Free Trade

Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Communism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Health - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Security/Safety - Socialism - Society/Culture - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

Freedoms YOU Will Lose With Obamacare

July 27, 2009 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Two recent articles do a wonderful job addressing some of the freedoms that each of us will lose if President Obama’s nationalized healthcare takeover occurs. One by John Fund of the all Street Journal and a second in Fortune by editor at large Shawn Tully really drive home how healthcare “reform” is a barely disguised grab for power by Democrats in Congress and the White House.

Tully outlines for us five freedoms we will lose once the government takes over healthcare and the biggest one makes the lie to Obama’s constant claim that we can keep the healthcare plans we currently have “if we like it.”

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage — including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money — but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can’t have. It’s a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.

Among the things that Tully reveals is that we’d lose the freedom to chose what sort of plan we’d like to pay for and what care options we’d like to have, we’d lose the ability to chose our own doctors, and nearly all of us would lose our existing healthcare plans, whether we have them through our employer or not, within a year of Obamacare’s passing.

Continue reading “

Freedoms YOU Will Lose With Obamacare”

Barack Obama - Congress - Conservatives - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Free Trade - Journalism - Judges - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Society/Culture - Supreme Court - Thomas Brewton

The Supreme Court And The Commerce Clause

July 20, 2009 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The Constitution’s commerce clause has been stretched beyond recognition to justify traveling the road to tyranny by obliterating the 9th and 10th Amendments in the Bill of Rights.

The Constitution’s Article I, Section. 8 says, inter alia:

“The Congress shall have Power…To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes…”

In the hearing for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, she was asked to comment upon the Constitution’s commerce clause. Senator Dianne Feinstein inquired about the extent to which the Court can restrain Congress’s use of the commerce clause to regulate anything and everything it lays eyes upon. As Senator Feinstein noted, that will become particularly important as Congress and executive branch regulatory bodies embark upon procrustean regulations under President Obama’s proposed “green” legislation.
Continue reading “

The Supreme Court And The Commerce Clause”

Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Free Trade - Liberals - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - State Government - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s Stimulus Stimulates Nothing But Votes for Obama

July 14, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Of his Social Security program, Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that the whole thing had nothing to do with helping the aged. “They were politics all the way through,” he said of his Social Security payroll withholding taxes. In other words, the So. Sec. program was created solely to give the Democrat Party a permanent majority on the “we care” ticket. FDR knew from the get-go that the program was an unsustainable sham but it was all about politics, not old people anyway.

Seventy some years later Barack Obama was praised as a second coming of FDR when he ran for office. His promises of everything for everyone were hailed as a second new deal. As we all know the economy took a dive at the tail of 2008, it continued apace into 2009 and once Obama took office he campaigned hard for a “stimulus” plan to lift America from its economic doldrums. It was an “emergency” he said, we couldn’t get by without it, he claimed. He cared about all of America, you see, and he, the great father in Washington, had the cure for what ails us. The great god of D.C. loved all his children we were sonorously informed.

Well, maybe not all. You see, just as FDR’s “help” only went to further his own political goals and not the country’s economic recovery, Barack Obama’s benevolence seems to have benefited mostly those that voted for him.

Continue reading “

Obama’s Stimulus Stimulates Nothing But Votes for Obama”

Conservatives - Constitution - Education - Family - Founders - Free Trade - Freedom - History - Patriotism - Rights - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

A Conservative High School in Idaho?

July 13, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Idaho is about to get its first conservative high school, Nampa Classical Academy, to be opened next semester in Nampa, Idaho. Founder Isaac Moffett has organized the school as a public charter school.

It’s about time that a school based on American exceptionalism again grace the land and Moffett aims to fulfill that very goal.

Nampa Classical will teach Latin and Western classics, including the Bible. The school will not teach “certain sex ed,” will eschew anti-American rhetoric and troop bashing and will impart the “good of America, the good of Western civilization,” Moffett said.

Moffett has modeled his curriculum on that of Hillside Academy, a private Christian prep school in Michigan which is part of Hillside College.

Continue reading “

A Conservative High School in Idaho?”

Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Liberals - President - Society/Culture - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Dems Are Liars? Want a Example?

June 29, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Representative Debbie Halvorson (D, IL) was caught at a local meeting telling her constituents that she would “never, ever, ever” cave in to pressure from President Obama to vote for the cap and tax bill last week.

You see, she knows Obama because they palled around together in the old days before he became president. She assured her constituents that she could never be so over awed that the president might call her to pressure her. Talking to gool ol’ Barack is old hat for the tough-as-nails Debster.

She’s a hard woman, dontcha know?

But, wait. It looks like “never, ever, ever” is not so long a time as we thought.

A presidential phone call helped win at least one vote: Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.), a freshman lawmaker and former state Senate colleague of Obama’s, said Thursday evening that after months of indecision, she “feels great” about the bill.

