Dec. 4. That flight to safety helped U.S. debt rally 14 percent in 2008, the best year since gaining 18.5 percent in 1995, Merrill indexes show.

“Yes there’s been a big move, and you can argue the big move is driven by the renewed appreciation of the risks associated with holding long-term Treasury bonds,” said Brad Setser, a fellow for geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Fed officials see several possible explanations for the rise in yields beyond investor concern about inflation. Among them: The supply of Treasuries for sale exceeds the Fed’s $300 billion purchase program, the economic outlook is improving and investors are selling government debt used as a hedge against mortgage securities.

Liquidity

Central bankers want to avoid appearing to react solely to market swings. Bernanke hasn’t formally asked policy makers to consider whether to increase Treasury purchases and may not do so before the Federal Open Market Committee’s next scheduled meeting June 23-24. Officials are confident they can mop up liquidity without gaining additional tools from Congress, such as the ability for the Fed to issue its own debt.

The Fed declined to comment for the story. Bernanke has an opportunity to discuss his views when he testifies June 3 before the House Budget Committee in Washington.

“We have daily reminders from bond vigilantes like Bill Gross about the prospect of losing our AAA rating,” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said in Washington yesterday. “This cannot be allowed to happen.”

Repair the Damage

The government and Fed are trying to repair the damage from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in 2007, which caused credit markets to freeze, led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September and was responsible for $1.47 trillion of writedowns and losses at the world’s largest financial institutions, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The initial progress Bernanke made toward reducing the relative cost of credit is in jeopardy of being unwound by the work of the bond vigilantes.

The average rate on a typical 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 5.08 percent this week from 4.85 percent in April, according to North Palm Beach, Florida-based Bankrate.com. Credit card rates average 10.5 percentage points more than 1-month Libor, up from 7.19 percentage points in October.

“Longer term the danger is that the rise in yields disrupts the recovery or the rise in inflation expectations dislodges the Fed’s current complacency on inflation,” Credit Suisse Group AG interest-rate strategists Dominic Konstam, Carl Lantz and Michael Chang wrote in a May 22 report.

‘It’s Over’

Inflation expectations may best be reflected in the yield curve, or the difference between short- and long-term Treasury rates. The gap widened this week to 2.76 percentage points, surpassing the previous record of 2.74 percentage points set on Aug. 13, 2003. Investors typically demand higher yields on longer-maturity debt when inflation, which erodes the value of fixed-income payments, accelerates.

“The yield spreads opening up imply that inflation premiums are rising,” said former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in a telephone interview from Washington on May 22. “If we try to do too much, too soon, we will end up with higher real long- term interest rates which will thwart the economic recovery.”

Other economists are more pointed. After falling from 16 percent in the early 1980s, 10-year yields have nowhere to go but up, according to Richard Hoey, the New York-based chief economist at Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

“The secular bull market in Treasury bonds is over,” Hoey said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “It ran a good 28 years. They’re never going lower. That’s it. It’s over.”

Income Tax and the FIRST World War

2009-05-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

Anyone acquainted with the knock-down, drag-out debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists - at and around the time of the creation of the Constitution of the United States - is aware that the many concerns expressed by the Anti-Federalists can be fairly summed up as concern about the creation of a powerful central government that would, sooner or later, become as tyrannical as the government that the Founders had struggled hard to throw off.

One of the points most in contention at the Philadelphia Convention was whether or not the new government should have the ability to levy "direct" taxes; "direct" meaning that the new federal government would not have to go begging to the states for those states to hand over money they were supposed to collect for the maintenance of the federal government. The failure of the states to make those payments severely hampered the ability of the Confederation Congress, and the Continental Army under George Washington, to wage war against the British. While this failure was real enough, and had been plain for all to see, the Anti-Federalist, led by men such as Patrick Henry, had the task of trying to convince the country that the risks attendant upon direct taxation were even worse than the reality of a revenue-starved government in times of crisis.

It is more than worth noting that the first world war ever fought was made possible in part, by the passage of the United States Revenue Act of 1913 that included an income tax signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson - a man who campaigned successfully for his second presidential term on the slogan, "He kept us out of the war". This 1913 Revenue Act was became law in October; possible only because the Constitution itself had been amended to allow an income tax in February (The Sixteenth Amendment). Thus 126 years after the Philadelphia Convention the Federalists ambitions had finally been fully realized - probably exceeded -, and the Anti-Federalist's greatest fears - at least as regards taxation - realized simultaneously.

It is questionable whether not the Unites States government could have found the resources to send millions of men overseas and maintain them there for protracted battle without the resources the Revenue Act of 1913 raised. But in 1913 few Americans envisioned the federal government's new taxing power would lead to unprecedented war-making power. The rational behind the 1913 Revenue Act and the Sixteenth Amendment was redistributive - to redistribute wealth (socialist theory would play a significant role in formulating this rationale). The Sixteenth Amendment had been officially proposed by trust-busting/anti-bigness Taft, a protege of trust-busting/anti-bigness pioneer Theodore Roosevelt.

Now, in its first full year the Revenue Act of 1913 raised just $28 million, almost all of it from the wealthiest members of society. Only 360,000 Americans out of 99 million paid the tax that year. No doubt this is the way most Americans wanted it. Just four year later under Wilson's drive to world war, 3.5 million Americans paid the tax and contributed a whopping $691 million in income taxes, exceeding the entire federal budget ($690 million) just five years earlier. [1]

Another principal fear of the Anti-Federalist had been that the new federal government envisioned by the document produced at the Philadelphia Convention would result in a massive standing Army, something especially favored by Hamilton. This too was made possible by the Sixteenth Amendment and the resulting Revenue Act of 1913. (Hamilton would no doubt have been delighted by the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 as well.)

Wilson, who had campaigned against involvement in Europe's war to get elected in 1916, signed the Revenue Act that made entry into that same war - entry less than a month after he was inaugurated - possible, and then capped off his political career by calling for a League of Nations to ensure no more world wars - like the kind he had made possible - would mar human history. Wilson would have done better to heed the warnings of Patrick Henry, and done better to have not signed the Revenue Act of 1913.

Some will object that the prior to the Sixteenth Amendment the United States government had found it within its means to raise a massive Union Army and maintain it in the field for long periods. The response to this is that, first, Patrick Henry and the Anti-Federalists would probably argue that Lincoln and his Union Army were classic illustrations of their worst fears. Anti-Federalists had worked hard, and succeeded, to ensure a document came out of Philadelphia that allowed states to secede from the union if conditions warranted it. The Confederate secession was constitutional, no matter how repugnant that fact is to modern sensibilities (Thomas Jefferson, while Vice-President, threatened the secession of Virginia from the Union to his President, John Adams, over the issue of the Alien and Sedition Acts). Secondly, the means of raising revenue employed by the North to fund the Union Army would have been impossible to repeat after the decision of Supreme Court of the United States in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company in 1895.

[1] Coolidge: An American Enigma, Robert Sobel, Regnery Publishing, 1998, p.251

The truth about the 2008-2009 recession

2009-05-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

The economy is showing signs of emerging from a year old recession that reached it's nadir (as of this writing) in the fall of 2008. Since the recession reached a crisis stage with the failure of major financial institutions just weeks before the presidential election, the truth about the causes of the recession were lost in the rhetoric. Politicians, especially on the anti-Laissez-faire/anti-capitalist left, blamed the symptoms - the collapse of many big Wall Street firms and the bankruptcy of at least one of the Big Three automakers (as of this writing, a second bankruptcy seems imminent) - instead of the cause. Seekers after the truth will easily perceive that Chrysler or G.M. can hardly be blamed for people not buying their cars (unless they are junk; which the success of those companies in selling cars for the preceding 25 rules out), and banks can hardly be blamed for people not paying their mortgages. In short, crisis on Wall Street, or showrooms full of unsold cars did not cause the recession, they were symptoms of it.

So what did cause the 2008-2009 (if indeed it is limited to that time frame)recession? There can be little doubt that the housing market had become overheated - a bubble really - and was due to burst, but here again a housing bubble bursting is still a symptom. People stop bidding up the price of houses, or stop buying altogether for a reason. The primary reason the housing bubble burst is that America got, in February 2006, an ardent foe of inflation installed at the helm of the Federal Reserve in Ben Bernarke. Chairman Bernarke soon set about to rein in the easy credit that was fueling the bubble, but had to move cautiously. The cumulative effects of his tightening the screws finally caught up with housing market in late 2007, and gathered momentum in early 2008. By spring of 2008 the U.S. economy was officially in recession.

But, was that all? Was tight credit the sole cause of the recesssion?

No, as Americans were enduring the costs of higher credit they were being squeezed from two additional directions, higher food costs driven primarily by federally mandated quotas for ethanol from corn production (burning one of America's most important food sources), and higher energy costs, principally for gasoline and natural gas.

The cost of petroleum products was along with tight credit, the two principal causes for the recession.

Was it avoidable? The answer, is - Yes, easily.

First, the United States government could have outlawed excesses in the lending markets such as interest-only mortgages. This would have prevented the bubble for ever occurring. It would have been poltically dangerous however. Voters were getting rich on housing speculation. Secondly, the unprecedented spike in oil and gas products in 2008-2009 was a function of speculators betting that a United States government that had embraced the unproven theory of catastrophic-man made-global warming would no longer have the resolve to seek out new reserves of oil in the places it was most likely to be found - areas viewed as "sensitive" by environmentalists. With global demand for oil only increasing, it was a sure bet to place money on a commodity that few were bothering to seek more of. The so-called global warming scare also insured that politicians would be loath to back away from heavy-handed ethanol mandates spiking food prices.

So there you have the truth - it wasn't Wall Street and it wasn't Detroit that caused the recession; they were victims of it. It was lax oversight of the lending markets - principally in residential real estate - and a nonsensical energy policy driven by global warming alarmism.

The other 9/11

2009-05-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

On March 25, 1911 the worst industrial disaster, and the second worst workplace disaster, in the history of New York City - the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire - killed 146 employees, mostly women including many girls - two only fourteen years old. They died primarily because locked or inadequate exits. Of the 146 killed 54 died jumping from the ninth floor of the building housing the Triangle Shirtwaist's operations, just off Washington Square. Since it was a Saturday, thousands of New Yorkers were out enjoying the day and witnessed the women and girls jumping to their deaths.

In a subsequent trial the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was absolved of all wrongdoing and collected $64,925 in insurance for damages incurred in the fire. 23 families of fire victims sued and collected a total of $1725 or the equivalent of $75for each party to the lawsuit. The remaining 123 families received no compensation for the loss of their loved ones.

The state legislature immediately responded to public demands for reform and established the Factory Investigating Commission. It produced a flood of 32 bills that came to serve as models of industrial reform throughout the United States.

