Ferguson Protesters: Rebuild Our Looted Businesses, “Or It’s Gonna Be Hell to Pay”

The stores which you depend on for jobs and services didn’t burn themselves down or loot themselves. YOU looted and destroyed them. Why should those companies, or “whitey,” be in any way motivated or required to rebuild, or keep open their businesses in a community where the residents will just steal from them and destroy those businesses AGAIN anytime they get upset about something? When you defecate in your own bed, you sleep in crap. YOU bought the ticket, now you get to watch the show. If you want sympathy for your community being destroyed by ***YOU***, you will find that sympathy ONLY in the dictionary between “something” and “syphilis.” You won’t find it in CIVILIZED America.

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Ferguson Protesters: Rebuild Our Looted Businesses, “Or It’s Gonna Be Hell to Pay” (Video)

Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, August 24, 2014, 10:05 AM

On August 10, 2014, outraged protesters looted and torched the local QuikTrip in Ferguson after 18 year-old Mike Brown was shot dead.

Now local Ferguson residents are warning officials to rebuild the businesses,
“Or, it’s gonna be hell to pay.”
CBS interviewed three young men in Ferguson, Missouri this week.
One protester Gunny warned officials:

“To be honest, if they don’t come and restore these neighborhoods for these people, like when you gotta go travel miles to Walmart and to get gas and stuff like that, it should be right here. If they don’t restore this community for people who stay here it’s gonna be hell to pay…

A second protester chimed in:

Yeah, that’s why people looting, because they can’t get no jobs.

Why There Are No Jobs in America

This Is Why There Are No Jobs in America

This is an example of why people are fed up, and it has absolutely nothing to do with race or religion.

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This Is Why There Are No Jobs in America

By Porter Stansberry

Saturday, August 21, 2010

I”d like to make you a business offer.

Seriously. This is a real offer. In fact, you really can”t turn me down, as you”ll come to understand in a moment…

Here”s the deal. You”re going to start a business or expand the one you”ve got now. It doesn”t really matter what you do or what you”re going to do.  I”ll partner with you no matter what business you”re in – as long as it”s legal.

But I can”t give you any capital – you have to come up with that on your own. I won”t give you any labor – that”s definitely up to you. What I will do, however, is demand you follow all sorts of rules about what products and services you can offer, how much (and how often) you pay your employees, and where and when you”re allowed to operate your business. That”s my role in the affair: to tell you what to do.

Now in return for my rules, I”m going to take roughly half of whatever you make in the business each year.  Half seems fair, doesn”t it? I think so.  Of course, that”s half of your profits.

You”re also going to have to pay me about 12% of whatever you decide to pay your employees because you”ve got to cover my expenses for promulgating all of the rules about who you can employ, when, where, and how. Come on, you”re my partner. It”s only “fair.”

Now… after you”ve put your hard-earned savings at risk to start this business, and after you”ve worked hard at it for a few decades (paying me my 50% or a bit more along the way each year), you might decide you”d like to cash out – to finally live the good life.

Whether or not this is “fair” – some people never can afford to retire – is a different argument. As your partner, I”m happy for you to sell whenever you”d like… because our agreement says, if you sell, you have to pay me an additional 20% of whatever the capitalized value of the business is at that time.

I know… I know… you put up all the original capital. You took all the risks. You put in all of the labor. That”s all true. But I”ve done my part, too. I”ve collected 50% of the profits each year. And I”ve always come up with more rules for you to follow each year. Therefore, I deserve another, final 20% slice of the business.

Oh… and one more thing…

Even after you”ve sold the business and paid all of my fees… I”d recommend buying lots of life insurance. You see, even after you”ve been retired for years, when you die, you”ll have to pay me 50% of whatever your estate is worth.

After all, I”ve got lots of partners and not all of them are as successful as you and your family. We don”t think it”s “fair” for your kids to have such a big advantage. But if you buy enough life insurance, you can finance this expense for your children.

All in all, if you”re a very successful entrepreneur… if you”re one of the rare, lucky, and hard-working people who can create a new company, employ lots of people, and satisfy the public… you”ll end up paying me more than 75% of your income over your life. Thanks so much.

I”m sure you”ll think my offer is reasonable and happily partner with me… but it doesn”t really matter how you feel about it because if you ever try to stiff me – or cheat me on any of my fees or rules – I”ll break down your door in the middle of the night, threaten you and your family with heavy, automatic weapons, and throw you in jail.

That”s how civil society is supposed to work, right? This is America, isn”t it?

That”s the offer America gives its entrepreneurs. And the idiots in Washington wonder why there are no new jobs…

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Obama Speaks (some) Truth to Africans

Obama says “No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top,” yet he comes home and continues to raise taxes on our businesses so they are paying TWICE that rate directly to the government.  This is no mistake.  He spoke the truth.  He is intentionally trying to destroy American businesses and capitalism in general.  He is more than just naive.  He is a slick talking personification of evil who wants to destroy freedom and oppress millions of people.  He has to go before he enslaves us all.

The Obama Watch

A Nation of One-Eyed Sycophants?

By Ralph R. Reiland on 7.20.09 @ 6:07AM

President Obama got it right for a minute during his recent stop in Africa. “No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top,” he told the Parliament of Ghana.

Then he flew home to a U.S. economy that’s losing a half million jobs per month and started pushing for a new round of tax hikes and costly regulations on American businesses, even though they’re already paying double the rate that Obama warned will kill off investment and job growth.

“I wonder if the President is referring to corrupt bureaucrats asking for bribes,” wrote the Cato Institute’s Daniel J. Mitchell regarding Obama’s advice to the Ghanians. “But even if that is the case, why does it matter?” — i.e., it’s same disincentive whether the money is pocketed by the Treasury or by a crooked bureaucrat.

Even before the next round of tax hikes and health care mandates, U.S. corporations are operating under an average combined federal and state corporate tax rate of 39.3 percent, second only among OECD countries to Japans’ combined rate of 39.5 percent.

Moreover, the combined corporate tax rate in 24 high-tax states in the U.S. is higher than top-ranked Japan. Iowa is the worst, hitting corporations with a 12 percent corporate tax rate, followed by Pennsylvania with a 9.99 percent rate on corporate income.

Does anyone think that Obama, being consistent, will stop by in Pittsburgh during the upcoming G-20 summit and deliver the same message that he preached in Ghana, warning that Pittsburgh is at the top of the pile in the nation in population losses and low job creation because the city skims too much money from what’s left of its business sector?

Since the last census, Pittsburgh had the nation’s fifth worst rate of decline in population among the 273 cities with more than 100,000 residents. Remove Katrina-hit New Orleans from the list and Pittsburgh moves up to fourth place (only Buffalo, Cleveland, and Flint, Michigan were worse).

President Obama also had another good line in his economic pontifications in Ghana. “No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves,” he warned. What’s the chance that he’ll deliver that same message to the crooks on Wall Street the next time they have their hands out for more billions of our tax dollars?

