Capitalism

Barack Obama - Business - Capitalism - Communism - Congress - Conservatives - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Free Trade - Government - House of Representatives - Jobs - Liberals - President - Taxes - Thomas Brewton

Why Democrat/Socialist Party Animosity Toward Private Enterprise

July 1, 2010 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Marxian economic dogma explains why liberal-progressives, the Obama administration in particular, push for restructuring our constitutional government to concentrate more power in the hands of labor unions and the Federal government.

Marxian economic dogma has been emphasized to an increasing degree in our colleges and universities, even in our high schools, since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal imposed state planning upon the United States in the 1930s. That emphasis became dominant in the late 1960s and 1970s. Today so many generations of teachers and students have been so thoroughly and subtly imbued with Marxian concepts that they are unaware of their ideological environment, assuming that such concepts represent exclusive truth.

Marxian doctrine leads to the assertion that private property is power and that such power is used by employers to exploit the workers. To end exploitation, government must restructure society, using progressive income taxes, high death taxes, and punitive regulation of private businesses, coupled with welfare-state entitlements.
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Why Democrat/Socialist Party Animosity Toward Private Enterprise”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Government - Liberals - Oil - President - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Tax Hike Fever: Obama is ‘Arresting the Victim After He’s Been Mugged’

June 29, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Steve Everley has a piece at TownHall.com that is one of those “of course they are” moments. As we all know, White House Chief of Staff claimed that he and his comrades would never let a good crisis go to waste and Everley reminds us that the BP oil spill is just another “crisis” to be used as an excuse to raise taxes as far as Democrats are concerned.

Naturally, the BP spill serves as a “reason” for Obama to try and impose new energy taxes that will help further crush our economy into the dust. “By their economic logic,” Everley says, “an accident that is already costing jobs and millions of dollars of economic losses in the Gulf requires imposing more taxes that will cost even more jobs and billions of more dollars in economic losses in both the Gulf and across the country.”

In a clever turn of phrase, Everley says that Obama’s big tax hiking plans is “tantamount to arresting the victim after he was mugged.” Sad but true, sad but true.
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Tax Hike Fever: Obama is ‘Arresting the Victim After He’s Been Mugged’”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

The FCC’s ‘Blight Touch’ & ‘Muddle Ground’

June 29, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

Clearly proponents of net neutrality and public-utility regulation of broadband, have learned how to manipulate language and metaphors to mask and move their agenda; what they haven’t learned is that the language and metaphors used to promote policy changes must be true in order to make legitimate, successful, and lasting public policy.

The communications plan for the FCC’s proposed broadband regulation of the Internet is full of fiction, fantasy and misdirection. What’s increasingly obvious is that proponents of preemptive proscriptive broadband regulation think people are stupid, that they don’t know what words mean and that they will gullibly swallow whatever is said without thought or question.
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The FCC’s ‘Blight Touch’ & ‘Muddle Ground’”

Arizona - Business - Capitalism - Children - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Free Trade - Government - Homeless - Immigration/Immigrants - Jobs - Liberals - Mexico - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston - Welfare - Wisconsin

Open Letter to Milwaukee Over its Decision to Boycott Arizona

June 28, 2010 by 1 Comment

(This was sent to me from a concerned citizen of the great state of Arizona…)

An Open Letter to Milwaukee City Alderman James Witkowski and His Fellow Aldermen (With the Notable Exception of the Hon. Bob Donovan)

How dare you boycott us, you who have never had thousands of ignorant, poor, opportunistic Canadians pouring into your towns and cities, murdering your farmers and stealing anything else they can get their hands on. How dare you assume we are RACIST? We aren’t racist, you dolts. We have lived as good neighbors to Mexico and Mexicans for hundreds of years. Our friends, our families, our schools, our universities, our workplaces – our whole society here in Arizona – is completely and fully and happily integrated. This isn’t about Americans of Mexican descent it is about Mexicans of Mexican descent, and it infuriates me that you silly, silly people 2,000 miles away would presume to call us racists. We are simply doing what our federal government has refused to do for the last 30 years: we are finally protecting ourselves and our borders with our votes, as we are completely within our rights, human and Constitutional, to do.
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Open Letter to Milwaukee Over its Decision to Boycott Arizona”

Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - House of Representatives - Liberals - President - Senate - Taxes - Thomas Brewton

Housing Slumps Despite Obama’s Stimulus Spending

June 28, 2010 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The housing market is the most recent of many examples of the failure of Obama’s stimulus plans to revive the economy by repealing principles of human economic behavior.

