Paper Money, Real Debt, and Spendthrift Nations

-By Alan Caruba

As the citizens of the United States and the seventeen member-nations of the European Union look on, a great drama regarding the future of the EU and its currency, the Euro, is occurring.

The essential problem is that both the U.S. dollar and the Euro are just so much paper, despite the promises and guarantees that they will be honored as real money. The trick has been to keep everyone believing there are sufficient real assets to back up those promises.

Since the U.S. dollar is a kind of universal currency to which other nations peg the value of their currencies the problem for everyone is that the U.S. is broke. Its debt exceeds its annual capacity to generate income, otherwise known as its Gross Domestic Product. Every hour of every day it must borrow billions to meet its obligations. Forty cents of every dollar the U.S. spends is borrowed.

There is a reason why television these days if filled with commercials offering to sell gold. Gold has always retained its value though it does fluctuate. The U.S. Treasury’s gold hoard has a value of more than $400 billion these days, but that value is the flip side of the Federal Reserve’s demolition of the dollar which has lost 95% of its value since1913, the same year the Fed was created.
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Paper Money, Real Debt, and Spendthrift Nations”


Republican Planning Session: Stay Away From Attacks on Obama in 2012

-By Warner Todd Huston

Employees for Yahoo News were given a call-in number and pass key to a secret planning session conference call held by members of the Republican Party establishment on Tuesday. On the call some highly placed GOP operatives said that they should avoid “heavy attacks” on Obama during this upcoming 2012 campaign.

Apparently the Yahoo folks were given this inside info on accident by an RNC staffer. As Rachel Rose Hartman reported, a member of the well-connected Tarrance Group, a Republican polling firm, said that they aren’t interested in personal attacks on Obama.

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


How the Left Lies its Way to ‘Facts’

-By Warner Todd Huston

There was once a famous liberal congressman from New York who reminded his opponents that they could have their own opinions but not their own facts. This, of course, was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the few respectable liberals of his or any other day. But, for the most part, the left operates on pushing the lie until it is accepted as “fact” whether it is true or not. And the leftist blog Crooks and Liars pulled a doosie this week.

Apparently the guffaw inducing leftist blog thinks that the Occupy protests have been completely peaceful despite the hundreds of arrests, the rapes, the property destruction, theft, and other various act of lawbreaking! No, they are not joking.

C&L, blogger John Amato centered his risible claim upon the video of the “bedlam” that occurred at a recent college football game that saw the Oklahoma State University Cowboys beat the University of Oklahoma Sooners. As the game ended, OSU fans flooded the field to celebrate. Unfortunately, in their exuberance to tear down the goal posts upwards to twelve fans were hurt.

Amato called this a “riot.”
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How the Left Lies its Way to ‘Facts’”


Rep. Roger Eddy- Total Tax-Paid Compensation of $283,520 Plus

-By Adam Andrzejewski

“IT’S JUST WRONG.”

For 2011, Eddy has a total compensation package funded by Illinois taxpayers of over $283,520 per year. When our Freedom of Information Requests are fulfilled regarding his government health benefits and his accumulated “bank account” of unused sick days, we will update our analysis. We anticipate his annual compensation will exceed $300,000.

For the past 30 years, Roger Eddy has served in public education. Beginning as a teacher and coach, he has lived his new American Dream.

For the past 16 years, Eddy has been the superintendent of rural Hutsonville School District Unit 1. For the past 9 years (2003), Eddy has also been an elected Republican State Representative. The median Hutsonville household income is $32,500. Located four hours south of Chicago, it’s situated in the Wabash River Valley of East-Central Illinois.

Roger Eddy is a poster boy example of Illinois public greed…

Be sure and read the rest of this entry at For The Good Of Illinois.


Indoctrination: A Must Read For Parents, Taxpayers and Everyone Else

-By Larry Sand

To a large extent, the progressives have taken over American education, are transforming it and are doing it in plain sight

Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism is an invaluable book written by Kyle Olson, founder and CEO of the Education Action Group, an organization that is on the frontline of education reform and a champion of school choice.

In this brief and very readable book, Olson describes the ways that the progressives in our society have taken over K-12 education. They have been running most of our elite colleges and schools of education for years now and this step is in keeping with their plan to transform America.

