Views on the News
April
10, 2010
Views on the News*
In 2008, freedom and rational thought lost at the polls, and now
we feel powerless while the arrogant radical and dogma-breathing congressional
thugs fundamentally transform our country into a socialist hell. We
are witnessing Barack Obama's and the Democrats' roughhousing of America. Michigan Representative John Dingell admits
that the goal is "to control the
people." The only barrier
between freedom and totalitarianism is the United States Constitution, but it
has been demoted to near-irrelevance by Democrats' corrupt health care
takeover. Voters are ready for teachers
bearing substance, real hope, and positive change. “Hopey-changey”
burnouts are beginning to listen to how wealth-redistributionist,
anti-business, nanny government approaches destroy society, while libertarian
emphasis on individuals, entrepreneurs, and small government invigorates
society. Traditional Americans' task is
to teach burnouts the contrast between prosperity-killing,
self-reliance-destroying nonsense and wealth-growing, accountability-oriented
common sense. Of all the things that
inspire people to discover truth, anger motivates particularly well. The 70% of Americans angry over federal
government policies and the independent voters who strongly disapprove of
Barack Obama's job performance comprise a ready-made group of students willing
to listen to reason. Particularly
dissatisfied are small business owners since the law now requires that a
company employing fifty people or more either provide workers with
government-approved health care plans or pay government-mandated penalties. The fifty-employee rule together with the
Democrat health care monstrosity's taxes and other burdens has turned small
business owners into eager travelers of the road to smaller government. Achievement-oriented parents who want to raise
achievement-oriented children already have one foot on the path. Parents have had enough spread-the-wealth,
anti-achievement, "social justice"
propaganda. Rasmussen polls have found
that Republicans are more trusted by 49-37 on the economy, by 53-37 on health
care, by 43-30 on education, by 47-34 on immigration, by 48-36 on Social
Security, by 52-34 on taxes, and by 49-37 on national security. Cleaning out the festering government
corruption and cultural decay wrought by kids who never grew up won't come
easily. It is
time to reclaim the national conversation, and though fear and anger will be
our companions, love for country will fill our hearts with resolve, and
November’s election is our salvation.
(“Love, Fear, and Tyranny” by
Chuck Roger dated April 4, 2010 published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/love_fear_and_tyranny.html
“Dem Strategists Have It Wrong”
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann dated April 7, 2010 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2010/04/07/dem_strategists_have_it_wrong
)
Am I the only one that doesn’t believe the media template about
Barack Obama as an intelligent articulate leader, or are more and more people
waking up to discover a mediocre inexperienced demagogue busily destroying our
nation? Barack Hussein Obama
is a self described blank sheet with an empty resume who sold vacuous promises
of “Hope” and “Change” to an impressionable voting public. The only clues to his character are contained
in his two romanticized autobiographies that reveal his family and friends as a
succession of leftist, socialist, and communist mentors. The list is extensive: Barack Obama
(communist father), Barry Soetero (Muslim leftist), Frank Marshall Davis
(communist mentor), Jeremiah Wright (spiritual mentor), Louis Farrakhan (Black
racist), William Ayers (Chicago anarchist), Rashid Khalidi (Palestinian
fundraiser), Rod Blagojevich (political mentor) to name a few. Though
from a modest background, Obama began attending the prestigious Punahou School
in Honolulu, one of Hawaii's top private institutions, where he received a
scholarship and attended the school from the fifth grade until he finished high
school (no financial records released). Only
a B student in high school he was admitted to Occidental College in California
on a scholarship (no records released on scholarship qualification as foreign
student) where he was a mediocre student (no transcripts). He transferred to Columbia University in 1981
where he was again a mediocre student where he graduated in 1983 with a major
in political science without honors (no transcripts released). How he paid for these college years is
another mystery (no records are available on costs and any grants or scholarship
aid received). Nonetheless he was
admitted to the Harvard Law School in 1989, no doubt as an affirmative action
admission with recommendations from his leftist friends. Obama's
name does not appear on any legal scholarships during his time at Harvard. In 1990, Obama beat out 18 other contenders to
become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review but there is no
record of anything credited to Obama in any law review. Obama graduated magna cum laude in 1991(no
transcripts released). He was a part
time instructor at the University of Chicago Law School, a top school where the
faculty is known for voluminous scholarly publishing, from 1992 until 2004, but
again no scholarly articles were found authored by him. Obama’s record as an Illinois state senator
from 1997 to 2004 are also not released, probably to cover his record number of
voting present instead of taking any positions.