Predictably, the still vastly overbuilt and over-supplied housing market drops dead, as it should, when not artificially supported by socialistic government subsidies. The Wall Street Journal describes the deteriorating situation:

Quote:

Federal tax credits of as much as $8,000 for home buyers spurred sales in recent months…Since April 30, new purchase contracts have plunged as buyers no longer have the incentive of a federal tax break, builders and real estate agents say. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, estimated that contracts signed in May were 10% to 15% below the weak level of a year earlier.

Ronald Peltier, chief executive officer of HomeServices of America Inc., which owns real estate brokers in 21 states, said new home-purchase contracts in May and June so far are down about 20% from a year earlier. The tax credit accelerated sales that otherwise would have occurred later in the year, Mr. Peltier said…

“We’re seeing a loss of momentum” in housing demand since the expiration of the tax credit, [Scott Anderson of Wells Fargo] said, and that lull could last until next spring. The job market remains weak, he added, and foreclosed homes continue to weigh on the housing market.

Last week, the Commerce Department reported that May construction starts on single-family homes fell 17% to an annual rate of 468,000, the lowest level in a year.

Stimulus spending is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It doesn’t add to wealth. It distorts economic activity by channeling funds to favored interest groups at the expense of others, smothering the economic processes necessary to clear the decks for sound new growth.

In the Keynesian command economy, politicians presume to decide where consumer are to spend their money. Such is the inherent and inescapable nature of government stimulus spending programs. With incredible arrogance, politicians propose to control the economic activity of hundreds of millions of individuals, who will make their own decisions about whether to save or to spend money, and what to spend it on.

Remember, all government spending is done with other people’s money, acquired as tax revenues or borrowed to fund deficits. Either way, the government creates nothing. It just transfers that money to its favored economic and social classes or to Congress members’ home district pork-barrel projects. Transfer payments can’t return economic conditions to soundness, but they can in the short run divert business from the essential process of liquidating uneconomic inventory and production facilities. In the longer run, transfer payments permanently corrupt citizens by inducing dependence upon the welfare state.

The rationalization for the species of government transfer payments called stimulus plans is that it theoretically revives an economy in recession and creates perpetual economic booms. At least that was among the confused and often contradictory claims made by economist John Maynard Keynes.

The Democrat/Socialist Party, since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, has adopted Keynes’s estimate of private enterprise and “the rich” in general, making them targets of punitive regulation, higher taxes, and public condemnation. In line with socialism’s thrust to redistribute income and wealth, they pound the slogan that “the rich” are not paying their fair share, because of tax breaks enacted by Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush.

Counter-intuitively, however, tax revenues grew prodigiously under both tax-cutting presidents, as well as earlier under tax-cutting President John F. Kennedy. With respect to fairness, according to the IRS, the bottom half of all taxpayers pay less than 3% of income taxes, while the top 1% of taxpayers pay 36% of taxes and the top 20% pay 53% of taxes.

It is these top-bracket citizens whose savings and entrepreneurial spirit are essential to powering a revitalized economy that will create new jobs. Freighting them with the uncertainties of higher taxes and thousands of pages of new regulations, while figuratively flagellating them in the public square, will do nothing to speed our nation’s economic recovery.
____________
Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776 http://www.thomasbrewton.com/

Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Thomas E. Brewton

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Business - Capitalism - Christianity - Congress - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Government - House of Representatives - Liberals - Marie Jon - President - Religion - Senate - Taxes

I’ve Been Thinking About the Way the President Takes Care of America

June 27, 2010 by

-By Marie Jon


I’ve been thinking and thinking about the way President Barack Obama has been taking care of our country. And my emotional reaction has been one of sadness, anger, shock, disgust, and dismay.