As a public school teacher whose career spanned four decades, I have seen the long march first hand. Perverting the traditional purpose of American education (which has been to make better and more educated citizens), progressives have been inspired by the theories of Paolo Freire, a Brazilian socialist who saw everything through a Marxist class warfare lens.
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Indoctrination: A Must Read For Parents, Taxpayers and Everyone Else”


Help Halt the NLRB’s Assault On America’s Union-Free Workplace

Originally posted at Labor Union Report

Last week’s NLRB vote to give unions the ability to ambush union-free workers and the companies that employ them, as well as to deny due process on bargaining unit issues, is only the latest in a long line of attacks on America’s union-free workforce by the union extremists controlling Barack Obama’s National Labor Relations Board.

Notwithstanding the recent agreement between Boeing and the Machinists’ union to end the prosecution* of Boeing opening its second 787 in South Carolina, listing out of all of the attacks on job creators and America’s union-free workforce would necessitate more than an entire post. However, here are just a few:

  • Micro-unions: In a recent ruling, the NLRB has given unions the green light to begin unionizing portions companies by what are called “micro-unions.” Now, union can unionize small segments of a company by classification (or department).
  • Reducing employees’ rights to rid themselves of unwanted unions: In a reversal of a previous NLRB decision, the Obama-NLRB has made it much more difficult for employees to decertify unions where highly flawed card-check method of unionization had been utilized. The NLRB’s reversal was only outdone by the NLRB’s destroying of ballots from elections that were already held, but were awaiting the outcome of the NRLB’s decision.
  • Requiring union-free employees to post union posters. Though delayed, the NLRB is requiring all union-free, private-sector employers to post NLRB posters explaining workers’ rights to unionize.
  • Legitimizing union ‘sweetheart deals.’ Last year, the NLRB approved unions’ ability to negotiation pre-recognition agreements in exchange for ‘card check,’ thus undermining employees’ rights through “sweetheart deals.”

It’s time to put pressure on Washington to halt the NLRB’s assault and here’s how you can help.

Our friends at the Free Enterprise Alliance‘s Halt the Assault campaign have put together an online petition to send a message to Washington to Rein in the Rogue NLRB.

You can even embed a Rein in the Rogue NLRB widget on your blog or website.

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Help Halt the NLRB’s Assault On America’s Union-Free Workplace”


Contrasting World Views

-By Nancy Salvato

Thomas Jefferson outlined the philosophy of our nation’s government in the Declaration of Independence with the words,

“All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Make no mistake; this is the philosophy on which our fundamental law is based. The goals for our government, which are listed in the preamble to our constitution, are intended to secure these unalienable rights.

“In Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,…”

If the electors and elected officials of our country do not honor our covenant

“We the People…[who] do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…”

And if they choose not to uphold the blessings of liberty, then

“Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government.”

What happens if the electorate and elected officials of our country do not understand the covenant, or what if they choose not to subscribe to the mission? What if the goals of our electorate are not aligned with the fundamental law set down by the Founders and Framers? What if the policy on which our representatives vote and implement is at odds with the philosophy on which our government was founded?

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Contrasting World Views”


Illinois Values Voters Forum: Rep. Joe Walsh, State Rep. Morrison, More

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Saturday morning, Dec. 3, I attended an event put on in Carpentersville, Illinois by Allen Skillcorn. The Illinois Value Voters Forum was billed as a forum on social issues, but it was also a great opportunity to have a nice friendly chat with several Illinois politicians on a variety of issues, not just those “values” issues we generally associate with social conservatism.

Results of Straw Poll Below the Fold


The Panel

Panelists included 8th District Congressman Joe Walsh, 54th District State Representative Tom Morrison, former State Rep Penny Pullen (currently of the Life Advocacy Research Project), and Bruno Behrend who was on hand to represent Adam Andrzejewski’s Open The Books Portal Project, a website where you can learn how much your public officials are making off the taxpayers. Along with the panel above, quite a few local officials and candidates in the hunt for the GOP nomination in their district also came out to meet and greet attendees.


Allen Skillcorn introducing Rep. Joe Walsh

Rep. Joe Walsh and Bruno Behrend

The first question posed by moderator Skillcorn was “when does life begin,” a common enough question for the values crowd. Ever the rebel, Congressman Walsh went on a ten-minute discussion on why we need to change Congress to GOP control and why we need to send “the right kind of Republicans” to Washington. But, after the stump speech, he did answer the question: “at conception,” of course.