Landing back in the U.S., President Obama immediately delivered the marching orders on health care reform, sounding not unlike a father who just got back from out-of-town and found that his teenagers had been having too much fun while he was away.

“So I just want to put everyone of notice, because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone,” he declared. “Inaction is not an option.”

Inaction, in short, isn’t an option even if his plan is fundamentally flawed. And we have to act at once, with no more “chatter.”

Dr. David Blumenthal, Harvard professor and a key health advisor to Obama, explained the rush: “Bill Clinton waited nine months to introduce his Health Security Act in 1993, which allowed the opposition to mobilize and defeat him.”

President Obama has appointed Blumenthal as the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, a position that Dr. Betsy McCaughey, a former Lt. Governor of New York and a renowned patient advocate, describes as the head of a system of “computer-guided medical care.”

That means that Blumenthal and Obama, by design, can decide what we’ll be allowed to receive in medical care, not the newly de-skilled and less-expensive physicians who can just bring up on their computers what the central planners are mandating as the “best practice” and most “cost effective” treatment in each of our specific cases, given budget constraints and our age.

Dr. McCaughey describes how that’s worked in practice in the U.K. in her “Downgrading American Medical Care” article in the July/August issue of The American Spectator: “In 2006, older patients with macular degeneration, which causes blindness, were told that they had to go totally blind in one eye before they could get an expensive new drug to save the other eye.”

After nearly two years, the public in the U.K., still permitted to “chatter,” got the care-denying edict by the central planners reversed.

Here at home, with his command for “no more talk,” what is it exactly that Obama is demanding? A nation of one-eyed sycophants?

Letter to the Editor

Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University and a columnist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Dr. Obama, can I take my medicine now?

For  you idiots that elected Uh-bama and his teleprompter, WAKE UP!  The bus that is America couldn’t make the curve that the liberals have thrown it, and it has now burst through the guard rail and is hanging halfway over the cliff.  What’s worse, rather than try to pull it back, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are at the back bumper trying to push it over.

The latest Obamanation is this health care bill which the democrats are trying to ram down our throats this week.  This will result in rationing of health care to all but the extremely rich and politically powerful (that’s what’s happening in Canada and Great Britain).  You will be forced (i.e. you will have no choice NOT to buy) to buy your “insurance” from the government.  All competing plans will be disallowed.  New medicines and procedures will no longer be developed because there will be no financial incentive to develop them.  Quality doctors will leave medical practice and be replaced by less cabable ones because of salary caps and insurance laws.  In Great Britain there are a fixed number of doctors.  To get one of those positions, a doctor must either retire or die.  You have medical interns quitting after a 20-30 year wait without ever practicing medicine because no one died or retired.  A committee will decide who gets procedures and certain kinds of health care based upon how much “utility” the state will get from you after the surgery before you die.  In other words, the older you are, the less likely you are to get needed health care because you’re more likely to die before the state can get its money’s worth (pay back) from you.  Doctors and patients from Canada, Great Britain, and pretty much any other country you can name that has socialized medicine have gone on record imploring us not to go down this road.  Of course you never hear that from the Obamedia because of their biased coverage of the Obamessiah. (See this story and its links for more on that.) WAKE UP and see that we are going down the path to becoming the next version of the Soviet Union.

Contact your representatives and senators, and several of the others, to make them hear our voice.  Once this bill passes, we won’t be able to undo it.  See the files linked below for contact information for all congressmen and senators.

2009_senateinfo

2009_congressinfo_allhousereps

– The Loft – http://www.gopusa.com/theloft –

Dr. Obama, can I take my medicine now?

Posted By Bobby Eberle On April 27, 2009 at 7:50 am

The left-wing steamroller keeps right on rolling, squashing one American institution after another. From banks to energy to the automobile industry, Obama is squeezing the life out of the private sector and injecting government where it doesn’t belong. What’s next you ask? Health care.

Obama and the Democrats are now focusing on a massive health care bill that will put government in more control than ever before. Knowing that passage of such a bill would be a crowning achievement on the way to socialized medicine, the Democrats are now considering bypassing the traditional legislative process so that Republicans would not be able to mount a filibuster. Need an operation? Please take a number and get to the back of the line.

As noted in a FOXNews.com story, Obama and Congressional leaders are considering using a tactic known as “reconciliation” to push forward Obama’s health care plan.

The fast-track process would protect Obama’s ambitious plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system from a potential GOP filibuster and limit the Republicans’ ability to get concessions. It also would give Democrats far more control over the specifics of the health care legislation.

Under typical Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to advance a bill, but reconciliation would enable Democrats to enact the health care plan with just a simple majority and only 20 hours of debate.

In case you missed the 2006 and 2008 elections, Democrats hold majorities in the Senate and the House and, using tactics such as that described above, could pass almost any legislation. Add to that a few weak-kneed Republicans, and the situation becomes even more serious.

In a story on CNSNews.com, the leading Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, said that Obama’s health care plan would not result in “government-mandated health care rationing.” Obama currently says that he will pay for his health care “reform” plan by creating “efficiencies” in the medical system.

“There is no rationing of health care at all,” Baucus told CNSNews.com on Friday. “You choose your own doctor. You choose your own health insurance that you want to have. This is all a choice.

“What we are talking about is squeezing cost out of the system because of an emphasis on quality care, not quantity,” Baucus told CNSNews.com. “Today the emphasis in the reimbursement is quantity whether you are a doctor, or a medical equipment manufacturer, whatever you are. It’s quantity. You get paid for the number of units that you provide.

Baucus went on to say that this plan is a “whole new way of doing business,” but then added that “there may be some cuts.” Oh really!

The news story then quotes the White House’s director of the National Economic Council as saying, “Look at health care, the frequency of different procedures, whether it’s tonsillectomies or hysterectomies in different parts of the country — and what you see is that in some parts of the country procedures are done three times as frequently and there’s no benefit in terms of the health of the population.”

No benefit to the health of the population? What in the world does that even mean? I’m sure the person getting the procedure doesn’t care about the rest of the population.

Of course, the language in Obama’s plan is vague, to say the least, and Republicans are questioning where the “savings” would come from.

“If you’re going to quantify [savings] with certainty, that means you feel you’re going to ration with certainty,” said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Feb. 26.

“How do they propose to go about doing this?” asked Ryan. “Do they propose to set up a system where the government is in the nucleus of our health care system, where the government is telling providers — physicians — how to practice medicine?”

As he did with the bailout, Obama is appealing to the media by saying that he wants the health care plan to be “bipartisan.” Give me a break. Yes, he wants to work with Republicans just as long as Republicans agree with him. As noted in the FOXNews.com story, “Democrats, including Obama, have said repeatedly that they want the health care debate to be bipartisan and that the filibuster-proof terms would be used only if the GOP obstructs.” Does that sound like a bipartisan environment to you?