For most Americans, as well, the news of the day has become a bit too much concerning the state of the Union. We feel abandoned, bullied, pushed, and intimidated by our “historical” president. Dare I say he seems to have some issues?

Frankly, Obama’s recent address to the nation did little more than add insult to injury. He gave no answers that made any sense. He only became “wee weed up” while spending a great deal of his time telling us we can no longer depend on oil and shamelessly pandering his green energy propaganda.

Outmoded fear-mongering

On Hannity the other evening, my colleague Erik Rush nailed it while discussing his new book titled Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal — America’s Racial Obsession. The Democrat Party purposefully misleads people of color by reinforcing their fears, Erik pointed out. And certain pastors in the black community do the same, he noted. Within too many of the sanctuaries of black churches, the congregants are made to feel that the world is against them. From the pulpit, these same pastors will look to government, rather than to God’s instruction for taking personal responsibility. In John 10:10, Christ says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The apostle John writes, “Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2).

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I’ve Been Thinking About the Way the President Takes Care of America”

Barack Obama - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Free Trade - Government - Oil - President - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s Drilling Moratorium a Sop to Unions?

June 26, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The president of the Seafarers International Union’s Gulf Coast District, Dean Corgey, recently penned an op ed in which he noted an interesting fact: deepwater oil drilling rigs are “100 percent non-union.” With this in mind one of union bought president Barack Obama’s major decisions — in fact, one of his few actual decisions — in the BP Oil mess was to shut down the very oil rigs that unions have been trying to organize for decades with a six-month moratorium.

Naturally, as is evident by Corgey’s op ed, unions are claiming the whole BP incident is a result of non-union workers and with Obama trying to shut down these platforms he lends credence to the union claims. Unions are sure to try and use the moratorium as a reason to convince skeptics against organizing workers of deepwater rigs.

But unions or no, Obama’s moratorium will potentially cause 120,000 jobs to be lost in the Gulf area just when the economy of the Gulf states is at its worst.
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Obama’s Drilling Moratorium a Sop to Unions?”

Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Government - Oil - President - Warner Todd Huston

Obama Fail: Hundreds of Oil Skimmers NOT Being Used in Gulf

June 26, 2010 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ken Marrero alerted me to this video of Florida Senator George LeMieux alerting the world that there are hundreds of oil skimmers across the country and the federal government has refused to allow them to be transferred to the Gulf to help in the cleanup because — get this — there may be an oil spill somewhere else and they might be needed there.

As LeMieux says, that this “logic” is like not sending a firetruck to a house fire because some other house might catch fire and the truck might be needed for that possible fire.

The folks at The Shark Tank conducted this interesting interview.
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Obama Fail: Hundreds of Oil Skimmers NOT Being Used in Gulf”

Alan Caruba - Barack Obama - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Government - Liberals - Oil - President

BP and the Unmitigated Disaster

June 26, 2010 by

-By Alan Caruba

The Gulf of Mexico could turn into a giant dead zone if some means cannot be found to staunch the flow of oil and toxic gases emerging from the damaged well beneath the Deepwater Horizon. Industry insiders who understand the engineering of wells are beginning to speak openly among themselves of an unmitigated disaster.

It is essential to understand that the oil business is like no other. Oil companies that drill too many dry holes go out of business. Oil is too often in places run by despots and gangsters that would make Hollywood villains seem tame by comparison. Oil companies must deal with them even at the risk they will renege on their promises; something they do a lot.

The oil business depends on technology that attempts to give geologists an idea of what is hidden way below the surface of the land or water. It often means having to team up with your competitors to finance an operation such as building a pipeline so both can move their crude oil to refineries.
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BP and the Unmitigated Disaster”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Taxes - Technology

FCC Broadband “Believe it or Not!”

June 26, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

With due credit to “Ripley’s Believe it or Not!®,” so much odd and bizarre is happening at the FCC in the “name” of “broadband” that the topic calls for its own collection of: “Believe it or Not!®” oddities.

The FCC insists that its Title II reclassification effort to regulate broadband networks is not “regulating the Internet,” when the law the Supreme Court and the FCC all define the Internet to include broadband networks!

