About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Congressional Sessions & Herman Cain's Stats of the Union

"Let's make this a year of action. That's what most Americans want – for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations." – BO in the 2014 State of the Union Address
 
"...freedom doesn't mean you're on your own. Freedom means we're all in this together." – Senator Mike Lee in the Tea Party Response to BO's 2014 SOTU Address
 
"Must we go on in many groping, disorganized, separate units to defeat or shall we move as one great team to victory?" – FDR, June 16, 1933 as he announced the start of the National Recovery Administration & its 557 codes that millions of workers came under, including minimum wage rules, child labor rules, maximum hour rules, the precise components of macaroni, & what tailors could & could not sew.
 
***
 
Neither any of our Founders or me ever counted on the politicians in the House Chamber to focus on our lives, hopes, or inspirations.  And I doubt that many of the readers of RTE do either.
 
The above three quotations all have a togetherness theme that is anti-American.  Mike Lee's Tea Party response was otherwise very good except for his above ending which is disappointing.
 
As I listened to BO give his SOTU Address on Tuesday night I thought that the only constitutional part of the entire evening was the event itself – the Constitution requires the President "from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union."
 
Not only did the Founders not envision politicians focusing on the citizenry the way BO said, the original Constitution only required the Congress to meet once a year on the first Monday in December meaning that Congress's work could be over by the Christmas holidays with an eleven month adjournment before the next meeting.  In the election of 1930 thirteen elected representatives died before being sworn in & after the special elections required to replace the deceased the House switched from Republican to Democrat.  Source David Kennedy – Freedom From Fear & Bruce Cuthbertson writing in the WSJ
 
This of course was changed by Section 2 of the 20th Amendment to call for "the Congress to assemble @ least once in every year" starting on January 3.  The emphasis of the Founders was "once a year" while the modern day politician puts the emphasis on "once & continuous throughout the year" – & all to our detriment.
 
***
 
Click here to hear Herman Cain's stats of the union portion of his radio program on Wednesday following BO's SOTU address – look for Soundcloud to click on.  Mr. Cain pointed out in the broadcast that BO really didn't spend much time on the actual state of the union & certainly did not address the statistics many of which have been presented on RTE.  I think you will enjoy it if you did not hear it live.
 

Sunday, January 26, 2014

BO's Pre-Super Bowl Interview

Since Bill O'Reilly announced last week that he will interview BO prior to the Super Bowl (including one question from Factor viewers) I know that many readers of RTE thought of their own questions to ask BO.  In case you haven't thought about it one subscriber, who sent me 27 excellent questions, suggested "How about encouraging RTE subscribers to send their lists to Bill also?"
 
 
Now, if I were Bill, I would concentrate on the theme of RTE as illustrated in the post Jon Voight's Open Letter To America.
 
My questions would not be so much for BO but rather for the audience so that they learned that BO's entire agenda & administration has been & continues to be a lie - an onslaught of communist deficiencies & drawbacks on an unsuspecting public.
 
BO is a community organizer taught by the Alinsky method whose book "Rules For Radicals" begins - "What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be" & goes on to say it "is written for the have-nots on how to take it (power) away."

Very succinctly put isn't it - just exactly what has been going on since January 20, 2009 & the millions of people planning to watch the Super Bowl can't realize this soon enough to suit me.
 
 

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Safety Lesson - Preventing House Fires

Thanks to the Historian for passing along this link of a great safety lesson that can prevent many house fires.  When I first received the message a few days ago it had hundreds of thousands of views less than it does now so the internet is working constructively on this one.
 
The link shows how the improper storage of new or used batteries can cause a house fire when the wrong conditions come together.  The man in the video would not have had his house catch fire if he had taped the terminals of his smoke detector batteries with electrical tape before discarding them.
 
 

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Tea Party Loses Ground On Spending Bill Vote

On Friday BO signed into law the 1,582 page $1,100 billion Omnibus Spending Bill that will keep the government open through September 30.  The bill, which was based on the December Ryan-Murray budget deal, had been passed by both Chambers of Congress earlier in the week.

The Republican truce seemed to hold in that there were no recriminations by either side for members of the Team A establishment Republicans voting for the measure & the Team B Tea Party Republicans voting against it.  The benefit of this restraint is that the government will not shut down so both Teams will not suffer more disfavor in this election year.  We know what each Team stands for & there is no point bludgeoning each side which only benefits the Democrats. 

The December votes on the Ryan-Murray budget deal in both the House and Senate clearly produced two GOP teams that fell in line with their members overall voting records—the establishment Republican Team A consisting of 164 House members and nine senators for a total of 173 centrist moderate politicians, & the Tea Party Republican Team B consisting of 62 House members & 36 senators for a total of 98. Click on Truce - The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend & Senate Budget Vote Completes Formation Of Republican Teams to see the original Team members based on this criterion. 