“Reconciliation is basically a nuclear weapon to use against the negotiators so what happens is nobody negotiates seriously because they can always go to reconciliation … tilting the playing field unfairly,” said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, top Republican on the Budget Committee.

The Democrats do deserve credit for one thing… once given control of government (because Republicans turned away from their principles); they have absolutely no problems in pushing forward their agenda. Given the opportunity they are ramming socialism down our throats. Imagine all we could have passed with our missed opportunity.

The more government gets involved in health care, the worse the health care system becomes. That is a simple fact.

Mexico, Don’t Blame Us

The answer to gun crime is giving MORE guns to law-abiding citizens, not taking them away. When a criminal knows that there is a better than even chance that he/she will be shot if they break into a home, breaking into that home doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. If we let our Border Patrol, police, and military actually shoot bad guys trying to get into our country instead of forcing them to be foot servants to the criminals and illegal aliens, the illegal aliens would stay away, and the crime rate would be a lot lower. Nugent for President!

by Ted Nugent (more by this author)

Spoons Made Michael Moore Fat

Here comes the continuous, faulty logic used to attack gun ownership by law-abiding citizens.  And worse than simply applying faulty logic to the gun control argument, liberals are intellectually dishonest in that they don’t apply their “logic” consistently across the board.  Let’s look at a few examples:

Object of Liberal Attention	Liberal Logic	Truth
Guns	Guns Kill People	People Kill People
If Liberal Logic were applied across the board…
Cars	Drunk drivers use cars to kill people, therefore we must ban cars	Drunk drivers kill people, therefore we must punish (ban) drunk drivers
Fat People	Fat people use spoons to eat, therefore we must ban spoons	Fat people lack self control. If there is a penalty for being fat, then the individual must suffer the consequences

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Let’s All Surrender Our Weapons — You First!

by Ann Coulter (more by this author)

Posted 04/08/2009 ET
Updated 04/08/2009 ET

The rash of recent shooting incidents has led people who wouldn’t know an AK-47 from a paintball gun to issue demands for more restrictions on guns. To be sure, it’s hard to find any factor in these shootings that could be responsible — other than the gun.So far, this year’s public multiple shootings were committed by:– Richard Poplawski, 23, product of a broken family, expelled from high school and dishonorably discharged from the Marines, who killed three policemen in Pittsburgh.

— Former crack addict Jiverly Wong, 41, who told co-workers “America sucks” yet somehow was not offered a job as a speechwriter for Barack Obama, who blockaded his victims in a civic center in Binghamton, N.Y., and shot as many people as he could, before killing himself.

— Robert Stewart, 45, a three-time divorcee and high school dropout with “violent tendencies” — according to one of his ex-wives — who shot up the nursing home in Carthage, N.C., where his newly estranged wife worked.

— Lovelle Mixon, 26, a paroled felon, struggling to get his life back on track by pimping, who shot four cops in Oakland, Calif. — before eventually being shot himself.

— Twenty-eight-year-old Michael McLendon, child of divorce, living with his mother and boycotting family funerals because he hated his relatives, who killed 10 of those relatives and their neighbors in Samson, Ala.

It might make more sense to outlaw men than guns. Or divorce. Or crack. Or to prohibit felons from having guns. Except we already outlaw crack and felons owning guns and yet still, somehow, Wong got crack and Mixon got a gun.

After being pulled over for a routine traffic violation, Lovelle Mixon did exactly what they teach in driver’s ed by immediately shooting four cops. Mixon’s supporters held a posthumous rally in his honor, claiming he shot the cops only in “self-defense,” which I take it includes the cop Mixon shot while the officer was lying on the ground.

I guess Mixon also raped that 12-year-old girl in “self-defense.” Clearly, the pimping industry has lost a good man. I wish I’d known him. I tip my green velvet fedora with the dollar signs all over it to him. Why do the good ones always die young? Pimps, I mean.

Liberals tolerate rallies on behalf of cop-killers, but they prohibit law-abiding citizens working at community centers in Binghamton, N.Y., from being armed to defend themselves from disturbed, crack-addicted America-haters like Jiverly Wong.

It’s something in liberals’ DNA: They think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control.

The demand for more gun control in response to any crime involving a gun is exactly like Obama’s response to North Korea’s openly belligerent act of launching a long-range missile this week: Obama leapt to action by calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament.  (or more accurately, Obama is yielding our power and sovereignty to the UN, who as usual is paralyzed and unable to do anything.  If the UN accomplishes anything, it’s only because America gets it done.)

If the SAT test were used to determine how stupid a liberal is, one question would be: “The best defense against lawless rogues who possess _______ is for law-abiding individuals to surrender their own _______________.”

Correct answer: Guns. We would also have accepted nuclear weapons.

Obama explained that “the United States has a moral responsibility” to lead disarmament efforts because America is “the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon.”

So don’t go feeling all morally superior to a country whose business model consists of exporting heroin, nuclear bombs and counterfeit U.S. dollars, and of importing Swedish prostitutes, you yahoo Americans with your little flag lapel pins.

On the other hand, the Japanese haven’t acted up much in the last, say, 64 years …

Fortunately, our sailors didn’t wait around for Obama to save them when Somali pirates boarded their ship this week. Stop right now or I’ll ask the U.N. to remind the “international community” that “the U.S. is not at war with Somali pirates.”

Gun-toting Americans are clearly more self-sufficient than the sissy Europeans. This is great news for everyone except Barney Frank, who’s always secretly wondered what it would be like to be taken by a Somali pirate.

Police — whom I gather liberals intend to continue having guns — and intrepid U.N. resolution drafters can’t be everywhere, all the time.

If a single civilian in that Binghamton community center had been armed, instead of 14 dead, there might have only been one or two — including the shooter. In the end, the cops didn’t stop Wong. His killing spree ended only when he decided to stop, and he killed himself.

“The shooter will eventually run out of ammo” strategy may not be the best one for stopping deranged multiple murderers.

But it’s highly unlikely that any community center in the entire state would be safe from a disturbed former crack-addict like Wong because New York’s restrictive gun laws require a citizen to prove he has a need for a gun to obtain a concealed carry permit.

Instead of having Planned Parenthood distribute condoms in schools, they ought get the NRA to pass out revolvers. It would save more lives.

Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Slander,” ““How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must),” “Godless,” “If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans” and most recently, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and their Assault on America.

Obama Attacks the Foundations of America

Obama is busily running around the world with his wife Rue Paul selling out America.  He keeps apologizing for our greatness, and what we’ve done in the world in an attempt to make everyone like us.  Now he is publicly discounting and denying the heritage that this country was founded on.  Here is the quote from his April 6th speech in Turkey.

…That’s something that’s very important to me. And I’ve said before that one of the great strengths of the United States is — although as I mentioned, we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values…”

The reality of the foundation of our great nation can be summed up no better than in this quote from Patrick Henry:

“It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!”