Now, Franklin Delano Rooselvelt had been elected to the senate of the state of New York three months prior to the fire, as a progressive Democrat, yet according to sympathetic biographer, Jean Edward Smith, the young and affluent state senator Roosevelt:

stood on the sidelines. He said nothing about the Triangle Fire and took no part in the legislative effort the tragedy produced.[1]

Since the Triangle Fire of 1911 had been the worst workplace disaster in New York City history up until September 11, 2001 (9/11), F.D.R.'s indifference was comparable to a New York state senator in 2001 failing to comment on, or participate in, a legislative response to the terrorist attack that destoryed the World Trade Center.

Moreover, one of the most important pieces of social legislation to be placed before F.D.R. and his 1911 senate colleagues was a bill to limit the work week for women and children in the State of New York to fifty-four hours per week. He told the bill sponsor, Francis Perkins [a], "No, no - more important things; more important things; can't do it now, can't do it now; much more important things." With the help of Tammany the bill passed a year later; Roosevelt was absent during the vote. [2]

[1] FDR, Jean Edward Smith; Random House Audio; Abridged edition May 15, 2007; Disc 2, Track 3

[2] Ibid [1]

[a] Frances Coralie Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She achieved statewide prominence as head of the New York Consumers League in 1910 and in that position she lobbied with vigor for better working hours and conditions. The next year, she witnessed the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a pivotal event in her life.

The New Fascism

2009-05-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today President Obama, in front of an assembled group of UAW leaders, auto executives and environmentalists, announced accelerated time-tables for improved mileage and emission standards for automobiles. What this event really was was a chance for environmentalists to gloat over having brought the auto industry to heel by having forced the price of gasoline so high that Americans no longer want American-made cars. The American auto industry was forced to build bigger, less fuel efficient cars because labor cost were so high per production unit, that the companies lost money on small, fuel-efficient cars.

Yesterday twelve retired military officers presented Congress with a copy of a report - "Powering America’s Defense" - that among other things suggested a conflict between America's need to fuel it's machines of defense, and at the same time not contribute to "climate change". This last is particularly interesting since among the many facts of science not in dispute is that as long as earth has had an atmosphere, her climate has been changing.

Everybody is jumping aboard the "global warming" bandwagon. Before long if you don't have a green armband on, an Earth Day flag draped over your balcony, and do a stiff-arm salute accompanied by a loud and clear "Heil, Mother Earth", you will be forced to wear either a yellow Star of David or a yellow crucifix at all times out-of-doors, to warn the rest of humanity about what vermin you are.

There is nothing new under the sun

2009-05-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

In the wake of our new president's multi-billion dollar election campaign, and his first 100 days in office expanding government at unprecedented rates while attacking leaders in the business community, do these words at all resonate:

We need a broader, firmer, deeper faith in the people--a faith that men desire to do right, that the commonwealth is founded upon a righteousness which will endure, a reconstructed faith that the final approval of the people is given not to demagogues, slavishly pandering to their selfishness, merchandising with the clamor of the hour, but to statesmen, ministering to their welfare, representing their deep, silent, abiding convictions.

Long before the age of television and the Internet [1], these words - this observation - were offered up by Calvin Coolidge.

...and the scripture says, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9

[1] Have Faith in Massachusetts, January 7, 1914

Why one can never trust a leftist

2009-05-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

The secular goal of every leftist is create utopia, here on earth. This goal, and the means to achieve the goal, are completely at odds with service to God. The God-fearing man knows the score - some reason it out, some come to understanding through the Bible, especially the book of Genesis - for in the book of Genesis the foundations of what we are to be and do and human beings is laid down. The chief end of man is not to build anything, including a "just" society; the chief end of man reclaim the state of grace lost in the Garden. God doesn't want buildings, institutions, denominations or just governments, He wants us, as individuals, one at a time to come into conformity to His image (as best personified in the person of Jesus Christ). God is about character building first, everything else is secondary, including utopia. In fact, utopia is not only secondary to God's plan, as stated earlier, it is antithetical.

To strive for utopia necessitates constricting individual liberty. Every attempt at utopia has always involved coercion. How can there be bliss if certain individual are conducting themselves in such a way as to frustrate the common good? For this reason Augustus banished Ovid, merely a poet and for this reason Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned.

The inevitable result of attempts to create utopia without coercion have been the voluntary abandonment of the experiment by it's participants. This has been the case in America, perhaps the most fertile ground in world history for free experimentation with communal living. New Harmony, Brook Farm, the Northampton Association, Oneida Community and many more similar experiments all attest to the futility of seeking to create heaven on earth.

To the extent that Karl Marx was aware of American experimentation in communism, or elsewhere in the world, it didn't daunt him. He devoted his life to promoting a theory that utopia through was inevitable, the final stage after a communist-state interlude. His disciples also understood that most persons would never stand for compulsory utopia so they made it mandatory. In it's purest form, it remains so today - Cuba, North Korea, China; no one is free to leave these utopias. This is coerced bliss.

Here is why a leftist can never be trusted. Everyone understands that while Christians may bring Christianity into disrepute, Christ never did. Everyone understands that if Christ promoted means to his goals that were inconsistent with His goals, then not only His means (the Christian faith) but his person (claim to divinity) were rendered invalid. But He did not. Christ never said "To be free, you must submit to coercion." Leftist do say that (and enforce it), and in so saying (and doing) they invalidate the faith they espouse.

Never trust a leftist; they are liars, just as their father - the Prince of Darkness - is a liar.

Our fundamentalist president

2009-05-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

There is nothing wrong with having an ideology in which you place your trust, and if the ideology turns out to be faulty and you are the only one who suffers from it, then the tragedy is limited to one soul. It is quite another thing to subscribe to an a ideology and then apply it when you hold sway over the lives of millions, if that ideology turns out to be faulty. Most schoolchildren in American are compelled to read Nathanial Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter to help them learn this lesson. When the Puritan's gained political power in colonial America, Hawthorne wanted his readers to understand the impact Puritan beliefs could have the people they held sway over. In Hawthorne's work, Hester Prynne's life is devastated by Puritan ideology.

Now in Barack Obama we have a president who has faith in the unproven truth of catastrophic man-made global warming. To set an entire nation on a course to try and control the climate takes a great deal faith; especially when the very name of what you believe in is demonstrably false. Not even the most ardent disciple of man-made warming climate can credibly call the problem "global" since the southern hemisphere is experiencing no measurable warming. Bad beginnings such as these do not augur well for one's "faith".

Another area of ardent faith for President Obama is that capitalism is an inhumane system and needs to be replaced with a socioeconomic system in which equality of outcome is assured. This too takes enormous faith since the President cannot point to a single example in world history where such as system has proved itself superior to the American experiment of democracy and free-enterprise.

Godless cynics marvel at the so-called gullibility of Christian fundamentalists who actually believe that Christ literally walked on water. Why place faith in such fairy tales? they wonder.

Better to place faith in scientific "consensus" on catastrophic man-made global warming and non-consensus theories about socialist economics. This last sentence is rife with contradictions but the "faithful" can't see it.

First, science can never be a matter of consensus. The consensus was against Copernicus and Galileo. It was against Louis Lister. Truth knows nothing of consensus. Noah understood this, and was saved.

Secondly, why does it make sense for Obama and his disciples to embrace the consensus of science on man-made catastrophic global warming because it is a "consensus" and at the same time embrace leftist/socialist theories on economics which are clearly not the consensus among economists?

God help us all under Barack Obama and his cabal.

Americans won't be able to say they weren't warned

2009-05-15T04:26:00.001-07:00

Obama and the Alternative Energy Fiasco
The president is wrong to block oil and gas production.
Jon Basil Utley | May 13, 2009

It's only a matter of time before President Barack Obama's vast popularity runs aground on his energy policies. In the name of saving the planet from global warming, he has delayed new oil drilling, an action that will have major political repercussions once the world economy recovers. Instead of using some the stimulus billions to produce more gas and oil, Obama's wild-eyed supporters dream of "renewable" energy derived from corn, wind, sunshine, and even grass.

With the appointment of extremists like climate czar Carol Browner and science adviser John Holdren, Obama has placed his administration's environmental policy in the hands of radicals.

Jon Basil Utley is associate publisher of The American Conservative. He is a former insurance executive with AIG and a former South American correspondent for Knight Ridder.

F.D.R. redux; failure brewing

2009-05-15T03:53:00.000-07:00

Obama, still three years years away from bid for re-election, is using the same technique that F.D.R. used to assuage his left wing and stir up the masses to maintain his popularity amidst the failure of Obama's policies to re-ignite the economy and keep oil prices low. F.D.R.'s rhetoric probably led to the Roosevelt Recession of 1937-1938, which saw industrial production plummet at record rate and unemployment soar to new highs. See below:

WASHINGTON – Relations between President Barack Obama and U.S. corporate leaders have grown tense in recent weeks, with business groups bristling over his sharp rebukes of lenders and multinational companies in particular.

Executives and trade groups that praised Obama's outreach during his post-election transition period say they have felt less welcome since he took office in January. More troubling, they say, are his populist-tinged, sometimes acid critiques of certain sectors..."It is traditional class-warfare rhetoric," said Jade West, a lobbyist for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. "It's a little bit frightening"...Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker says Obama uses such pointed language to create an us-against-them dynamic in which he aligns himself with average Americans and depicts his opponents as selfish powers working just for themselves..."If you use inflammatory, populist language," Baker said in an interview, "it's best to use it on organizations or interests that aren't terribly popular." - By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer, May 15, 2009

Calvin Coolidge - The Truth

2009-05-05T04:32:00.000-07:00

A chief target in the demagoguery of the left, the truth about Calvin Coolidge is such that probably most Americans, past and present, would strongly prefer such a man as, not only their President, but their neighbor.

Beginning with base-line leftist characterizations of Coolidge as the man most infamous for allegedly laying the foundation for the Great Depression - a veritable captain of ship of state named the Titanic -, and whose entire political philosophy could be summed up in his statement that "the chief business of America people is business", we proceed to the truth. If words mean anything (including the verbal attacks on Coolidge from the left) than Coolidge's own words ought to mean something. We shall also examine his deeds.

His origins -

Coolidge was born, on the Fourth of July, into a family of modest means in a tiny hamlet of about a dozen homes in Vermont. He would study law and rise quickly in politics, beginning at the very bottom of the latter in local elections and never leap-frogging. Though he would eventually become President of the United States he never gave up the lease on one-half of a rented home, that was always his home until forced out of it by over-curious tourist after he retired from the Presidency. By comparison, F.D.R. owned three homes staffed by ten servants at the time of his marriage to Eleanor - age 23 -, and received a fourth - a 32 room mansion - from his mother as a wedding gift. Barack Obama purchased a $1 million estate while earning $54,000 as an state senator.

His actions while in office as President:

Reduced national debt from $22.3 billion in 1923 to $16.9 billion in 1929

Cut taxes four of six years in office

Cut the highest tax rate from 50 percent in 1922 to 20 percent but increased revenue from the highest tax bracket from $77 million to $230 million.