“I think it’s something that I’m going to support,” Halvorson said. “It’s a thousand-page bill. It has a lot of amendments. I wanted to read it, take my time.” Later, she added: “I had a nice chat with the president this morning.”

Never, ever, ever. Give me a break.

Continue reading “

Dems Are Liars? Want a Example?”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - California - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Health - Liberals - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Oh, Now the SEIU is FOR ‘Anti-Union Tactics’?

June 27, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

We have been reporting on the clash between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and it’s California subsidiary the United Healthcare Workers (UHW). We have talked of the battle between the two, how the SEIU has strong-armed or dismissed the elected members of the UHW board, and how at last thousands of members of what was the UHW are attempting to leave to start a new union to rival the SEIU.

But, it appears that the SEIU is a tad unhappy that so many of its California members would quit to form a new union. And so, in order to stop the rival union’s birth, the SEIU is using what the L.A. Times is snickeringly referring to as “anti-union tactics” to stop the bleeding.

Continue reading “

Oh, Now the SEIU is FOR ‘Anti-Union Tactics’?”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Congress - Conservatives - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Environment - Free Trade - Illinois - Liberals - Socialism - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Mark Kirk Must be Eliminated

June 27, 2009 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Rep. Mark Kirk (R, IL) just voted for the worst tax hiking, jobs killing, garbage bill based on the lies of globaloney that ever hit the U.S. Congress. Mark Kirk has eliminated any possibility that I will support him in anything ever again.

Mark Kirk is a traitor to the GOP, to capitalism, to the Constitution of the US.

And even more ridiculously, just as this fool votes for cap and tax bill… I mean cap and trade… the Australians have realized that the exact same bill they passed is so bad for them that they are getting rid of it.

Let us hope that the Senate is smarter than the anti-American House of Representatives and defeats this destructive law.

And, Mr. Kirk? I will work to defeat you, even if it means a Democrat wins your seat.

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Liberals - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

And Another Bad Part of the EFCA…

June 24, 2009 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Of course we’ve talked endlessly about the fact that the Democrat’s Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) eliminates the employee’s free choice to vote for or against unionization using the ages-old democratic practice of a secret ballot. Who hasn’t, right? In fact, we’ve talked about it so much that even Democrats are turning against this aspect of the act and this is one of the reasons that the bill has not been able to muster enough votes to get passed. So, we can mark that as a tentative victory.

But there is more in this horrible legislation that needs to be highlighted. Here is something as egregious, but perhaps not as flashy as the elimination of a secret ballot. It is the forced arbitration clause. Let’s call it the Back Seat Driver’s clause because it is essentially a rule that says government takes away any say in unionization from BOTH the union, the workers, and the employer.

Continue reading “

And Another Bad Part of the EFCA…”

1st Amendment - 2nd Amendment - Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Communism - Congress - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Founders - Frank Salvato - Free Speech - Free Trade - Freedom - GOP - History - Liberals - Media Bias - Patriotism - President - Religion - Republicans - Security/Safety - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - The Law

The Path to the Future Requires a Return to the Roots

June 22, 2009 by

-By Frank Salvato

As President Obama thunders ahead with his liberal agenda, unencumbered by any significant opposition in either chamber of Congress, the focus for the Right has been on how to re-invent the Republican Party so as to be competitive in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. This renewed and urgent focus is more akin to a meeting of rival mafia families, each faction unwilling to cede influence, power, control or status to another, than it is a quorum of individuals dedicated to true and original Republican principles. In light of this it is appropriate to revisit the founding platform of the party.

In the immediate aftermath of the inaugural 1856 Republican Convention in Jackson, Michigan (the party was founded in Ripon, WI, in 1854), the Republican Party declared as their founding platform commitments and allegiances to:
Continue reading “

The Path to the Future Requires a Return to the Roots”

Budget - Business - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Scott Cleland - Technology

My House Internet Privacy Testimony — ‘a consumer-driven, technology/competition neutral privacy framework’

June 21, 2009 by 1 Comment

-By Scott Cleland

Today I testified before a Joint House Subcommittee hearing of the Energy & Commerce Committee on “The Potential Privacy Implications of Behavioral Advertising.”

A one-page summary is below and the full testimony is here.

Summary Testimony of Scott Cleland, President, Precursor LLC

“Why A Consumer-Driven, Technology/Competition-Neutral, Privacy Framework Is Superior to a Default ‘Finders Keepers Losers Weepers’ Privacy Framework”

Before the Joint House Energy & Commerce Hearing on Behavioral Advertising, June 18, 2009
Continue reading “

My House Internet Privacy Testimony — ‘a consumer-driven, technology/competition neutral privacy framework’”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Health - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Rationing WILL Come

June 18, 2009 by 5 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is beyond question that healthcare in America is troubled. Costs have soared, employers are having a difficult time keeping up with the rising costs, and many Americans do not easily get the care they’d like. There are solutions, of course, but the headlong rush to implement a government controlled, top down, cold, autocratic system is the wrong avenue to take.