The rest of the panel generally agreed with that, but I’d like to dwell a bit on Walsh’s stump speech. He reminded us of the fiscal disaster that this nation faces and he said that we should not forget that “the Republican Party helped us get here and we have to say that forcefully and respectfully.”

But Walsh saw a “revolution” stirring with the Tea Party and the 2010 midterm vote, one that has “only just started.”
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Illinois Values Voters Forum: Rep. Joe Walsh, State Rep. Morrison, More”


CNN Soft Peddles ‘Occupy’ Lawbreaking, Asks if Police Have ‘Sympathy’ With Occupiers

-By Warner Todd Huston

On November 30, CNN’s T. J. Holmes gave us a great example of how the Old Media is soft peddling the law breaking going on at the Occupy events in order to make these events seem far less dangerous and illicit than they are. Like many in the Old Media, Holmes seems desperate to give lawbreaking Occupiers as much cover as possible — a benefit they never offered the Tea Partiers.

In an interview with an L.A. city police commander about the clearing of Occupy Los Angeles, Holmes did his best to minimize the number of arrests of members of the Occupy protest. The actual number of arrests was 200, but Holmes repeatedly characterized that numbers as “dozens.”

Now, I don’t know about you but when I hear “dozens” I think of the number 24. Being generous I might even say three dozen (a healthy 36) could be thought of as “dozens.” On the other hand, when someone tells me “200” the word “dozens” doesn’t at all come to mind. I just don’t think of 18 dozen as “dozens.” I think of them as hundreds!
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CNN Soft Peddles ‘Occupy’ Lawbreaking, Asks if Police Have ‘Sympathy’ With Occupiers”


The Threat of a Global Financial Collapse

-By Alan Caruba

At present, the amount of the annual Gross Domestic Product, $14 trillion—the value of all the goods and services that generate income—is exceeded by the nation’s debts.

America is presently $15 trillion in debt and it grows daily.

In a November 21 Wall Street Journal interview, Erskine Bowles of the presidential advisory commission on the nation’s debt, said “If you take 100% of the revenue that came into the country last year, every single dime of it was consumed by our mandatory spending and interest on the debt.”

“Mandatory spending in English is basically the entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That means that every single dollar we spent last year on national defense, homeland security, education, infrastructure, high-value added research—every single dollar was borrowed, and half of it was borrowed from foreign country.”
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The Threat of a Global Financial Collapse”


Super Power, Super Committee and the ‘Whoops’ Factor

-By Rev Michael Bresciani

America’s lonely prophets and prognosticators are standing on the side saying we must stop sinning while her politicians are putting together super committees to show us how to stop spending. So far the only ones stuck with an embarrassing ‘whoops’ on their hands, are the politicians. Harold Camping may have gotten the date for the ‘end of the world’ wrong but Washington hasn’t gotten anything right yet.

We don’t always hear the ‘whoops’ but the picture of president, politician, attorney general and super committee standing with a dumbfounded look on their faces, and hands in the air, creates no strain for the imagination.

The President realizes that he can’t keep using the Bush administration to cover his whoops but now he has the GOP controlled Congress to blame, so the re-election campaign is just like the 2008 bid , no need to own up to his own miserable failures. He has saddled up the unsuspecting with a 100 pound knapsack full of Obamacare and trillions in debt and has sent them off to the school of cultural change they really cannot believe in, with a kiss and a promise. Pep talks of future rewards notwithstanding, the little citizen students are bent and falling, just three years out of the gate.
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Super Power, Super Committee and the ‘Whoops’ Factor”


With the Economy Down, Obama Looks to Help Big Labor Make it Worse

-By Warner Todd Huston

With this week’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of American Airlines, we again see the results of unions having a hand in destroying American businesses. We also saw GM laid low by union demands costing Americans billions in bailouts. But despite these lessons of the recalcitrance of Big Labor forcing even worse calamities on our jobs climate in this dismal economy, Obama is about to make matters worse by using his powers to regulate to further harm both our business sector and our economy.

Obama likes to stand before the American people and claim that he wants to “help” the business sector. He claims that his crony capitalism is meant to “save” those businesses that are “too big to fail.” But while he stands before the microphones and pretends at being interested in capitalism, he wields his powers to regulate like a club with which to beat down the business sector.