Cut the tax burden for those earning under $10,000 from $130 million in 1923 to under $20 million in 1929.

Oversaw average unemployment of 3.3 percent; a 7 percent annual increase in Gross National Product; wage earner real earnings rise by 22 percent; industrial production by 70 percent, and inflation by just 0.4 percent.

Moreover, illiteracy fell almost 50 percent as education spending nearly quadrupled. [1]

There is not even the remotest hint that Coolidge was ever unfaithful to his wife of 28 years. Presidential historians consider Coolidge to the least likely of our married president to have had an extramarital affair. When they met, she was a local schoolteacher working at the Clarke School for the Deaf [2].

His words:

"It is sometimes assumed that Americans care only for material things...This is a very narrow and unintelligent opinion...Our prosperity has resulted not by disregarding but by maintaining high ideals...It is because America has...had faith in mankind...because it has believed greatly in honor and righteousness, that a great material prosperity has been added unto it." - The Price of Freedom, July 6, 1922, pg. 174 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"America seeks no earthly empire built on blood and force...The higher State to which she seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin." - Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"Bigotry is another word for slavery...An enlarged freedom can only be secured by an application of the Golden Rule." - Third Annual Message to Congress, December 8, 1925 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"The people ought to take no selfish attitude of pressing for removing of moderate and fair taxes which might produce a deficit." - Messages and Papers of the President p. 9723 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"The law of progress and civilization is not the law of the jungle. It is not an earthly law, it is a a divine law. It does not mean the survival of the fittest, it means the sacrifice of the fittest. Any mother will give her life for her child. Men put women and children in the lifeboats before they themselves will leave the sinking ship." Adequate Brevity p. 21 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"Civilization is always on trial, testing out, not the power of material resources, but whether there be, in the heart of people, that virtue and character which comes from charity sufficient to maintain progress." - Adequate Brevity p. 21 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"It is not desirable that we should all attempt to be alike. Progress is not secured through uniformity and similarity but rather multiplicity and diversity." - Address before Pan-American Congress, Havana, January 16, 1928; Messages and Papers of the President p. 9759 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"It is preeminently the province of government to protect the weak." - The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge, p. 175 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"Government should not assume for the people the inevitable burdens of existence." - Adequate Brevity p. 43 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"Let justice and the economic laws be applied to the strong; but for the weak there must be mercy and charity; not the gratuity which pauperizes, but the assistance which restores. That too, is justice." - Adequate Brevity p. 53 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"No man was ever meanly born. About his cradle is the wondrous miracle of life. He may descend into the depths, he may live in infamy and perish miserably, but he is born great." - The Price of Freedom, January 23, 1921, p. 17 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"The measure of success is not the quantity of merchandise, but the quality of manhood which is produced." - Coolidge: An American Enigma p. 120 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"We do not need more material development, we need more spiritual development, we do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more laws, we need more religion. We do not need more things that are seen, we need more things that are unseen." Commencement Address at Wheaton College, June 17, 1921; Calvin Coolidge: Man From Vermont p. 298 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

"No man was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave." Have Faith in Massachusetts p. 173 (cited in Silent Cal's Almanack)

More of his actions:

In 1911, 1912, 1913 New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt took no part in a flood of legislation to regulate industrial working conditions arising out of the worst workplace disaster in New York history up until September 11, 2001 - the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. In 1914, Coolidge in his first term as the Massachusetts state senate president was taking a somewhat different approach to legislating. He helped draft the state Republican Party platform and penned this section, calling for support for:

...aid to dependent mothers, healthful housing and fire protection, reasonable hours and conditions of labor, and amplest protection to the public health, workman's compensation and it's extension to public railroads...care and protection of children and the mentally defective...state and national conservation and reclamation (care for the environment)...[3]

Two years later, he had this to say:

We cannot curtail the usual appropriations or the care of mothers with dependent children or the support of the poor, the insane, and the infirm. The Democratic (Party) programme of cutting the state tax, by vetoing appropriations of the utmost urgency for improvements in maintenance costs of institutions and asylums of the unfortunates of the state, cannot be the example for a Republican (Party) administration. The result has been that our institutions are deficient in resources-even in sleeping accommodations-and it will take years to restore them to the old-time Republican efficiency. Our party will have no part in a scheme of economy which adds to the misery of wards of the commonwealth-the sick, the insane, and the unfortunate; those who are too weak even to protest. [4]

His final act of public service:

To choose not to run for a second elected term of office as President of the United States, though his presidency had been enormously successful.

[1] Silent Cal's Almanack, edited by David Pietrusza, pg. 19

[2] Calvin Coolidge, Wikipedia (accessed 5/4/09)

[3] Coolidge: An American Enigma, Robert Sobel, Regnery Publishing, Inc., pg. 90

[4] Ibid [3], p. 106

The words of others about Coolidge

Many intellectuals love to disparage Coolidge as the "last President of the 19th century." Perhaps even more prefer to dismiss him as cipher - "Coolidge slept away most of his five years in office", according to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Irwin Unger. [1]

Those who like to disparage Coolidge as a do-nothing fail, or choose not, to take account of the fact that Coolidge rose to national office on the heels of a liberal/progressive administration that had led America into a seemingly pointless foreign war that cost over 117,000 American dead. War-weary Americans were tired of saving the world at Woodrow Wilson's behest. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Walter Lippmann summed up the popular attitude this way in writing about the appeal of one candidate for President in 1920 -

The people are tired, tired of noise, tired of politics, tired of inconvenience, tired of greatness, and longing for a place where the world is quiet and where all trouble seems dead leaves, and spent waves in doubtful dream of dreams...
Lowden is the noiseless candidate in this campaign. I have watched his appeal to voters. He tells them that he will talk only of prosaic things and he does. He assures them he will not bother them much as he will not. [2]

Coolidge was not a cipher or a circus side-show; he is what a free people wanted after years under the administration of liberal.

____

Al Smith, Irish-American Democrat - four-time governor of New York and Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928 -, summed up Coolidge's life, and service as President this way:

"I had a great liking and respect for him. Beneath a chilly, reserved, and dignified exterior, he was keen, kindly and entirely free from conceit, pompousness, and political hokum. We are often told politics in a republic produced only demagogues. Calvin Coolidge was a most successful an popular politician, but he had nothing of the demagogue in him."

Smith placed Coolidge

"...in the class of presidents who were distinguished for character more than heroic achievements. His great task was to restore the dignity and prestige of the presidency when it had reached the lowest ebb in our history, and to afford in a time of extravagance and waste, a shining public example of the simple and honest virtues which came down to him from his New England ancestors. These are no small achievements, and history will not forget them.

Calvin Coolidge was a salty, original character, and unmistakable home-grown, native, American product, and his was one of those typically American careers, which begin on the sidewalks, or on the farm, and prove to the youth of the nation that this is still the land of unbounded opportunity."

[1] Cited in Coolidge: An American Enigma, Robert Sobel, Regnery Publishing, p.1

[2] ibid [1] p. 166-167

[3] ibid [1] p. 418-419

Deja vu? The New Deal, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama

2009-03-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

Many will recall, or have concluded from what they have been taught, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, through his words and policies, seemed to be the champion of the little guy and the enemy of the greedy and powerful.

Certainly, the man's rhetoric supports this understanding:

Never before in all our history have these forces (business and financial monopoly) been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred. I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and the lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master. [1]

Indeed, there is little reason to believe that Roosevelt. who enjoyed the benefits of family wealth all his life, did not believe his own rhetoric - insofar as any politician believes rhetoric which helps gets him elected. Roosevelt resisted attempts from his own Treasury Secretary, the long-serving Henry Morgenthau, Jr., to ease taxes on the wealthy as the nation teetered on the brink of a second depression in 1937.

I called the President last night at 6:25 and told him that I was now convinced that we were headed into another depression and that I thought he had to do something about it.[2]

Moreover, in conversation with "Brain Trust" advisor Raymond Charles Moley - the man who coined the phrase "New Deal" - Roosevelt is said to have,

...launched into a violent attack up business men generally... [3]

Moley came to this conclusion:

I was impressed as never before by the utter lack of logic of the man, the scantiness of his precise knowledge of things that he was talking about, by the gross inaccuracies of his statements, by the almost pathological lack of sequence in his discussion...by his willingness to continue the excoriation of()business in order to get votes for himself, by his indifference to what effect the long-continued pursuit of these ends would have upon the civilization in which he was playing a part.[4]

Not only Moley felt this way. Henry A. Wallace, then assistant secretary of state, and eventually Vice President with Roosevelt, said in 1937:

I wish I could convert anybody in Washington to the theory that you cannot run a government based on business and have perpetual warfare with business at the same time.[5]

Finally, in March 1939, with unemployment at 19.3 percent, Morgenthau along with his undersecretary John Hanes confronted Roosevelt with a list of suggested changes, including repeal of punitive business taxes and a reduction of the top federal income tax rate from 79 percent down to 64 percent (the top rate under the previous Treasury Secretary, Andrew W. Mellon had been 25 percent). Roosevelt refused to budge and the following month unemployment reached 20.7 percent.[6] World War II began in September and bailed F.D.R. out (at cost of 60 million civilian and military casualties[7]). That the President never learned his lesson, or was humbled in any way for leading the nation into a second depression is highlighted by the fact that in July 1941 he suggested a 99.5 percent tax rate for all income exceeding $100,000.[8]

So it is clear that in both rhetoric and policy F.D.R. was the enemy of the wealthy and influential, but how about the flip side - his alleged support for the common man, as symbolized by the bronze monuments erected in his honor at his memorial in Washington, D.C.? Is it true that F.D.R.'s policies eased the burden of the disadvantaged and shifted it where he wanted it to be, on the shoulders of the wealthy and businessmen whom he alleged had caused the first depression?

If having a job eases any one's burdens, F.D.R., as we have seen, clearly failed in that respect. Unemployment was worse after six years of his peacetime Administrations than before. Regarding F.D.R.'s wartime tenure - among the American casualties of World War II, the vast majority were common enlisted men, not the more privileged officers. If it was better to be dead under F.D.R. than alive in Harding's, Coolidge's, or Hoover's America, than Roosevelt wins on this score, but most would dispute this. That leaves one burden unexplored - the burden that, more than any other, prompted our nations founders to rebel against their overlords - taxation.