One of the scariest aspects of a government controlled system is when government gets between you and your doctor and imposes rationing on you both. Rationing is when government decides what medical procedures or medicines you are allowed to have, when the government takes the decisions away from you and your doctor. Worse, rationing is guaranteed if Obamcare is forced upon us all.

Continue reading “

Rationing WILL Come”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Communism - Congress - Dan Scott - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Health - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Society/Culture - Taxes - Unions

Healthcare Reform Flim-Flam

June 16, 2009 by 5 Comments

-By Dan Scott

President Barack Obama is seeking to help pay for his healthcare plan by sharply reducing the government’s medical spending, mainly by trimming payments to prescription drug makers, hospitals and other care providers and then hiking taxes.

…In his weekly Internet and radio address Saturday, Obama proposed cutting $313 billion from the programs over 10 years. That’s in addition to the $635 billion “down payment” in tax increases and spending cuts in the health care system that he announced earlier…

…He would cut $106 billion from payments that help hospitals treat uninsured people because his plan would cover nearly every American.

Source

Of course we could suspend our disbelief of Obama’s claim that he can insure 47 million people by cutting Medicare and raising taxes. Now I want someone to explain to me how you can cut Medicare reimbursements to doctors and hospitals and keep the same level of service when in fact the reimbursements are at or below cost to the medical providers? This is outright flim-flam to make such claims.
Continue reading “

Healthcare Reform Flim-Flam”

Business - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Technology

The National Broadband Plan “Fork-in-the-Road”

June 15, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

A scan of the major comments just delivered to the FCC on the National Broadband Plan (which is due to Congress February 2010), spotlighted the big broadband policy “fork-in-the-road” decision that the FCC now has before it.

One road of the fork-in-the-road continues down the road of: Promoting facilities-based competition;Encouraging private investment in a wide diversity of technologies; and Facilitating a cooperative public-private partnership to address unserved broadband areas and lagging adoption of widely available broadband.
Continue reading “

The National Broadband Plan “Fork-in-the-Road””

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Business - Censorship - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Speech - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Scott Cleland - Security/Safety - Socialism - Society/Culture - Technology

Why New WH Cybersecurity Focus is a Game-Changer — for the Internet and Net Neutrality

June 6, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

President Obama’s new approach to cybersecurity likely is more of an Internet game-changer than many appreciate. Initial reporting and commentary has been superficial and has not connected dots or analyzed the broader logical implications of this new policy emphasis and trajectory.

Why is it a game-changer for the Internet?

  • First, it formalizes a new leading priority for the Internet.
  • Second, it formalizes the lack of cybersecurity as the Internet’s leading problem.
  • Third, it practically redefines what “open Internet” means.
  • Fourth, it practically takes any extreme form of net neutrality off the table.

Moreover, the new cybersecurity focus will likely have a practical effect on the trajectory of Internet 3.0, which embodies cloud computing (where security has not been a primary priority by many); the Mobile web (where security has always been a very high priority); and the Internet of Things (where security will be imperative to prevent theft, intrusion, and sabotage).

Continue reading “

Why New WH Cybersecurity Focus is a Game-Changer — for the Internet and Net Neutrality”

Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Health - Liberals - Socialism - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Feds to Decide What Can be Sold at Your Garage Sale

May 29, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

With the first days of Summer a long standing American tradition emerges anew from yards and garages all across the country. Once again this season we will see the venerable American garage sale bloom everywhere. Homeowners will be seen busily setting up folding tables or bringing picnic tables from back yards to load them up with used clothes, toys, collectibles, and items of all sorts. Couples will once again cruise the neighborhood looking to those bargains. It’s as American as Baseball, and the rest.

But a new player has been introduced to the venerable garage sale scheme and this one isn’t looking for a deal. It is a new player that isn’t looking to ask you “how much” but is looking to tell you what you’ll be allowed to sell. It’s the federal government and it’s iron boot heel come a’calling at your local garage sale.

That’s right, folks, the federal government is here to warn you that you will no longer be allowed to sell certain things at your garage or yard sales or even on auction sites like ebay. If you are a scofflaw, Big Brother is here to stomp you. The nanny state is here to “protect” you. And you better watch out or there’s no telling what just might happen to you if you don’t bow down to the all powerful state.

