Once upon a time, when I was nineteen years old, I read J.R. Tolkien's 1100-page Lord Of The Rings trilogy in about a week. I only accomplished that because I was in the hospital in traction at the time, and didn't have anything else to do. It was either hobbits or soap operas. I was thankful for the hobbits.

But what if, instead of Lord Of The Rings, I had undertaken to read the 1990-page House health care reform bill, filled with the wonders of it's arcane legalese ? Would I have been able to read and comprehend all the ramifications of that in one short week ? Very doubtful, but that's what Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi expects her congressional representatives to do. Pelosi wants a vote on the health care reform bill on saturday, eight days after it was written. Could it be that Pelosi and company want a quick vote because they desire to pass the bill before people really figure out what's in it ? That has been the modus operandi of the liberal Democrat wing all year regarding health care reform. Remember that President Obama wanted a bill passed by july, but the bluedog Democrats and Republicans stopped that mistake from happening. Ironically, the longer congressional Democrats work on health care reform bills, the bigger and more convoluted they get (it ain't easy to cater to so many special interests at once). The House health care bill is now over a trillion dollars, above Obama's low, low bargain cost ceiling of $900 billion, not that it matters. We shouldn't believe anything Obama says about health care anyway. You know he'll sign anything called health care reform that gets to his desk, no matter how bad it is, just so he can claim victory.

Hey, here's an idea. Let's have Nancy Pelosi give a couple hour long press conference about the House health care reform bill on saturday, so Americans can find out exactly what the Democrats are trying to pass (assuming Nancy even knows) ? 'We The People' and all that. That would be quite helpful, and very transparent of the Dems, seeing as how they never quite got around to having the health care negotiations on CSPAN, as candidate Obama falsely promised. Obama also falsely claimed he wouldn't force people to buy health care insurance, but that's pretty much the centerpiece of ObamaCare now. Our dishonest prez has even taken to telling such outrageous and obvious lies about health care reform that it takes an entire liberal media not to notice them. Here's one from yesterday, per the Washington Times:

The president said that AARP, the nation's largest seniors organization, has signed on to the House bill because it knows that the legislation will "strengthen Medicare, not jeopardize it. They know it will protect the benefits our seniors receive, not cut them," Mr. Obama said.

Um, the House health care bill cuts $472.8 billion from Medicare, Mr. President. That's a real whopper you just told. What's next ? Will you tell us that round thing in the sky at night isn't the moon, it's actually the Obama logo ? I'm sure only the "naysayers" who are responsible for "the failed policies of the past" would disagree with you, like those Fox "non" News people with their "viewpoints." (Side question – have you ever met a person who didn't have a viewpoint, outside of the comatose ?)

In the President's defense, he probably hasn't read the House health care bill either, so maybe he doesn't know about the cuts, or maybe he puts his hands over his ears and yells "na, na, na, na" when his staff members try to inform him. Obama leaves the petty details to others. He's just there for the big picture stuff. He's busy fundamentally transforming America (into a shell of it's former self). Obama makes the grand proclamations, like "reform health care," or "close Guantanamo Bay," or "limit carbon emissions." He can't be bothered to figure out how to do any of those things. After all, Obama has never run a country, state, county, city, or township before. He's never run a business, never managed employees. He doesn't have any expertise in health care, military, economic, or environmental matters. He never even accomplished much of anything in hist short Senate career, or even during his years in the Illinois state legislature. He was one of those guys who votes "present," so as not to be pinned down to a position. Obama is the entry-level president who charmed the media in 2008 with the sound of his voice, his sappy inspirational rhetoric, and his historic nature. That, and the fact he is a liberal Democrat. The media LOVES that, even though America really doesn't. That's why Obama hid behind all that tripe about post-partisanship. Obama is as far from post-partisan as can be. He's hyper-partisan. He can barely speak without denigrating his opposition and blaming everything on them. He's also utterly without shame, and, as I've outlined quite a bit on this blog, will tell any lie at any time, with absolute conviction. On the rare occasions when a journalist actually gets to ask him about one of his falsehoods (like Stephanopolous did when asking if the health care mandate was a tax), Obama flashes that winning smile and then acts like the journalist just crapped in his own pants by asking such a silly question, one that only the "tired opposition" or "entrenched special interests" would ask. Obama is dishonest and then acts like we're idiots for pointing out that he's being dishonest. Sorry, Mr. O, but you ain't that slick, even if you and your adoring media have fooled many into believing you are.

Uh, what was I talking about ? Oh yeah, health care reform. Sorry I roamed a bit off topic there. It's just that I'm getting tired of all the deceptions coming from the White House, as the Democrats try to pass bigger and better boondoggles off on the rest of us.

When the Republican party scored big gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia yesterday, emerging victorious in those two blue states that voted for Obama only one short year ago, I couldn't help but think of all the pundits and talking heads who giddily predicted years and years of GOP'ers scrounging for food in the political wilderness after Obama's historic 2008 victory and the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress. 'The political landscape has shifted forever !' proclaimed these sages of punditry (who almost all happen to be Democrats). 'The Reagan Revolution is over ! The GOP is marginalized !,' intoned these bellwethers of bombastic buffoonery (who almost all happen to be Democrats).

As it turns out, forever isn't a very long time when it comes to politics. The Republicans won almost everything yesterday. They even won the one race they lost. I'll get back to that in a minute.

Despite being outspent by a margin of 3-to-1, and despite President Obama bringing his star power to bear by campaigning for his opponent, Republican challenger Chris Christie defeated the Democratic incumbent governor of New Jersey, the billionaire Jon Corzine. New Jersey has been a solid blue state for years, so this was a major 'get' for the GOP. In Virginia, a traditional swing state, the Republicans won the governorship by a landslide. They also won the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General races by landslides. In New York city, Republican Michael Bloomberg (or is he an Independent now ?) won a third term. My liberal television station du jour (I chose to watch CNN attempt to explain the voting results away), kept saying that the wealthy Bloomberg "bought the vote." Notably, I never heard CNN say a word about the wealthy Democrat Corzine attempting to buy the vote in New Jersey, which is one reason I'm referring to them as my liberal television station du jour.

CNN came up with a variety of rationalizations in an attempt to explain away yesterday's GOP wins. Here are the top few:

1) The Democrats weren't energized like they were in 2008. They have a post-Obama hangover.
2) The opposition party always wins the year after a presidential election.
3) These are only local races with no national significance, and no significance in 2010.
4) Crazed wingnuts like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the Tea Partiers have whipped the conservatives up into conniptions, causing them to turn out at the voting booth (and may I add, we're lucky nobody was hurt).

What CNN seems unable to grasp are the actual facts. The economy stinks, Obama is running the deficit through the roof, Americans are against ObamaCare, Americans don't want a bunch of new taxes during a recession, Americans don't want their electricity bills to go up, Americans are alarmed at all the government expansion and overreach, joblessness is around 17%, etc, etc.

Now let me get back to the one significant bright spot for the Democrats in yesterday's elections, if you can call it a bright spot (CNN certainly tried to make the claim). In New York state's 23rd congressional district, Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman and Republican party candidate Dede Scozzafava in what can only be termed a comedy of errors by the Republican keystone cops in New York. The GOP really had to bollux things up to lose this race. The 23rd district had been controlled by Republicans for a century. All the GOP had to do was nominate an actual Republican and this race was theirs, but they couldn't even manage that much. Instead, they stuck Scozzafava on the ballot, a Democrat in Republican clothing. Predictably, most Republicans didn't like her, though Newt Gingrich proved he cares more about party power than principle by backing her. Shame on Newt. Scozzafava faltered badly in the polls and unknown third party candidate Hoffman surged into the lead as several prominent Republicans supported him. The Republicans still would have won the race with Hoffman, but then Scozzafava dropped out and stabbed the stumblebum GOP in the back by supporting the Democrat Owens. With Scozzafava dropping out so late in the race, her name still appeared on the ballot, and enough party line Republicans voted for her to hand the race to the Democrat. Just brilliant, GOP. Just brilliant. Owens wins without a majority of the vote, even though the majority of the voters were against him. I only hope the Republican party bosses in New York stay away from sharp objects, or they might hurt themselves.

In a mind-numbing bit of illogical gymnastics, CNN claimed the Owens win illustrated that the GOP can't win with far right candidates like Hoffman. I kid you not. Here's Hoffman, who has never run for political office in his life, who is not anywhere close to being a polished politician (which is a plus in my book), running as a third party candidate against a career Democrat, with a Republican candidate scraping off critical votes and endorsing his opponent, and Hoffman still almost pulls it off, losing by only 3-4 points. And CNN decides Hoffman is one of the wingnut fringe. Such "analysis" makes CNN the wingnut fringe, if you ask me. Larry King couldn't say Hoffman's name without referring to him as "far right" or "wingnut," due to Hoffman's affinity for the Tea Party movement. Hoffman, btw, stands for fiscal responsiblity, reducing the debt, low taxes, etc. You know, all those "wingnutty" ideas that all sane people favor.

I'm just glad I didn't watch MSNBC. Has that station accused any Republicans of stealing elections yet ? If not, give them time. I'm sure they will, as soon as Keith Olbermann finds out there was a Republican working for the Board of Elections somewhere in New Jersey.

There's an old political truism that says you don't raise taxes during a recession. The reason is, raising taxes during a recession tends to make the recession worse. They used to call that – economics.

But that was before the Age Of Obama and Pelosi, where economic rules no longer apply. Obama and Pelosi just love to raise them some taxes, recession or not. It's full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes with those two. The enormous 1990-page House health care bill is no exception. Following are the taxes contained in that bill, courtesy of Americans For Tax Reform:

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs [Flexible Spending Accounts] would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).

Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA [Health Savings Accounts] Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.

Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act

Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

That's thirteen new taxes in all, which are supposed to generate $540 billion in new revenue over 10 years to pay for health care reform (though it seems little is actually being reformed with this health care "reform." Mostly, we're just creating a big new welfare program combined with a government mandate for all to purchase health insurance). There is a public option in the House bill, but it is not one which ties reimbursement rates to Medicare rates. It allows for providers to negotiate reimbursement rates. The other interesting thing about ObamaCare is that the health care taxes begin immediately, but the benefits don't kick in for four years or so. That's how ObamaCare "doesn't add one dime to the federal deficit." Ten years of taxes pay for six years of benefits. You aren't supposed to notice that, just as you aren't supposed to notice that ObamaCare cuts over $400 billion from Medicare to pay for itself, something that has never been accomplished before in the history of Medicare. Historically, it's been the Democrats who said Republicans were trying to kill grandma by proposing much smaller Medicare cuts than ObamaCare proposes. Now it's the Democrats proposing the cuts, and the Republicans are the ones saying the Democrats are trying to kill grandma. Things have come full circle. Go figure.

Many of these new taxes will be either implemented against the middle class or passed down to them (non-insurance penalty, tax on medical devices, employer taxes, limits on FSA's and HSA's). This reminds me of something President Obama said on the campaign trail last year:

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

Sure Barry, whatever you say. The One broke that pledge a couple weeks after being inaugurated by raising the tax on cigarettes, and now he wants to break it again with health care reform. Then he wants to break his pledge again with cap and trade, which would be a huge tax increase that filters down to every American household. Various other Democrats want to tax sodas, gasoline, fast foods, heating oil, cigarettes some more, expensive health care plans (Senate health care plan), and anything else they can dream up. Democrats are engaged in the game of 1,001 ways to raise your taxes without you knowing they've raised your taxes.

And all this during what Democrats themselves term as the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Gee, what could possibly go wrong ?

Hey, I know. We can just keep passing $800 billion stimulus packages every single year, basically forever. That will "create or save" lots of jobs. Then everything will be just fine.

Just kidding. That would be a recipe for destruction, as any fifth grader could figure out. The problem is, that seems to BE the actual economic plan of the Democrats, at least until those millions of green jobs kick in sometime in the next couple decades.

That Obama sure is a good public speaker though. There's that.

"As Politico reported, there's growing concern among some GOP leaders that controversial commentators and far-right conservatives have hijacked the message. People like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin appeal to the base – and you certainly need that base to win elections. But in an age when 42 percent of Americans call themselves Independents – you can't win with just the base, either." – Katie Couric, CBS News (link)

This is typical of the advice liberals like Katie Couric have for the Republican party. It always boils down to an appeal for Republicans to become more like…Democrats. You know, moderate (ha ha). Some fainthearted GOP leaders agree, fearing they will lose elections if they don't become Democrats in Repubican clothing, aka RINO's (Republicans In Name Only). Former Republican Arlen Specter (?-PA) is a perfect example of a Republican who wanted to become more like a Democrat to win an election, and Specter finally did complete his Democratic sex change operation, though it doesn't appear that Specter's political chameleon routine is working. Some voters actually can remember what happened prior to yesterday, and Specter is trailing in the polls. What a great loss it would be to cull a distinguished gentleman like Arlen Specter from the ranks of Congress. And by "great loss," I mean, good riddance (along with about 500 other Congressional denizens I'd like to kick to the curb).

Katie Couric and "some GOP leaders" are concerned that conservative commentators and far-right conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin have "hijacked the message."

Hijacked the message ? Hijacked what message ? The message that was rejected halfway through George W. Bush's second term ? The message that led to $4 trillion more in federal debt, the creation of the first new (unfunded) Medicare program in 40 years, two long term wars, massive increases in government spending in nearly every department, massive pork barrel spending, and corruption ? You mean, THAT message ?

Yes, God forbid that Sarah Palin would hijack that message. The problem of the Republicans isn't that their message might be hijacked by Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or anyone else. The problem of the Republicans is that they hijacked the message themselves. They sold out their conservative principles on nearly every front, and used divisive social issues like gay marriage and abortion to gin up the base come election time (note – the GOP never really tries to reverse Roe v. Wade by proposing a Constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion, if you notice. They only use it as a wedge issue. Therefore, they must like the wedge issue being in place to be used as a political football).
The Republicans have their version of the divide and conquer strategy, just like the Democrats do. The Dems use class warfare, phony racism charges, etc.

My advice to the Republicans would be just the opposite of Katie Couric's. My advice would be to listen to those conservative commentators. Listen to those "far-right conservatives," and listen to those Tea Party protesters (who are independents, btw). My advice would be – return to the long abandoned ideas of limited government, low taxes, and individual liberty. Get the government out of everybody's personal business. Foster the free market to help small business, not to help the mega-corporations and the government destroy the market via their hegemonic dominance. Balance the budget and start paying down the debt, so America's future isn't being washed down the drain. Tell the American people the truth, for once. We've had enough of the lies and spin for political gain. Start implementing policies that benefit America and American workers, instead of policies that benefit foreign nations. That, in turn, will reduce the cancer of government dependency that the Democrats love to foster. Don't become more like Democrats. Become the ANSWER to the ennui of the Democrats fatal socialist policies.

The Republicans don't need to worry about their message being hijacked. They need to worry about formulating a message, because right now, it isn't being articulated, if it exists at all.

Alternately, the Republicans could just dissolve and make way for something new. I wouldn't mind that either. This country needs something new. The majority of this country disagrees with the Democrats on most issues, but the Republicans are a lousy alternative. The two parties are selling us down the river, and I don't see any healthy change coming from either of them. All I see is continual change for the worse, with the public relations figurehead Obama being but the latest example. The citizens are always faced with the same political Coke vs. Pepsi choice. What we aren't told is that both Coke and Pepsi are bad for you.

Here's Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama, speaking to CNN about Fox News:

I don't know how a clip could illustrated the dishonesty of politics any more than this clip does. When Jarrett is asked if Fox News is biased, she immediately answers "Of course they are biased. Of course they are." When CNN interviewer Campbell Brown follows up immediately by asking if MSNBC is also biased, Jarrett starts backtracking and deflecting, never answering the question (correct answer – Of course MSNBC is biased. Of course they are). Jarrett said, "Actually, I don't want to generalize all of Fox is biased or that another station is biased. I think what we want to do is look at it on a case-by-case basis. When we see a pattern of distortion, we're going to be honest about that pattern of distortion….We're actually calling everybody out. So this isn't anything that's simply directed at Fox. We just want the American people to have a really clear understanding."

Well, that's funny. I haven't heard the Obama administration call out any other network than Fox News. In fact, MSNBC's opinion show anchors were invited to the White House for a cozy little chat with Obama. Liar, liar, pants of fire, Ms. Jarrett.

And did you get a load of Jarrett saying on the video that the White House is "going to speak truth to power" ????? Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the White House IS THE POWER.

Valerie Jarrett admitted what this was really about. It's about health care reform, and the fact that Obama is having a difficult go of it. The majority of the American people are against it, and the majority of the American people are turning against Obama on the issues in general. It has become a disturbing trend of this administration to demonize anyone and everyone who gets in it's way. The insurance companies, the drug companies, the Chamber of Commerce, doctors, whomever. Obama even sank so low as to say doctors were cutting people's feet off for profit, for chrissakes. If you have to resort to demonizing people whose job is literally to save other people's lives, then you have a problem.

Politicians are professional liars by trade. You can choose to believe in the current bunch of liars if you wish, but I sure don't. You may think it's fine for the government to force all Americans to buy health insurance as a condition of residency, but I don't. I guess we better change that old saying about death and taxes to death, taxes, and health insurance. The current bunch of professional liars is also bankrupting the country faster than any other. This administration also seems more partisan than any other in memory. I don't hear Obama talk about a problem that he doesn't blame on someone else first. To hear Obama talk, it seems there was no America prior to George W. Bush, because all the problems seem to have originated from that one man.

And do any of you really believe that ObamaCare won't add one dime to the deficit ??? Really ??? Do you really believe Congress will cut $400-500 billion from Medicare to make that happen ? Really ???

If you are naive enough to believe that, check out this article on the "doctor fix" for Medicare, which would have added $247 billion to the deficit if the Republicans and thirteen Democrats hadn't voted it down. The Democrats tried to separate that $247 billion in debt out of ObamaCare and pass it as a standalone measure, so that ObamaCare "wouldn't add a dime to the deficit." (except for the $247 billion, of course).

Like I said, politicians are professional liars. The current group of liars isn't even particularly good at lying. It's just that the media has, to date, let them get away with it. It's time for that to stop. It's time for the press to be the ones speaking truth to power, as is their job. The White House is only speaking THEIR truth. That's not necessarily THE truth.

Earlier this week, I posted about the White House Enemies List, which consists mainly of Fox News and conservative talk radio. I assume ABC's Jake Tapper is also now on that list for daring to question the Great And Powerful Oz-bama team about bashing any media that isn't in Oz-bama's back pocket.

In that earlier post, my major complaint with Oz-bama's selective media bashing was this:

What really gets my goat about this is that Team Obama doesn't mind one bit when the media furiously spins things in Obama's favor. Everything the White House is saying about Fox News is true in reverse about MSNBC, who ceaselessly bashes the right, but no complaints from the administration about MSNBC's opinion journalism. No sir. They're perfectly fine with that. The White House is alright with opinion journalism when it represents the opinion of the White House.

Now it has come to light that not only is Oz-bama perfectly fine with HIS opinion journalists operating on news stations, he even calls them in for, let me make sure I quote this correctly, "two-and-a-half-hour off-the-record chats" to tell them what to say:

On Monday, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were among several people who attended an off-the-record briefing with Pres. Obama at the White House. Sources tell us other attendees at the two-and-a-half hour chat included Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gwen Ifill of PBS and Gloria Borger of CNN. Perhaps not surprisingly, no one from Fox News was in the room.

Here's the full list of opinion journalist attendees at Oz-bama's "chat."

The White House has sent TVNewser the complete list of those who attended the off-the-record briefing Monday: Eugene Robinson, E.J. Dionne, Ron Brownstein, John Dickerson, Rachel Maddow, Frank Rich, Jerry Seib, Maureen Dowd, Keith Olbermann, Bob Herbert, Gloria Borger, and Gwen Ifill. Several members of the staff also attended.