Based on this latest vote the establishment Republican Team A consisted of 166 House members & 17 senators for a total of 183 centrist moderate politicians, & the Tea Party Republican Team B consisted of 64 House members & 26 senators for a total of 90 meaning that the Tea Party lost ground. 

The actual Tea Party voters on this occasion are listed below (i.e., if you don't see your congressman or senator listed below they voted for the spending bill).  But there will be other votes on the fiscal year 2015 budget & the debt ceiling so the Team members can shift until the congressional primaries when @ least readers of RTE will know how their elected representatives voted. 

Highlights this time - voting with Boehner, Cantor, & McCarthy were Gus Bilirakis, Diane Black, Marsha Blackburn, Dave Camp, Trey Gowdy, Jeb Hensarling, Darrell Issa, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price (GA), Mike Rogers (MI), Paul Ryan (WI), Joe Wilson (SC), & Rob Woodall.  From the Senate Jerry Moran switched from a Tea Partier last vote & Johnny Isackson voted for the establishment measure each time.  Please let me know of any other highlights you see.
 
In the meantime Americans For Prosperity (AFP) has issued their latest Scorecard that ranks members of Congress based on their votes in favor of economic freedom, taxes, healthcare, federal spending, & energy.  You can quickly find that Congressman Tom McClintock of CA has a lifetime grade of 100% & Democrat House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also from CA has a lifetime grade of 4% – & Pelosi's side has gotten stronger on the first major vote as shown above.  Don't know how to tell you clearer than that – there is more @ play in America than meets the eye of the unsuspecting public.
 

Yeas Nays PRES NV
Republican 166 64   3
Democratic 193 3   4
Independent        
TOTALS 359 67   7

 
---- NAYS    67 ---

Amash
Bachmann
Barton
Bentivolio
Bridenstine
Brooks (AL)
Broun (GA)
Burgess
Byrne
Chabot
Coffman
Cotton
Crawford
Daines
DeSantis
DesJarlais
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Franks (AZ)
Gardner
Garrett
Gingrey (GA)
Gohmert
Gosar
Grijalva
Hall
Holding
Holt
Huelskamp
Johnson, Sam
Jordan
King (IA)
Kingston
Labrador
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Lankford
Long
Lummis
Marchant
Massie
McClintock
McIntyre
Meadows
Mullin
Neugebauer
Nugent
Pearce
Petri
Poe (TX)
Pompeo
Posey
Ribble
Rohrabacher
Salmon
Sanford
Scalise
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Smith (MO)
Smith (NE)
Terry
Tipton
Weber (TX)
Wenstrup
Williams

---- NOT VOTING    7 ---

Buchanan
Cleaver
Gabbard
Jones
McCarthy (NY)
Rush
 
Measure Title: An act making consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other purposes.
Vote Counts: YEAs 72
NAYs 26
Not Voting 2
 
NAYs ---26
Barrasso (R-WY)
Burr (R-NC)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fischer (R-NE)
Flake (R-AZ)

Grassley (R-IA)
Heller (R-NV)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
Lee (R-UT)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Paul (R-KY)

Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rubio (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)

Not Voting - 2
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)

Thursday, January 16, 2014

The War On Poverty's Path To Victory For The Democrat Party

"The federal government fought the war on poverty & poverty won." – From President Reagan's 1988 State of the Union address regarding LBJ's 1964 State of the Union address where LBJ declared an "unconditional war on poverty."
 
click on graph to enlarge
 
Subscribers to RTE were not fooled last Friday by the headline jobs report that announced that the government's official unemployment rate (U3) fell from 7.0% in November to 6.7% in December.  BO is counting on uninformed people (most of us) upon hearing this news thinking that the prospects of the middle class are getting better – despite what their own circumstances tell them.  BO continues to test just how dumb we are – & of course he found out twice - in 2008 & 2012.
 
The unreliability of the U3 unemployment measure has always been true but in normal economic times it would suffice to give an accurate enough portrayal of the health of the job market.  U3 breaks down in severe economic conditions like BO has induced on America the past five years.  For instance part-time workers counted as employed by U-3 could be working as little as one hour a week.  Some employment statistic!
 
According to the BLS (Summary Table A Household Data) the number of unemployed people in America declined by 490,000 in December.  Sounds good until you realize that 347,000 of these people (70% of the total) are not counted as unemployed because they dropped out of the labor force.  Coupling these drop outs with the 178,000 person population growth increase - who are also not in the labor force brings the total number of Americans who have no job and are not looking for one— to almost 92-million people (37.2% of the civilian noninstitutional population).
 