The FCC, certain that the D.C. Circuit Court decision on Comcast vs. the FCC was incorrect, decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court!

The FCC, an administrative agency created, funded, and overseen by Congress, completely ignored a majority of Members of Congress who wrote the FCC opposing FCC reclassification of broadband as a common carrier!

The FCC plans to justify new broadband Title II regulation with some regulatory forbearance by arguing that the market facts simultaneously warrant both more, and less, broadband regulation — at the very same time!

The FCC claims the “soundest legal foundation” for broadband is the opposite of what the DC Circuit Court, Congress, legal experts and industry think is sound!

The FCC justified pursuing its Title II reclassification effort by characterizing it as the “broad consensus” view, but the non-partisan Association of State Legislatures and a bi-partisan majority of Members of Congress opposed the FCC in writing!

The FCC claims it has an open mind in approaching the Notice of Inquiry, but a majority of FCC votes, are on record already supporting new broadband regulation!

The FCC claims ‘immaculate mis-conception’ to explain how “series of tubes,” the FCC appears intent on officially declaring the Internet a series of telephone lines!

Strange but true.

“Believe it or Not!®”
_________________
Scott Cleland is one of nation’s foremost techcom analysts and experts at the nexus of: capital markets, public policy and techcom industry change. He is widely-respected in industry, government, media and capital markets as a forward thinker, free market proponent, and leading authority on the future of communications. Precursor LLC is an industry research and consulting firm, specializing in the techcom sector, whose mission is to help companies anticipate change for competitive advantage. Cleland is also Chairman of NetCompetition.org, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Precursor LLC and an e-forum on Net Neutrality funded by a wide range of broadband telecom, cable and wireless companies. He previously founded The Precursor Group Inc., which Institutional Investor magazine ranked as the #1 “Best Independent” research firm in communications for two years in a row. His latest op eds can be seen at www.precursorblog.com.

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Card Check - Democracy - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - EFCA - Elections - Government - Jobs - Liberals - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Sen. Harkin Promises Return to Card Check

June 25, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Hill is reporting that Iowa’s leading Democrat, Senator Tom Harkin, is promising that the lame-duck Senate will again take up Big Labor’s favored Employee Free Choice Act, (EFCA), the famous card check act that is neither good for employees nor one that facilitates “free choice” of any kind.

Apparently, what’s bad for the nation is easier to push when Democrats already feel that the 2010 election will erase their giant majorities in Congress so they want to launch a last ditch effort to sneak this through before the people can speak at the ballot box.

And isn’t that just the thing, here? The people did speak in 2006 and 2008, after all. They spoke in favor of Democrats. Yet, even with all that support Harkin and his far left cronies couldn’t lead their overwhelming majority to pass the jobs killing bill. Even their fellow Democrats were against it because they knew the voters stood against it.
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Sen. Harkin Promises Return to Card Check”

Barack Obama - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Cook County - David Ratowitz - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Energy - GOP - Government - House of Representatives - Illinois - Oil - Republicans - Warner Todd Huston

Ratowitz on Judge Striking Down Moratorium‏

June 24, 2010 by

From the Ratowitz for Congress campaign (5th District)…

Louisiana Federal Judge Struck down Obama Administration’s Oil Moratorium Request.

U.S. Congressional Candidate, David Ratowitz (IL-5) criticizes“ the Obama administration for banning an entire industry instead of addressing the problem of safely producing oil necessary for our nation’s economy.
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Ratowitz on Judge Striking Down Moratorium‏”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

FCC & Google’s Extreme Internet Makeover — A Preview

June 24, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

At its Thursday meeting, expect the FCC to adopt Google’s PR script to try and better sell the FCC’s upcoming “Extreme Makeover” of Internet regulation.

The centerpiece of the FCC and Google’s “extreme Internet makeover” plan is the creation of an entirely new, Google-inspired, regulatory classification called “Broadband Internet Connectivity Service” or BICS.

The BICS extreme makeover is designed to enable the promotion of integrated “edge” products and services like Google Voice, Google TV and Google’s Chrome/Android operating systems and empower the FCC to implement its National Broadband Plan on its own without additional Congressional authorization or action.