The hypocrisy of the White House is off the charts. Notice that Oz-bama's off-the-record briefing with liberal opinion journalists came ONE DAY after Oz-bama's apparatchiks made the rounds demonizing Fox News on the sunday political talk shows. Team Oz-bama is so tuned in to MSNBC (the official White House news network), that it even e-mails corrections to MSNBC while it's talking heads are on-air. Un-be-liev-able. Meanwhile, Glenn Beck has been asking daily on his program for the White House to call and correct any errors Beck might be making. So far, nada.

On the heels of his "chat" with liberal opinion journalists, Oz-bama had this to say in an NBC exclusive interview, when asked if it was appropriate for the White House to determine what is or isn't a news organization:

"we are going to take media as it comes, and if media is operating basically as a talk radio format, that's one thing, and if it's operating as a news outlet, that's another. But it's not something I'm losing a lot of sleep over."

Sorry, Mr. President. That simply isn't credible. The man behind the curtain has been exposed. The President doesn't send out his flying monkeys to demonize one news outlet and then have two-and-a-half-hour meetings with friendly opinion media unless it's part of a media control strategy. If the prez wasn't losing sleep over Fox News, he could have spent that two-and-a-half-hours in more productive fashion…like, say, coming up with a strategy for the Afghanistan War or fixing the economy.

To prove further how much the White House DOESN'T "take the media as it comes," as if any further proof is needed, the White House tried to exclude Fox News from this week's interview with the Pay Czar, until the rest of the media objected. Even Oz-bama's media pals are objecting to his exclusionary tactics now, knowing what an outrageous and horrible precedent this would set:

Team Oz-bama. Creepier and creepier. Let's click our heels together three times and say "there's no place like America," where freedom of the press is considered a Constitutional right. I don't like this strange new land of Oz.

If you want to know why the White House wishes to discredit Fox News, look no further than this post. Today, I'm going to post something I first heard from Glenn Beck (cue the liberal wailing and gnashing of teeth). This is from a 2008 speech by Ron Bloom, President Obama's Manufacturing Czar:

Here's are Ron Bloom's relevant words from that video again:

"Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend, you should get a dog."

Here we have Obama's Manufacturing Czar saying the free market is nonsense. This is the guy who's in charge of creating jobs in the manufacturing sector (yikes. Maybe the Associated Press is right when they say higher unemployment is "the new normal" for America). Bloom has a heavy union background, which is fine, but I'm left to wonder where Bloom thinks those union manufactured products are going to be sold, if not on that nonsensical free market. What is Bloom's alternative ? Is his alternative some type of government-controlled market ? When Bloom says in his next breath that he agrees with Mao that political power comes from the end of a gun, it does sound like government control is what he's talking about. If so, that's pretty frightening stuff, and about as unamerican as you can get.

I actually don't want to believe this. I hope there's some other explanation for Ron Bloom's words, and there could be. I hope this video is taken out of context, and he meant something else altogether, but I couldn't find anything on the internet to counter or provide more context to his statements. I really hope we don't have people in positions of authority in this country who believe such things.

Several conservatives are now running around saying, 'oh, look. Here's another Obama official endorsing Chairman Mao.' I have to take some issue with that, based upon my current knowledge. This isn't the same thing as Van Jones, Obama's former Green Jobs Czar, being an avowed communist. This isn't the same thing as Anita Dunn, Obama's communications director, saying Mao is one of her two favorite political philosophers. This is just Ron Bloom agreeing with one thing Mao said, and I actually agree with Bloom and Mao about that one thing. Political power often DOES come from the end of a gun. That's why our founding fathers designed a Constitution to limit government power. That's why I believe in that Constitution, and believe in limiting government power as much as humanly possible. The more power we cede to the government, the more powerful that government gun becomes. That's also why the free market is NOT nonsense, as Bloom would have us believe. The free market is essential to a free country. There is no acceptable alternative. As our founding documents state, our rights do not come from men, they come from a higher power. Our government exists to secure those rights, not to trample all over them.

The Nixon administration is back. Team Obama has identified the enemies, and found most of them working for Fox News. First, White House communications director Anita Dunn opined that Fox News was "opinion journalism masquerading as news." I took Dunn's initial criticism with a grain of salt, because this is a woman also cited the mass murderer Mao Tse-Tung as one of "my favorite political philosophers." Dunn ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow, but unfortunately, it has now become clear that Dunn wasn't just expressing her opinion. It has become clear that her words are part of the Nixon Obama administration's orchestrated attempt to marginalize and shut out a single media outlet, one that coincidentally happens to be more critical of the Obama administration than the rest. When asked about Dunn's comment, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said of Fox News, "I have watched many stories on that network that I have found not to be true." It would have been helpful if Gibbs named even one of those news stories, but he did not. On sunday, more White House officials joined the Team Obama 'Blackball Fox News' movement. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel lectured CNN, telling it that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox." White House senior advisor David Axelrod urged other media outlets not to recognize Fox News as a news organization, by telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way. We're not going to treat them that way."

The Obama administration's blackball of Fox started in August. As Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday said on his show, "We wanted to ask Dunn about her criticism, but, as they've done every week since August, the White House refused to make any administration officials available to 'FOX News Sunday' to talk about this or anything else." The White House stopped making itself available to Fox News Sunday, (which, for the record, is not a right-wing show), after Wallace had the audacity to act like a journalist by fact-checking statements made by Tammy Duckworth, the assistant secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs. Anita Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do." I can only assume Dunn never watched Meet The Press or any number of other sunday political shows in her entire Mao-worshipping life, because they fact-check politicians routinely. Tim Russert made a career out of it. Chris Wallace added, "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

Yes, how DARE Fox News question the great and powerful Obama administration. The last thing we need in this country are media outlets questioning the politicians in charge. What we need is a complacent and non-questioning media that blindly follows the party line disseminated by the Obamans. That's how Mao did it, and that's how almost every dictatorial government does it. They try to suppress and intimidate the media. Stalin, Castro, Chavez, and on down the line. It's standard operating procedure for practically every propaganda-spewing banana republic tyrant.

What really gets my goat about this is that Team Obama doesn't mind one bit when the media furiously spins things in Obama's favor. Everything the White House is saying about Fox News is true in reverse about MSNBC, who ceaselessly bashes the right, but no complaints from the administration about MSNBC's opinion journalism. No sir. They're perfectly fine with that. The White House is alright with opinion journalism when it represents the opinion of the White House.

Of course, the Duckworth fact-checking isn't really the issue. The Obama team isn't going to blackball an entire news organization over a couple statements by Wallace that contradict statements from a Veterans Affairs representative. The other phony excuse for blackballing Fox News is that they didn't carry one Obama speech (even though Obama has been on television more than any President in history, by far) . Democratic operative Terry Mcauliffe, who said he had spoken to White House officials, used that lame excuse on this week's Fox News Sunday program, but in fact, Fox News DID carry that Obama speech. It was the Fox network affiliate that didn't carry it. Mcauliffe also brought up Glenn Beck calling Obama a racist. I didn't like it when Beck said that, but think about this for a second. The left routinely calls people on the right racist, from the Tea Party protesters, to Rush Limbaugh (by attributing false quotes to Limbaugh), to a number of southern politicians, and on and on. Playing the race card is one of the left's standard political tactics. If it's reprehensible when Glenn Beck does it, it's reprehensible when liberals do it too, and liberals do it far, far, far more often. Even Obama did it. His operatives played the race card against both Bill and Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries. Obama spouted that "typical white person" remark, not to mention this almost universally ignored comment from Obama, "Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American ? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics.” What is that, but Obama calling conservatives racists ??? And I'm not even going to go into Obama's Pastor, Reverend Wright, who Obama said was "like a member of my family" (until he became a political liability, after which Obama removed him from the family).

In retrospect, perhaps my Nixon administration reference is incorrect. Nixon had an enemies list, but I don't recall him or any other American president blackballing a major news organization before. I'm not saying it never happened. I'm just saying I don't remember it happening. This makes the Obama administration appear petty and small at best.

Oh, and guess who's NOT on the White House enemies list any longer ? The indicted war criminal Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese leader who has engineered genocide and slavery in Darfur. Obama has dramatically softened his previous position on the Sudan. Maybe Fox News should slaughter huge numbers of people like al-Bashir or Mao to get Obama to push the reset button with them too. I don't know. I can't figure out the formula. The One pursues diplomatic relations with Iran and a genocidal beast, but those Fox News conservatives right here in America…nope, can't handle them. They must be blackballed.

The creepy factor with this administration continues to rise.

It has been quite a ride for Barack Hussein Obama. In addition to becoming the first Kenyan-born American President after stealing the 2008 Democratic primary from Hillary Clinton and having ACORN fix the general election in a dozen states, Obama won the prestidigitous Nobel Peace Prize for saying "Hopey" stuff to foreigners. (This just in – Peace Prize winner Obama authorized a drone attack in Pakistan, killing four people). What has not been so widely reported are a number of other awards our wunderkind President has received. In a worldwide scoop of imaginary proportions, All Da King's Men takes pleasure in reporting the following:

For playing in pickup basketball games, Obama has won the NBA Most Valuable Player award. For appearing on television, Obama has been awarded an Emmy for Best Dramatic Actor, and also for the new Best Teleprompter Performance category. For throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game, Obama has been awarded the MLB Cy Young award (in the special 'throws like a girl' division). For going to Copenhagen to speak to the Olympic Committee on behalf of Chicago, Obama has been awarded the Gold Medal in the high hurdles. Obama has also been named Dog Owner of the Year by the American Kennel Club, Best Dressed Man by GQ, Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine, Time Magazine Man of the Century, and Best Person In The World by Keith Olbermann for a record 492 days in a row. Obama was also named the Businessman Of The Year by Moveon.org for "saving" 375 million American jobs with his stimulus package, though 3 million American jobs were actually lost overall. Kudos to Mr. Obama, whose rallying cry of "it could have been even worse" has brought untold comfort to so many of the unemployed.