Now the whole idea of Democrats for the past 80 years has been to make America's government dependence look like that of socialist France as shown on the above graph – with unemployment centered around 10% for the last 30 years & unemployment of French people under 25 centering around 20%. 
 
One of the country's leading experts on poverty studies Robert Rector, of the Heritage Foundation, recently wrote in the WSJ that "the federal government currently runs more than 80 means -tested welfare programs . . . & that government spent $916 billion on these programs in 2012 alone, & roughly 100 million Americans (just about the same number as the 92 million listed above that are not in the civilian noninstitutional workforce) received aid from @ least one of them, @ an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. . . Federal & state welfare spending, adjusted for inflation, is 16 times greater than it was in 1964." 
 
See graphs below from the Cato Institute for 2011 costs & enrollment figures for the largest welfare programs.
 
Cost of Largest Welfare Programs (federal portion only)                      Enrollment in Most Costly Welfare Programs
 
  click on graphs to enlarge
 
Examples (but far from all) of other welfare programs include National School Lunch Program, Maternal, Infant, & Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for Woman, Infants, & Children (WIC), Head Start, Child Care and Development Block Grant, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, Foster Care Title IV, Public and Indian Housing, State Administrative Matching Grants for SNAP, Child Care and Development Mandatory & Matching Funds, School Breakfast Program, Adoption Assistance, Public Housing Capital Fund, Federal Work Study Program, Rural Rental Assistance Payments, Work Investment Act (WIA) Youth Activities, WIA Adult Program, Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Program, & Weatherization Assistance for Low Income Persons. 
 
Cato also reports that "Overall, government payouts, including middle-class entitlements, now account for more than a third of all wages and salaries in the United States.  Worse, if one includes salaries from government employment, more than half of Americans receive a substantial portion of their income from the government."  When over half the country has such a direct interest in continuing the war on poverty it makes it very hard for a limited-government candidate to win a national election going forward.
 
Heritage's Mr. Rector continues "Not even government, though, can spend $9,000 per recipient a year and have no impact on living standards. And it shows: Current poverty has little resemblance to poverty 50 years ago. According to a variety of government sources, including census data and surveys by federal agencies, the typical American living below the poverty level in 2013 lives in a house or apartment that is in good repair, equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. His home is larger than the home of the average nonpoor French, German or English man. He has a car, multiple color TVs and a DVD player. More than half the poor have computers and a third have wide, flat-screen TVs. The overwhelming majority of poor Americans are not undernourished and did not suffer from hunger for even one day of the previous year."
 
When talking about the poor today it is clear from the above that we are not talking about people dying in the street – in fact we were never talking about that.  The above description is a far cry from people that New Dealers called ill-fed, ill-housed, or ill-clothed eight decades ago.
 
Think of your first TV & then first color TV & even the first time you had cable TV in your house, & then the first time you air conditioned a room or maybe two – did you consider yourself living below the poverty level before or during these times?  For everyone who has travelled to Europe but not to the poverty struck neighborhoods of America it is hard to believe that the typical American living below the poverty level has a home that is larger than the home of the average nonpoor French, German, or English man.
 
Just like the real goal of Democrats regarding healthcare is to have a universal single payer system so too the real Democrat goal regarding fighting poverty is to make everyone dependent on government – not eliminating poverty as we knew it in 1964 which Democrats cared nothing about.  Democrats really don't want a world of self responsibility – they want government dependent people.
 
Who can see the advancement of freedom, self respect, & human dignity with a continuation of the rising employment drop out rate depicted above coupled with a rising number of people classified as poor living lives that never would be thought of as poverty anywhere else in the world but America?  The problem occurs when America runs out of productive people to fund this elevated poverty-level state (& such productive people won't be found living in their parents' basements) – then the poverty-level standard of living will fall to nothing but of course so will everyone else's.  After all of these years do we still believe we need government like we did in the 1930s or even 50 years ago this month when the war on poverty was declared.  In this sense the taxpayers paying for the war on poverty are providing the path to victory for the Democrat parties' completion of this portion of the socialization of America. 
 
It is the wealth stored in America that attracts the opportunists like BO to our country.  Taking control of this wealth as well as control of the American people through programs like ObamaCare is what Democrats have always been about & it certainly has accelerated under BO.  Just look @ the graph below from IBD that shows America's unemployment -underemployment U6 rate that has centered around 10% for the past twenty years – just like France's unemployment rate.  U6 was 13.1% in December – unchanged from November - & it won't get better any time soon unless the citizens of America, who our Founders set up as sovereign, do something about it.                           
 
click on graph to enlarge
 
 

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Responses - Professor Williams' Free Market Message To The Pope

For the benefit of those who do not read RTE directly online below are five responses to the subject message that are now part of the original online posting – including one from a Rabbi.  Click on the blog to check to see if there are more responses – such as to any of the comments below.
 