His opponents have struggled, largely unsuccessfully, to make
allegations of radicalism stick, despite a record of personal associations that
would have precluded his serving in any defense position requiring security
clearance. His rhetoric has shown a
disturbing tendency towards propaganda... short on facts, long on emotion, and
big on inverted meanings where taxes are investments, spending is saving, and
more government intrusion is freedom. Although
swept to office based on his ability to deliver soaring speeches, he has been
found to be as heavily dependent on a teleprompter as any beginning mass
communications student, and prone to stammering and self-contradiction in its
absence. His campaign for President was
based on romanticized autobiographies, suppressed records, and no significant
accomplishments in school or elected office. So what have we learned so far: Barack
Obama is a triumph of affirmative action education and his suppression of all
his early records forces us to look closely at his mentors to fully understand
his leftist and socialist outlook and policies.
(“The Empty Vessel President”
by Dutch Brewer dated April 5, 2010 published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_empty_vessel_president.html
)
It hasn't attracted much notice, but recently some prominent
advocates of ObamaCare have spoken more frankly above their motives than ever
before, and their support for a national healthcare makeover is proof of their socialist ambitions. Millions among us stubbornly, blindly insist that they
can surrender decisions over their very own life and well-being to the
government and yet maintain their freedom. Well, you are free:
free to do whatever the government lets you do; free to be indoctrinated; free
to march in lockstep; and free to receive the welfare, education and morality
that the government feels you should have.
And everyone who thinks he knows what is best for you, every socialist in the Senate or
the White House, will tell you it is for your own good, and for the good of
society. The dirty little secret of socialism, however, is that
it is not about a better society; it is about bigger government. It might as well be called “governmentalism,” but for the fact that no one would tolerate such a
movement. Plunder is a “fatal tendency” of mankind, and at some
point turning the U.S. government into a mechanism for plundering wealth from
one group of Americans to be consumed by another group of Americans will
destroy the republic. Most people, of
course, would not be a party to theft, so it is vitally important that those
who benefit from plunder do not ever let it be discovered for what it is. Always remember that false philanthropy is “the seductive lure of socialism.” “It’s not socialism.
It’s just an ‘income shift’ from the rich to the poor,” is what Montana’s Senator Max Baucus called the
health-care bill passed by Congress “…and
will have the effect of addressing [the] mal-distribution of income in America.” Former Governor Howard Dean seems to have the
same malady saying, “When [wealth
distribution] gets out of whack as it did in the ’20s and it has now, you need
to do some redistribution. This [health-care reform] is a form of
redistribution.” Summing things up in the New
York Times, the liberal economics columnist David Leonhardt called ObamaCare
"the federal government's biggest
attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three
decades ago." Democrats knew
there was no way they could ever sell a national health care bill to a
skeptical public by basing their case on income inequality, so they went to
great lengths to argue, preposterously, that the bill could cover 32 million
currently uninsured people and still save the taxpayers’ money. More accurately Barack
Obama and his gang of Chicago ward heelers known as a White House staff are displaying
more “hand-in-pocket disease,” or
call it socialism, if you dare. Winston
Churchill said it best, "Capitalism
is the unequal sharing of blessings; socialism is the equal
sharing of miseries." No matter what you
call it, government that steals from you to reward someone else is socialism and your enemy, so do not be
fooled by your own “stupid greed” or
someone else’s claims of “false
philanthropy” and give in to the temptation of legal plunder… Seize back
your liberty.