Inexplicably, President Obama did NOT win the Oscar for Best Actor In A Motion Picture, sparking immediate complaints of bias from the mainstream media. The Justice Department is investigating possible ballot box stuffing by Fox News after Glenn Beck's underdog victory against the heavily favored Obama. A vast, right wing conspiracy is suspected. MSNBC talker Chis Matthews attributed this "unparalleled slap in the face" to racism and the "de facto leader of the Republican party," Rush Limbaugh. Matthews' call to kill Limbaugh by exploding a CO2 canister inside Limbaugh's head was widely endorsed in liberal circles, due to Limbaugh's tendency to engage in rhetoric that, according to liberals, "contains veiled code words that incite violence." No Limbaugh-related violence has yet taken place during the radio talker's 21-year career, but media pundits expect the lid to blow of that simmering cauldron of rage any day now. The media also added that Limbaugh was a fat racist drug addict, could stick his NFL bid up his blowhole, and called for an immediate end to his divisive rhetoric.

In related news, former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin was named Wingnut of the Year, Worst Mother of the Year, and Complete and Total B*tch of the Year by Soros-affiliate Media Matters, who called for an immediate end to her divisive rhetoric.

Former President George W. Bush was named Nazi of the Decade for overthrowing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, thereby freeing 55 million people from tyranny. Bush also won the Unilateral Cowboy Yahoo award for invading Iraq along with 33 other countries and the authorization of the United States Congress. President Bush was unavailable for comment, but former Veep Dick Cheney unleashed a string of profanity when asked about the ignominious awards by non-partisan investigative journalist Janeane Garofalo, who queried "who is the biggest Nazi, you or Dubya ?". Garofalo was treated for birdshot wounds later at a local hospital.

The Nobel Prize for Economics went to independent filmmaker Michael Moore, who developed the brand new economic theory that "the alternative to capitalism is democracy." This groundbreaking theory is so deep and profound that nobody can figure out what the heck Mr. Moore is talking about, being that capitalism is an economic system, and democracy is a system of government. And here I always thought the alternative to capitalism was the House Of Representatives. Darn. Mr. Moore has bonafide credentials as a high school graduate and is a workingman's hero, having worked at a General Motors plant for one day (not kidding). Then he filed for workmens's compensation and SSI. He's the real deal. Fellow Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who won the award for his "liberals are smarter than you" economic theory, said Michael Moore was deserving of the Nobel prize, unlike those hacks Milton Friedman and Adam Smith, who believed in some shadowy concept known as the stupid free market.

The White House has decided to wage war against Fox News (but is still trying to decide if the Taliban is the enemy), and named it the Most Irritating News Network Of The Year. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs declared "Fox News keeps saying stuff we don't like. That must stop, or we'll launch a drone attack against them. They're jihadists". When reached for comment, rival cable news network MSNBC asserted, "nyah, nyah, na, na, na". MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is expected to deliver an hour-long, emotive, and heartfelt special comment about Fox called "Fixed Noise Is Satan, But Far Worse, And I Should Know, I'm Kind Of An Ivy Leaguer," though only six people will actually see Keith Olbermann's program. Fellow MSNBC'er Rachel Maddow insists that Olbermann's histrionics are very important and not to be missed (and she said it with her serious face, so she really means it).

Winner of Hollywood's Favorite Pedophile Of The Year is acclaimed filmmaker/convicted child rapist Roman Polanski, who, upon hearing of his honor, said, "Guilty as hell, free as a bird." No, wait. That's what William Ayers said after he got off on domestic terrorism charges on a technicality. Polanski said "Guilty as hell, free as a JAIL bird". Polanski remains in the pokey, even though celeb-o-crat Whoopi Goldberg claims that Polanski didn't commit "rape rape." No, it was more like pretend rape, but still with the rape part. It's nuanced.

In an effort to remake the tragically unhip GOP maxi-zoomed dweebies into a bunch of super-cool hep cats, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has won the Welcome To This Century award for discovering….blogging [golf clap]. Steele's blog is called Change The Game, winning out over his other possible blog name choices, such as, "Don't Be A GOP Playa Hater," "A Steele In The Hand Is Worth Two Of Bush," "The GOP Is Dyn-O-Mite !," and my personal favorite, "Repub-We-Can !". No word yet on who will be replacing Michael Steele as RNC chairman.

People always act in their own financial self-interest. Ditto for organizations. For instance, let's say you have a choice between two competing health care plans with the same coverage. Company A offers the plan for $200 per month, and Company B offers the plan for $400 per month. It's pretty obvious you'd choose Company A, and Company B wouldn't make any sales. Organizations act in exactly the same way. When the Senate Finance Committee passed a health care reform bill that taxes medical devices at a rate of $39 billion over 10 years (raising the cost of health care), lobbyists for the medical industry descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate health care bill imposes a $6.1 billion fee on health insurers (raising the cost of health care), lobbyists for the insurance companies descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate health care bill imposes 40% taxes on so-called "Cadillac" health care insurance plans, the lobbyists for the unions descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate Health Care bill cuts $100 billion from Medicare Advantage programs (lowering the cost and quality of health care), lobbyists for the insurers who provide those plans descend on Washington D.C. When the Senate Finance health care bill has a provision to create a commission to oversee cuts in Medicare (lowering the cost and quality of health care), lobbyists for doctors descend on Washington D.C. to complain that their Medicare reimbursement rates are being cut.

This is one of the difficulties in passing something as large as health care reform. We have an array of varied business concerns all bargaining in their own self-interest. They all agree somebody must be taxed, they just don't want it to be them. You can't blame any of them, really. They are just looking out for their own financial well-being.

There is another organization that I believe is looking out for it's self-interest in the health care debate as well, but nobody talks about it. It's a very large organization known as the federal government. In my last post, I wrote about how the government is so deeply in debt that it will ultimately destroy the American economy. The government is fully aware of this, though they seldom mention it, and seldom seem to prioritize it unless it's around election time, after which they forget all about it, and continue merrily spending us into oblivion. The government, like every other self-interested concern, doesn't want to cut the size of government. They don't want to rein themselves in by cutting government spending. They want to increase government spending, and boy, do they. That's what a big portion of Obama's stimulus package was for, to keep the government from having to make the painful cuts that every other business concern in the country had to make during this recession. Government is the one organization that has actually grown during the recession. When the government says things would have been even worse without the stimulus package, this is mostly what they mean. The stimulus package was largely a bailout of government, unpaid for and added to the national debt. The taxpayers will have to make up that money at some unspecified future point.

This leads me to the health care reform bill(s), and the incentives included therein. Health care reform started out as a moral mandate to achieve universal health care coverage, but that goal has been abandoned. Instead, we have a mandate from the government that employers and individuals must purchase health care insurance or pay a penalty (tax) to the government. President Obama continues to say that nobody will be "required" to change their health insurance if they like it. The word "required" is key. The President is correct, nobody will be required to change their health insurance, but what will they be incentivized to do ? In other words, what will be the response of employers and individuals according to their own self-interest ? To understand that, all we have to do is look at the size of the penalty tax versus the cost of health insurance. It's also vitally important to keep in mind the reason everybody doesn't have health insurance now. It's because THEY CAN'T AFFORD IT, or they just choose not to buy it. Here's how Business Week describes the individual penalties:

In the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee on Oct. 13, there are no fines at all the first year it goes into effect, in 2013. In 2014 individuals would have to shell out $200 in annual penalties if they choose to forgo insurance, and by 2017, the number jumps to $750. That's starting to sound like a meaningful sum. But consider that the average yearly insurance premium for an individual policy is around $5,000. For just a few hundred dollars during the first years the law is in place, a healthy person might decide to forgo the costly security of insurance

Paying a fine of $200-$750 to the government, as opposed to shelling out $5,000 in health care insurance premiums seems to incentivize many people to just pay the far smaller amount to the government. Good for the government, because it raises their revenues, but not so good if universal health care is really the goal. I'm against the whole idea of government forcing people in the first place, but if they are forcing people, shouldn't they at least force them in the right direction, instead of setting up a system that incentivizes people to just pay more in taxes ?

The incentives for employers are even worse. The Senate Finance health reform bill would require employers with 50 or more employees to cover their employees or pay a fine of up to $400 per employee. That's far less than the actual cost of health care insurance, so employers would be incentivized to drop health insurance coverage for their employees altogether and just pay the penalty tax instead. That would be in the employers self-interest, and again, the government cashes in with more tax revenue. Then all those uncovered employees are required to buy their own insurance or pay the individual penalty, and the government cashes in one more time.

In conclusion, I ask, who is the government really looking out for – you, or itself ?

The reason I hold the fiscally conservative political beliefs I do has nothing to do with political parties. Really, I could care less if a Democrat or a Republican is in office. I don't hold an allegiance to either of those tribes. What I look for above all is a politician who is economically intelligent. I look for someone who may provide us a way out of the economic mess we are in, someone who will reverse this unsustainable fiscal course we are embarked upon. We are all in this mess collectively, regardless of political stripe, and I don't care where the solution comes from. I just want a solution. Lately, I haven't seen one. Lately, I've only seen politicians arrive on the scene who make things worse. Barack Obama is making our fiscal situation far worse. George W. Bush made our fiscal situation far worse. During the last couple years of his presidency, Bill Clinton and his GOP-led Congress actually made things a little better, however short-lived it turned out to be. As much of the country squares off along lines of left-right tribal warfare like a bunch of ignorant savages, the real threat to the future of America almost always seems to remain unaddressed amidst the partisan smokescreen. We fiddle while Rome burns.

An article in the Wall Street Journal called 'Taking The National Debt Seriously" outlines this unaddressed threat:

If you think those town hall meetings over health care were fierce, wait until Americans come to understand the threat to our national financial survival posed by the interest on the government's credit card.

When the government spends more than its revenue, there is a budget deficit. These deficits are paid for by Washington selling interest bearing Treasury securities. If the government were ever to default on its promise to pay periodic interest payments or to repay the debt at maturity, the United States economy would plunge into a level of chaos that would make the Lehman bankruptcy look like a nonevent.

It is the interest on the national debt that makes our future unstable. The exploding size of that burden suggests that, short of devaluing the dollar and taking a large bite out of the middle class through inflation and taxation, there is no way to ever pay down that bill.