--- Response #1 – SC Businessman ---
 
Doug - I usually send on your emails to a select group of friends.  Art is a retired (he retired at 55 and is now 63 +/-) reconstructive Maxillofacial surgeon from NYC, and is now a Rabbi here. He is also one of the few Democrats in the area, although not too far out in left field. I thought you would find his reply interesting. I did.

--- Rabbi's Response ---

THE POPE IS ACTUALLY JUST TEACHING PURE UNADULTERATED CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE .

WE DON'T HEAR IT OFTEN SO IT SOUNDS AS IF HIS RANT IS HIS AND NEW.

WHEN WE STUDY THE EARLY CHURCH OF PAUL, IN ROME, AND IN MANY OTHER TOWNS, THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY WERE, WHAT WE WOULD CALL TODAY, COMMUNISTIC. EVERYONE WOULD GIVE EVERY WORLDLY POSSESSION ONE HAD TO THE COMMUNE, AND IT WOULD BE REDISTRIBUTED ACCORDING TO NEED.

IN POINT OF FACT, IN AN ODE TO THE MEMORY OF THIS, CATHOLICS STILL PRACTICE RITUAL COMMUNION.

JUDAISM NEVER WENT SO FAR. THEY ACCEPTED THE FACT THAT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE RICH AND POOR, AND FOLKS IN BETWEEN. BUT, THEY LEGISLATED LAWS OF 10% TITHING (A FLAT TAX!!) FOR ALL, SO THAT THE POOR, WIDOWS, ORPHANS, COULD LIVE.

FARMERS COULD NOT HARVEST THE CORNERS OF THEIR FIELDS, SO THAT THE POOR COULD COME AND GLEAN FREE FOOD, BUT NOTE, USING THEIR LABOR TO GATHER THE CROPS.

AND THEY HAD MANY LAWS PROTECTING THE WORKER.

AS FAR AS CAPITALISM, A JEWISH MERCHANT COULD ONLY HAVE A SALES PRICE OF A PRODUCT OF NO MORE THAT ONE 6TH HIGHER [ 17%] OF WHAT HE PAID FOR IT, UNLESS HE AND THE 'MADE AWARE OF' BUYER, AGREED TO PAY MORE.

AND THEY HAD LAWS ON HOW CONSUMERS WERE TO BEHAVE ALSO.

SO WHILE THE EARLY CHURCH DID AWAY WITH CAPITALISM AND JUMPED INTO COMMUNAL COMMUNIST LIVING, JUDAISM PROMOTED CAPITALISM, BUT NOT 'UNFETTERED' CAPITALISM.

I WOULD SUGGEST THAT THE USA HAS TRIED TO PROMOTED 'FETTERED' CAPITALISM, SINCE THE SHERMAN ANTI- TRUST ACT OF 1890.

AND HAS TRIED TO CONTROL UNIONS SINCE THE TAFT-HARTLEY ACT OF 1947.

OF COURSE IT IS ALWAYS EASY TO DERIDE SMALL BUSINESSMEN LIKE OURSELVES, FROM A BALCONY, WEARING A GOLD CROSS, THAT IF MELTED INTO COINS, COULD FEED A SMALL AFRICAN NATION.
 
--- Response #2 ---
 
I can see the Pope's position. The Catholic religion works similar to socialism - if you don't join or are not born into it you are not allowed to participate in some of the church rituals. Other churches I have been to do not give you a label.  Only one they have in common (other churches) is you can't get into heaven unless you believe in Jesus as your Savior. That is it that I know of.
 
--- Response #3 ---
 
Dead on commentary. Unfortunately it appears the Pope is a member of the "Jesus was a Socialist" congregation which of course is absolute nonsense.
 
--- Response #4 – Economics 501 ---
 
Doug - your arguments are strong for capitalism. Send this to the Vatican along with reference to Matthew 25:14-30, parable about how 3 men used their God given talents, with a lesson that one should develop these talents. Then ask the Vatican to explain which system - socialism or true free market (not corrupt crony) capitalism would best apply to this parable.  Surely the latter wins as it motivates one to further develop their talents. The former often leads to a growing lazy Dependency on Government class.
 
--- Response #5 ---
 
GREAT ARTICLE - Love the sentence "capitalism fails miserably when compared to heaven or utopia" !
 
 

Monday, January 13, 2014

Professor Williams' Free Market Message To The Pope

Below is Professor Williams' recent column in IBD that is a useful reminder for all of us – especially Pope Francis.
 