— Patrick Henry

Sadly, we are BECOMING a nation that is not Christian as the forces of liberalism erode the value system that glued this country together since its inception.  The moral underpinning of America is systematically being destroyed.  Mr. Obama says that we are “bound by ideals and a set of values.”  Really?  And just what do you believe those “ideals” and “values” to be?  Based upon the evidence you have presented thus far, these are some of the values I think you believe in:

• Either the supremacy of Islam or atheism
  • You continue to publicly appease the Muslim terrorists and the Muslim states
  • You claim to be a Christian, yet almost everything you do publicly says that you are anything but a Christian
    • #1 – You support abortion.  Need I say more?
    • #2 – You have been caught lying so many times that no one can keep count
    • You attack the Christian foundations of our country constantly
  • You’re either a Muslim lying and pretending to be a Christian, or you are a deceived and foolish atheist
    
• Total government control of all aspects of citizens lives
• Ever increasing size of government
• Destruction of capitalism
  • Support for high corporate taxes which drive businesses to other countries
  • Picking winners and losers in business rather than letting the market decide
    
• Destruction of personal freedom
  • Elimination of freedom of speech (Fairness Doctrine, or whatever you call it this week; state sponsorship of specific news papers and TV outlets to the detriment of others)
  • Elimination of our 2nd Amendment rights to protect ourselves (see my post on Ted Nugent explaining the need for the 2nd Amendment)
    
• Elimination of personal wealth property rights
  • Against the will of the American people you have effectively sealed our doom financially by more than doubling all the debt held by this nation from its founding until you took office
  • After all is said and done, each tax paying family will owe at least$200,000 over the next 10 years to pay for your spending
  • Your spending is not constructive.  It forcibly takes what has been EARNED and gives it to those who have not earned and DO NOT DESERVE to share in this wealth

Obama may not be the anti-Christ, but I think he is at the very least a false prophet, and definitely anti-American.

Obamas Sell Out America Road Show

With the audacity of a dope, Barack Hussein Obama, the Obamasiah, the distributor-in-chief of the earned to the undeserving, who has been groomed to sell out America since he was a young man studying at the feet of terrorists and communists, who has been rehearsing the sellout of his country since the beginning of his presidential campaign, has just put act one of the Great American Sellout on the public stage.  Apologizing for American greatness?  What has the great nation of America done to make the world better anyway?  Let’s look at a few examples.

• Founded a nation based on individual freedom and capitalism that has advanced the human condition more in the last 200 years than in all of the previous history of mankind
• Pulled Europe’s bacon out of the fire not once, not twice, but THREE times in the last century
  • World War One
  • World War Two
  • The Cold War
• Saved the rest of the world twice
• Following WWII, rebuilt most of the world AT OUR OWN EXPENSE including THE COUNTRIES RESPONSIBLE FOR DESTROYING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE
• Even in the face of ever increasing taxes and a slide toward socialism, America is still THE MOST CHARITABLE NATION ON EARTH
• Any time there is a disaster or trouble around the world, who does everyone turn to for help, money, and/or military force?
  • No other socio-economic system on earth has been able to generate the kind of wealth and prosperity that America has
  • More than any other nation on earth, that wealth and prosperity has been used for good and to foster freedom

Yes, Mr. Uh-Bama,  America may not be perfect.  However, she is light years better than any other nation on this planet.  If that were not true, why do millions of people risk everything to come to America every year?  For all of you apologists who keep putting down America, I have two words for you: GET OUT! There is no other nation on earth where you could put down your own country and government like you do without being thrown in jail or executed.  If you dislike America so much, I have a deal for you.  You renounce your citizenship, surrender your U.S. passport, and I’ll take up a collection to give you a ride to the border or the beach.  As you exit America, don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

Echo Of Europe

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Leadership: Sixty-one years to the day after Truman signed the Marshall Plan rebuilding war-torn Europe, President Obama apologizes to French youth for U.S. arrogance. Our defense of freedom is no shame.

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Read More: Business & Regulation

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News reports quoted French men and women hailing the first African-American president of the United States as a hopeful sign for global racial reconciliation.

But is there another reason they’re so smitten? Might they be imagining the decline of America and the rise of a Eurocentric multilateralism?

Barack Obama’s words to the thousands of squealing young French and German fans at the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg certainly seem in harmony with such hopes.

“In America,” the president claimed, “there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

President Obama promised that “America is changing” and that there would now be “unprecedented coordination” in our policies.

He lamented that “we got sidetracked by Iraq”; he extolled the “social safety net that exists in almost all of Europe that doesn’t exist in the United States.”

And he described the G-20 summit he just attended in London last week as “a success of nations coming together, working out their differences, and moving boldly forward.”

But is multilateralism really the great hope for the future that the president and his French and German devotees are convinced it is?

“We just emerged from an era marked by irresponsibility,” the president claimed in reference to the global financial crisis.

But when he flaunts his “excellent meeting with President Medvedev of Russia” to begin the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles with the claim that working with Moscow will “give us greater moral authority to say to Iran, ‘don’t develop a nuclear weapon,’ to say to North Korea, ‘don’t proliferate nuclear weapons,’ ” isn’t he actually embarking on a new era of naive foreign policy irresponsibility?

The Russia and Communist China the president wants to “partner” with are directly responsible for giving Iran and North Korea the nuclear expertise and equipment that have empowered those two oppressive terror states to pursue the ability to incinerate a city.

And does the president really believe that Kim Jong-il or the Ayatollah Khomenei respond, as he put it, to “moral authority” the way civilized leaders do?

It’s Europe that has things to learn from America, not vice versa.

Europe can learn that with an injection of U.S.-style market competition, French patients need not wait month-upon-month for heart bypass surgery. They can learn that Iran is a clear and present danger requiring force from a united free world, not talk.

While they’re at it, they might also learn to express some gratitude for the $13 billion American taxpayers shelled out during the post-war years (over $100 billion in current dollars) to rebuild their countries — after the U.S. came to their rescue during the war itself, spilling the blood of hundreds of thousands to defeat Hitler.

The United States of America is the world’s lone superpower — unless and until we choose to relinquish that responsibility.

The last thing our sometime friends and allies across the pond need is a U.S. president bemoaning America’s role in the world and serving as an echo chamber to those in Europe who would like to see us weakened or irrelevant.

Big transatlantic moment as Barack Obama bemoans “arrogance” of US and “insidious” anti-Americanism of Europe

Posted By: Toby Harnden at Apr 3, 2009 at 16:24:00 [General]

Posted in: Foreign Correspondents

Tags:

Barack Obama, Europe, nato, Rhenus Sports Arena, Strasbourg

Here in the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg, I’ve just witnessed what is surely a very important – I hesitate to say historic – moment in transatlantic relations. Barack Obama went further than any previous president in apologising for American behaviour.

“In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world,” he said in a prepared speech delivered before a campaign-style town hall meeting in which he took questions from mainly French and German students.

“Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

Barack Obama at the Rhenus Arena Pic: Toby Harnden

But he balanced this startling mea culpa – or, perhaps more accurately, a George W. Bush culpa – with a clear message to Europeans that blaming America for everything was unacceptable.

“In Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognising the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad.”

Then, in classic Obama fashion, he sought to find a synthesis between the two poles. “On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth.

“They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.”

I was standing beside a White House official who told me afterwards that the speech was a concerted attempt to draw a line under the Bush years and offer an olive branch to Europe.

The time is fast approaching when Obama will have to be more than the unBush – that will not get him a pass in Europe indefinitely. He recognises this, saying: “I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, al-Qaeda is still a threat.”

In concrete, immediate terms Obama wants to use his vow to rebuild America’s global relations by securing more troops for Afghanistan.

The rather woolly US language on this subject last week now seems to be hardening up considerably with Obama saying that although “we will be partnering with Europe on the development side and on the diplomatic side” that isn’t in itself enough.

“There will be a military component to it,” he said. “And Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone. We should not, because this is a joint problem, and it requires joint effort.”

Word is that Gordon Brown has just pledged to send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We should soon know whether the continental Europeans will also be – as Obama put it while standing alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany – “stepping up to the plate”.

Democrats Unveil Climate Bill

Very few of those on Capitol Hill are really stupid enough to believe that any “climate change” we might experience is actually caused by man.  We might be POLLUTING the environment, but to credit climate change to anything we are doing is more than pretentious.  The REAL science does not back up the assertion.  I’m not talking about the discredited “hockey stick” graph that our environmental savior Al Gore likes to display, or the NASA data that was proven to be falsified and faulty.  I’m talking about data from scientists that number at least as many as the global warming/climate change crowd, but are silenced and/or ignored by government and their willing accomplices the mainstream media.  As I said in my post “Stop the Obama Plan to Take Total Control,” this is not about protecting the climate or environment, it’s about control of wealth and power.

…Have no doubt that they will find another way to put this over on us, and here’s why.  Don’t miss this.  Cap-and-Trade, carbon tax, or whatever label they place on it is the one, single way to tax and control EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE.  Think about it.  We are a carbon based economy.  Is there ANYTHING that you use, consume, buy, etc. that isn’t produced with carbon based energy, made from carbon fuel derivatives (i.e. plastics come from oil), and/or delivered in a vehicle that burns carbon based fuel?  This includes the electricity that lights, heats, and cools your home, and cooks your food.  The producers will be taxed on the carbon used to produce, this tax will of course be passed on to you, the consumer.  The consumer will also be taxed on the carbon they consume.  This will doubly and heavily burden you and I with massive taxes, and will eventually drive producers out of business because we can’t afford to buy their products.  They close, we lose jobs, the tax base of both producers and consumers shrinks, the government has fewer dollars they can tax, the nation goes deeper in debt, and the death spiral of our country’s economy continues.)

Here are a few key points to remember.  CO2, carbon dioxide, is PLANT FOOD, not a “warming gas.”  If you see the GEOLOGIC data which goes back BILLIONS of years, rather than the METEOROLOGICAL data that the global warming/climate change crowd uses which only goes back at most a few HUNDRED years, you see that their assertions about the affects of CO2 on the environment are patently false.  One of the other pieces of data that shows the absurdity of the global warming claims is the evidence that Mars was warming at the same time and same rate as the earth.  I guess that means that our use of the evil SUV’s is causing such bad pollution that it’s even causing MARS to WARM.  Are you starting to see how ridiculous this climate change/global warming crap is?

April 1, 2009

By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — The debate on global warming and energy policy accelerated on Tuesday as two senior House Democrats unveiled a far-reaching bill to cap heat-trapping gases and quicken the country’s move away from dependence on coal and oil.

But the bill leaves critical questions unanswered and has no Republican support. It is thus the beginning, not the end, of the debate in Congress on how to deal with two of President Obama’s priorities, climate change and energy.

The draft measure, written by Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, sets a slightly more ambitious goal for capping heat-trapping gases than Mr. Obama’s proposal. The bill requires that emissions be reduced 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, while Mr. Obama’s plancalls for a 14 percent reduction by 2020. Both would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases by roughly 80 percent by 2050.

The Waxman-Markey bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, emerges at a time when many Americans, and their representatives in Congress, are wary of wide-ranging environmental legislation that could raise energy costs and potentially cripple industry. The bill, a version of a so-called cap-and-trade plan, also comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is about to exert regulatory authority over heat-trapping gases under the Clean Air Act.

The bill would require every region of the country to produce a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal by 2025. A number of lawmakers around the country, particularly in the Southeast, call that goal unrealistic because the natural resources and technology to meet it do not yet exist.

The bill also calls for modernization of the electrical grid, production of more electric vehicles and significant increases in efficiency in buildings, appliances and the generation of electricity.

But the Waxman-Markey proposal does not address how pollution allowances would be distributed or what percentage might be auctioned or given free. Nor does it say how most of the tens of billions of dollars raised from pollution permits would be spent, or whether the revenue would be returned to consumers to compensate for higher energy bills. (Returned to the consumer? Once the government gets ANYTHING, it never gives it back) Those matters have been left to negotiations, which will begin when Congress returns from its Easter recess on April 20.

Under Mr. Obama’s plan, roughly two-thirds of the revenue from pollution permit auctions would be returned to the public in tax breaks. (Right.  More “tax breaks” for those who pay no taxes to begin with.  That’s know as “welfare.”) Some members of Congress from both parties want to see all the revenue from any carbon-reduction plan returned to the public in some form.

Mr. Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement that his measure would create jobs and provide a gradual transition to a more efficient economy. (See my comments on job and wealth creation by government from the “Stop the Obama Plan to Take Total Control” post HERE.)

“Our goal is to strengthen our economy by making America the world leader in new clean-energy and energy-efficiency technologies,” Mr. Waxman said.

The bill offers a sweetener for members from coal-producing states by including $10 billion in new financing for the development of technology to capture and store emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, which currently produces half of the nation’s electricity.  (Remember Obama’s comments about the coal industry?  He promised he was going to destroy it)

Representative Rick Boucher, a Democrat from the coal-rich southwestern corner of Virginia, insisted on that provision, noting that coal would remain a major part of the nation’s energy mix for decades to come.

A coalition of business and environmental groups, the United States Climate Action Partnership, welcomed the measure as a “strong starting point” for addressing emissions of heat-trapping gases and said it had incorporated many of the partnership’s recommendations.

But the group, which includes major manufacturing corporations like Alcoa, DuPont and General Motors, said that it would push for a “substantial” number of free pollution allowances so that its members could make a gradual transition to less-polluting technologies.

Stop the Obama Plan to Take Total Control

Stop the Obama Plan to Take Total Control

The extreme-left is desperately trying to take over every aspect of your life.