Predictably, the FCC’s Google-oriented-BICS-scheme has three fatal flaws, making it a disaster waiting to happen.
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FCC & Google’s Extreme Internet Makeover — A Preview”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Free Trade - Government - Jimmy Carter - Liberals - Media - Media Bias - Newspapers - Oil - Warner Todd Huston

Atlanta Journal Columnist Tucker Says USA is ‘The Enemy’

June 23, 2010 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Columnist Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner, has found the enemy and he is us. During a recent episode of the Chris Matthews show, Tucker decided that because we are “addicted to petroleum” we are our own enemy just as much as communism was our enemy during the Cold War.

Tucker characterizes our “addiction” to oil as an “external threat” — just like communism was — and presents oil as an enemy that we should defeat. Tucker also makes excuses for Obama saying that it’s “harder” for him to call on Americans to sacrifice because of this addiction.

Leave it to a member of the Old Media to construe capitalism, progress, a growing standard of living, and even our own fellow citizens to be as great an enemy as an antithetical foreign system that was sponsored by those that promised to destroy us. Leave it to a member of the Old Media to pinpoint our own system as the enemy.
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Atlanta Journal Columnist Tucker Says USA is ‘The Enemy’”

Business - Capitalism - Chicago - Christianity - Democrats/Leftists - Government, Ill. County - Illinois - Illinois State Government - Islam - Islamofascism - Liberals - Media - Media Bias - Religion - Sharia - Taxes - Terrorism - Warner Todd Huston - Western Civilization

Those Poor Muslims Forced to Sell Pork Rinds in Chicago

June 22, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Chicago Tribune has a long lament of an article bellyaching about how so many wonderful and devout Muslim grocery store owners in Chicago are somehow forced to sell liquor, lottery tickets and pork products in their stores. The article worries over their Muslim souls for having to violate their un-American Shariah codes. Naturally, a group of do-gooders have a solution. Just as naturally it comes in the form of our tax dollars.

For the Tribune, writer Manya A. Brachear tells us of South Side store owner Mazen Materieh who prays five times a day in Muslim fashion behind his cashier’s counter. Mrs Brachear apparently wants us to feel sorry for Materieh because he is somehow forced to sell lottery tickets, pork products like pork rinds, and liquor in his store. “I’m an honest person. I don’t like to be a man of two faces,” Materieh says about doing what he knows is “wrong,” namely selling the “forbidden” products.

Brachear then gravely inform us that this is a “conflict” that is “common” throughout Chicago.
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Those Poor Muslims Forced to Sell Pork Rinds in Chicago”

Barack Obama - Capitalism - DOL - Economy/Finances - Jobs - Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s Dept. of Labor Offers to Help Illegals Get Paid ‘Fairly’

June 21, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here we are in a nation being inundated by illegal aliens, so much so that states are having to take what should be federal responsibility into their own hands to try and end this flood of illicit immigrants, and Barak Obama’s Sec. of Labor is announcing to illegals that she intends to help them get paid “fairly.”

Hilda Solis has a new video out promising to get illegals “every cent they earn.” You see, “every worker has a right to be paid fairly whether documented or not,” Solis helpfully tells us.

So, while the country is facing a flood of illegal immigrants that come here to overburden our system and commit crimes, we have a federal government promising to help make their illegal stay more comfortable.

Hey, Hilda…. what part of ILLEGAL don’t you understand?

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Obama’s Dept. of Labor Offers to Help Illegals Get Paid ‘Fairly’”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Google - Government - Inernet - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Regulation - Scott Cleland - Taxes - Technology

Americans want online privacy — per new Zogby poll

June 19, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

American consumers clearly want online privacy, per a national poll conducted over the weekend by Zogby International, that was commissioned by Precursor LLC.

In a nutshell, over 80% of Americans are concerned about the security and privacy of their personal information on the Internet; about 90% of Americans consider some common industry behaviors to be unfair business practices; and about 80% of Americans support a variety of stronger consumer protections of their privacy online.
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Americans want online privacy — per new Zogby poll”

2nd Amendment - Business - Capitalism - Chicago - Constitution - Cook County - Democrats/Leftists - Government - Guns - Illinois - Liberals - Mayor Richard Daley - Warner Todd Huston

Mayor Daley’s Newest Disingenuous Gun Argument

June 18, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mayor Richard “King” Daley is at it again, talking through his royal rear-end and simply making things up to push a false theme in order to support his anti-Constitutional gun-grabbing in Chicago.