While it is true that F.D.R. radically raised the tax rates for business and the wealthy, the suppressed truth is that it was the common man who ended up paying more, far more, under F.D.R.. The evidence:

In 1929, 38 percent of all federal revenue came from personal income taxes, 43 percent came from corporate income taxes, and 19 percent came from excise taxes. By 1939 as Roosevelt's second depression was under way, only 24 percent of federal income came from personal income taxes, just 29 percent came from corporate taxes and a whopping 47 percent came from excise taxes.[9] Now it is true the Hoover, with support from Democrats, introduced many new excise taxes in 1932, raising the federal take from that source to 30 percent in that year. But it was the New Dealer Roosevelt who kept them in place, while making massive overhauls in other areas of the tax code. Thus it becomes important to understand who the heavy excise taxes burdened the most. Some excise taxes where enacted upon luxury items such as jewelry, furs and yachts, but there were others on cars, gasoline, radios and movie tickets. Herman Oliphant, general counsel for the Treasury Department under F.D.R. collected data an in a report to his boss Morgenthau concluded:

...the bulk of (excise) taxes fall on the lower income groups of our population. [10]

If all this were not bad enough, F.D.R. and his Democratic Congress eventually removed the excise taxes on jewelry, furs and yachts, but kept the taxes that hit the working man hardest in place taxes in place, including the tax on cold cream and face powder.

In order to understand Roosevelt's approach to taxation and economic recovery, it is helpful to place his policies in perspective by contrasting them to those of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge considered by many so-called experts to be among America's worst Presidents. Harding appointed a man, who epitomized all that F.D.R. despised, to the post of treasury secretary - banker and industrialist Andrew W. Mellon; then the third richest man in America. Harding died, but Coolidge kept Mellon on as treasury secretary and Mellon wrote a book that laid out his prescription for what ailed America economically. In it said:

It seems difficult for some to understand that high rates of taxation do not necessarily mean large revenue to the Government, and that more revenue may often be obtained by lower rates. [11]

If this sounds familiar, it should. Mellon was preaching what we in the post-Reagan era would call supply-side economics. Did his ideas work? Mellon advocated and got support from Harding and Coolidge for tax cuts on high income earners from a 73 down to a 24 percent rate, almost identical to what Reagan called for in his bid for the Presidency. During Coolidge's six years in office, the American people enjoyed an average 3.3 percent unemployment and 1 percent inflation, the best record for any President in the twentieth century. Nor did the Treasury suffer from the tax cuts. In 1920 when the highest tax rate was 73 percent the Treasury collected $700 million. In 1928 & 1929 when the rate was cut to 25 and 24 percent the treasury take exceeded $1 billion.[12] Furthermore, rather than shouldering greater burden for taxes as under F.D.R., under Mellon's (and therefore Harding's and Coolidge') policies the percentage of total personal income tax paid by those earning $10,000 or less in 1920 dropped from 24.5 percent to a mere 1.3 percent in 1929. Conversely, the percentage of total personal income tax paid to the treasury by those earning $100,000 or more rose from 29.9 percent in 1920 to 65.2 percent in 1929.[13}

So, to recap, under Roosevelt's so-called New Deal, excise tax income - which hits the common man the hardest - rose from 19 percent of federal revenue to 47 percent, while under F.D.R.'s two (almost) immediate predecessors - two President's largely forgotten or reviled - the common man saw his contribution to the treasury plummet, and found jobs available in abundance. While it is true that Mellon's prosperity led to economic collapse, as did Reagan's, Roosevelt's policies helped lead toward a World War that cost 60 million lives. Likewise, just as the carnage that resulted from WWII led to efforts and institutions (the United Nations) to see that such a war would never be repeated, so too can man work, and even erect institutions, toward the goal of ensuring that periods of exceptionally robust prosperity do lead to economic chaos. That no serious attempt has ever been made to accomplish the latter is mute testimony to the fact that the Left, which dominates media and education would rather use period of economic crisis as opportunities to discredit capitalism and promote socialism, or worse. In 2009, we see yet another socialist policymaker in the White House exploiting the New Deal myth to reintroduce similar policy prescriptions which are demonstrably flawed. No conscientious conservative should dispute that a solution to the cycle of boom and bust should be found. Obama's mistake is to try and throw the baby out with the bath water. He would discard laissez-faire capitalism because it leads, in our present state of economic understanding, almost inevitably to painful busts. He doesn't seem to care that socialist solutions seem to inevitably lead to war. Do Democrats prefer war to hard times? The better solution is to find a solution to both.

It has been posited by some that the difference between a godless liberal and a god-fearing conservative is the god-hating liberal believes man is innately evil - a blight upon the earth. Therefore man must be managed, controlled. In opposition the god-fearing man believes that all men are created in the image of God and have innate capacity for good. Ronald Reagan firmly believed that by empowering every man, through reduced taxation and freeing up the enormous natural resources of this country for him to exploit, he could spark a renewal of prosperity. He was right, he was a visionary. Now someone has to restore Reagan vision, but find a way to curb the excesses - that do spring out of sin (selfishness, greed) -, that lead to economic collapse. Before Barack Obama gets done, it may too late to salvage anything.

Why it should be that Satan, through those who do his bidding on earth, should not want men to prosper is unclear, at least to this author. However, the essence of blessing is to liberate, to empower; the essence of cursing is to hobble, hamstring, de-power. Satan has always worked for the latter. To the extent that Barack Obama works to revive the flawed policies of the New Deal he is only doing Satan's bidding. That such policies may inevitably lead to war, can only serve the Satan's ends as well, for "He was a murderer from the beginning" [14].

[1] Cited in New Deal or Raw Deal?, Burton Folsom, Jr., Threshold Editions, New York, 2008, pg 136; from Rosenman, Public Papers, V, 568-69

[2] ibid [1]; Cited on pg. 138; from Morgenthau Diary, November 4, 1937, RPL

[3] ibid [1]; Cited on pg. 134; from Raymond Moley Journal, May 2 and 3, 1936, HI

[4] ibid [3]; Cited on pg. 135

[5] New Deal or Raw Deal?, Burton Folsom, Jr., Threshold Editions, New York, 2008, pg. 137

[6] ibid [5]; pg 140, 143, 145

[7] World War II, Wikipdedia (accessed 3/9/09)

[8] ibid [5]; pg. 145

[9] ibid [5]; pg. 127, Table 2

[10} ibid [5]; pg. 124

[11] ibid [1]; Citied on pg. 129; from Mellon, Taxation: The People's Business, New York, MacMillan, 1924, pg. 16

[12] ibid [5]; pg. 129

[13] ibid [5]; pg. 130, Table 3

[14] (John 8:44)

Conveniently forgotten facts about F.D.R. and his New Deal

2009-03-07T17:16:00.000-08:00

I.) How many know, or will recall, that F.D.R. pushed and prodded into law something called the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) - soon to become the NRA -, that mandated the following:

Leaders in all industries were to sit down and write "codes of fair competition" what were to be binding on all producers in their industry. This permitted these leaders to set the prices of the products, and even the wages and hours expended making them. A businessman might or might not help write the code for his particular industry, but he was bound by that code and faced fines and even jail if he refused to adhere to it. Henry Ford was one who refused to sign the code. [1]

The first head of the NRA, Hugh Johnson, called it a "Holy Thing...the Greatest Social Advance Since the Days of Jesus Christ." [2]

How many so-called progressives today would like to see the NRA still in existence and regulating the prices for laptops and PDA's?

II.) On April 27, 1942 F.D.R. signed an executive order that taxed all annual personal income exceeding $25,000 at 100%. [3]

III.) F.D.R. was elected President for his first term in 1932. In 1931, under Hoover, unemployment stood at 16.3 percent with 8,020,000 unemployed. In 1939, two years into F.D.R.'s second term, and just on the verge of World War II, unemployment was 17.2 percent with 9,480,000 unemployed. [4]

IV.) F.D.R.'s maternal grandfather, Warren Delano, made his fortune illegally selling opium to Chinese addicts. F.D.R. had a three year sexual affair with his wife Eleanor's secretary, Lucy Mercer, and Lucy, not Eleanor was with F.D.R. when he died. [5]

But hey, why let a few measly facts ruin a perfectly good legend?

[1] New Deal or Raw Deal?, Burton Folsom, Jr., Threshold Edtions, New York, 2008, pg. 43-45

[2] ibid [1]

[3] ibid [1], pg. xv

[4] ibid [1], pg. 3

[5] ibid [1], pg. 17,24

New jobs for...illegals

2009-03-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

AP 3/3/09
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says the new road-building initiative in his economic recovery program will create or save 150,000 jobs by the end of next year.

Detailing his plans for employees of the Transportation Department on Tuesday morning, Obama disclosed that some 200 highway construction jobs will start within the next few weeks. To cheers, he said "we are seeing shovels hit the ground."

Anybody with one eye half open can see, while passing by most road construction projects in America, that a significant percentage of the workers are illegal aliens. So how does paychecks for illegals translate into jobs for Americans?

Obamanomics - Democrats embrace trickle-down economics

2009-03-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

Few economic theories have attracted more derision from the left in the last 30 years than the notion of trickle-down economics first promulgated by Ronald Reagan. In the more than a quarter century of barely interrupted economic expansion that began under Reagan in 1982 and lasted until early 2008, Democrats acknowledged the prosperity (and often took credit for it) but denied that much, or any of it, had "trickled-down" to the underprivileged.

However, now, in 2009 as the economy severely contracts and falters, and Reaganomics-enduced wealth evaporates with a collapsing stock market, the Democrats, led my President Obama, loudly proclaim that trickle-down economics is, after all, very much a reality. They cite as evidence the collapse of wealth among the privileged as decimating the lives of the poor through layoffs, loss of value in 401k plans, empty food banks, charitable donations drying up, and much more.

Isn't it fascinating? - to the Democrats, when the rich get richer the poor are left in the abyss, but when the rich get poorer the people who suffer most are the poor. Now how can that be? Sounds like Obamanomics.

Mother of fascism does America

2009-02-28T04:51:00.000-08:00

How many Americans are aware - amidst the charges of: "Fascists", from the political left against anybody they loath on the political right -, that the "Mother of fascism" was feted during her American tour by the very same persons the left nowadays loves to hold up as heroes of tolerance and political freedom?

The Italian Jew Margherita Sarfatti, on her whirlwind tour of the Americas in the early 1930's, because of her close ties with the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and her role in his rise to power, was received, and usually celebrated, by the the following personages (not an exhaustive list):

Louis B. Mayer (filmmaker)
Will Hays (film director)
William Randolf Hearst (newspaper magnate)
Anthony Ivins (second president - Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints)
William Phillips (Undersecretary of State)
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. & wife
Frances Perkins (Secretary of Labor (first woman cabinet head))
Al Smith (former New York governor, Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928)
Edward House (formerly Woodwrow Wilson's closest advisor and then Democratic Party's most senior statesman)
Fiorello La Guardia (mayor of New York)
Innumerable newspapermen/women and media magnates
Franklin and Elenor Roosevelt (President and First Lady of the United States)

Sarfatti's tour of the United States which included, not untypically, a banquet held in her honor at the Waldorf Astoria was smoothed by letters of introduction from Franklin Roosevelt-appointed United States ambassador to Italy, Breckinridge Long.

During her tour, Sarfatti had endless opportunities to opine that Roosevelt's New Deal not only resembled fascism, but to her mind, was undoubtedly inspired by it. [1]

Apparently, the political left in America, then and now, has never met a leftist oppressor it didn't like (hence F.D.R.'s description of Stalin as "Uncle Joe", and contemporary leftist fondness for Fidel Castro) until said oppressors threaten the United States and, no doubt, leftist support among American voters.