Obama’s latest move — among dozens in the last three years — is to have a regulatory board he controls to issue new rules which would make it harder on business owners to prepare themselves and inform their employees on what it might mean to unionize their workplace.
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With the Economy Down, Obama Looks to Help Big Labor Make it Worse”


The Chevy Volt: Detroit’s Hottest Car (Cuz They Catch on Fire and Stuff)

-By Warner Todd Huston

Government Motors has finally found its hottest car and the Chevy Volt is it. Unfortunately for Chevy, it isn’t because it is popular. It’s because the car seems to catch on fire a lot. Industry watchers are preparing for the Volt to undergo a recall to fix whatever problem the car’s lithium-ion battery pack has that seems to be causing the vehicles to spontaneously burst into flames.

Of course, this little catching on fire problem seems emblematic with everything about Government Motors. After President Barack “Lee IaJokka” Obama pumped $53 billion of our tax dollars into bailing out GM all we’ve gotten out of the deal so far is a stock tumble from $53 a share to under $25 (a $15 billion loss) and a badly selling “green” car that catches on fire every time you turn around. Such a deal.

As to the burning issue of the day, the Associated Press notes that an “investigation” has begun by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to determine why the cars are catching fire.
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The Chevy Volt: Detroit’s Hottest Car (Cuz They Catch on Fire and Stuff)”


California’s Looming Fiscal Disaster: Sunlight and an Informed Public are the Best Disinfectants

-By Larry Sand

With the state and various cities on the brink of insolvency, it’s imperative that the electorate become more informed and demand that school districts and teachers unions do their negotiating in public.

This past Sunday’s Los Angeles Times above-the-fold headline screamed “Voters back tax hikes for schools.” It was déja-vu all over again. As I wrote in September,

“… a poll which is biased and does not take into account the knowledge of the people being polled is misleading and dangerous. The public is led to believe that the responders are perceptive and knowledgeable, when in reality so many are not.”

(And I could have added that a poll that misleads or misinforms its respondents is the most dangerous of all; I’ll address that shortly.)

The Times article reported that a USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/Los Angeles Times Frequency Questionnaire released last week showed that 61 percent of those surveyed said they would pay higher taxes to boost school funding.

As I read those words, I wondered,
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California’s Looming Fiscal Disaster: Sunlight and an Informed Public are the Best Disinfectants”


OWS: Powerless Childishness Nearing Its End

-By Warner Todd Huston

Just before Thanksgiving several of the nation’s big city mayors began the process of ousting the Occupy-Whatevers from their squatting perches on public and private property. This week the evictions continue. So, with the so-called movement winding down (at least for this season), what was the result? Nothing but sound a fury signifying nothing.

The Old Media has been puffing up the empty OWSers as having brought serious attention to pay inequality, corporate greed, banking failures, and the evils of capitalism. But last week’s Black Friday shopping day seems to prove that no one was paying attention to the OWSers at all.

In fact, in many cities the OWSers tried to protest the monumental shopping day by sit-ins, protests, and attempting to cajole shoppers to go home and observe an organized “no shopping day.” But with sales at a new high, it is plain no one cared much for what the left-wing, communist-inspired OWSers were selling.

In a recent piece in the Fiscal Times, for instance, Ed Morrissey notes that OWS is “overhyped and impotent” due to the enthusiasm with which Americans hit the malls and stores on Friday…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


How Radical is Obama? This Radical…

-By Warner Todd Huston

Barack Obama is very successful at one thing: the bait and switch. He stands before America presenting a picture of a hard-working moderate and claims that he wants to work with the Republicans to get things done. In reality he won’t even meet with them. He talks about compromise, but never offers any. He mouths kind words abut the business sector but uses his powers to make new regulations to destroy its profitability. In short, he’s a radical even though he doesn’t play one on TV. His modus operandi is to assume most voters are too stupid, lazy, or disinterested to compare his hope-n-change rhetoric with his actions.

Obama’s penchant for bypassing Congress and making radical changes to regulations in order to push his far left agenda is a case in point. Obama’s push to radicalize the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and turn it from a non-partisan watchdog agency into a tool for Big Labor is a perfect example of how the President uses regulations to achieve what he and the far left cannot do with legislation. It is also an example of how he is trying to radically change America under the radar of most voter’s notice.
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How Radical is Obama? This Radical…”


OWS Misfits, Drug Addicts, Rapists, and Unicorn Riders Go Home for the Holidays

-By Warner Todd Huston

The anti-western, anti-capitalist group whose advertisement started the Occupy Wall Street movement has told its adherents to go home. The first phase of Occupy is over they said. Time to regroup, network, and try to finally come up with some sort of message besides an amorphous we-hate-whatever chant. Time to finally figure out an agenda to go on to the next step.