The Chicago Tribune conducted an interview with his heinous and he uncorked another one of his primo spins on his latest desire to take away his subject’s Constitutional right to self-protection: it’s the “gun lobby” argument again.

In an interview with the Tribune, Mayor Richard Daley acknowledged an uphill battle against the gun industry, which he described as the most powerful lobby in the United States. Even so, he vowed that in the event residents are allowed to have handguns at home, the city would take steps to ensure that officials can account for the weapons.

Uphill battle against the gun industry? What spin, what glorious spin. There isn’t one person, one Supreme Court justice, one gun advocate arguing that Daley’s gun-grabbing is wrong because it hurts “the gun industry.” The “gun industry” has precisely nothing to do with the reasons that the anti-Daley forces are trying to defeat him.
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Mayor Daley’s Newest Disingenuous Gun Argument”

Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Free Trade - Oil - President - Taxes - Vince Johnson

OPEC Wins Again!

June 16, 2010 by

-By Vince Johnson

While destroying retirement plans in the U.K.

Barack Obama has inspired OPEC to boost the price of oil!

By requiring PB to cancel dividend payments to all shareholders (including U.K. retirees) and drastically limiting oil production in the U.S., he has created political diversions that will make it irresistibly expedient for OPEC to increase the price of oil to rates substantially higher levels than they are today.

The fact that the DNC openly supports Obama’s strategy is strong evidence that their first and foremost concern is focused more upon OPEC objectives than they are upon the needs of taxpaying citizens of the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
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OPEC Wins Again!”

Alan Caruba - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Free Trade - Government - Liberals - Oil - Taxes

‘Oil Addiction’ Lies

June 13, 2010 by

-By Alan Caruba

Next to the huge international hoax about global warming allegedly caused by carbon dioxide, the biggest lie being told to Americans these days is that we are “addicted” to oil and that we must convert our economy and society away from its use.

The first time I recall hearing this was during George W. Bush’s 2006 State of the Union Speech and, frankly, I was astounded to hear it from the son of a former President who made his fortune in oil. The latest to repeat the lie is President Barack Obama, but he is allied with environmental organizations that are anti-energy no matter what form it takes.

Americans and everyone else around the world are not “addicted” to oil or other forms of energy sources such as coal and natural gas. They are used to maintain and enhance modern life.

Data from 2006 makes it abundantly clear that 85.5% of the electricity we use comes from carbon-based fuels. Nuclear and hydroelectric energy add over 20% of the rest. All that magical “clean” energy, solar and wind, provides 3% or less of the electricity the nation requires.
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‘Oil Addiction’ Lies”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

Google’s ‘Total Information Awareness’ Power

June 12, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

A one-page graphic of all the information Google has…

To help you picture both the enormity and unprecedented power of what Google knows about you and the world’s information—public, private and proprietary—I have organized all the world’s information types that Google collects onto a one-page chart/PDF: “Google’s ‘Total Information Awareness’ Power.”

For those who really want to understand Google and its impact on most everyone and most everything, please read and study this one-page chart/PDF, because much valuable work and insight has gone into it.

While the chart is visually packed with information that many may find difficult to unpack or digest, the chart itself is an apt metaphor for both how much information Google has, and also how difficult it is for all of us to get our head around all the information Google routinely collects and uses.

A short refresher on where the term “Total Information Awareness” came from and why it is aptly employed here.
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Google’s ‘Total Information Awareness’ Power”

Banks - Barney Frank - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Democracy - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - GOP - Government - House of Representatives - Liberals - Peter Roskam - Republicans - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Why Do Fannie And Freddie Execs Make More Than our Generals?

June 10, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Representative Peter Roskam tries to offer an amendment that makes sure that the executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don’t make more money than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Naturally the Democrats would rather pay millions to the executives that are still running Freddie and Fannie into the ground than accept even this small measure of agreement between parties. The leftists keep bawling for bi-partisanship, yet won’t even agree with the smallest of bi-partisan measures.