(“On liberty and legal plunder”
by Frank Miele dated April 3, 2010 published by Daily Inter Lake at http://www.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_abfd9876-3f95-11df-8459-001cc4c002e0.html
“What Was ObamaCare Really About?”
by Byron York dated April 5, 2010 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/ByronYork/2010/04/05/what_was_obamacare_really_about
)
The recession was just a recession, and we are now in an
economic recovery, but the reality is that it would have been less bad if Bush
had not passed the bailout and Obama had not passed the stimulus. The
market is gasping for breath, and Obama's shoe is on its neck, but the market
is still alive. When you can look at
economic indicator after indicator, the conclusion is apparent: the worst is
behind us; real GDP, industrial production, and exports and imports all
bottomed out several months ago. Happy
days are not yet here again, but this business cycle hit bottom and is on the
rebound. This recession should end this
year, maybe even in this quarter or the next. Even jobs have bottomed out; jobs have finally
been added, and not all be attributed to government jobs, either. Unemployment is considered a lagging
indicator, and it may have reached its peak of 10.1% last October. The S&P 500 is up 46% from the day
President Obama was inaugurated, and it is up over 5% in 2010 so far. If things go bad, or no worse than in the last
60 years, we might not pull out of it until late this year, with lousy
employment figures lagging into 2010. The
real questions now are how good will it get and how long will it last? Besides, the real threat to the market is
unsustainable government debt driven by entitlement programs, also known as the
economic booby traps left by FDR and LBJ. Compared to the debt blob, even Bailout 1.0,
Stimulus 1.0, and ObamaCare 1.0 together are mere bagatelles -- maybe a
combined $3 trillion compared to a $30-$50-trillion debt problem. That puts us in an
"OK so far" economic
condition: recovering from an ugly business cycle, but waiting for the real
storm to hit, and a perfect time for an election... time for new ideas, new
approaches, and unleash the American people.
(“Spoiling the Spoilsport” by
Randall Hoven dated April 5, 2010 published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/spoiling_the_spoiled_sport.html
)
There are many reasons to oppose Senator Chris Dodd's financial
regulation bill, but the simplest and clearest is that the FDIC is completely
unequipped by experience to handle the failure of a giant nonbank financial
institution. Consider first that the
largest bank the FDIC closed in the recent financial crisis, IndyMac, had
assets of $32 billion. The largest bank
ever to fail, Continental Illinois in 1984, had assets of $40 billion. At $639 billion, Lehman Brothers was nearly 15
times bigger; AIG had over $1 trillion in assets when it was kept from failing
by the Federal Reserve. The assets of a
large, nonbank financial institution are also different. Neither Lehman nor AIG had insured depositors,
or depositors of any kind, and their complex assets and liabilities did not
look anything like the simple small loans and residential and commercial
mortgages the FDIC deals with. When the
FDIC can't find a buyer, it can usually transfer a failed bank's deposits to
another bank, because deposits have real business value for banks. This is not true of the liabilities of large
financial institutions, which consist of derivatives contracts, repurchase
agreements, and other complex instruments, that no one else is interested in
acquiring. The real choice before the
Senate is between the FDIC and the bankruptcy courts. It should be no contest, because bankruptcy
courts do have the experience and expertise to handle a large-scale financial
failure. The Dodd bill sets up a $50
billion slush fund, collected in advance from large financial firms, which
would be used for the resolution process. The Dodd bill sets the expectation that the
government stands ready to intervene on behalf of large and politically
connected financial institutions at the expense of Main Street firms and the
American taxpayer, thus institutionalizing “too
big to fail." The point of
keeping the banks small is to not let any one bank or group of banks amalgamate
too much power. Big banks constitute a
sort of oligarchy influencing policy behind the scenes and structuring bailouts
to their liking. AIG, Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, and the auto unions all have political pull that direct public
money to private profit. When the Angelides Commission finally asked Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac what drove them to overinvest in risky subprime loans, they heard that they
were reacting to "government-mandated housing goals" for low-income
borrowers with typically weak credit but this was dismissed as a root cause. When
bankers have too much power, they will be able to capture the regulatory
institutions and limit surveillance. It is time to change “Too
Big to Fail” to “Too Big to Exist”
by breaking up the large financial institutions into reasonable sizes allowing
the free market to operate.