Only there isn’t one. OWS is now SOL.

It isn’t surprising. After all there was really never any there there. Sure there was some legitimate ire at its heart, but, quite unlike the Tea Party movement, there was never a scintilla of coherence to the Occupy… I hesitate to even call it a movement. To be a movement there has to be something moving.

The Occupy-Whatevers had trouble appealing to the average American from its inception. After all, nearly every major group sponsoring it — and those claiming partisanship with it — are the antitheses of Americana.
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OWS Misfits, Drug Addicts, Rapists, and Unicorn Riders Go Home for the Holidays”


Sour Mash, Bitter Man: or, Hit the road, Jack Daniel’s

-By Daniel Clark

If you read the label on a bottle of Jack Daniel’s (not that one happens to be handy), you’ll see that it’s made in “Lynchburg (Pop. 361).” Perhaps this should be updated to say, “at least one of whom is a raving Communist lunatic.” That person is Charles Rogers, a “concerned citizen” who has proposed a measure, passed by the Moore County Council (no relation to Michael), requesting permission from the Tennessee assembly for a referendum to impose a new “barrel tax” on the famous whiskey manufacturer.

Supposedly, Rogers wants the tax in order to pay for infrastructure projects, but he let the real reason slip when, according to an October 21st Fox News story, he explained, “We are entitled to more money from the only industry in the county. They created the image of this little old hamlet down here being the place where this fantastic whiskey is being made, and the people didn’t realize what was going on.” O, the exploitation!

Jack Daniel’s general manager Tommy Beam responded that the company is already heavily taxed, and that, being the county’s largest employer, it has expanded the tax base dramatically. The population of Lynchburg is now actually close to 6,000 (The 361 figure on the bottle is from the time that the label was trademarked, about 50 years ago). In addition, the distillery brings in an estimated 200,000 tourists every year. This demonstrates a point that ought to go without saying, which is that a successful industry is beneficial to the community in which it resides. Yet Rogers treats Jack Daniel’s as if it were a deadbeat, failing to pay its “fair share” to the local government.
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Sour Mash, Bitter Man: or, Hit the road, Jack Daniel’s”


California: Death Valley Days All Over

-By Warner Todd Huston

Death Valley is one of America’s most inhospitable places. These days it appears that there’s no accident that Death Valley is situated in California as the whole state is beginning to resemble a desert. More people are now leaving the state than are moving to it, taxes are driving businesses to other states, the state legislature is horribly corrupt and wasteful, and the future looks dark for the state once regaled as the land of milk and honey.

A recent piece in the LA Times found it worrisome that the state is not only losing middle and lower class white workers to other states, but even immigrants, the former population demographic that was growing, are no longer considering California as a final destination.

The Times notes that the 2010 census found that more Californians left the state than people from other states moved to the state, the latter number being a 100 year low. “The most recent census,” the Times wrote, “was the first in a century in which the majority of Californians were native-born.” This reflects that California is not gaining new citizens…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


The House Kills the Senate’s $322 Million Climate Service

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week the House killed a new Senate approved, bureaucratic boondoggle that according to the House Appropriations Committee would have cost taxpayers a minimum of $322 million buckaroos, and good on them for it.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wanted to create a new division to be called the National Climate Service. Similar to its National Weather Service the new NCS would have “streamlined delivery” for requests on the agency’s climate and weather data.

Amusingly, the NOAA tried to claim that the new service would not cost the taxpayers anything at all. They didn’t even request money to fund the new division. But this no-cost claim was doubted by the House Appropriations Committee that estimated that its killing of the idea saved taxpayers $322 million.
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The House Kills the Senate’s $322 Million Climate Service”


Kinder, Gentler OWSer Vows to Assassinate Governor

-By Warner Todd Huston

A whack nut Occupy Wall Street sympathizer in South Carolina was a bit miffed when Governor Nikki Haley “allowed” the police to begin arresting the dregs at Occupy Columbia. In fact, he was so mad that he took to his Facebook account and threatened to murder the Governor.

So much for the Occupy-Whatevers being wedded to “non-violence,” eh?