Note To Pope: Profit Has Improved The Human Condition by Walter E. Williams

Pope Francis, in an apostolic exhortation, has levied charges against free market capitalism.

He denied that "economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world" and concluded that "this opinion . .. has never been confirmed by the facts." He went on to label unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny."

Let's look at the pope's tragic vision.

First, I acknowledge that capitalism fails miserably when compared with heaven or a utopia. Any earthly system is going to come up short in such a comparison.

However, mankind must make choices among alternative economic systems that actually exist on earth. For the common man, capitalism is superior to any system yet devised to deal with his everyday needs and desires.

Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. With the rise of capitalism, it became possible to amass great wealth by serving and pleasing your fellow man.

Capitalists seek to discover what people want and produce and market it as efficiently as possible as a means to profit.

A couple of examples would be J.D. Rockefeller, whose successful marketing drove kerosene prices down from 58 cents a gallon in 1865 to 7 cents in 1900. Henry Ford became rich by producing cars for the common man. Both Ford's and Rockefeller's personal benefits pale in comparison with that received by the common man by having cheaper kerosene and cheaper transportation.

There are literally thousands of examples of how mankind's life has been made better by those in the pursuit of profits.

Here's my question to you: Are people who, by their actions, created unprecedented convenience, longer life expectancy and a more pleasant life for the ordinary person — and became wealthy in the process — deserving of all the scorn and ridicule heaped upon them by intellectuals, politicians and now the pope?

Let's examine the role of profits but first put it in perspective in terms of magnitude. Between 1960 and 2012, after-tax corporate profit averaged a bit over 6% of the gross domestic product, while wages averaged 47% of the GDP.

Far more important than simple statistics about the magnitude of profits is its role in guiding resources to their highest-valued uses and satisfying people.

Try polling people with a few questions. Ask them what services they are more satisfied with and what they are less satisfied with. On the "more satisfied" list would be profit-making enterprises, such as supermarkets, theaters, clothing stores and computer stores. They'd find less satisfaction with services provided by nonprofit government organizations, such as public schools, post offices and departments of motor vehicles.

Profits force entrepreneurs to find ways to please people in the most efficient ways or go out of business. Of course, they can mess up and stay in business if they can get government to bail them out or give them protection against competition.

Nonprofits have an easier time of it. Public schools, for example, continue to operate whether they do a good job or not and whether they please parents or not. That's because politicians provide their compensation through coercive property taxes.

I'm sure that we'd be less satisfied with supermarkets if they, too, had the power to take our money through taxes, as opposed to being forced to find ways to get us to voluntarily give them our earnings.

Arthur C. Brooks, president at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "Who Really Cares," shows that Americans are the most generous people on the face of the earth.

In fact, if you look for generosity around the world, you find virtually all of it in countries that are closer to the free market end of the economic spectrum than they are to the socialist or communist end.

Seeing as Pope Francis sees charity as a key part of godliness, he ought to stop demonizing capitalism.

Friday, January 10, 2014

The Tiger Woods -Chris Christie Connection

"The president's dishonesty, incompetence, vengefulness and lack of moral compass lead many to suggest that he is not fit to lead."  OK Congressman Jim Bridenstine concluding an address on the House floor last spring.  And no he was not talking about Chris Christie.
 
click on photo to enlarge
 
In watching Chris Christie's one hour & forty seven minute news conference, where reporters drilled him on his involvement, if any, concerning intentionally caused traffic jams to local entrances in Fort Lee, NJ to the George Washington Bridge I couldn't help but think how there was never any interest from the citizenry or the media for a media spectacle of this sort centered on BO's involvement about such things as Fast & Furious – a botched federal gun running sting operation that allowed weapons to reach Mexican drug gangs that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans & @ least one U.S Border Agent, the IRS abuses of power centered on the Tea Party, the Benghazi murders & cover up, the Justice Department's surveillance & seizure of AP reporters' telephone records, & the Justice Department investigating itself after AG Holder personally signed off on seizing phone & e-mail records & subsequently naming FNC reporter James Rosen, who claims he was exercising a reporter's basic First Amendment rights, as a criminal "co-conspirator" in a national security leak investigation involving a secret U.S. report on North Korea.  More timely is the memoir by Defense Secretary Bob Gates that claims BO sent troops into harms way (even today) while all the while not believing in his own Afghanistan strategy – he just wanted to get out starting January 20, 2009.
 
The closest we came to such a media spectacle involving BO came last May when a press conference was billed by conservatives as the most important of BO's term in that he would be drilled by the White House press corps on these matters (except the Gates memoir) like never before.  Instead BO made it a joint press conference with Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdogan who provided political cover in the rainy Rose Garden – see above photo.  BO took few questions & provided no answers worth repeating.  The only spectacle was the marines holding umbrellas.
 