[1] Il Duce's Other Woman, by Philip V. Cannistraro & Brian R. Sullivan; William Morrow & Co, February 1993, pgs. 422-447

Biggest source of jobs, fast

2009-02-19T03:38:00.000-08:00

It hasn't seemed to occur to anyone yet, that a surefire way to create 8 million jobs fast [1], and inexpensively, is simply enforce the current immigration law so that all the illegals cannot find work here, and are forced to return home. Just yesterday I saw a work crew of illegals working on a pipe laying project; those were construction jobs, not dishwashers or domestic servants.

[1] The $787 billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 by Barack Obama is hoped to create just 3.5 millions jobs.

When the wheels fall off

2009-02-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

When the wheels fall off our country thanks to the enactment in February 2009 of Barack Obama's, and the Democratic Congress', so-called economic stimulus plan it will be nice to have a record of what conservative House Republican put forward as an alternative:

January 14, 2009

The Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act of 2009

“Responsible and immediate economic stimulus for every American family and business without burdening future generations.”

Financial markets are tumbling worldwide. The unemployment rate is climbing. It is clear that more
Americans are struggling to make ends meet and that the economy needs a boost. The question is:
from where should that boost come, Washington or the private sector? Conservatives believe the
answer is the private sector. History shows that the best way to encourage an economic turnaround,
help preserve jobs, and spur widespread economic growth is to ensure that job-creators face a lower
tax burden.

That’s why the Republican Study Committee (RSC) is introducing the Economic Recovery and
Middle-Class Tax Relief Act of 2009—to provide some much-needed, incentive-based relief to job-
creators and to reduce the cost that government imposes on middle-class families.

The RSC’s Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act is designed to provide broad,
growth-oriented, permanent incentives for economic activity across all sectors and industries, with
immediate application and sustained, long-term implications. This will ensure that Washington takes a
back seat to Main Street and job creators are empowered to do what they do best—create jobs.

Highlights: The RSC’s Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act is based on three main
themes: 1) Support Families through Tax Relief; 2) Provide Economic Relief for American
Businesses and Entreprenuers; and 3) Save Future Generations from a Crushing Debt Burden.
Support Families through Tax Relief

1)Five Percent Across the Board Income Tax Cut. This provision would reduce the six federal
income tax rates by 5% beginning with 2008, and make the new rates permanent. Under current
law, by contrast, income tax rates will increase in 2011.

2)Increase the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 to $5,000. Under current law, families are eligible for a
$1,000 tax credit for each child under the age of 17. This provision would increase, and make
permanent, an increase in the child tax credit to $5,000 beginning in 2008. This will provide a
substantial, immediate tax cut for middle-class families. The increased credit would not be
refundable.

3)Make the Lower 15% Rate on Capital Gains and Dividends Permanent. The Jobs and Growth Tax
Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 lowered the top tax rates on capital gains and dividends to 15%.
Under current law the lower rates currently in effect expire at the end of 2010, which means that
the top capital gains rate will go back to 20% and the top tax rate for dividends will be 39.6%. The
last time the capital gains tax rate increased (1987), capital gains tax collections fell by 54% over
the first five year and then took a full decade to recover. This provision makes the 15% rate
permanent.

4)Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax on Individuals. The AMT was created in 1969 to prevent
155 wealthy taxpayers from using loopholes in the tax code to avoid paying taxes altogether.
Under current law, the tax will hit more than 30 million people in 2009. There is a broad
consensus that this is both an unintended result and an unfair one, which is why Congress has
repeatedly passed an “AMT patch” to limit the scope of the tax. The legislation would
permanently repeal the AMT.

5)Permanently Repeal Required Distributions on Retirement Accounts. Under current law, senior
citizens, beginning at the age of 70-and-a-half, are required to make mandatory withdrawals from
their IRAs and 401(k)s. Though temporarily suspended for 2009, this provision in the tax code is
scheduled to go back into effect in 2010 and for every year thereafter. This provision in the tax
code needlessly complicates financial planning for retirees, restricts the freedom of seniors to make
their own decisions on when to make withdrawals, and in the short-term will force many seniors to
sell a portion of their assets at a loss. The bill permanently repeals this provision.

6)Make All Withdrawals from IRAs Tax- and Penalty-Free During 2009. As a general matter, the
purpose of 401(k)s and IRAs is to incentivize retirement savings. However, individuals who are
facing foreclosure or some other financial emergency during the current recession should have
penalty-free access to all of their savings. Especially since, without any other alternative, some
families facing hardship will have no choice but to take the penalty. The bill would, for 2009,
make all withdrawals from IRAs penalty- and tax-free.

7)Increase by 50% the Tax Deduction on Student Loans and the Tax Deduction on Qualified Higher
Education Expenses. Under current law, the tax code provides a tax deduction of $2,500 for
interest on student loans and a tax deduction of $4,000 for higher education expenses. This
provision would increase the value of both by 50% or to $3,750 and $6,000 respectively, and apply
both provisions to a larger number of middle-class families by allowing any individual earning up
to $75,000, or any family earning up to $150,000, to claim the full deduction.

Provide Economic Relief for American Businesses and Entrepreneurs

1) Full, Immediate Expensing. The bill would allow all businesses to immediately expense—or fully deduct on their tax returns—the costs of assets (including buildings) they purchase for their
business in the year that they buy such assets (“Section 179” expensing). Under current law,
businesses can only take limited deductions in pieces, over several years. By uncapping and
accelerating the expensing, this provision would encourage the purchase of assets with which to
grow a business.

2) Significant Reduction in the Top Corporate Income Tax Rate. The bill would immediately cut the top corporate income tax rate from 35% to 25%, aligning it with the average rate in the European
Union. By allowing businesses to keep more of the money they earn, this provision would Page 3 of 3 encourage the expansion of businesses, the hiring of more workers, and an acceleration of
investment, while making American companies more competitive internationally.

3) End the Capital Gains Tax on Inflation. The bill would index for inflation the cost basis used when calculating the capital gains tax on assets acquired before the end of 2009. Under current law, the
capital gains tax is based on the difference in the original purchase price of the asset and the sale
price of the asset. However, some of this difference, or “gain,” can be attributed to inflation. By
effectively reducing the amount of a gain that is taxable, this provision would encourage the
movement of capital in 2009 and spur voluminous economic investment.

4)Simplify the Capital Gains Rate Structure. The bill would allow corporations to benefit from the
15% capital gains rate. Under current law, individuals pay a top capital gains rate of 15%, but
corporations are subject to a 35% top rate. By encouraging corporations to sell unwanted assets,
this provision would unleash funds and materials with which to create jobs and grow the economy.

5)Make the R and D Tax Credit Permanent. The Research and Development tax credit is currently
due to expire at the end of 2009. Originally enacted as party of President Reagan’s Economic
Recovery Tax Act of 1981, it has since been extended on 13 separate occasions without being
made permanent. The purpose of this tax provision is to spur research and development in the
private sector.

6)Extend the Carryback Period for Net Operating Losses to Seven Years. A business incurs a net
operating loss when its tax liability is negative in a given year. Under current law, there is a two-
year carryback period for businesses to receive refunds on previously paid taxes. In other words, a
business may receive a refund equal to their negative tax liability up to the amount of taxes paid
over the previous two years. This legislation would extend this period from two years to seven
years, which will smooth out changes in business income, and incentivize private sector investment
and job creation.

Save Future Generations from a Crushing Debt Burden

1)NO Trillion Dollar Spending Spree. Even before Congress enacts one penny of spending from a
“stimulus” bill currently being put together by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid, this
year’s deficit is projected to be, by far, the highest peacetime deficit in the history of the country—
8.3% of GDP. And this is because federal spending is projected to be 24.9% of GDP (also the
highest figure in American history, excepting World War II), even before any new spending is
enacted. This legislation does not contain one penny of new spending, and rejects the idea that
massive new government spending will lead to an economic recovery. Borrowing from one part
of the economy and redistributing it to others will not grow the economy.

2)A Down-Payment on Spending Restraint. The bill includes a one-percent reduction to FY 2009
discretionary spending, excepting the Defense and Military Construction-Veterans appropriations
bills. This is a modest limit on the extent to which spending will otherwise increase compared to
FY 2008, and is a first step toward a commitment of spending restraint.

For more information or to co-sponsor, please contact Brad Watson with the RSC at brad.watson@mail.house.gov.

More pavement laid on the road to economic stagnation

2009-02-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Energy Writer John Porretto, Ap Energy Writer, February 10, 2009

HOUSTON – The chief executive of European oil giant BP PLC said Tuesday the industry and government must work more closely to satisfy global energy demands, balancing the need for finding and producing more fossil fuels with plans to reduce carbon emissions.

Yet on the same day, new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rejected a Bush administration plan to open vast areas of offshore waters to oil and gas drilling.

Salazar criticized the plan for new oil and gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf proposed by the Bush administration just four days before President Barack Obama took office last month. Salazar cited a need to "restore an orderly process" to energy planning...

Obama's new energy secretary, Steven Chu, has vowed to pursue policies aimed at addressing climate change and achieving greater energy independence by developing clean energy sources...

Salazar did not rule out expanded offshore drilling but he criticized the scope of Bush's proposal, which included development from New England to Alaska. Last fall, Congress ended the broad drilling ban, dating back to 1981, that's made 85 percent of offshore federal waters off-limits to energy companies.

But it remains up to the Interior Department to issue specific plans for drilling leases, and Salazar indicated he's in no rush to open long-protected waters.

His comments drew an immediate response from the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry.

"Congress made the American people wait nearly 30 years to address our immediate energy challenges," said API President Jack Gerard. "Secretary Salazar today told the American people they must continue to wait even though more than two-thirds of them want to tap our vast domestic resources for the benefit of all Americans."

This added Feb. 23, '09 -

WASHINGTON
By DONNA BORAK, AP Business Writer

FedEx Corp. Chief Executive Fred Smith said Monday that U.S. reliance on foreign oil is the biggest threat to the nation's economy after terrorism.

"The consequences of our energy dependence are real," Smith said in remarks at the National Press Club.

A major part of the financial crisis that led to the current recession was the run-up in oil prices in 2007 and last year, said the CEO of the Memphis-based provider of transportation and business services.

This added February 25, '09

WASHINGTON
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer

Executives of the biggest oil companies are telling Congress that expanded drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will produce needed oil and gas and generate thousands of jobs.

The president of Shell Oil Company — Marvin Odum — said oil will remain a major source of energy in the coming decades and be a transition to other energy sources. Odum told the House Natural Resources Committee that development of the country's offshore oil and gas will produce jobs and help in the economic recovery.