As of Sept. 30, 2009, the national debt was almost $12 trillion and interest on that debt was $383 billion for the year, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt. The Congressional Budget Office on Oct. 7 estimated the 2009 budget deficit to be almost $1.4 trillion (about 10% of GDP). In August, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated total government revenues at about $2 trillion. The revenue estimate included $904 billion from individual income taxes. This means the cost of interest on the debt represented more than 40 cents of every dollar that came in from individual income taxes.

Except for a few years in the late 1990s, for decades Washington has spent more than it has taken in each year and borrowed the rest. Taxpayer dollars that could have paid off debt each year have instead been spent on interest to finance debt. Unfortunately, that's a vicious cycle that will likely only get worse.

Imagine that. 40% of our individual income taxes did nothing but pay interest on the federal debt. None of that money paved a road, provided health care, went toward job creation, or helped a single American in any way. That is money we just throw away.

And the only thing our current President has done so far is to make it twice as bad as it was before he arrived on the scene. Get a load of this:

The OMB projects deficits of about $9 trillion over the next 10 years. If that occurs, the national debt will be almost $21 trillion by 2019. However, the actual amount could be much higher. The OMB also optimistically projects $13.5 trillion of revenue increases over the next decade, while minimizing the inevitable rise in interest rates that will come with an expanding national debt.

Forget the political rhetoric, no matter how soaring and inspirational it may sound on the surface. Forget the Democrat vs. Republican horse manure. We are heading for disaster. Look at the actions of our politicians, not the words, not the party. We don't function on hope. We function on a successful economic foundation. That economy is teetering on the brink, and was even before the current recession got under way. Our long term economic forecast would have to get better to be called dismal.

Here is will happen if we don't reverse course immediately, if not sooner.

In stark but simple terms, unless Americans are made aware of this financial crisis and demand accountability, the very fabric of our society will be destroyed. Interest rates and interest costs will soar and government revenues will be devoured by interest on the national debt. Eventually, most of what we spend on Social Security, Medicare, education, national defense and much more may have to come from new borrowing, if such funding can be obtained. Left unchecked, this destructive deficit-debt cycle will leave the White House and Congress with either having to default on the national debt or instruct the Treasury to run the printing presses into a policy of hyperinflation.

Faced with this ever-growing financial house of cards that we call America, what is our government doing ???????

Why, creating ever more social and federal programs we can't afford, of course. Massively EXPANDING the cost of government. The federal government is like Alfred E. Newman of Mad Magazine. "What, me worry ?" Our government is so out of touch that it can't even figure out what the real problem is, or if they do know, they won't admit to it. That would require HARD political choices, and our politicians know you don't get elected by making hard choices, you get elected by pretending to be Santa Claus, giving all the kiddies their presents for free. We don't have statesmen running things, we have carnival barkers. We have propaganda.

Wake up, America. Take your country back. Time is running out, faster than you know.

Let's get the crazy train rolling at high speed right off the bat with this first quote…

“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.” – Democratic National Committee communications director Brad Woodhouse (link).

Let me get this straight. After years and years of Democrats attempting to undermine President Bush at every turn in the War On Terror, er, I mean the Overseas Contingency Operation, including attempts to lose the Iraq war, a DNC spokesman now has the nerve to say Republicans have thrown in with the terrorists because some Republicans opined that Obama didn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize (which he most assuredly didn't, as Obama himself even said). Wow-freakedy-wow-wow. Words fail me. I literally can't think of a negative adjective strong enough to convey how wrong this remark is. I can't even think of a way to equate an opinion on the Nobel Prize with throwing in with terrorists, but evidently Brad Woodhouse can.

And Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) seems to agree. I expect this stuff from dolts like Keith Olbermann or the other lib-nuts on MSNBC, who routinely compare Republicans to jihadis, but not from Democratic Senators or the DNC.

Also, somebody better hip Woodhouse to the fact that the Obama administration has decided the Taliban isn't our enemy any longer. Or Hamas either, for that matter. I bet that'll do wonders for the morale of our troops who've been fighting against the Taliban and dying in Afghanistan for the last seven years. Acceptance of the Taliban is also a major step backwards for human rights, especially from a President who just won the Nobel Peace Prize here on Planet Orwell. Sigh. Is the world turning on it's ear, or is it just me ?
===
Next up is this very conscientous Democratic Senator, who is fully committed to doing his job:

"I don't expect to actually read the legislative language [of the health care bill] because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I've ever read in my life." –Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE)

Yes, being a Congressman is soooo hard, and now they expect Sen. Carper to read AND understand the legislation he's voting upon ? What's a poor Senator to do ? Study or something ? I presume Carper's state of confusion over the legislation won't prevent him from voting "Yea" on the health care bill. You just don't see integrity like Carper's anymore. On second thought, yes you do, all the time on Capitol Hill, and that's the problem.
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Now we move on to another patriotic Senator, John Kerry (D-NVA). Here's what Kerry said about cap-and-trade legislation:

"Let me emphasize something very strongly as we begin this discussion. The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6 percent reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14 percent."

Yeah, baby ! We're fundamentally transforming America !!! If we can only make this recession a lot worse, and make it last forever, we can help the environment ! And golly gee, if we go into a full-fledged permanent Great Depression II, maybe we can even reach the Kyoto emission standards ! Victory is at hand ! Yes We Can ! Yes We Can ! Yes We Can, Destroy The Economy !!!! C'mon, everybody sing !

"Obama ! mmmm mmmm mmmm."

I can't stand it. Where did I put that hammer ?

Now that I know you don't have to actually accomplish anything to win a Nobel Peace Prize, that you can just give a speech and win, I am submitting my own entry for next year's prize. I call this speech, 'Imagine The Peace.'

Without further ado, here's my 2010 Nobel-winning peace speech.
—
Dear Nobel committee,
First, to every country in the world, I'd like to apologize on behalf of America. We are very sorry for whatever you think we should be sorry for, and we will pay reparations in whatever amount each country deems fit, to atone for our past sins. No longer will America act in it's own interests without the express written consent of the entire international community. I propose the establishment of a new world governing body to oversee America and approve her actions. We'll call it the G-195. The G-195's absolute authority will overrule America's Constitution and laws. This is the only fair way to prevent us from acting "unilaterally."

As an act of good faith, America will leave Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, and withdraw all our troops from foreign soil. We will release all prisoners of war and terrorists from Guantanamo Bay and other sites, and return them to their home countries. We will also dismantle all of our nuclear weapons, and we kindly request other countries do the same, if that's alright with the G-195, of course. We desire a nuclear-free world.

We will slash our defense budget by 90%, and use that money as foreign aid instead. We will open our borders and allow anyone in who wants to come to America, bar none. Equality for all the world's people.

In order to combat global warming, we will immediately ban all non-emergency, non-electric passenger cars, and we will ban all CO2 emissions from our manufacturing plants. We will only use our electrical power grid to recharge our electric automobiles, except during the coldest winter months, December thru March, when the government will allow the citizens to heat their homes. All government offices and buildings are exempted from this requirement, in order to keep the government operating at maximum efficiency, which is critical. The government is good and wise in all things.

We will require that all official American documents be provided in every language known to mankind. This requirement will also be mandated for every American business that interacts with the public. This is true multiculturalism.

All persons residing in America, who will all be considered legal American citizens upon entry, will receive health care free of charge, and whatever size monthly welfare stipend each citizen thinks he/she needs to prosper, up to $10,000 monthly. We'll use the honor system. This is social justice.

Knowing that the children are our future, America will increase it's education budget tenfold, and the children will attend school all year round, with a couple weeks off during the non-religion specific holiday period at the end of December. Graduation from college is mandated for all American citizens, followed by five years of government service. Our goal is to produce the most well-educated and civil people on the planet.

In order to combat obesity and improve health, all American food will be subject to government approval. No more fast food, burgers, pizza, fried foods, milkshakes, meat, chicken, candy, chips, crackers, or any of that other junk. No more tobacco or alcohol either. Our goal is to become the healthiest and longest-lived people on earth.

In order to promote religious freedom, all religious symbols in American must have the religious symbols of every other world religion placed right beside them, or they will be in violation of the law. A symbol for atheists will be produced and included in with the religious symbols. Ditto for agnostics, whose quasi-religious symbol will be the question mark.

Animals will no longer be used for food or fur, because that's mean. Animals and people will have equal rights from now forward. The word "pet" will be outlawed. From now on, animals will be known as "differently abled friends." Humans are required to feed all animals that venture onto their property.

The Second Amendment will be repealed. No more guns. We don't believe in violence. No more knives, baseball bats, tire irons, saws, rope, metal, or any other materials that could be used for violence either. All purchases of items will therefore be subject to government approval.

Every person in America will be given a house upon demand.

All inmates of our country's jails and prisons will be released, because we are a compassionate people and believe in second chances.

Above all, we believe in world peace and a non-violent world. We will fight in no more wars, because war hurts children and other living things. If our country is invaded by tyrants, we will surrender immediately and then show the invaders what good people we are. That will illustrate to them the error of their ways. If other countries are invaded by tyrants, I know we used to help you fight those tyrants, but we don't believe in that anymore. We're non-violent now. America wishes you good luck.

Peace and love to all mankind,
Da King

P.S. – Once America implements all the above changes, I estimate it will be about a year before America collapses into chaos and ruin, and Americans will all be living like a bunch of Bangladesh wannabees. At that point, any and all input from the G-195 will be greatly appreciated. Peace be with you.
–
There it is. I think it'a winner. Ooh. I can hardly wait for my Nobel cash prize. Maybe I'll use it to buy an electric golf cart.

Okay, I'm lying. Obama wasn't named the greatest person since Jesus. Not yet, anyway. Instead, he was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. When I first heard about Obama's tremendous "accomplishment," I thought it was some kind of a joke, especially because everybody on MSNBC's Morning Joe program was laughing as they made the announcement. Once I realized Obama really did win the prize, I immediately thought…….FOR WHAT ? I'm still trying to figure out FOR WHAT, even after hearing the Nobel spokeman's explanation, which follows:

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.

"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.

Hopenchange gone global. What's even more interesting about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize is that the nomination deadline for this year's prize was February 1st, EIGHT DAYS after Obama's inauguration. For what did Obama get nominated EIGHT DAYS after his inauguration ? For not being George W. Bush ? It seems so. Not that the Nobel committee is political or anything.