Continue reading “

Feds to Decide What Can be Sold at Your Garage Sale”

Anti-Americanism - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Liberals - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Misleading ‘Study’ Slams Anti-Union Forces

May 27, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

A group called the Economic Policy Institute is touting a paper by Cornell professor Kate Bronfenbrenner who claims to be investigating anti-union forces that she says are growing in intensity, boldness, and power. Bronfenbrenner writes that between 1999 and 2003 employer resistance to union organizing has increased causing unionizing efforts to fail despite what she claims is an increase in the public’s desire to see more union success. But it seems that there are some problems with her methodology: she never talked to anyone but disgruntled union organizers to gather her material.

Bronfenbrenner is concerned that there is mounting efforts in the business community to oppose union organizing and sets out to prove her theory. She investigates several unionizing efforts that failed and compiles some stats on such efforts. But, her facts are self-fulfilling her premise in that the percentage of failed union attempts seem to be higher than the average for National Labor Relations Board elections during the targeted years of study. (This according to Union Free America)

Continue reading “

Misleading ‘Study’ Slams Anti-Union Forces”

Budget - Business - Children - Communism - Conservatives - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Free Speech - Free Trade - Jobs - Judges - Liberals - Police - Republicans - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - The Law - Warner Todd Huston - Welfare

New Study: America’s Most Liberal States Rank Least Free

May 6, 2009 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

According to a new study released by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, some of our most liberal states rank at the bottom in a measure of personal freedom. “Freedom in the 50 States, an index of personal and economic freedom,” finds the most free states to be first New Hampshire, then Colorado, followed by S. Dakota, Idaho, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona, Virginia and N. Dakota.The bottom ten least free states in the U.S. are (in descending order) Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and bringing up the bottom is New York.

It is striking that some of the most Republican states are the most free and all the least free are Democrat states, isn’t it? (2008 Election Map)

Continue reading “

New Study: America’s Most Liberal States Rank Least Free”

Business - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Jobs - Liberals - Socialism - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Union Campaign To Destroy Grocery Chain

May 3, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) has engaged in a guerrilla war to destroy Arizona based Bashas’ Food Stores and the grocer has about had it with the lies and underhanded attacks. So, this week Bashas sent out a mailer to the citizens of the metro Phoenix area to try to re-direct the PR war to a more equal footing.

The union has engaged a war to the hilt strategy against the grocer even to the extent of surreptitiously placing expired products on store shelves and then calling authorities as if it was the store chain itself allowing those expired items to stay on sale. The union has also filed dozens of harassing and false lawsuits as well as opening uncounted EEOC investigations attempting to force the business to acquiesce to union demands.

Continue reading “

Union Campaign To Destroy Grocery Chain”

Communism - Congress - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Free Trade - Liberals - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

ACORN Excising Union Ties?

April 30, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

OK, why did the corruption plagued Association for Community Activists for Reform Now (ACORN) suddenly and quietly delete from its website its ties with the corruption plagued Service Employees International Union (SEIU)?

The American Spectator’s Matthew Vadum found the strange deletion of a photo showing SEIU president Andy Stern standing in support of ACORN from February of 2002. The ACORN site was also scrubbed of any mention of two SEIU locals that used to have a prominent place on the ACORN site.

The two SEIU locals, Local 880 and Local 100, have been a part of ACORN’s site for years, but as of this month were scrubbed. Speculation is that the unions don’t want ties to ACORN too well advertised as the unions fight to get the Employee Free Choice Act passed through Congress.

Continue reading “

ACORN Excising Union Ties?”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Business - Communism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Obama Reverses Rule, Gives Unions Cover for Corruption

April 27, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, we can’t say no one saw this one coming, but Obama has turned back rules that had been put in place to force unions to be more transparent in their financial reporting. These rules were meant to stop union fraud, theft, and embezzlement but in an effort to pay back his supporters, Obama has turned these rules back so that unions can find it easier to hide illicit financial transactions.

Naturally, one of the chief opponents to union transparency that fought the Bush administration, Deborah Greenfield, is now in the Obama administration. It was Greenfield that fought the financial reporting rules when she was a lawyer for the AFL-CIO. She was against forcing unions to account for all their illicit cash and secret accounts then. Now that she is in charge of implementing such rules she has been a major part of eliminating them so that unions could more easily hide their financial dealings from union members and the government.

Continue reading “

Obama Reverses Rule, Gives Unions Cover for Corruption”

Barack Obama - Business - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - History - Jobs - Liberals - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Is Obama Warming to Colombia Free Trade?

April 22, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Congressional Quarterly has a short piece on team Obama’s sudden revisiting of three free trade agreements that have been languishing in Congress for quite some time, all three efforts that the Bush Administration began but was unable to settle.

One is a trade agreement with South Korea, the second is a Panama trade agreement and the third the Colombia Free Trade pact. It is the later that I find the most interesting and the most hopeful.

I find it interesting because the Democrats have been adamantly against this agreement with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for several years now. The Democrats base their claim against supporting the agreement upon the long, bleak history of government violence against union organizers there.

Continue reading “

Is Obama Warming to Colombia Free Trade?”