Democrats don’t want “bi-partisanship.” They want total control and their voters are fools to imagine anything else.
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Why Do Fannie And Freddie Execs Make More Than our Generals?”

Alexander Hamilton - Books - Capitalism - Congress - Constitution - Democracy - Economy/Finances - Federalism - Founders - Free Speech - George Washington - Government - James Madison - John Adams - Liberals - Revolutionary War - Thomas Jefferson - Warner Todd Huston

Publisher’s Warning Label: That Constitution and Declaration is No Longer Valid Thinking

June 10, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

A Virginia-based publisher has decided that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and other founding books are likely offensive and they want their readers to understand that these old documents are no longer valid ways of thinking. And so the publisher, Wilder Publications, has put a warning label on its reprints of America’s founding documents and books to shield American’s delicate sensibilities.

The warning label reads, “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”

The warning labels appear on copies of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers, as well as other founding books and documents the company reprints.
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Publisher’s Warning Label: That Constitution and Declaration is No Longer Valid Thinking”

Animals - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Free Trade - Government - House of Representatives - Law - Liberals - Regulation - Science - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

Just One More Freedom Crushed: Feds Destroying Exotic Pet Industry

June 10, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Congress has suddenly realized something. Animals could be dangerous! Gosh. One wonders what magick faierie dust was sprinkled on these stalwart protectors of the public weal that made them realize that animals are dangerous? Whatever fantastic episode befell Congress they have acted and hence these high mukety-mucks last year introduced an ominous sounding bill called the Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act (H.R. 669).

According to the summary this bill is supposed to, “prevent the introduction and establishment of nonnative wildlife species that negatively impact the economy, environment, or other animal species’ or human health, and for other purposes.” But like most federal laws it has an element of overreach to it.

That overreach is a stipulation that would require all dealers in pets to “prove” that their animals are “safe” and “noninvasive” and to present scientific proof to that end. As specified, the act would require, “sufficient scientific and commercial information to allow the Secretary to evaluate whether the proposed nonnative wildlife species is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to other animal species’ or human health.”
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Just One More Freedom Crushed: Feds Destroying Exotic Pet Industry”

Budget - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Free Trade - Government - Jobs - Labor Law - Liberals - New Jersey - Public Employees Unions - State Government - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Teachers Union Extorts Parents for Campaign Cash

June 10, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The indispensable Mark Hemingway of the Washington Examiner recently caught another union outrage. This time it’s the teachers union in New Jersey trying to extort cash from parents directly, as opposed to merely extorting cash from parents through their taxes.

Hemingway alerts us to a New Jersey parent that was aghast that the NJ teachers union would be so blatant as to send a letter home with her child suggesting a novel new way to raise funds for teachers.

As both she and the letter she handed me stated, my daughter was to accomplish chores around the house with the goal of being paid by me for those chores the sum of $20. She would then have to hand the full $20 over to the school to make up for the shortfall in their overall budget which, ultimately, disallowed the kids to go on yet another class trip.

This parent was so incensed at the “mandatory” aspect of the fund raising letter that she called the school to complain. She was assured that despite all the rhetoric about it being mandatory, it was just a “suggestion.” The parent was, of course, skeptical of the later claim.
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Teachers Union Extorts Parents for Campaign Cash”

AFL-CIO - Arkansas - Capitalism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Government - House of Representatives - Liberals - Pensions - SEIU - Senate - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Unions ‘Flushed $10 Million Down the Toilet’ in June Primary

June 10, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ben Smith of Politico is reporting that an administration insider told him that unions just wasted millions of dollars on a forlorn hope in the Arkansas primary in an attempt to beat Democrat Blanche Lincoln.

“Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on a pointless exercise,” the official said. “If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November.”