In case you haven’t noticed, they’re taking control of the banking industry, they’re trying to take control of your family’s healthcare, they’re taking control of the auto industry and the energy industry… .

But, most horrifically, THEY’RE TRYING TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOU. And, make no mistake; the so-called $3.6 TRILLION BUDGET ABOMINATION IS THEIR MEANS TO DO IT.

Some critics, to borrow a phrase from the good folks at FreedomWorks, are saying that this $ 3.6 trillion budget abomination “taxes too much, spends too much, and borrows too much.”

But the simple fact that $3.6 trillion is a mind-boggling figure is just one small piece of the puzzle.

The one thing that no one is really taking about (the 800 pound gorilla in the room) is that this $3.6 trillion budget abomination is ALSO the LARGEST AND MOST AMBITIOUS GOVERNMENT POWER GRAB IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY.

And if it passes, you can kiss the free-market system goodbye. If it passes, you can kiss your personal liberties goodbye.

Here are just a handful of the highlights:

Health Care: According to the typically pro-Obama New York Times: “Mr. Obama asked Congress to set aside $634 billion in a ‘reserve fund for health care reform.’ He provided no new information about how to cover the uninsured, saying he would work out the details with Congress later this year.” (The only plan they have is to take your money and your choice on what you can get for your health care dollar. Under this system, a government agency will decide what treatment is available to you, and whether you will get that treatment based on how much value (i.e. tax paying potential) you have left in your life. Are you nearing retirement age? Don’t count on that hip replacement or triple-bypass. It doesn’t matter if you (still) have enough of your own money to pay for the procedure. You will not be allowed to have that health care. Oh, but if you’re part of the ruling class as designated by emperor Uh-Bama, you’ll have your own private doctors and first class medical care.)

The Times also stated that Obama “would also increase premiums charged to Medicare beneficiaries….” No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Obama is asking Congress for $634 billion dollars of your money, is offering no clear plan as to what he wants to do with the money (he’ll get to that later, after the money is appropriated) and wants to cut back on benefits. The only thing that is certain is the government will start taking money out of your pocket and start making your healthcare decisions for you.

Taxes: Moveon.org, while promoting the $3.6 trillion budget abomination, repeats the Obama mantra that it: “Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won’t go up one dime.”

The truth of the matter, however, is that this $3.6 trillion budget calls for a number of hidden taxes. One of these is a cap-and-trade energy tax which, according to The Wall Street Journal “would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3 percent of its after-tax income every year. That’s about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9 percent to 2.7 percent of income.” (This was supposedly removed from the current version of the budget because even some democrats were asking how we could possibly afford this. Have no doubt that they will find another way to put this over on this, and here’s why. Don’t miss this. Cap-and-Trade, carbon tax, or whatever label they place on it is the one, single way to tax and control EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE. Think about it. We are a carbon based economy. Is there ANYTHING that you use, consume, buy, etc. that isn’t produced with carbon based energy, made from carbon fuel derivatives (i.e. plastics come from oil), and/or delivered in a vehicle that burns carbon based fuel? This includes the electricity that lights, heats, and cools your home, and cooks your food. The producers will be taxed on the carbon used to produce, this tax will of course be passed on to you, the consumer. The consumer will also be taxed on the carbon they consume. This will doubly and heavily burden you and I with massive taxes, and will eventually drive producers out of business because we can’t afford to buy their products. They close, we lose jobs, the tax base of both producers and consumers shrinks, the government has fewer dollars they can tax, the nation goes deeper in debt, and the death spiral of our country’s economy continues.)

The Wall Street Journal concludes: “Cap and trade, in other words, is a scheme to redistribute income and wealth–but in a very curious way. It takes from the working class and gives to the affluent; takes from Miami, Ohio, and gives to Miami, Florida; and takes from an industrial America that is already struggling and gives to rich Silicon Valley and Wall Street ‘green tech’ investors who know how to leverage the political class.” (Do you understand how this will redistribute wealth? Whatever international agency is in charge of issuing carbon credits will issue lots of credits to underdeveloped nations that will never be able to use all of the credits they are given. Developed nations such as the U.S. will not be given enough credits to operate at a level that sustains our economy and way of life. To operate at our current economic level under the cap-and-trade system, we would be forced to buy excess credits from 3^rd world countries at exorbitant prices, thus transferring the wealth we have produced and earned to nations, dictators, and people who have not earned it, and DO NOT DESERVE IT.)

Jobs: MoveOn.org claims the budget “Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.”

The folks at FreedomWorks have this to say: “The numbers being used here, like the numbers used in the stimulus debate, are deceptive in that they hide the less rosy bigger picture. It is a classic case of ‘what is seen and what is not seen’ as described so clearly by economists Frederic Bastiat and Henry Hazlitt. What is seen are the jobs that will certainly result from the government spending $100 billion. What is not seen are all the jobs that are lost because the government has to take those $100 billion out of one part of the economy to spend it somewhere else.” (Government, by definition, CAN NOT create wealth or jobs. Government acquires all of its money and resources from the private sector (that’s businesses that earn a profit and create REAL jobs, and you and me the taxpayers). Because of the inefficiencies and corruption of government, the level of which is directly proportional to the size of government, much of the wealth that is TAKEN from the private sector evaporates long before it reaches its intended recipients. Imagine you see a homeless person and want to give him $10 to get something to eat. If you give it directly to him, he gets the full $10. If government taxes that $10 from you in order to “end homelessness,” “feed/house the underprivileged,” or whatever feel-good label the government puts on their excuse to take your money, the value of that $10 immediately gets diluted. The agency that is taxing you takes a cut for their overhead. Portions of it are taxed away for other government causes. Portions of it are lost to outright corruption. By the time the $10 that were liberated from you works its way through the government system to the homeless person you wanted to help in the first place, he will be lucky to get $1 out of the original $10.)

You’re starting to get the picture. This $3.6 trillion budget has nothing to do with stimulating the economy, or making life better for the average Joe; unless, of course, you believe that the redistribution of YOUR income and government intrusion into YOUR life are good things.

Perhaps that’s why Senator Judd Gregg called Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget “an extraordinary move of our government to the left.” Gregg added that President Obama “is proposing the largest tax increase in history…”

Compromise Is Not An Option. Compromise Means Obama Wins And The American People Lose

President Obama knows that when his $3.6 trillion budget is debated in the Senate that our elected officials will be inclined do what they always do… he knows the first thought that will spring to their minds is “compromise.” (This is where the Republicans who have betrayed conservative principles will once again show their true colors. Rather than going down fighting, they will go down compromising. There is a time for compromise, but now is not that time. It is time to actually stand for something, and not to compromise what you stand for. Those Republicans who claimed to be conservatives, but have compromised our nation into the position we are in now, are just as much to blame for the condition we find ourselves in now. THEY COULD HAVE STOPPED THIS WHEN THEY WERE IN CONTROL OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE, BUT INSTEAD OF PURSUING THE CONSERVATIVE AGENDA THEY RAN ON AS AGRESSIVELY AS OBAMA IS PURSUING HIS COMMUNIST AGENDA, THEY COMPROMISED!) Just as the socialists like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and the like need to be tarred, feathered, and run out of Washington D.C. on a rail, so to do the Republican compromisers who went along with them.)