Regarding Obama's "accomplishments," as stated by the Nobel committee, no nuclear weapons have been dismantled, and we are still fighting two wars in the Middle East. All that has changed from the Bush administration is the rhetoric. Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize For Rhetoric. That sets the bar pretty low, in my opinion. Maybe the field of candidates this year was really weak. I don't know.

Three other American presidents have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and, unlike Obama, they all did something to earn it. The first was Teddy Roosevelt, who negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese war. The second was Woodrow Wilson, who founded the League Of Nations. The third was Jimmy Carter, who mediated the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. When Carter won the award in 2002, the Nobel Organization cited the following:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 to Jimmy Carter, for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.

And to think, what took Carter "decades" to accomplish, Obama did in only EIGHT DAYS.

Hmmm. Maybe Obama really is the greatest person since Jesus. I wonder why he hasn't turned water into jobs yet.

Or maybe the Nobel Committee is a joke. They've given Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize because he's Barack Obama. They've given him the Nobel Peace Prize for making a few speeches.

Gimme a break.

Our Supreme Court Justices are very learned people. They come from the finest schools and study for years and years to master the law. They work their way up through the legal system, and these "best of the best" reach the pinnacle of their profession in order to decide the most difficult and pressing legal issues of the day…

Like whether a cross should be allowed to stand on a rocky outcrop in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free.

The ACLU says no, and lower courts have agreed. I guess one painted cross in the middle of nowhere means we are a theocratic state, like Iran. The ACLU thinks such things because they are such reasonable people.

Here's a photo of the offending cross. (Warning – the religious content may cause small children to go blind or start speaking in tongues.)

I apologize for subjecting you to such offensive imagery, and I sincerely hope it caused no permanent scars. I wish I could have shown you a Mapplethorpe crucifix in a jar of urine instead, something, you know, "artistic."

The offensive cross pictured above is so offensive that it's been covered up for the last few years. Here's what the offensive cross has looked like recently.

There, that's better. Now the cross looks more like a billboard. Nothing is more American than a billboard (which reminds me, please keep shopping to help us out of the recession.) Maybe we can get a Mapplethorpe-like "artist" to paint a picture of a cross in jar of urine on the blank billboard-cross that stands in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free. The ACLU wouldn't object to that. The ACLU would defend that. That's because the ACLU is filled with very reasonable folks. They are looking out for your freedoms by, um, censoring stuff.

The problem with the offensive cross is that it is on federal land in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert. Because federal land is not like regular land, federal land has certain conditions. I know federal land looks just like regular land, consisting of dirt, rocks, bushes, and stuff, but it's not. Federal land is very special land in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free. You can tell federal land is not the same as regular land because it has the word "federal" attached right to it. That makes it sacred land. Strike that. The word "sacred" is also probably offensive when speaking of federal land. Federal land is too special to be referred to as sacred.

We can't allow this one cross to remain on very special federal land in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free, because it could have very serious negative consequences, like this:

The above offensive crosses are on federal land at the Arlington National Cemetery. Somebody better alert the ACLU to this outrage. Personally, I can't wait for the ACLU to try to take on Arlington. Why they are messing around with one trivial cross in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free is beyond me. Why go for that one cross when the motherload is right outside of Washington D.C. ? C'mon ACLU, man up. Go after Arlington. I dare you.

The USA is making progress with Iran on the nuclear issue.

That's what I keep hearing, anyway. Progress in this case is defined as Iran allowing the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, to inspect it's uranium processing facility outside Qom on October 25th. IAEA head Mohammed El Baradei said the inspection is to insure Iran's nuclear plant is "for peaceful purposes." This is interesting, because the Iranians attempted to hide that "peaceful" nuclear facility from the outside world for years, and didn't acknowledge it's existence until very recently, after several Western intelligence agencies blew Iran's cover. I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the IAEA will not find nuclear weapons sitting around at the Qom facility during their inspection. I'm basing my prediction on the fact that the Iranians are not the Three Stooges. They are not THAT dumb. They just think we are.

Even more interesting is the fact that we don't know how many other secret nuclear enrichment plants Iran has. Back in january, the NY Times reported the following about a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that concluded Iran had suspended it's pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003:

The public version [of the NIE] made only glancing reference to evidence described at great length in the 140-page classified version of the assessment: the suspicion that Iran had 10 or 15 other nuclear-related facilities, never opened to international inspectors, where enrichment activity, weapons work or the manufacturing of centrifuges might be taking place.

The Israelis didn't buy the American conclusion in 2007 that Iran had stopped working on nuclear weapons, and reportedly presented evidence to the U.S. that Iran was still pursuing nukes. Israel requested bunker-busting bombs from the U.S. in 2008, which were capable of penetrating Iran's underground nuclear facilities. Israel also requested refueling equipment that would allow Israeli aircraft to fly to Iran and back to Israel, along with the right to fly over Iran. Obviously, Israel wanted to take out Iran's nuclear sites. President Bush turned the requests down. Bush pursued further covert ops instead. Israel wasn't the only one who thought the CIA's 2007 NIE was wrong. British intelligence agreed.

So here we are in 2009, knowing for certain that Iran has engaged in deception regarding it's nuclear ambitions, and the problem has been kicked down the road to President Obama. The Iranians continue with their nuclear plans unabated, while America and the UN continue the same path as always, negotiations and threats of sanctions. In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with Vladimir Putin to ask Russia to stop helping Iran build a nuclear bomb. I assume Russia cannot stop helping unless they have already BEEN helping.

The problem with negotiating with Iran is simple – the Iranians lie.

The problem with sanctions against Iran are mainly two – Russia and China, who have shared economic interests with Iran, namely, oil. India is also heavily interwined with Iran's oil industry, along with many other countries. The Russians and the Chinese help Iran negate the power of any sanctions. One of the sanctions being discussed against Iran now is a ban on importation of oil products to Iran. Even though Iran is an oil-rich country, a lack of oil refining facilities causes Iran to import much of it's gasoline and other petroleum products. China opposes those sanctions and has restated it's prioritization of Iranian oil. Russia said recently it will "consider" new sanctions against Iran (my translation: Russia will vote against any truly harsh sanctions, or will continue to help Iran get around them. I'd love to be wrong about this).

If negotiations are fruitless, and sanctions can be gotten around, what's left ? Military action against Iran ? Non-military regime change ? Can anyone see Obama or the UN actually taking military action against Iran ? Very doubtful, and the American people are extremely war weary already. The way I see it, Israel is the only one who'd be willing to take military action, but they'd most likely have to do it without American or UN approval, which makes that a lot more dicey, and since we don't even know how many nuclear facilities Iran has, it may not even work.

In conclusion, welcome to the dawning of a new age – an Iranian theocratic, terrorist-supporting government, with a holocaust-denying, apocalyptic President who openly states that he wants to destroy Israel, having nuclear weapons. What could possibly go wrong ? Besides everything. Various experts say Iran could have a bomb between next year and 2013, but the experts have been wrong about quite a lot in the Middle East in recent years, so who knows ?

I sure hope I'm wrong. We need your help, President Obama. This is way beyond partisanship or political ideology. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it could and probably would start an arms race throughout the Middle East. I can barely think of a less desirable outcome.

I've been waiting a long time for some hard numbers to come out on health care reform. We finally have at least some ballpark estimates on what individual health insurance policies will cost under the various reform packages floating around Congress, courtesy of Kaiser. Find some numbers at the following link.

Health Reform Subsidy Calculator

Health care reform comes down to two things –

1) You will be forced to purchase health insurance.
2) The government will subsidize health insurance for many, on a sliding scale, according to your income.

The subsidies are basically welfare, entitlements. Welfare comes from taxes. Congress is still discussing where the taxes are going to come from, while President Obama pretends there won't be any tax increases. Obama wants to cut Medicare to offset some of the costs, and pretends that health care efficiences will pay for reform, but c'mon now, we're adults, we all know that's not true. You will also see at the above link that health care reform will dramatically increase Medicaid, which are costs to the states.

Note – Deductibles and copays are not included in the health insurance costs at the above link.

I'll refrain from further comment, for now. I'd rather hear your comments.

When seeking solutions to health care, who better to look to than our own Hollywood celebrities ? These celebrities have become very wealthy in our capitalist system, and they live in big mansions. Who better to speak out against the evils of insurance company profits (average 3.4% profit margin) than super-profitable celebs ? I only wish film director/child rapist Roman Polanski could have been added to the following Hollywood public service announcement. Many celebrities support him too. You know the old saying in Hollywood, "each Oscar received entitles you to one child rape." What can I say ? Hollywood celebrities are just better than the rest of us.

Alas, I have bad news for our celebs. The Democratic-led Senate Finance Committee just voted down the health care reform public option. How did that happen ? It must be Bush's fault.

But the celebrities aren't the only ones who can make public service announcements these days. The folks over at PJTV have their own PSA, that looks very much like the one above from Hollywood and moveon.org. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect……..satire of the Hollywood satire.

Obviously, there's something wrong with those PJTV people, who must be listening to Glenn Beck. We better kick Beck off the air before a Rwanda-type civil war breaks out in America, as Hollywood celeb Bette Midler said. Yes sirree. Genocide and civil dissent are EXACTLY THE SAME THING. PJTV is probably paid by the insurance industry. What a bunch of right-wing extremists, expecting people to actually PAY for health care services. What can they possibly be thinking ? We don't pay for things in America anymore. That's a failed idea from the past. Ask a celebrity, they'll tell you. Or just shell out some dough and go see a Hollywood movie to forget all your woes for a couple hours. Maybe then you won't even notice the economy shed another 263,000 jobs in september. Not to worry, though. Will Ferrell is doing fine.

First, we had months of fretting about "death panels" after Sarah Palin used those two words in a Tweet on Twitter (who come up with these silly internet names anyway ? "Google," "Yahoo," "Twitter." "I taut I taw a puddy tat." Do we have any grownups on the web ?). Then we had the dustup about covering illegal immigrants, resulting in the infamous "You Lie!" comment from Joe Wilson (R-SC).