Now I am certainly not condoning any involvement Christie may have in a vengeful pay back to the Democrat Fort Lee mayor for not endorsing him in the NJ governor's race last November but the media will certainly find out what involvement Christie did have – & that is the point.  Most hateful in this entire matter is BO's Justice Department saying they will investigate the traffic jams to see if they are indeed a criminal matter.
 
The country is not being served well by a press corps who has tremendous interest in traffic jam stories if they take down a Republican & no interest in the above list involving BO where people were killed.  Of course there is not interest in these issues either by the great majority of Americans.
 
Thanks to a long time subscriber who sent the account below re Tiger Woods & BO that puts the media's selectivity of coverage in perspective.
 
Isn't it amazing that, within only one week of Tiger Woods crashing his Escalade,
The press found every woman with whom Tiger has had an affair during the last few years?
And, they even uncovered photos, text messages, recorded phone calls, etc.!
Furthermore, they not only knew the cause of the family fight, but they even knew it was a
9 iron from his golf bag that his wife used to break out the windows in the Escalade.
And, each & every day, they were able to continue to provide America with updates
On Tiger's sex rehab stay, his wife's divorce settlement figures, as well as the dates &
Tournaments in which he would play.
 
Now, Barack Hussein Obama has been in office for five years, yet this very same press:
· Cannot find any of his childhood friends or neighbors;
· Or find any of Obama's high school or college classmates;
· Or locate any of his college papers or grades;
· Or determine how he paid for both a Columbia & a Harvard education;
· Or discover which country issued his visa to travel to Pakistan in the 1980s;
· Or even find Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis on racism.
They just can't seem to uncover any of this.
Yet, the public still trusts that same press to give them the whole truth!
 

Monday, January 6, 2014

Tea Partiers Can Lead A Giant Mindset Change

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield & government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, Paris, May 27, 1788
 
Click of graph to enlarge
 
The constant reminders of ObamaCare's problems have Democrats all too eager to move on to their natural election-year agenda of demagoging income inequality, expanding jobless benefits, raising the federal minimum wage, & most importantly passing comprehensive immigration reform legislation.  These topics are much more pleasing to Democrats than defending ObamaCare because they appeal to their voter base – the poor, the homeless (we use to call them bums), the downtrodden, the poorly educated, & those looking to widen the social safety net.  Of course the way Democrats plan to expand all of these topics will keep their respective voter bases poor, homeless, downtrodden, poorly educated, & accordingly needing an even larger social safety net.
 
It is understandable that Democrats want to run from the effects of ObamaCare but they may not be able to.  In their heart of hearts they know there is an underlying pessimism that is threatening to become the new normal unless America can snap out of its trance & throw off everything BO has laid on us.  A raise of the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour can be a living wage only if it is coupled with benefits from a government program or two, moving into your parents' basement where you help spend down your parents' wealth (your inheritance), & have no dream or possibility for a better future.  This is BO's dream & it should not be yours.
 
Democrats are counting on the tongue-tied flatfooted  Republicans not being able to satisfactorily address these topics.  They feel it is a political winner for them (with no concern for your well being) if the establishment Republicans (Team A) give in on many of these issues & Tea Party Republicans (Team B) show their (perceived) rigidity & not compromise @ all thereby proving once again their (unjustified) unreasonableness & unattractiveness. 
 
What Democrats are not counting on is Tea Partiers leading a giant change in mindset of the American people to realize their best hope is not more of the same government-dependent-programs' expansions but rather the unleashing of America's entrepreneurs who will really solve the problems of the aforementioned groups.  They are not counting on a Tea Party leader inspiring a change from the current apathy & dependence mindset to one of liberty & abundance like it was @ our founding.  They are not counting on someone explaining – & the people understanding - the stages of Death Of Democracy – like I did on the radio in March, 2012 to former NJ Assembly Speaker Chuck Haytaian – how throughout all of human history democracies have never been a permanent form of government because apathetic people discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury that results in the collapse of the society – this is where we are now.  And Democrats are definitely not counting on people realizing they have more skin in the game than they currently think they have in that their entire life will change for the worse if America's free enterprise system collapses.  Democrats shudder to think of people recognizing that undoing & eliminating government-dependent programs is the key for returning America to the liberty & abundance stage of our history & improving everyone's standard of living.  In short, everything BO, Pelosi, Reid, Sharpton, & Jackson have told people is a lie that robs them of their one chance @ the excitement & pleasure of high achievement of life on this Earth.
 