Feb. 2009 membership on Committe on Natural Resources:
MR. NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Chairman
MR. DOC HASTINGS, Washington, Ranking Republican Member

(Ratio 29-20)

Democrats
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Samoa
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
Grace F. Napolitano, California
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Raúl M. Grijalva, Arizona
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam
Jim Costa, California
Dan Boren, Oklahoma
Gregorio "Kilili" Sablan, Mariana Islands
Martin Heinrich, New Mexico
George Miller, California
Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Maurice D. Hinchey, New York
Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Islands
Diana DeGette, Colorado
Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Lois Capps, California
Jay Inslee, Washington
Joe Baca, California
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South Dakota
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts
Frank Kratovil, Jr., Maryland
Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico

Republicans
Don Young, Alaska
Elton Gallegly, California
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Henry E. Brown, Jr., South Carolina
Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Louie Gohmert, Texas
Rob Bishop, Utah
Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Doug Lamborn, Colorado
Adrian Smith, Nebraska
Robert J. Wittman, Virginia
Paul C. Broun, Georgia
John Fleming, Louisiana
Mike Coffman, Colorado
Jason Chaffetz, Utah
Cynthia M. Lummis, Wyoming
Tom McClintock, California
Bill Cassidy, Louisiana

This added Feb. 26, '09:

SALT LAKE CITY
By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer

In a second reversal of the Bush administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday he is scrapping leases for oil-shale development on federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

Salazar rescinded a lease offer made last month for research, development and demonstration projects that could have led to oil-shale works on 1.9 million acres in the three states, greatly expanding the program.

"I am withdrawing that Jan. 14 solicitation because in my view it was a midnight decision, and it was flawed," Salazar told reporters on a teleconference call from Washington, D.C.

He said he also is scrapping an initial 5 percent royalty rate on oil-shale production that "sells taxpayers short." Conventional oil and gas production on public land produces royalties of up to 18.8 percent.

Salazar's action marked the second time he has reversed the Bush administration. He also halted the leasing of 77 oil and gas drilling parcels near national parks in Utah three weeks ago. Then, as now, he called it an ill-conceived midnight decision by the former administration.

A trade association of independent oil and natural gas producers criticized Salazar's decision.

"It's part of a pattern of decisions by the secretary that are detrimental to all sources of domestic energy," said Kathleen Sgamma, government affairs director for the Denver-based Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States.

Salazar didn't cancel any existing leases for oil-shale demonstration projects, but companies that wanted a piece of an expanded program were left disappointed.

Among them was Exxon Mobil Corp., which was rejected in 2006 for an oil-shale lease because it couldn't show it was prepared to start research promptly. On Wednesday, the company said it was committed to developing oil shale on a commercial scale.

"In our view there is no better time to be investing in future energy security," Exxon Mobil said in a statement.

A tiny Utah company, which is working 16,500 acres of state lands, said it wanted to expand onto richer federal lands but won't be able to do so anytime soon because of Salazar's decision.

"Opening up federally managed land is going to be an important part of releasing the energy resources needed for the country," said Laura Nelson, a vice president of RedLeaf Resources Inc. of Salt Lake City.

Salazar said he'll consider making some of the land available for new research projects later.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, fellow Republicans in Congress and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, criticized Salazar for throwing up a roadblock to a domestic energy source.

The Rocky Mountains, according to government and industry estimates, hold more shale oil than Saudi Arabia's supply of liquid crude oil — if new technology can find a way to economically recover the waxy form of petroleum, which is locked inside sedimentary layers of rock.

The decision will cost Colorado billions of dollars in research spending, royalties and taxes and the opportunity to become a "world leader" in oil shale development, said Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, a member of the House Energy and Minerals Subcommittee.

But Colorado Gov. Gov. Bill Ritter applauded Salazar for taking "a more deliberate look at the Bush administration's hasty decision."

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, said: "From withdrawing land leases in Utah, to halting offshore drilling and now oil shale, Secretary Salazar is walking away from utilizing American's energy resources to become less dependent on foreign countries."

Stimulus boondoggle

2009-02-08T10:11:00.000-08:00

Even conservative talk-radio hosts steer clear of articulating the actual content of Barak Obama's stimulus bill receiving it's final touches in the Democratic Congress [1]. Apparently they believe, and perhaps rightly so, that most Americans are simply unable to parse the bill. However, even a casual review of the bill ought to make it plain to most thinking Americans that the proposed 2009 stimulus package, costing approximately $900 billion, is little more than a Victims of Democracy bill. The main thrust of the bill is not to stimulate the economy but to provide relief payments to every person Democrats imagine will be impacted by the current economic downturn. While they are correct in fearing that many Americans will suffer in the current downturn, their bill does little to assure a brighter tomorrow, unless the hope and joy of waiting for the next bailout check in the mail is what they call having a bright future.

Only the minds of closet, or not-so-closet socialist - or even communists - could have conceived of such a plan to address America's current economic crisis. Barack Obama must truly be an enemy of the America that our Founding Fathers sought to establish. Free enterprise, democracy, and right to pursue happiness, while incurring all the risks of that pursuit, are clearly alien to the man.

God help this country once this so-called stimulus bill passes, at unprecedented costs the taxpaye,r and produces little in the way of real change on the economic front. God help America.

[1]
Comparison of House and Senate economic stimulus plans
Saturday February 7, 3:35 pm ET
By The Associated Press

A comparison of the $827 billion economic recovery plan drafted by Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans with an $820 billion version passed by the House. Additional debt costs would add about $350 billion or more over 10 years. Many provisions expire in two years.
ADVERTISEMENT

Spending

AID TO POOR AND UNEMPLOYED:

--Senate -- $47 billion to provide extended unemployment benefits through Dec. 31, increased by $25 a week, and provide job training; $16.5 billion to increase food stamp benefits by 12 percent through fiscal 2011 and issue a one-time bonus payment; $3 billion in temporary welfare payments.

--House -- Comparable extension of unemployment insurance; $20 billion to increase food stamp benefits by 14 percent; $2.5 billion in temporary welfare payments; $1 billion for home heating subsidies and $1 billion for community action agencies.

DIRECT CASH PAYMENTS:

--Senate -- $17 billion to give one-time $300 payments to Social Security recipients, poor people on Supplemental Security Income, and veterans receiving disability and pensions.

--House -- $4 billion to provide a one-time additional Supplemental Security Income payment to poor elderly and disabled people of $450 for individuals and $630 for married couples.

INFRASTRUCTURE:

--Senate -- $46 billion for transportation projects, including $27 billion for highway and bridge construction and repair and $11.5 billion for mass transit and rail projects; $4.6 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers; $5 billion for public housing improvements; $6.4 billion for clean and drinking water projects.

--House -- $47 billion for transportation projects, including $27 billion for highway and bridge construction and repair and $12 billion for mass transit, including $7.5 billion to buy transit equipment such as buses; $31 billion to build and repair federal buildings and other public infrastructure; $12.4 billion in rail and mass transit projects.

HEALTH CARE:

--Senate -- $21 billion to subsidize health care insurance for the unemployed under the COBRA program; $87 billion to help states with Medicaid; $22 billion to modernize health information technology systems; $10 billion for health research and construction of National Institutes of Health facilities.

--House -- $40 billion to subsidize health care insurance for the unemployed under the COBRA program or provide health care through Medicaid; $87 billion to help states with Medicaid; $20 billion to modernize health information technology systems; $4 billion for preventative care; $1.5 billion for community health centers; $420 million to combat avian flu; $335 million for programs that combat AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.

EDUCATION:

--Senate -- $79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cuts in education aid and provide block grants; $25 billion to school districts to fund special education and the No Child Left Behind K-12 law; $14 billion to boost the maximum Pell Grant by $400 to $5,250; $1.1 billion for Head Start.

--House -- Similar aid to states and school districts; $21 billion for school modernization; $16 billion to boost the maximum Pell Grant by $500 to $5,350; $2 billion for Head Start.

ENERGY:

--Senate -- About $40 billion for energy programs, focused chiefly on efficiency and renewable energy, including $2.9 billion to weatherize modest-income homes; $4.6 billion for fossil fuel research and development; $6.4 billion to clean up nuclear weapons production sites; $11 billion toward a so-called "smart electricity grid" to reduce waste; $8.5 billion to subsidize loans for renewable energy projects; and $2 billion for advanced battery systems.

--House -- $28.4 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, including $6.2 billion to weatherize homes; $11 billion to fund a so-called "smart electricity grid" to reduce waste.

HOMELAND SECURITY:

--Senate -- $4.7 billion for homeland security programs, including $1 billion for airport screening equipment and $800 million for port security.

--House -- $1.1 billion, including $500 million for airport screening equipment.

LAW ENFORCEMENT:

--Senate -- $3.5 billion in grants to state and local law enforcement to hire officers and purchase equipment.

--House -- Comparable provision.

Taxes

NEW TAX CREDIT:

--House -- About $145 billion for $500 per-worker, $1,000 per-couple tax credits in 2009 and 2010. For the last half of 2009, workers could expect to see about $20 a week less withheld from their paychecks starting around June. Millions of Americans who don't make enough money to pay federal income taxes could file returns next year and receive checks. Individuals making more than $75,000 and couples making more than $150,000 would receive reduced amounts.

--Senate -- The credit would phase out at incomes of $70,000 for individuals and couples making more than $140,000 and phase out more quickly, reducing the cost to $140 billion.

EXPANDED CHILD CREDIT:

--House -- $18.3 billion to give greater access to the $1,000 per-child tax credit for the working poor in 2009 and 2010. Under current law, workers must make at least $12,550 to receive any portion of the credit. The change eliminates the floor, meaning more workers who pay no federal income taxes could receive checks.

--Senate -- Sets a new income threshold of $8,100 to receive any portion of the credit, reducing the cost to $7.5 billion.

ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX

--House -- No provision

--Senate -- About $70 billion to spare about 24 million taxpayers from being hit with the alternative minimum tax in 2009. The change would save a family of four an average of $2,300. The tax was designed to make sure wealthy taxpayers can't use credits and deductions to avoid paying any taxes. But it was never indexed to inflation, so families making as little as $45,000 could get significant increases without the change. Congress addresses it each year, usually in the fall.

EXPANDED EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT:

--House -- $4.7 billion to increase the earned-income tax credit -- which provides money to the working poor -- for families with at least three children.

--Senate -- Same.

EXPANDED COLLEGE CREDIT:

--House -- $13.7 billion to provide a $2,500 expanded tax credit for college tuition and related expenses for 2009 and 2010. The credit is phased out for couples making more than $160,000.

--Senate -- Reduces the amount that can be refunded to low-income families that pay no income taxes, lowering the cost to $13 billion.

HOMEBUYER CREDIT:

--House -- $2.6 billion to repeal a requirement that a $7,500 first-time homebuyer tax credit be paid back over time for homes purchased from Jan. 1 to July 1, unless the home is sold within three years. The credit is phased out for couples making more than $150,000.