Obama knows their inclination will be to put lipstick on this pig under the idiotic assumption that cutting a little bit of the fat will somehow make it palatable to the American people. After all, that’s so much easier than simply fighting for what is right.

We cannot let that happen because “compromise” simply means that Obama gets 95% of what he wants… 95% European-style socialism… 95% income redistribution… 95% economic destruction.

Cutting a few hundred-billion here or a few hundred-billion there is NOT going to make this $3.6 trillion monster significantly smaller, NOR WILL IT DAMPEN THE ASSAULT ON OUR INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. OBAMA’s $3.6 TRILLION BUDGET MUST DIE!

If they “compromise,” we all lose. The American people lose… your children and grandchildren lose… even the people who are being hoodwinked into supporting this $3.6 trillion budget will lose.

If they “compromise,” the United States will take one giant leap into European-style socialism.

That’s why we must take this bull by the horns and let our elected officials know right now that we don’t want any “compromises” or any lipstick put on this pig.

We want Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget DEAD… a stake driven through its evil heart. Anything less means the American people LOSE.

This is not just a partisan budget battle. Our future and the future for our children and grandchildren hang in the balance!

“You do not know the power of the Dark Side.”

Bobby, by jove, you’ve got it! Obama IS Emperor Palpatine. Would that mean that Rahm Emanuel is Darth Vader? Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi aren’t smart enough to be anything other than battle droids. John Murtha must be Jabba the Hutt. Sadly, the rebellion can’t seem to find any real Jedi to champion our cause and save us from the Dark Side. I can see someone like Ted Nugent in the role of Han Solo. Perhaps we will find that the force is strong with some of the up and comers such as Bobby Jindal. “Help us, Obi Wan. You’re our only hope.”

‘Once the crisis has abated, I will lay down these powers’

Posted By Bobby Eberle On March 27, 2009 at 6:58 am

With money comes power, right? That is how the old saying goes. If that is the case, then it should surprise no one that with all the money pouring out of Washington (actually China), that the move to consolidate power would closely follow.

This week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner released details of the Obama administration’s plan to further inject government control over the private sector. If Obama and Geithner have their way, more financial institutions will be forced to “report in” to the government and have restrictions placed on what the institutions and the investors can and can not do with their money. With each passing day, Obama and company are chipping away at America.

The premise of this new Obama/Geithner plan is to do something about “toxic assets,” which the government is now calling “legacy assets,” because it sounds less… well… toxic. As the Heritage Foundation describes in a new report, these assets represent “securities and loans held by financial institutions whose value is uncertain in the wake of the financial crisis.”

Under the proposed plan, “the idea is to use federal funds to facilitate the purchase of toxic (or what Treasury now calls “legacy”) assets by public-private investment groups, which would bid against each other for the assets.”

For “legacy” loans, private investors would provide 1/14 (about 7 percent) of the partnership’s total assets, matched by another 1/14 provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The remaining amount (6/7 of the total, or about 85 percent) would be covered by guaranteed loans provided by FDIC. For “legacy “securities (as opposed to loans), up to five fund managers pre-qualified by the Treasury Department would raise private capital that would be matched dollar-for-dollar by the government. Treasury would also provide loans to enable the partnership to purchase even more assets.

In both cases, while the government would share profits equally with the private-sector partner, taxpayers bear most of the risk of losses. In other words, the private-sector partner cannot lose more than its investment. Any further losses after the private capital is gone would be covered by the taxpayers.

The Heritage Foundation notes multiple flaws in this plan. In particular, “the plan will almost inevitably lead to even more expanded government micro-management of financial firms.”

Recent history with the TARP program shows that participants in PPIP (“Public-Private Investment Program”) can expect controls—sometimes retroactive—over compensation and other management decisions. It is hard to imagine a hedge fund or other investment group enjoying profits under this program without some level of federal restrictions accompanying the deal or following soon thereafter. It is equally possible that if profits exceed some unspecified percentage, there will be an effort to “recapture” them.

This big-government plan has thankfully drawn swift opposition. As noted in the news story Financial overhaul plan draws GOP opposition, not only do some lawmakers and business people reject more government intrusion, they also question whether it would accomplish the specified result.

“We’re not in this mess because we need new rules,” said Bill Fleckenstein, a Seattle-based hedge fund manager who accurately predicted the housing bubble. “We need to enforce the rules we already have,” he said. “What we had was a complete breakdown by all our regulators. They simply didn’t do their jobs.”

We don’t need new rules? We just need to enforce the ones we have? Sounds eerily similar to what conservatives have said about immigration reform and a host of other issues!

Some of Geithner’s proposals as reported in the news story include:

• Imposing tougher standards on financial institutions that are judged to be so big that their failure would threaten the entire system.
• Extending federal regulation for the first time to all trading in financial derivatives — exotic instruments such as credit default swaps that are blamed for much of the economic carnage.
• Requiring larger hedge funds and other private pools of capital, including private equity and venture capital funds, to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Creating a regulator to monitor the biggest institutions. Geithner did not say which agency should wield such authority, but the administration is expected to favor the Federal Reserve.
• Empowering the government to take over major nonbank financial firms such as insurers and hedge funds if deemed necessary.

The last thing America needs is more control transferred to the federal government. Once control is taken by Obama, the next logical step is to seize more power. No one ever gives it back.

Begin Side Note

• Being a fan of Star Wars, I can’t help but recall Emperor Palpatine’s words as he was granted even more power by a willing society: “It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy. I love the Republic. Once this crisis has abated, I will lay down the powers you have given me!” (Yeah, right. And I’m the inventor of the internet.)

End Side Note

Obama goes on television with his townhall press conference, answers softball questions from an audience that is growing more and more dependent on government, and he just smiles. He smiles because he knows that he is moving America exactly in the path that he wants… a path toward socialism.

This Geithner plan is just one more step in lulling the American public into placing more power in government. Thankfully, more legislators are speaking up, and more of the public is taking notice. But will it be too late?

HR 1388 GIVE Act Aimed at “Re-Educating” and Indoctrinating Your Children

I started reading (yes, actually reading) the WHOLE bill last night. I’ve gotten about half way through it so far, and what I’ve seen so far SCARES THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME!