Now it's come to this. Here's Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), allegedly summing up the Republican Health Care plan. This is about as dumbed down as it gets.

There you have it. For everyone out there who didn't know the GOP plan before, you know it now. It's 1) Don't get sick, 2) And if you do get sick, 3) Die quickly.

This sets the new low bar in dumbed down political rhetoric. Rep. Grayson's Florida constituents must be mighty proud of electing him to office right about now. Predictably, GOP'ers in Congress were outrageously outraged over Grayson's inane remarks. GOP'ers thought they were the only ones allowed to make stupid "they want to kill your grandma" type statements.

When GOP members demanded an apology for the remarks, Grayson said the following on the House floor, "“I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”

It's a "holocaust" now ? Suddenly, Moammar Qadhafi's speech in front of the U.N. is starting to sound coherent by comparison. Forget about finding grownups on the web. We need a few more grownups in Congress.

I searched the internet looking for the Republican "Die Quickly" plan, but I'm sad to report I couldn't locate it. All I could find was this plan, this plan, and this plan, in addition to some current state plans like Massachusetts' RomneyCare, or Cover Florida from Governor Charlie Crist.

Of course, we can always listen to twits like Alan Grayson instead, as he attempts (successfully) to get his 15 minutes of fame.

While skimming through today's Drudge Report, I found an article stating that Social Security (SS) will operate in the red for the next couple years. SS will pay more out to retirees than it collects in payroll taxes. This is due to the recession. It seems many more older workers are opting for early SS retirement in this lousy job market, thereby raising SS payouts.

But that part of the story isn't what caught my attention. The interesting part was how the author reiterated an enduring myth about Social Security. Here it is:

The [SS] deficits – $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 – won't affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.

What a bizarre and nonsensical statement.

The obvious question here is, if SS has surpluses of $2.5 trillion, how can payments (of $19 billion) to retirees ADD TO THE OVERALL FEDERAL DEFICIT ?

The obvious answer is, if SS did have $2.5 trillion in surpluses, nothing would be added to the federal deficit. Payments to retirees would be paid from the SS surpluses. No problem.

Yet, the $19 billion in projected SS deficits for 2010-2011 WILL add to the overall federal deficits. Why ? Because THERE IS NO $2.5 TRILLION SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS, except in a bookkeeping sense. There is a file cabinet of IOU's saying that the U.S. Treasury owes the Social Security Administration $2.5 trillion, but those are not real assets. They are just IOU's. This is merely one branch of the federal government saying that it owes money to another branch of the federal government. Big deal. No branch of the federal government actually has that money. That's why the projected SS deficits for 2010-2011 will add to the overall federal deficits. Social Security is bankrupt. There is no Social Security Trust Fund, like so many of us have been led to believe. That is a fiction, an accounting trick. SS has no real assets beyond what are collected in payroll taxes each year. That makes SS a ponzi scheme.

Here's how the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) described it, which is as close as I've heard the government come to telling the truth about SS:

"These (Trust Fund) balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other Trust Fund expenditures — but only in a bookkeeping sense… They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large Trust Fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the Government's ability to pay benefits." (from FY 2000 Budget, Analytical Perspectives, p. 337).

There's the OMB telling us that the SS Trust Fund doesn't exist. This raises the next question. What happened to the SS Trust Fund money ? After all, revenue flowing into the SS system has been far greater than payouts to retirees for most of the history of SS. We SHOULD have that $2.5 trillion in SS surpluses. Where did it go ?

The answer to this question should make your head explode in anger. Quite simply, Congress spent your SS Trust Fund money. When you pay those FICA payroll taxes, Congress pays the retirees, and then puts the rest of the SS money into the general fund and spends it, just like that. At that point, poof, the money is gone. The IOU's that are written back to the SS Administration for that spent money are meaningless, because the money has been spent. It's gone. What this means is that your FICA payroll taxes, which you thought were going to fund your own retirement, are in reality nothing more than a hidden income tax, and Social Security is nothing more than a straight welfare program. Take whatever income tax rate you thought you were paying and add 15.3% (employer SS tax rate + employee SS tax rate + Medicare) to it. That's your REAL federal income tax rate.

To add insult to injury, when it comes time to redeem those SS IOU's, which are in the form of Treasury Bonds, guess who gets to pay that $2.5 trillion in, lol, "Social Security surpluses" ? Why, YOU do, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. You get to fund SS all over again, after you already funded it the first time with your payroll taxes, which the government STOLE (there really isn't a better word for it). In the private sector, this is known as a CRIME. Bernie Madoff just went to jail for this same crime. He was properly vilified, but the government uses some fancy language to cover up it's crime. The government says things like, "Social Security is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government," as if that is anything different than saying "we can just force the taxpayers to pay for it. AGAIN." It isn't any different, not one bit.

In conclusion, the next time you hear certain politicians (you know which ones) telling you what a great program Social Security is, just laugh in their faces, but resist the urge to cuss them out, especially if you're at one of those townhall meetings. You don't want the media to start calling you an extremist or something.

After months of liberals quaking in their Birkenstocks about non-existent violence at peaceful Tea Party protests across the country, it bears pointing out what actual violent protest looks like. We just witnessed that at the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh, where anti-capitalist (read: left-wing, socialist) protesters hurled rocks at police and vandalized private property. Police responded by firing tear gas canisters and using pepper spray. Nearly 200 people were arrested.

I'm sure the condemnations of the violent G-20 protesters will be forthcoming from our media and politicos, any day now. It's funny though, because I had a very difficult time sourcing this post. There are so very few stories about the G-20 violence on the web. Hmmm. Maybe our media have all gone on holiday. That's probably it. I can't blame them. They are probably worn out from trying to invent violence at all the Tea Parties over the last six months. It's gotta be hard work trying to invent something out of nothing. It's like alchemy, trying to turn lead into gold. Exhausting and time-consuming work, and after all the effort, you still have lead. The media deserves a rest. I hear Havana is lovely this time of year.

I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and company will be calling the G-20 protesters "extremists," "mobsters," "fearmongers," and "racists," any day now. I'm sure that they will castigate those protesters for inciting other left-wingers to violence. While they are at it, they can throw in some stuff about how filmmaker Michael Moore is calling people to violence and assassination with his new anti-capitalist movie, Capitalism, A Love Story (fun quote from Moore – "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil."). After all, I know how concerned liberals are about this stuff. I've been hearing about it for most of the year.

Oddly enough, when I did some web searches about what happened in Pittsburgh, liberal bloggers, after months of nail-biting about violence breaking out at protests, were not very concerned when actual violence did break out at the G-20 (because THEY were the ones perpetrating the violence). No, no. The liberal bloggers were only concerned about the POLICE BRUTALITY used to stop the protestor violence. I kid you not. Never mind that the police were motivated by the protesters breaking windows out of a dozen businesses. I assume the police weren't overy thrilled with having rocks hurled at them either.

Reading through various braindead comments at a liberal blog called the Democratic Underground (DU), now it seems the far lefties are bitching about the police state we have in America. If only I could find a bottle with a genie in it, so I could make a wish and transport all those clueless libs from their parent's basements to an actual police state for awhile (like any of the socialist utopias liberals dream about), so they could see what it's really like. That would shut them up.

My favorite liberal blog comment at DU came from a guy named Big Dan, who asked plaintively, "Why do only liberal protestors get tear gassed, why don't the Teabaggers ever get it ?"

Gee, I don't know Dan. Maybe it has something to do with the rocks and vandalism. I'm sure you can figure it out if you think REAL hard, for once.

"For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months." - President Barack Hussein Obama, narcissist, addressing the United Nations, September, 2009.

I'm sure glad Barry came along and fixed the character and cause of this nation after 232 years of American villainy, aren't you ? On the bright side, at least he didn't call pre-Obama America "The Great Satan." And our President spoke these words in front of an audience that included the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, Moammar Gadhafi, and a slew of other human rights violators (many of whom are on the Orwellian UN Human Rights Council).
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"Since Americans can only be prodded into doing something with money, we need to tax crappy foods that make us sick like we do with cigarettes, and alcohol." - pot-smoking comedian Bill Maher, September, 2009.

Unbelievably, Maher calls himself a Libertarian. In reality, he's just another authoritarian left-winger. Someone should familiarize Maher with the words "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It's none of Bill Maher's business who smokes, drinks, or eats what, which Maher would quickly realize if someone took his weed away. Maher's "libertarianism" extends only to his desire to get high. What a hypocrite.
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"Is capitalism a sin ?" - Leni Riefenstahl Award-winning, Castro-loving filmmaker Michael Moore, in a trailer from his forthcoming movie, Capitalism, A Love Story.

The answer from Moore's questionee is "yes," by the way, capitalism IS a sin. Hugo Chavez couldn't have said it better.
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"President Obama didn't make much news on his round of five Sunday talk shows … with one notable exception. The President revealed a great deal about his philosophy of government and how he defines a tax increase. It turns out the President thinks a health-care tax is not a tax if he thinks the tax is for your own good. … Mr. Obama was asked by [ABC] host George Stephanopoulos about the 'individual mandate.' Under Max Baucus's Senate bill that Mr. Obama supports, everyone would be required to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty as high as $3,800 a year. Mr. Stephanopoulos posed the obvious question about this kind of coercion when 'the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't [buy insurance]. … How is that not a tax?' 'Well, hold on a second, George,' Mr. Obama replied. 'Here's what's happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average — our families — in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I've said is that if you can't afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn't be punished for that. That's just piling on. If, on the other hand, we're giving tax credits, we've set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven down the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you've just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that's…' 'That may be,' Mr. Stephanopoulos responded, 'but it's still a tax increase.' (In fact, uncompensated care accounts for about only 2.2% of national health spending today, but that's another subject.) Mr. Obama: 'No. That's not true, George. The — for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore…' In other words, like parents talking to their children, this levy — don't call it a tax — is for your own good. … Mr. Obama complains that 'My critics say everything is a tax increase,' as if that is his political problem. His real problem is that the individual mandate really is a tax, but the President doesn't want voters to think of it that way, because taxes are unpopular." –The Wall Street Journal, September, 2009.