--Senate -- Doubles the credit to $15,000 for homes purchased for a year after the bill takes effect, increasing the cost to $35.5 billion.

HOME ENERGY CREDIT:

--House -- $4.3 billion to provide an expanded credit to homeowners who make their homes more energy-efficient in 2009 and 2010. Homeowners could recoup 30 percent of the cost up to $1,500 of numerous projects, such as installing energy-efficient windows, doors, furnaces and air conditioners.

--Senate -- Same.

UNEMPLOYMENT:

--House -- No similar provision.

--Senate -- $4.7 billion to exclude from taxation the first $2,400 a person receives in unemployment compensation benefits in 2009.

BONUS DEPRECIATION:

--House -- $5 billion to extend a provision allowing businesses buying equipment such as computers to speed up its depreciation through 2009.

--Senate -- Similar.

MONEY LOSING COMPANIES:

--House -- $15 billion to allow companies to use current losses to offset profits made in the previous five years, instead of two, making them eligible for tax refunds.

--Senate -- Allows companies to use more of their losses to offset previous profits, increasing the cost to $19.5 billion.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS:

--House -- Repeal a law that takes effect in 2011, requiring government agencies to withhold 3 percent of payments to contractors to help ensure they pay their tax bills. Repealing the law would cost $11 billion over 10 years, in part because the government could not earn interest by holding the money throughout the year.

--Senate -- Delays the law from taking affect until 2012, reducing the cost to $291 million.

ENERGY PRODUCTION:

--House -- $13 billion to extend tax credits for renewable energy production.

--Senate -- Same.

BONDS:

--House -- $36 billion to subsidize locally issued bonds for school construction, teacher training, economic development and infrastructure improvements.

--Senate -- $22.8 billion to subsidize locally issued bonds for school construction, industrial development and infrastructure improvements.

REPEAL BANK CREDIT:

--House -- Repeal a Treasury provision that allowed firms that buy money-losing banks to use more of the losses as tax credits to offset the profits of the merged banks for tax purposes. The change would increase taxes on the merged banks by $7 billion over 10 years.

--Senate -- Same.

AUTO SALES:

--House -- No similar provision.

--Senate -- $11 billion to make interest payments on most auto loans and sales tax on cars deductible.

Quietly paving the way to future economic malaise

2009-02-06T02:58:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US environmentalists have been celebrating after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reversed a move by the previous administration to lease wilderness land in Utah to energy companies for exploration.

Salazar on Wednesday ordered the Bureau of Land Management "not to accept the bids on 77 parcels" that, he said, the Bush administration had rushed to sell off in its dying days in office.

The lands involved sit "at the doorstep of some of our nation's most treasured landscapes in Utah," including Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Parks, Dinosaur National Monument and Nine Mile Canyon, Salazar said.

Actor, environmental activist and Utah resident Robert Redford called the move "a sign that after eight long years of rapacious greed and backdoor dealings, our government is returning a sense of balance to the way it manages our lands...

But the energy industry criticized the cancellation of the leases and contested Salazar's and the environmentalists' claims that the Bush administration had forced through the lease sale.

"This wasn't rushed or last minute. The Bush administration took a lot of time to analyze environmental impact and put in additional environmental protection," said Kathleen Sgamma, director of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS).

"The lease sale ... wasn't a gift to industry. It was part of a regular quarterly lease sale that the Bureau of Land Management is mandated by law to hold," she added.

Natural gas from Utah and other western states in the Rocky Mountain range provides around 27 percent of natural gas used in the United States, and has minimal impact on the environment, said Sgamma.
Fri Feb 6, 12:38 am ET

Unbounded hypocrisy, but who cares?

2009-02-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

For the lions share of George W. Bush's presidency his Democratic opponents railed against his tax cuts "for the rich" that they said our country could ill afford, especially as we became engaged in war in Iraq; a war that is part of the larger, and also expensive, War on Terror.

Nevertheless, less than two weeks into Barack Obama's presidency he has nominated - and gotten one confirmation of - two wealthy men who illegally failed to pay back taxes.

One, now Treasury Secretary Geithner -

"Mr. Geithner failed to pay self-employment taxes on income he earned during the four years he worked for the International Monetary Fund in Washington, which as an international organization is exempt from paying Federal Insurance Contributions Act and Social Security taxes.

The omission was discovered during an audit by the Internal Revenue Service, after which he paid the taxes he owed for two of those years but not the first two years — which weren't covered by the audit due to the statute of limitations.

Mr. Geithner claimed that the failure to pay the taxes was an oversight and that he didn't realize he owed the taxes until the audit.

Yet he received extra income from the IMF to defray the taxes he was expected to pay but didn't pay, and he signed a form acknowledging that he understood he was receiving compensation for those required tax payments. The explanation doesn't wash." - Investment News, Sunday, February 1, 2009

The second, former Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle -

"Former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle doesn't appear to be losing too much support for his nomination to be health and human services secretary despite continually unfolding details about his failure to pay $140,000 in back taxes and interest." -FOXNews.com, Sunday, February 01, 2009

So, as prominent Democrats railed against Bush tax cuts as too costly for a needy U.S. Treasury, they greedily and illegally failed to pay their own personal income taxes. To top it off, apparently no one, not even prominent Republicans, care.

Will fight for country, but which country?

2009-01-31T06:30:00.000-08:00

This author has long puzzled over leftists in positions of power, especially political power - in America -, whose policy prescriptions for this country are destructive to this country's founding principles, but who who clearly demonstrated selfless courage in defense of this country. One such person is George McGovern, a far-leftist, but a hero of WII; Daniel Inouye, John Murtha, and many others.

Why would a man, or woman, demonstrate courage beyond the call of duty in defense of a country he was intent on destroying?

One need look no further than the life of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini was so far left that not even the socialist party in Italy could embrace him for long. Mussolini agitated openly and aggressively for the overthrow of the established order in Italy, a nation with a well functioning democracy. Mussolini despised democracy, the Christian faith (the Catholic Church in particular) and traditional approaches to life, including fidelity in marriage; to the institution of marriage itself, and more.

When world war came to Europe in 1914, Mussolini at first opposed the war, but soon changed positions, becoming a rabid supporter of the war, in line with his evolving belief in the virtues of nationalism, and because he saw in the war an avenue to overthrow the established order in Italy. [1]

Mussolini's embrace of nationalism was largely pragmatic. He came to realize that Marxist appeals for class warfare were unrealistic. He tried, and failed, many times to stir Italian peasants, and industrial workers, to revolt against the established order in Italy, but found those people groups were largely apathetic. Since he denied the church, Mussolini could find but one theme to rally followers to his cause - country.

The New Left in America today may be patriotic, but the nation they fight for is not the nation that most American embrace, or our Founding Fathers fought to establish. The New Left is fighting for a New Utopia, devoid of faith in a Higher Power; a land of justice and equality for all, engineered by an omnipotent state.

Our Founding Fathers, on the other hand, fought to establish every American's right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, not a guarantee of it.

[1] IL DUCE'S OTHER WOMAN, THE UNTOLD STORY OF MARGHERITA SARFATTI, BENITO MUSSOLINI'S JEWISH MISTRESS, AND HOW SHE HELPED HIM COME TO POWER, by Philip V and Sullivan, Brian R Cannistraro, William Morrow & Co, 1993, pg. 172

Everyone is taking shots, but ignore a big target

2009-01-30T11:43:00.000-08:00

In the current rush to gain political capital by affixing blame for the current economic downturn on lenders who made risky mortgage loans, the elephant in the living room goes unnoticed. The current economic downturn officially began in the spring of 2008, precisely at the time that energy prices began their record setting run that ultimately drove gasoline prices up over $4 per gallon.

Political leaders should be focusing much, if not most, of their energies on assuring America has access to abundant and affordable energy to not only help us out of the current downturn, but forestall another one.

Why is the left so critical of America?

2009-01-26T18:09:00.000-08:00

One important reason the left is so critical of America, is that in the wake of WWII, with the steady improvement in standard of living, convincing Americans of the appeal of their socialist, communist or anarchist ideas became more problematic. It simply became easier to trash the status quo than to put forward persuasive alternatives. [1]

For example, despite the undeniable fact that Americans not only are living far longer in 2009 than they lived in 1945, and even as life-expectancy continues to increase, the left attacks the foods Americans consume, and the chemicals our industry produces, as poisons that are rapidly killing us. The facts are not what matters; what matters to the left is to attack in any way possible including playing on people's guilt and fear.

[1] A Conservative History of the American Left, Daniel J. Flynn, Crown Forum, New York, 2008, pg. 247

Common sense will save us?

2009-01-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

Some of you, who poo-poo my warnings about the threat posed to mankind by godless, leftist men in political power, will undoubtedly console yourselves with the thought that any man, even a godless one, when confronted with the failures of his own misguided policies will at last, resort to, or listen to, common sense, which is the final salvation for mankind.

How many of you are aware that for many leftist, common sense itself is specifically targeted as the enemy?

"Now men must cross the frontier of their physical and moral possibilities, and the challenge the unknown. To perish, if need be....I want to hunt down common sense; I want to kill it." (emphasis mine) - Benito Mussolini [1]

One may scoff and dismiss Benito Mussolini as a buffoon, but does not only that only reveal one's ignorance of the man, but it fails to acknowledge the true source of Mussolini's views on common sense - Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Sorel and Pareto.

No, my friends, leftist views on common sense are deeply rooted in leftist intellectualism and pose a grave threat to every human being.

[1] Cited in Il Duce's Other Woman, Cannistraro and Sullivan, William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1993

What a difference just half a century makes

2009-01-24T08:13:00.000-08:00

(Author of this article is unknown)

Harry Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many important decisions regarding our nation's history as any of the other 42 Presidents. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.

The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri. His wife had inherited the house from her mother and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.

When he retired from office in 1952, his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an 'allowance' and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.

After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There were no Secret Service persons following them.

When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."

Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise."

As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.

Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale.

Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed,

"My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference."

A Jew created Hitler; how revealing

2009-01-21T07:19:00.000-08:00

How many Americans - who have been brainwashed into associating the word fascism with despotism and murderous animosity toward the Jews - are aware of the dirty secret that, more than any other person, a Jew was responsible [1] for creating fascism and unleashing it upon the world?

The stuff of fairy tales? Right-wing fiction? Jew-bashing extremism? How about cold, hard, fact?

Her name was Margherita (Grassini) Sarfatti , also known as the "Jewish Mother of Fascism". [2][3]

Taking into account the frequent involvement - especially in modern history - of Jews with any form of government that stands in opposition to everything that, for example, America's Founding Father's stood for, it should come as no surprise to anyone what kind of philosophy of governance, for human affairs, Sarfatti evolved and put forward - it included heavy doses of totalitarianism and nationalism melded into a state designed to bind all classes together under a corporatist system. This was a new system in which the state seized control of the organisation of vital industries.