Here are some of things that scare me about what I’ve read so far:

• “Service Learning”: Thinly veiled wording for indoctrination. This follows the model of Soviet Russia with their “re-education camps.” Though the original language of this bill called the re-education/indoctrination centers “camps,” they have since changed the names to “campuses.”
• “Service Corps”: The more I read, the more these look like the basis for the mobs/militias that Obama mentioned in his campaign, but quickly covered up. He said he would form a security force funded as well as the military. Every dictator and despot ruler has had the same thing: a paramilitary force to “persuade” citizens to bend to the will of the despot.
• Backdoor attack on home schooling: The more I read, the more it becomes apparent that Obama intends to make attendance in public, government run schools mandatory. In recent years there have been increasing attacks on those who wish to home school their children in order to teach more conservative values to them. The communists/socialists have known for a long time that if you control the children, you will eventually bypass the parents and control the society.
• Prohibition on any display or exercise of religion: Sect 125 (a)(7) reads thusly…
  

  ‘(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
  (7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.

The only way they’ll take my kids to these camps is over my cold, dead body.

I’m uncovering more and more bad stuff in this bill. Please read as much of this, and every other bill, as you have the opportunity to read. Expose what our corrupt politicians are trying to keep in the dark.

Read HR1388 here:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text

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An Example of Courage for our U.S. Politicians

If only our politicians had this kind of courage and grasp on the reality of our situation. The ship of our nation is taking on water, and rather than bail water overboard, the Obama administration is pouring more buckets of water INTO the ship. For another analogy, the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. Telling him will only get you attacked, and no one has the courage to throw a blanket over him.

I’ll drop the Obama birth certificate thing if Hannan can run in our next presidential election.

U.K. MEP Daniel Hannan: Transcript of His Attack on Gordon Brown

March 25, 2009 08:43 AM ET | James Pethokoukis | Permanent Link | Print

I don’t normally delve into the politics of the European Parliament, but this video of Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan stripping the bark off British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is worth noting. (“The devalued prime minister of a devalued government.”) Many American politicians might be hearing the same criticisms next year if the U.S. economy is still depressed even as the national debt soars. Here is a transcript:

	“Prime Minister, I see you’ve already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. You’ve spoken here about free trade, and amen to that. Who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase ‘British jobs for British workers’ and that you have subsidised, where you have not nationalised outright, swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks? Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words? Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G20 country?”
	“The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around £20,000. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. Now, once again today you try to spread the blame around; you spoke about an international recession, international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging; in other words – to pay off debt. But you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the water line under the accumulated weight of your debt We are now running a deficit that touches 10% of GDP, an almost unbelievable figure. More than Pakistan, more than Hungary; countries where the IMF have already been called in. Now, it’s not that you’re not apologising; like everyone else I have long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It’s that you’re carrying on, wilfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. Last year – in the last twelve months – a hundred thousand private sector jobs have been lost and yet you created thirty thousand public sector jobs.”
	“Prime Minister, you cannot carry on for ever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we’re ‘well-placed to weather the storm’, I have to tell you that you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it’s nonsense! Everyone knows that Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so; the European Commission has said so; the markets have said so – which is why our currency has devalued by thirty percent. And soon the voters too will get their chance to say so. They can see what the markets have already seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government.”

Your Government Might Be Socialist If…

I can just hear Jeff Foxworthy now. “If your government gets lectured by all of the socialist governments in Europe about being TOO socialistic, your government just might be socialist.”

EU leader condemns US ‘road to hell’

By Tony Barber in Brussels and Edward Luce in Washington
Published: March 25 2009 20:00 | Last updated: March 26 2009 00:12

European Union hopes for a new era in relations with the US were thrown into chaos on Wednesday when the holder of the EU presidency condemned American remedies for the global recession as “the road to hell”.

Barely a week before Barack Obama is due to arrive in Europe on his first official visit as US president, Mirek Topolanek, the Czech Republic’s prime minister, put the 27-nation EU on a collision course with Washington.

Read rest of article HERE.

HERE is another article on the same subject.

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AIG Bill: Counterproductive and Unconstitutional

Do you think they’ll stop their “collections” with the AIG execs? If you do, I have some beachfront property in Florida I’ll sell you when the tide goes down. Once Obama and Co. un-cork the bottle that’s holding the tax genie, that genie will likely never go back in the bottle. Is what they’re attempting to do constitutional? Constitution, shmonstitution. Who needs rules? Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank and company don’t care about the constitution or us peasants. They have an agenda, constitution be damned.

The AIG (And Everyone Else) Bill: Counterproductive and Unconstitutional

Posted By Rory Cooper On March 20, 2009 @ 11:43 am In Ongoing Priorities | 33 Comments

Whom It Really Targets

• The Hit List: H.R. 1586 retroactively taxes AIG employees who are due deferred compensation and would tax that compensation at a 90% rate [1].
• A Much Broader Sweep: Going forward, the bill also imposes a 90% federal tax rate [1] on anyone employed by a company receiving $5 billion in TARP funds who has a family income over $250,000, individual income over $125,000 (if single or married but filing separately), or performance pay larger than adjusted gross income.
• What Defines a Bonus? Under H.R. 1586, a “bonus [1]” is any amount over an employee’s base salary, including retention and performance pay and even deferred compensation. But compensation in banking and finance is heavily geared towards performance, with relatively lower base salaries.
• Counterproductive Policy: While taxpayer money shouldn’t be spent on excessive bonus compensation, broad-based pay caps and punitive clawbacks will hurt performance and slow economic recovery. The government is ill-suited to set private-sector pay scales and risks causing more financial damage.
• Your Branch Manager: Anecdotally, a “Regional Branch Manager” for Bank of America who makes $250,000 plus bonuses for outstanding customer service at his branches would be taxed at 90% due to this bill.

The Real Problem, Plain and Simple

• How We Got Here: Senator Chris Dodd would like you to forget [2] that he inserted specific language recognizing AIG’s executive compensation into the $800 billion stimulus bill, which Finance Chairman Max Baucus now admits [3] nobody read.
• Government Bailouts: This is the inevitable result of government bailouts, which turn private concerns (such as compensation agreements between private parties) into public business, bringing politics where it is likely to do damage.
• Hasty Bills Make Disastrous Policy: The very fact that this problem was created by a mega-bill that wasn’t properly reviewed before passage—and is now being “corrected” by a hastily put together bill that hasn’t been properly reviewed—is beyond ironic.
• Avoid This in the Future: To avoid further entanglement of the federal government and taxpayers in routine business matters, President Obama and Congress should reject further bailouts and insist those already done be unwound as quickly as possible.

It’s Not Constitutional, Plain and Simple

• Bill of Attainder: The Constitution prohibits Congress [4] from punishing individuals, which is the role of the justice system. This prevents legislative tyranny and is essential to ensuring that those accused of wrongs receive due process and can mount a defense. It also encourages “sound legislation,” which is not accomplished by legislators being whipped into a frenzy and interfering in personal and economic affairs.
• An End Run? Congress added more taxes to the bill to get around the bar of bills of attainder, but it can’t make an unconstitutional act permissible by cloaking it in the guise of a tax bill.
• Taxation Not the Answer: Congress is prohibited [4] from using the tax code as a weapon of convenience against a select group of unfavorable people, even when the political opportunity exists.