(“Left-Right Convergence on
Financial Reform” by Matthew Continetti dated April 6, 2010 published by
The Weekly Standard at http://www.weeklystandard.com/tws/daily/daily.asp#blog-431940
“The Dodd Bill: Bailouts Forever”
by Peter J. Wallison and David Skeel dated April 7, 2010 published by The Wall
Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303493904575167571831270694.html
“Covering Their Fannie” dated
April 9, 2010 published by Investor’s Business Daily at http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=529897
)
There is absolutely NO scientific justification for regulating
carbon dioxide (CO2) because there is NO need to limit greenhouse gas emissions
because there is NO "global warming." Beyond
the issue of scientific fraud, there are the scientific facts that demonstrate
that CO2 plays a miniscule role, if any, as regards the Earth's climate. Carbon dioxide is less than 1% of the Earth's
atmosphere (386 parts per million). There
is, in fact, no greenhouse effect since the most active element of the
atmosphere is the 95% of water vapor that forms a protective layer around the
Earth. The science involved is fairly
simple: Clouds have a warming effect because, in order for water vapor to
condense back into water droplets, the water molecules must first re-emit the
energy they absorbed to become vapor; and That latent heat causes the local
environment to feel warmer. It is this
constant interchange that determines whether wherever you're at right now is
warmer or cooler. To declare CO2 toxic,
the EPA is saying that all that natural CO2, plus the six pounds of carbon
dioxide that every human exhale every day is a "pollutant." How can
carbon dioxide be a pollutant when all life on Earth is dependent upon it? CO2 is to vegetation what oxygen is to human
and other animal life. Without CO2, all
vegetation dies and then all animal life dies for lack of the nutrients
provided by food crops. The EPA will
blame the generation of CO2 on energy use, but 97% of the Earth's CO2 is
produced by Nature! Only about 3% of all
the CO2 in the atmosphere is produced by humans via industrial and transport
activity. Not only has the scientific
community learned that the IPCC data was manipulated and that efforts were made
to suppress data refuting global warming, but the Earth has irrefutably been in
a cooling cycle for over a decade at this point. The EPA regulatory control of auto mileage
and CO2 emissions is a complete fraud and a contemptible lie. In doing so it has become a gangster agency
that has abandoned any credibility. The EPA's latest move must be stopped because the fate of the
nation's economy literally depends on this.
(“Destroying America with the
EPA’s Carbon Lies” by Alan Caruba dated April 7, 2010 published by
Intellectual Conservative at http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2010/04/07/destroying-america-with-the-epas-carbon-lies/
)
In terms of foreign policy the U.S. is going through a startling
period of auto-emasculation, replacing it with a mission of almost messianic
outreach to our foes and most adamant competitors (while, at the same time,
snubbing allies like Britain, Israel and India). Observing
Obama’s foreign policy, one comes away with the impression that he is
profoundly embarrassed by American exceptionalism: We are a country like any
other, and let no one tell us otherwise. He also views America’s international
decline as irreversible: His instinctive response is to accommodate the U.S. to
the forces that have led to this decline, since to resist them would not merely
be futile, but an affront to the multi-polar sensibilities of all those who, in
foreign chanceries and international institutions, watch America closely for
any trace of unilateralist recidivism. Ironically
he has no problem being a unilateralist in the formal renunciation of strategic
options, as happens with any nuclear self-denial; otherwise, multinational
solidarity is always to be preferred, even when it leads to the backing of
anti-American forces, as has happened in Honduras. Obama’s latest initiative to limit nuclear
weapons borders on unilateral disarmament and as John Bolton quipped, “on a road to nuclear impotence.” In the Obama narrative, America has been a
reckless source of trouble for the world because of its arrogant
interventionism. Obama’s solution is the
following: “Close out the wars, disengage, and distance ourselves in order to
carry out the real objective: the achievement of a European-style welfare
state. Just as Reagan downsized
government by starving it through budget cuts, Obama will downsize the
military-industrial complex by directing so much money into health care, “environ-o-care,” etc., that we, like the
Europeans, will have no funds available to maintain world power. This will gain the confidence of those regimes
adversarial to us as they recognize we will no longer be a threat to them and
that we will acquiesce in their maintenance of power over their people. Obama’s foreign policy has two pillars:
conciliation as a tool for peace (defined as lending a close ear to every
recalcitrant nation, while abjuring any American right to be censorious); and
an avowed preference for pragmatism over any values-based evangelism (in
effect, the elevation of pragmatism to the status of directive principle). Obama’s positions stem from the false
assumption that all countries, cultures and religions share common values,
interests and goals. This gross misconception has led the President down
the dangerous path of advocating treaties and policies which will drastically
weaken America’s national security and reduce her ability to defend
herself. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad derided Obama depicting
him as an ineffective, inexperienced leader under the influence of bad political
advice. The
President’s “stunning naiveté” has
led him to believe that if America takes the first steps toward disarming
herself, she will set a virtuous example for the rest of the world, and her
enemies will then follow suit.