The above described mindset change will result in people returning to the excellence & simplicity of our founding libertarianism – a single, quite beautiful concept of the primacy of individual liberty, that, in turn, infuses notions of free markets, limited governments, & the importance of property owners' rights.  In terms of public policy, these notions translate into free trade, free immigration, voluntary military service, & user fees instead of taxes.  In this world the model of a free market functions as a template for all things – replacing government dependence & central authority.  The new mindset will highlight people being concerned about individual rights & responsibilities over government or community rights & responsibilities.  The only moral principle from which all preferences follow: that principle is self-ownership – individuals have the right to control their own bodies in action & speech, as long as they do not infringe on the same rights of others.  (This paragraph based on the writings of Susan Lee.)
 
This is the world I see & live in to the greatest extent possible.  This freedom is the treasure I wish for everyone.
 
But this mindset turnaround will not be easy.  Long term unemployed who are still in the labor force are being rendered more & more unemployable each day that passes without them finding a job.  Discouraged workers who have dropped out of the labor force feel even a lower depth of hopelessness.  These people are caught in what Professor Peter Coclanis & many development economists call a "middle-income trap"  - meaning a situation where economies stagnate after reaching a certain middle level, usually because their manufacturing & labor costs no longer allow them to compete with lower-cost producers, but their work forces aren't skilled enough to compete higher-up the value chain.  To paraphrase – "I'm pretty expensive & not very skilled."
 
In 2011 I posted the stats that some 50.5 million Americans were on Medicaid, 46.5 million are on Medicare, 52 million on Social Security, 5 million on SSI, 7.5 million on unemployment insurance, & 44.6 million on food stamps & other nutrition programs.  Some 24 million get the earned-income tax credit, a cash supplement.  In 2010 such payments to individuals were 66% of the federal budget, up from 28% in 1966.  This is a lot of momentum toward government dependence & it has only gotten worse in the last two years & ObamaCare will swell the Medicaid, unemployment (& SSI by extension), & EIC numbers.
 
The first step in correcting this problem – if people are smart enough to want to - is for everyone caught in this middle-income trap to admit being poorly educated with skills so limited that no employer can use them – this will take looking yourself in the mirror & admitting the predicament you are in without casting blame on someone else.  You have to confess (to yourself) that you have not adapted to the fact that your old job can now be done by a machine (e.g., if you were a toll collector) or by someone in a third world country who makes pennies a day.  Since you always have to make a living – there is no such thing as retirement from receiving bills – you will have to learn new skills & retrain.  Part of the cost of freedom is that everyone has to bear the cost of investment in themselves - both time & money – so they can make a living to support themselves.  The toll collector could have seen his problems coming if he just looked @ the number of E-ZPass lanes (or other similar electronic toll collection system) & admitted his toll-collecting job prospects were not bright.  The government has brainwashed far too many people to think they don't have to take care of themselves.
 
Take stock of yourself & if you are envious of something or the position someone else has try to figure out how they got it & then go get it for yourself.  Throw aside the class warfare that BO has pedaled about millionaires & billionaires – there aren't that many to begin with & how does bringing them down help you?
 
Something like what is described above is what it will take to restore the excellence of America's heritage in our country – from unleashing entrepreneurs to people facing the realities of the solutions to their own problems.  And of course BO will fight this tooth & nail because his idea of success as President depends on his every lie & misunderstanding being carried out while he pretends to be fighting for the antithesis of his actual objectives & pursuits.
 
As of January 1 BO was joined in his quest by the newly elected Mayor of NYC Bill de Blasio whose announced priorities, that he successfully ran on, included raising taxes on high income earners, reining in the "stop & frisk" police technique, stopping the practice of closing low performing schools, & slowing the growth of charter schools.  The new mayor was sworn in by Bill Clinton with Hillary on stage nodding & clapping approvingly in a sign of things they hope to see come.  Bill de Blasio joins Cory Booker & Terry McAuliffe as Democrats who won elections this past fall despite BO's seeming unpopularity.  To make matters worse de Blasio did not even attempt to cloak his progressive programs during his campaign the way BO did twice during his – although BO's intentions are becoming clearer every day to even the least discerning amoung us.
 
Still many Republican pundits are counting on ObamaCare's pain & financial stress on everyday Americans to carry the day in November's mid-term elections but as indicated above there are other issues, even now, & ObamaCare will probably work for most of the 2.1 million people who have enrolled so far.  After all there is Medicaid expansion & plenty of taxpayer subsidies for paying premiums & co-pays.  The jury is still out as to whether or not people care more about price or the doctors & hospitals they are permitted to use – my doctor has told me for years that price will win out.  A "failed" ObamaCare could also turn into a single payer universal healthcare system which would be another Democrat political winner & their real goal all along - so anyone looking to displace Democrats next November should not take ObamaCare's "failure" for granted with the fickleness of the American public.  Tea Partiers should lead the way back from the socialist wilderness we are in with a better plan based on the freedom of the American people – like described above.
 