Fascist movements commonly oppose: class conflict, conservatism, democracy, individualism, internationalism, laissez-faire capitalism. In addition to explicit opposition to these ideologies and systems, fascist governments permanently forbid and suppress all criticism and opposition to the government.

Fascists aim to create a single-party state in which the government is led by a dictator who seeks unity by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or a race.

If any of the above evokes images and memories for the reader of Abby Hoffman, the New York Times, modern American liberalism, B. Hussein Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or even Franklin Delano Roosevelt, well then, now you know why.

Sarfatti, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish lawyer, was very much an elitist, and elitists in all of history, including today, believe they know better what is in the interests of the common man, than the common man knows himself. Sarfatti, and her doctrine is the antithesis of what America's Founding Father's stood for, and her ilk are not only powerful in American today, but her elitists views probably live on in B. Hussein Obama. Time will tell about the Obama.

[1] By August 1922, before Mussolini and his fascist Blackshirts had come to power, Sarfatti "had lent the Fascist Central Committee one million lire from her personal fortune."

Mussolini's rise to power proceeded along the twin tracks of 1.) Enabling, arming, and organizing local militias (Blackshirts) throughout Italy, and, 2.) Spreading his views abroad via grassroot publications heavily funded and often totally managed by Sarfatti, who was also a major contributor of the content.
.
(Il Duce's Other Woman; The Untold Story of Margherita Sarfatti, Benito Mussolini's Jewish Mistriss, and How She Helped Him Come to Power, Cannistraro and Sullivan, William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1993, pgs. 252,253,256

[2] "The Jewish mother of Fascism", by Saviona Mane, Haartez.com, 6/7/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=735492; accessed 2/18/09

Quoting Ippolita Gaetani, Sarfatti's granddaughter, in this article:

"In my opinion, if the blacks and not the Jews had been persecuted then, many Jews would still be fascists ... In fact, it is the same today. Many Jews in Italy are fascists, because fascism is far closer to today's Israel; they are persecuting the Arabs. If you go to the Rome Ghetto today, you will see that part of the Rome Jewish community is truly fascist, fascist in its mentality, in the head. And the situation in the Middle East complicates matters. They accuse everyone who speaks out against Israel of being anti-Semitic. And in Italian politics they are far closer to the right than to the left."

Regarding the fate of Sarfatti's sister:

"Margherita's older sister, Nella Errera, did not fare..well. She and her husband, Paolo, who officially denied their Jewishness, were arrested in 1944 by the S.S. and sent to the camp at Fossoli and from there to Auschwitz. They died on the way to the extermination camp.

The coffee is ready and Gaetani pours it into a demitasse.

'Did your grandmother talk about the past or feel responsibility for her sister's death?'

'Not with me, not with us, that was taboo at home.'"

[3] Margherita Sarfatti, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margherita_Sarfatti; accessed 2/18/09)

America 2009 - A nation of neo-Nazis?

2009-01-18T08:27:00.000-08:00

I, a baby-boomer, son of man who fought against the Nazis in Europe, and I, a product of the public school systems in America, have had the anti-Nazi message drummed into me, and have viewed countless left-wing media correspondents puzzle and agonize over the mysterious something - perhaps present in every man - that could have led decent, ordinary German citizens to participate in the Nazi barbarities.

Nevertheless it is becoming apparent to me that at least half the present over-the-top adoration for B. Hussein Obama (to be inaugurated tomorrow) can be be safely attributed to voter's apoplectic fear over the safety of their retirement nest-eggs, tucked away in equities-invested 401k's. Little did I suspect that Obama's incessant campaign slogans of "Hope" and "Change" were resonating with people when it came to their 401k's. They voted for "hope" for their retirement funds, and "change" for their 401k's, change being a return to upward tracking stock prices. (The hope and change message also resonated with voters over plummeting housing values; one more asset where Americans place high hopes for future retirement, or even short-term speculative gains.)

The irrational hopes being placed in a man with a thin resume and uninspiring solutions to monumental problems, makes it much easier for me to understand what happened in Germany in the aftermath of WWI. If a 20-30% loss in retirement funds value amongst an otherwise healthy, well fed, and largely employed American populous can inspire, these days, such fear for tomorrow and an irrational hope in a demigod, than why do we stand in judgment upon the German people for placing their hopes in Hitler when they were enduring starvation (post-WWI naval blockade); hyper-inflation; mass-unemployment; not to mention loss of national pride and international clout?

Liberals, progressives and and their war on the human race

2009-01-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

Men and women in American today are well acquainted with passionate pleas from Hollywood stars and other assorted leftists for "reason to prevail over pig-headedness; for the possibility of life with dignity over and against fanatical cries to preserve unborn fetuses, which are barely beyond the developmental stage of pond scum." In short, Americans today are well acquainted with leftist arguments for embryonic stem cell research.

Yet, how many Americans are acquainted with the fact that the forebearers of modern day leftists made the exact same arguments - in substance, if not in exact vocabulary -, for the early 20th century practice of eugenics [1]? Take Lester Ward, Brown University sociologist who, in 1913, asked, "Are we to accept that modern scientific fatalism known as laissez faire, which the enjoins the folding of the arms?" and "Are we to preach a gospel of inaction?...The end and aim of eugenicists cannot be reproached." Or consider the sarcasm of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood - "Assuming that God does want and increasing number of worshippers of the Catholic faith, does he also want an increasing number of feeble-minded, insane, criminal, and diseased worshipers?"

Now, the actual practice of selective breeding was never enforced by the United States government, but that did not stop various leftists from experimenting with it in smaller scale communal experiments [2]. However, prodded and cajoled - as it is today over embryonic stem cell research - the federal government did eventually adopt forced sterilization. The damn was burst in 1927 when the Supreme Court voted 9-1 in favor of the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck. Writing for the majority, the court's great liberal, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. argued:

"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes."

Holmes concluded his argument with the infamous phrase:

"Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

(The sole dissenter in the court, Justice Pierce Butler, declined to write a minority opinion.) [3]

Ultimately more than 60,000 Americans were sterilized thanks to leftist agitation and Buck v. Bell.

Why did the eugenics movement die, and why do so few Americans recall it, while well able to recall the simultaneous movement called Prohibition? Because eugenics became anathema after Adolf Hitler made it a major tenet of Nazism, and the left, who control the media, have made sure that the sordid history of the left's support for eugenics is forever airbrushed from all media that might remind the American people of it.

[1] Eugenics: "a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed" - Merriam-Websters' Dictionary

[2] See John Humphrey Noyes (September 3 , 1811 – April 13 , 1886)

[3] Buck v. Bell, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell; accessed 1/11/09)

Dismember homosexuals!

2009-01-10T08:34:00.000-08:00

How many latter-day leftists will recall that, along with calling for a "separation of church and state", their hero Thomas Jefferson also called for homosexuals to be dismembered? [1] [2]

[1] Jefferson, Thomas (1781), Notes on the State of Virginia, The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, [On-line], URL: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jevifram.htm.

[2] "The Founders on Homosexuality", Dave Miller, Ph.D.; http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3769

The devil is a murderer (John 8:44)

2008-10-24T02:26:00.000-07:00

New evidence in a report published by the the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) suggest that the World Trade Center Towers might not have collapsed on September 11, 2001 if the steel beams forming the skeletal structure of the towers had been been fire-proofed with a safe and effective form of asbestos spray-on coating, a substance that was used on Tower One up to the thirty-eighth floor. Construction manager Rino Monti abandoned it after the the thirty-eighth floor because of (now) unjustified concerns about the risk to human health. I wonder if dying in a fire or being crushed out of recognition by a collapsing building is more hazardous to health than even the most dangerous asbestos application?

So how is Satan to blame? Simple, the environmental movement is driven by Satan. Therefore His followers in the movement may be responsible for this disaster. Let us not forget that the Sierra Club successfully blocked, for environmental reasons, reinforcement of the Mississippi levee at New Orleans just before Katrina overwhelmed it. (Another notch in the murderers belt.)

These days many Hollywood movies feature evil corporate polluters as the bad guys who are to be wiped out by crusading leftists. I wonder if Hollywood will ever turn that scenario on its head for a film about 9/11 or Katrina? Don't hold your breath.

Now I get it!

2008-10-24T02:24:00.001-07:00

I have been wondering for some time how God is going to deal with the hubris in the medical community, as well as the hubris and ingratitude in the community at large, which takes His blessings for granted . I am particularly concerned about the indifference toward God displayed by those who enjoy His abundant blessings in health care. We must never forget how far we have come by His grace. Only 200 years ago George Washington was bled by doctors while on His death bed. The most important advances, the truly foundational ones over the last 200 years, were by medical men of faith, Christian faith. Two outstanding examples are Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur. Modern medicine is God's blessing, not man's genius. What God gives He can and will, if the need arises, take away. Deuteronomy 28 describes the characteristics of God's blessings and curses. The blessings include fertility; victory over enemies; prosperity; rain in its season; lack of debt and more. The characteristics of cursing are (first and foremost) plagues of diseases; drought; defeat by enemies; insanity and confusion; absence of fertility; homelessness and more. Since victory over disease is a blessing, how then will the opposite come about in the days to come, at least in America? In particular how can God rescind, as it were, what He has already given? I think part of the answer is that God will send new disease for which we have no cure, or existing diseases will mutate and become tolerant of modern pharmaceuticals. We have already begun to see both of these phenomenon. Is that all? I doubt it. God has given us so much knowledge, it would be hard to negate it all at the same pace at which our hubris advances. (That is one cause of hubris - when one believes that others are powerless to affect you). Today I got the answer. God isn't going to negate all the good He has done - at least not yet. He will work in progressive stages. We have already seen strange new disease, like AIDS. We have seen resurgence of old scourges such as tuberculosis, asthma, staff infection. I think the next stage has already begun. God is going to make access to all He has blessed us with extremely difficult. As of this writing health insurance for a healthy family of four is $1000 month, privately contracted. The day when access to health care is no longer affordable for the average American is no longer just approaching, it has arrived. This is God's work, but through ordinary means. No miracles, God just causes it to happen. Louis Pasteur wasn't a "miracle", he was God's ordinary means for achieving His ends.

Proof before legislation - a new Democratic standard

2008-09-28T10:36:00.001-07:00

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has demanded that Republican prove that allowing drilling in the outer-continental shelf will make a material difference in oil prices. This demand for proof prior legislation being enacted is a novel one for Democrats - this is the same party that chose to replace slums with high-rise projects all over America under Lydon Johnson - at a cost of billions - only to discover those projects became magnets for crime and symbols of despair. This is the same party that legislates contraceptive use, and sex-education, as a solution to teen pregnancy, pre-adult promiscuity, and sexually transmitted diseases while consistently ignoring overwhelming evidence that such legislation is failing. This is the party that proposes yet another amnesty for illegal aliens, but is utterly indifferent to proofs that amnesty only exasperates illegal immigration. The list goes on - but who has got all the time it would take to list all the legislation that Democrats have approved, that failed miserably.