KLTV Channel 7 News in Jacksonville, Texas has the story

When 26-year-old Nathan Shafer heard about the arrests of 19 Occupy Columbia members outside the State House last Wednesday, he did what lots of people do when they get angry — he vented about it on the Internet. He saw Gov. Haley’s Facebook post about the arrests and Haley’s comment that she “appreciate[s] freedom of speech,” and that’s when authorities say Shafer crossed the line.

“I hope someone murders you before I do,” Shafer said he commented on the post. “How’s that for freedom of speech?”

Shafer claims that he was “just joking” and that he was only exercising his right to “free speech.” I guess threatening to kill people is just a joke to Occupy-Whatevers.

As the newser notes a man earlier this year made similar threats toward President Obama but was not convicted of any wrongdoing.

Just add this creep’s threats to the mounting toll of violence and hatred seen from the Occupy-Whatevers. All I can say is that it is such a shame that Democrats and the Old Media are pretending that the OWSers are “non-violent” and are somehow “the left’s Tea Party movement.” Neither are true as the Tea Party never indulged any of the hatred and violence seen by these disgusting OWSers.

The fact is the two groups are not in the least way similar save that both were protesting things. The Tea Partiers are law-abiding, serious, practical, and useful. The OWSers are dangerous, criminal, pointless, and narcissistic.

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Kinder, Gentler OWSer Vows to Assassinate Governor”


System Failure on a Global Scale

-By Alan Caruba

We are living in times when the structures involving the global financial system, national security, and self-governance are under attack, decaying, or just self-destructing due to all the ills to which humanity is prone.

Wars in the twentieth century were always an example of either the failure of nations to resolve their differences or of the ancient human inclination to steal whatever they can from their neighbor. Wars organize this into armies for that purpose. The other cause for war is the necessity to rid the neighborhood of the crazy guy who’s hoarding weapons and building bombs.

What is occurring of late, however, goes beyond the usual casus belli to something far greater, a loss of faith in national and international banking systems, aggravated by the failure of nations to act in a prudent fashion to protect the wealth of their citizens and their national sovereignty.
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System Failure on a Global Scale”


Super Committee Suicide‏

-By Alan Caruba

By the weekend, news reports indicated that the congressional Super Committee was closing in on an agreement. The deficit-cutting panel is mandated to trim at least $1.2 trillion in federal spending over the next ten years and, failing an agreement, automatic cuts would begin in 2013, after the national elections.

In days, however, it was clear that there was no agreement and the Super Committee, as Congress has always done, was looking at a variety of gimmicks and magical thinking to avoid having to address what is now a $15 trillion national debt, more than an entire year’s Gross Domestic Product.

The Super Committee was and is a bad idea on many levels if for no other reason than the Constitution requires that all bills involving expenditures must originate in the House of Representatives (Article 1, Section 7), but “the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.” The Constitution, however, has mattered less and less to U.S. Congresses for a very long time.
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Super Committee Suicide‏”


Democrats, Sen. Schumer Shut Down Citizen’s Forum

-By Warner Todd Huston

You know, it is unfortunate that the Democrat Party’s name has the word “democracy” as it root because the modern Democrat Party is 100% opposed to both democracy and our system of government. Senator Chuck “Hitman” Schumer just proved this to be true once again.

Last week Senator Mike Lee (R, Utah) had reserved a room in the Senate and invited a retinue of Tea Party representatives and the folks of Freedom Works to discuss the Tea Party Budget proposal drawn up by Freedom Works.

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Democrats, Sen. Schumer Shut Down Citizen’s Forum”


Washington Needs a Little Fiscal Fidelity‏

We all have heard the classic Washington scandal of a Congressman being unfaithful. The indiscretion usually causes a public outcry leading to a public apology and resignation.

But what happens when a member of Congress is unfaithful to the economy?

This video addresses the decades Washington has spent far beyond its means. This overspending has saddled the country with a national debt of over $15 trillion – a point at which it is now hamstringing economic growth. And even now, as the economy begs for attention, lawmakers are unable to make things right.

As millions of Americans sit out of work and a recovery falters, isn’t it time Washington shows a little fiscal fidelity.

Courtesy of www.bankruptingamerica.org


Dear American, Obama Says You Owe $160,545 of the Federal Debt

-By Warner Todd Huston

With the U.S. debt now officially over $15 trillion, to pay it off each working American would now owe more to the federal debt than they make in a year according to a new report by the U.S. Treasury Department.