Please look @ the above graph that shows the results of a poll conducted December 4 to 8 – the height of the ObamaCare website's problems & the time people were losing their private healthcare insurance every day.  Even then Democrats had a lower negative rating than Republicans & every category on the right side of the graph shows deterioration for Republicans meaning it should be hard to get cocky over one issue ten months before the mid-terms.  People hate Democrats until they consider the two-party system alternative – Republicans - which they hate more.
 
But BO's purposeful misleading & dishonest launch of ObamaCare coupled with its high premiums that lead to high deductibles & high copays for many people gives us the first real chance we have had since BO became a national figure.  The pendulum has been swinging away from liberty & toward government gaining ground since the Civil War with only brief slowdowns led by Coolidge, Reagan, & Speaker Gingrich.  But now we are deeper into the stages of Death Of Democracy & it will take another exceptional inspirational leader of Galt-like magnificence to turn America's predicament around.  Decide for yourself if you think the country is too far gone for anything to make a difference.
 
Ayn Rand said she wrote about men like John Galt & Howard Roark because she knew they existed.  Well, they can't appear soon enough to suit me. 
 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Huckabee Transcript Regarding Phil Robertson's Interview Provides Opening For A Better World

Below is the transcript of Mike Huckabee's opening monologue from his FNC program regarding Phil Robertson's interview with GQ that expanded into a lot of controversy about Phil's TV program "Duck Dynasty," the A&E network, & Cracker Barrel.  I have studied the Huckabee transcript – it goes into many more issues than just those brought up in the GQ interview.  For instance – check out the first sentence.  Tackling all of the issues found in the transcript gives us an opening to work on our own solutions & improvements to make a better world in 2014 & beyond.
 
--- Transcript - Huckabee Opening Monologue – December 21, 2013 ---
 
Remember when America was a free country? Religious liberty is so foundational to our nation's origin that faith was embedded in the very first amendment in our Bill of Rights. The GOVERNMENT is forbidden to prefer or prohibit an expression of religion. Religion is free to express; government was NOT free to infringe. In recent days, a small, but vocal and militant group of same-sex marriage advocates have co-opted religious liberty to force industry and government to go beyond tolerating homosexuality, but to APPROVE it. I'm told to shut up advocating for traditional marriage, but those who force acceptance, approval, and activism of same sex marriage allow no deviation from their view. Wedding caterers and wedding photographers are being forced by government to serve same sex weddings, even if it violates the conscience and religious convictions of the provider. It's not just government. A&E network found a successful formula to save it financially from its beginnings of "Arts and Entertainment." Reality shows have turned it into a cash cow, but none of its shows has ever rocketed it to the stratosphere of green and gold like its most popular show ever, "Duck Dynasty." Elites have never understood its popularity in "fly over" country, but for those of us who live in that part of America, Duck Dynasty wasn't about the beards or the ducks, but the strongly knit sense of family that the Robertson clan embodied. Their Christian faith is apparently too real for reality TV. They live life "happy, happy, happy." They are not straight-laced snobs or Puritans, but people who laugh, play, and pray. They reflect a family who loves each other. And they also believe a view of marriage that has been the standard for all of human history and the norm for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. A&E tossed Phil Robertson off TV because he believed what he said and said what he believed. A&E is insulting and snobbing the millions of Americans who hold the same view, albeit perhaps expressed in less graphic terms. I doubt very many members of a gay rights group even watch Duck Dynasty. Gay rights groups used to lobby for tolerance; now they lobby for intolerance. Reality TV has given us such high brow viewing as Jersey Shore, Temptation Island and Cheaters. It's okay for shows to glorify adultery, binge drinking, teen sex, and serial promiscuity. But if someone on a reality show should actually reflect the reality of his Christian faith, then God better help him because the network won't. Just who do the suits and A&E think those millions were who watched Duck Dynasty? Muslims aren't criticized, ostracized or banned from the public square and their views are far more harsh and intolerant of homosexuality. Most Christians I know (including me) are respectful and tolerant of those who are homosexual and engage in friendship with, employment with, and social interaction with people who are openly gay. I can accept anyone, but I shouldn't be forced to embrace a view of sex that is at odds with my faith. I have friends who accept me and love me, but think I'm a religious nut for believing the Bible and in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Are militant homosexuals so insecure so they are incapable of tolerating anyone who disagrees with them? Can we maybe get back to free speech and religious liberty? Or will we one day be told by the government what we can and can't say or believe. It starts in the marketplace. It ends when it is enforced by the state. We're getting close.