(“Obama Is Weakening America”
by Tunka Varadarajan dated April 5, 2010 published by The Daily Beast at http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-06/obama-embarrassed-by-america/?cid=hp:mainpromo4
“Obama’s ‘Stunning Naiveté’”
by Deborah Weiss dated April 7, 2010 published by Front Page Magazine at http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/07/obama%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cstunning-naivete%E2%80%9D/
)
Democrats know that in November's midterm elections, Republicans
will gain mightily from a growing discontent with the administration, which has
disappointed the independent voters who made the difference for Barack Obama in
2008. A close look at the TEA Party membership will
find many of those independents who went for Obama but now regret it. A new poll indicates that most voters, by a
48% to 44% margin, believe the TEA Party's views are closer to their own than
President Obama's are. The emergence of
official TEA Party candidates would be very welcome news in the Obama White
House since they would become a splinter group, destroying the unified
opposition it has helped to create. A
potential electoral majority on the threshold of victory would become two
minority factions almost certain to share in defeat, and a movement inspired to
stop the big-government agenda would suddenly become its tool. There's a well-worn path of third-party
movements in American history, and it leads straight to a dead end. Many remember the Reform Party of the 1990s,
which formed around the candidacy of Ross Perot and started as a grass-roots
phenomenon and ended with 19% support at the ballot box propelling Bill Clinton
into office without a majority of the votes. According to recent polling, a similar scenario
could unfold this year: voters would slightly favor a Republican over a
Democrat in a two-person congressional race in November, but the presence of a
TEA Party candidate would split the vote on the right and hand victory to the
Democratic candidate. If real influence
is the goal of the TEA Party movement, there's a much better example for its
mostly Republican-leaning members to bear in mind, this year and beyond. In the late 1970s, the tax revolt movement
that began in California quickly gained a national following and could easily
have become a third party for the 1980 elections. But instead of fielding its own candidates,
the movement exerted enormous influence on races across the country. In the end, rather than drawing votes away
from the winning coalition, it helped elect Ronald Reagan and a Congress that
promptly brought down federal tax rates for all Americans. This might not have happened if the
Republican Party hadn't shown the good sense to embrace the tax revolt, which
resembled today's TEA Party movement. The
TEA Partiers are concerned, above all, with fiscal matters and national
security; they are not focused on the social issues that bring together other
parts of the Republican coalition. If
the TEA Party remains an independent political force in 2012, with no partisan
ties, so much the better. All that
Republicans need to do is speak to its issues, compete for its votes and heed
its example of a confident and unapologetic challenge to a liberal President
and Congress. In the past year, the TEA
Party movement has helped to turn Republicans' mood from defeat and gloom to
revival and optimism. While GOP leaders
in Congress proved more determined and resourceful than the Democrats assumed
after their 2008 victory, it was the TEA Party that put the fight back into
Republicans. Whether
they count themselves as Republicans, independents, libertarians or
conservative Democrats, TEA Party people are the natural allies of the party of
Reagan.
(“Don’t let the tea party go Perot” by Dan
Quayle dated April 4, 2010 published by The Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/01/AR2010040102181.html
)
* There is so much published each week that unless
you search for it, you will miss important breaking news. I try to package the best of this information
into my “Views on the News”
each Saturday morning. Individual issue
updates this week include:
· Budget at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/budget.php
· Elections at
http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/elections.php
· Homeland
Security at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/homelandsecurity.php
· Defense at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/defense.php
David Coughlin
Hawthorne, NY