Big Labor — like the SEIU and the AFL-CIO — threw millions of dollars into the Arkansas campaign of Bill Halter in an attempt to chastise Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln because she had yet to vote “yes” on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a union friendly bill they’ve been panting after for several years.
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Unions ‘Flushed $10 Million Down the Toilet’ in June Primary”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Environment - Frederick Meekins - Free Trade - Government - Liberals - Religion - Taxes

The Anarcho-Totalitarian Nature Of Radical Environmentalism

June 8, 2010 by

-By Frederick Meekins

To most Americans, environmentalism is perceived as a benevolent cultural force charged with preserving the earth’s endangered natural treasures and resources. After all, who could possibly oppose freshwater, clean air, and efforts to save fury creatures. Yet few realize there is also a dark underbelly to the growing body of thought that motivates this enthusiastic social movement, causing it to often stand in opposition to fundamental Christian assumptions regarding God, man, and the relation of each to the broader Creation. These faulty assumptions in turn end up posing a major threat to both the liberties we enjoy as Americans and the standard of living possessed by industrialized nations resulting from technological advancement.

There is more to radical brands of environmental ethics — also know as “Deep Ecology” — than the perennial dilemma between paper or plastic. To a number of the movement’s followers, such rigorous devotion to nature serves the function of a comprehensive worldview. This perspective molds understandings of theology, anthropology, and forms of cultural engagement.

Fundamental, therefore, becomes this outlook’s interpretation of ultimate reality. In one sense, Deep Ecology can be seen as an eclectic philosophical movement finding its well of inspiration from the confluence of several streams of thought.
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The Anarcho-Totalitarian Nature Of Radical Environmentalism”

Banks - Budget - Capitalism - Chuck Schumer - Congress - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Senate - Stimulus - Taxes - Thomas Brewton

Wrong Again

June 8, 2010 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Senator Charles Schumer is either an economic ignoramus, or he is just performing the usual Democrat/Socialist Party obeisance to the welfare state and labor union extortion.

New York’s Senator Charles Schumer wants to impose a punitive tax on all American companies that employ overseas call centers for customer support.

“English speaking workers, whether they are in Indonesia, Canada, the Philippines, South Africa, are willing to work longer hours for lower wages and as a result Americans lose their jobs,” Schumer said.

How will job creation be improved in the United States by raising businesses’ costs? Will businesses be more able to compete in global markets and protect jobs in the United States? How will consumers be helped when businesses have to raise their prices to cover the new taxes and related costs?
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Wrong Again”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Capitalism - Economy/Finances - John Armor - Taxes - The New York Times

‘You’re the top! You’re the Coliseum’

June 5, 2010 by

-By John Armor

I’ve seen the movie, De-Lovely, at least six times now. Cole Porter’s personal life was a wreck, But with words and music he had no peer. Not even in two people at once, like Gilbert and Sullivan, or Rodgers and Hammerstein, for instance. I begin this column with a Porter quote from ‘You’re the Top,” and the subject is Paul Krugman.

As my wife says of people who take themselves with far too seriously, “He sends his shirts out to be stuffed.” By all that’s right and holy, Krugman should be one of the great men of our generation. He graduated from Yale, and other top drawer universities. He has taught there, and is now at Princeton. He won a Nobel Prize in Economics. And his twaddle (excuse me, his philosophy) appears regularly in his New York Times column.

My education includes Yale and various other reputable institutions. My knowledge of economics and world history are not exactly chopped liver. Frequently, I can recognize exactly where and how Krugman goes off the rails and concludes the exact opposite of what is happening in the real world, where real people live and work.
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‘You’re the top! You’re the Coliseum’”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

FCC Exceptionalism and Supremacy?

June 5, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

Often stepping back to gain perspective, and to try and see the forest for the trees can be highly instructive. However, if one steps back to see the big picture of how this FCC is attempting, unilaterally, to change U.S. Internet policy, the view is surreal.

Increasingly, this FCC is becoming an island. It is insisting on self-asserting its exceptionalism and its supremacy over the Internet and It is ignoring an overwhelming amount of important and contrary input, advice and evidence from Congress, the Courts, DOJ, FTC, past FCCs, industry and the public.

Simply, this FCC increasingly appears to view itself as exceptional and as the supreme authority on and over the Internet, unconstrained by Congress, the courts, law, economics, markets or the public.
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FCC Exceptionalism and Supremacy?”