The debt has now reached $15,033,607,255,920.32 and Terence Jeffery did a few calculations to see what that would mean.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that there were 93,641,000 full-time private sector workers in the United States in 2010 (and 18,073,000 full-time workers in federal, state and local government). That means the $15.0336 trillion federal debt equals approximately 160,545 per full-time private sector worker.

Calculations also show that the “federal debt equals approximately $197,579 for each American family.”

Rep. Peter Roskam (R, ILL) was saddened to learn of the mounting debt crisis.
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Dear American, Obama Says You Owe $160,545 of the Federal Debt”


California Drowning in Budget Waste and Abuse

-By Matthew Cunningham

Think you came up a bit short trick-or-treating this year? It’s nothing compared to California, whose revenues in October came in $800 million below projections. Overall, California is about $1.5 billion in the red for the current fiscal year, which may trigger some nasty cuts to schools and public safety if revenues don’t start pouring in soon.

Of course, California didn’t get into these dire straits by accident. Years and years of reckless overspending pushed the state over the fiscal precipice resulting in the sorry state of affairs we’re seeing today. Apparently, despite billions in cuts to education and other critical programs, some people still haven’t gotten the message. Consider the so-called California Cancer Research Act, pushed by a former legislator. This nearly billion dollar tax increase not only would duplicate existing programs, but would spend up to $16 million annually on additional overhead and up to $117 million a year for new buildings and facilities. In short, it would create another new bureaucracy to pay for, even though we can’t pay for the programs already on the books.

California dug itself into the hole it’s in by giving in to wild spending schemes time and time again. Perhaps this June, voters will finally get the message.
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California Drowning in Budget Waste and Abuse”


Election 2012: Third and Long

-By Nancy Salvato

Football fans understand that each game played either moves a team forward toward the conference playoffs, conference championship, and Super Bowl, or toward the role of spoiler, where their role is to affect the outcome of the seasons’ top teams. While they watch their favorite players, they recognize that one injury can make the difference between a good season and a bad season unless there is depth in the team’s capacity. The ability of a team to work together, weather, home field advantage, seasoned leadership, knowing the other team’s playbook, all of this factors in when developing a championship team. True fans understand the complexity involved in bringing home the ring.

Politics also involves such complexity and as we ramp up toward the 2012 election, it behooves the citizenry of this country to become educated in the strategies used by both parties to enhance the viability of their candidates while reducing the credibility of the opposition. For those who enjoy politics, following the primaries is as compelling as watching the football season unfold, and for the populace as a whole, a much higher stakes game is being played that goes beyond who will gain the office of chief executive. The 2012 election has the potential to influence the direction of our country for many years beyond a presidential term of office.

Strategy 1: Discredit the messenger. Within a party and between the parties, this strategy is used to cast doubt in the mind of the voter as to whether the person running for office has the intellectual or moral capacity to lead our country. While it is important to get to know each candidate, to understand his or her strengths and weaknesses, it is also critical to remember that we are not always given the choice of voting for the best person to hold office; we are given a choice of picking the better person to become president. We need to have a set of criteria that this person must meet, much like the ideal candidate for a job. While most people cannot meet every expectation, it is the combination of skills and personality that makes a person the most viable choice. What traits make a good president? Part of this depends on the challenges that person will face. What experiences have prepared the candidate for this role? How has the candidate dealt with adversity, job growth, managing others? What problems face this person going in? Does the person have the depth to understand the long as well as the short term impact of each challenge in relationship to any solution being proposed? Does the candidate exhibit the intellectual capacity to weigh all considerations against a long term goal for leadership? What future does this person envision for our country?
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Election 2012: Third and Long”


GM Bailout: Bait And Switch And Drive That Lemon Away

-By Warner Todd Huston

General Motors was too big to fail. This is why President Obama had to ride in on his white steed with billions of taxpayers dollars in hand to bailout GM rechristening it Government Motors. Besides, we were told it would be a great deal, a money maker, right? Well, not so much. The Administration has reported a dramatic increase in the money We The People have lost on the GM bailout.

This week the Treasury Dept. has announced that the estimates of our loss has gone from $14.33 billion tax dollars to $26.6 billion.

To put it in terms easier to understand, for the American people to just break even on the bailout deal the more than 500 million shares owned by the U.S. Treasury must sell at $53 a share. Unfortunately for all of us, GM stock has tumbled to just $22.99 (as of closing on Nov.14). We are waaay off from the break even point, folks!
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GM Bailout: Bait And Switch And Drive That Lemon Away”