Yes, of course, Obama's penalty for not having health insurance is a tax, no matter what he wants to call it. Obama probably wouldn't consider his cap-and-trade proposal a tax either, but that's exactly what it is. The creative subterfuge being engaged in by Democrats these days is to pass tax increases without calling them tax increases. Instead, they are called penalties, mandates, fees, carbon allowances, etc. Does this stuff actually fool anyone ? (except for liberals, that is). I hope not. Obama isn't "helping the little guy" one bit, in case anyone hasn't noticed (and the media sure hasn't). He's only raising the little guy's expenses, through both direct and indirect means. This brings to mind Ronald Reagan's quote about the most terrifying words in the english language – "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
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"We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations." - Barack Obama, speaking at the UN climate change conference, September, 2009.

"Responsibility to future generations," eh ? More than a tad ironic, coming from the President who is running up the debt faster than every other administration in history combined, thereby irresponsibly ruining the prospects of future generations.
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"It doesn't smell of sulfur here anymore. It smells of something else. It smells of hope." - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, addressing the UN, September, 2009.

The "sulfur" smell was Bush, whom Chavez called "the devil" at last year's UN meeting. The "hope" smell is Obama. It's sure nice that we've won over Chavez, don't you think ? Yes, he may be a tyrannical nut who nationalizes industries, shuts down opposition media, and puts opposition political figures in jail, but that's the socialist way. Because Chavez's version of "hope" would be hope of a worldwide socialist revolution, I wonder what it is he likes so much about Obama ??? I can agree with Chavez on this much – something smells alright.

President Bush tried to cut Medicare spending several times to trim the deficits and offset rising health care costs. Each time, he was vilified by the Democrats, and Democrats voted as a bloc against those cuts, defeating them every time. In 2008, they even overrode a Bush veto to stop Bush from implementing Medicare cuts. The various sizes of the proposed Bush Medicare cuts were between $35 billion over five years, $105 billion over ten years, and $278 billion over ten years.

Now, it's all somehow different. President Obama is calling for $622 billion in Medicare/Medicaid cuts over ten years, far more than Bush ever proposed, and the Democrats have suddenly come to the realization that the Medicare entitlements are unsustainable, threatening to bankrupt the nation, and will drive the deficits through the roof. I assume the Democrats came to this realization the same day Barack Obama became President Of The United States. The same Democrats who opposed Bush's Medicare cuts are perfectly fine with Obama's much larger Medicare cuts. While I'm glad the Democrats have finally awakened somewhat to the reality of the entitlement crisis, their hypocrisy is deafening.

Watch this video, and then tell me if PARTISAN POLITICS isn't the reason behind everything in Washington, D.C. Check out the blather coming from Kennedy and Kerry in particular:

Hard to believe, isn't it ?

Not only are the Democrats proposing huge Medicare/Medicaid cuts in their health care reform bills, but they are trying to pretend their Medicare cuts aren't really cuts at all (the 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' defense), and they are trying to silence and threaten those who point out the obvious, that yes, Medicare cuts really are cuts, and will impact patients.

Humana, a large private Medicare Advantage insurer, sent out letters to it's customers, pointing out that Medicare Advantage services will have to be curtailed under the Democratic health reform bills. The noble Obama administration, staunch defenders of the Constitution, leapt into action against Humana, ordering it to cease and desist engaging in all that, um, free speech. Then the government launched an investigation of Humana. Democrats denounced Humana as liars, and when some Republicans pointed out an inconvenient truth, that Humana was right, Democrats went into Pavlovian mode and started demonizing Republicans as handmaidens of the insurance industry. What a creepy and shameless bunch these Dems have become.

Even more inconveniently for the Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office backs up Humana and the Republicans. The CBO says Medicare benefits will be cut. Combined with the previous CBO statements – that Medicare premiums will rise under ObamaCare, that overall health care costs will rise under ObamaCare, that Medicare prescription drug prices will increase by 20% under ObamaCare, and that ObamaCare isn't paid for and will add to the deficit, it appears the Democrats are merely trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

The silver lining to all this is, there really isn't a health care reform bill yet. There are a series of bills (all deeply flawed), so there's still time to change the wrongheadedness in the bills. We all want to do something to reform health care, but we don't want to do the WRONG thing. We don't want to make the health care system even worse. The Democrats are looking to finish up and vote on ObamaCare in a couple weeks. Time is running out.

For a long time now, I've realized that the federal government is not operating in the best interests of the American people. This is not a partisan statement. I don't believe Republicans are helping Americans any more than Democrats are (though Democrats are pushing the envelope to irresponsible new heights right now). What the government has been doing for my entire life is to take more and more wealth away from it's citizens to use for itself. Yes, Bush implemented some tax cuts, but they weren't paid for. They added to the deficit, meaning they were not really tax cuts at all, but rather taxes deferred. They added to the already massive national debt (nearly $12 trillion now). We have to pay interest on that debt. The Bush tax cuts may have helped the economy overcome a recession in the short run, but they were detrimental over the long run. Ditto for every other set of deficits run up by every other presidential administration in my lifetime. They are nothing more than claims on future taxpayers. They are nothing more than a continuation of the nonstop fiscal irresponsibility of our federal government that has pissed me off for most of my life. They weaken the dollar and destroy the futures of our children. If you have been living under a rock and somehow don't understand this, try to remember the last presidential administration that ran a surplus for it's term. I defy you to do it. EVERY SINGLE ONE, for the last century, has been increasingly irresponsible, and now we have the most irresponsible administration of them all in power. Barack Obama is projected to run up over $9 trillion in debt, more than every other presidential administration in history COMBINED. That's my central problem with Obama, and it has NOTHING to do with partisanship. Don't listen to the rhetoric from the White House, look at the policies. If Obama became fiscally responsible tomorrow, if he actually started serving the long term interests of this country, I'd be his biggest fan. I'd be shouting 'Yes We Can' from the rooftops. Sadly, that is not the case. Obama is destroying our children's futures faster than ever. America cannot continue to survive this for much longer.

The government is engaged in such a massive ripoff of the American taxpayer that it is beyond the comprehension of most taxpayers to even understand it. The government weaves such an elaborate web of bullshit that most of us don't even realize it's happening. The most we can usually muster up is the vague and general feeling that something is drastically wrong. We don't have any idea how to fix it. It seems way beyond our control. We are the hapless victims of 'they.' "'They' are the ones who set things up this way." 'They' are the ones who always screw everything up. 'They' are the government. 'We' are the people, though we've almost forgotten that the government is supposed to work for us.

The examples are boundless. I could give you a hundred thousand examples of how you are being ripped off by the government if I had the time and space. It's ubiquitous. We aren't $12 trillion in debt because the government is looking out for us. John Murtha (D-PA) didn't spend $150 million in taxpayer funds for his own private airport because he's looking out for Americans. Congress didn't buy more Gulfstream jets because they are the heroes of the common man. Congress didn't steal the Social Security Trust Fund because they are helping YOU. Hell no. They are screwing YOU, royally. They just think you're too stupid to notice. There are literally a hundred thousand more examples of this. Every 1,000 page bill passed by Congress screws YOU to the wall by wasting your hard earned money. THEY think you are idiots, too stupid to notice.

The worst part of all is, THEY are right. You ARE idiots. You keep re-electing the same corrupt bureaucratic douchebags over and over. Only idiots would do that. Only idiots would watch their country being sold down the river and stand idly by, doing nothing. Only idiots would pretend one party is the answer and the other party is the problem. That's the shell game. That's what THEY want you to think. That's part of the con. YOU are the mark, and you better wake up before it's too late. It's almost too late already.

Right now, we have a majority government who is telling you that what's best for you is to have the government FORCE you to buy health insurance, and next up, they are going to tell you that adding over $1,700 to your annual utility bills is a really great idea. They are literally saying that putting $5-12 thousand in new expenses on the average American family is FOR THAT FAMILY'S OWN GOOD. And many of you are dumb enough to believe it. Yes We Can, my aunt fanny.

IDIOTS. And we have massive amounts of slanted media telling you why it is a REALLY GOOD IDEA for you to be an idiot. They are literally telling you that you are too stupid to balance a checkbook.

P. T. Barnum said it best. There's a sucker born every minute. The government operates off of this principle.

Here's one more tiny example of what I'm talking about. The city of Akron, Ohio, my hometown, has built a new library, a new convention center, an art museum, a ball field, an Inventor's Hall of Fame, is refurbishing several high schools, and is redoing it's central interchange, among many other projects. As a result, the city is deeply in debt (and Akron's unemployment rate is 10.7%). Now, shazzam, the city CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY IT'S POLICE OFFICERS AND FIRE FIGHTERS. 96 policemen are being laid off, and 38 firefighters are being laid off. Seriously, are you kidding me ? Are we THIS inept ? Are we going to let them get away with this ? Our city's actions are like a person going out and buying a Cadillac Escalade and a speedboat with the rent money. C'mon, we can't be THIS stupid. The police ARE the rent money in our society. They are the basics. They keep society stabilized. We NEED them. They are about half the reason that we even have a government in the first place. You don't buy luxuries while ignoring the basics, yet this is exactly what our local government has done. Inexcusable. And guess what, they are going to ask YOU to pick up the tab with the next round of tax increases they demand, to pay for the government's irresponsibility. And they are going to hit you with a flurry of political advertising blaming it all on someone else, anybody but themselves.

And about half of you will probably be dumb enough to buy it. AGAIN.

Then the Lame Stream Media scratches their heads, wondering what all the Tea Parties are about. Unbelievable. The phrase 'fiddling while Rome burns' comes to mind.

Wake up America. You are not being served.

I've pretty much had my fill of liberals condemning free speech, and then using the specters of racism and/or violent right-wing boogeymen as the excuse. In my last three posts, I have outlined examples of the left calling the right racist. It's the number one argument they use to discount the Tea Party protests. That argument was shot down by President Obama himself on Meet The Press on sunday:

DAVID GREGORY: …this week you had former President Jimmy Carter saying most, not just a little, but most of this Republican opposition against you is motivated by racism. Do you agree with that?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: No. Look, I said, during the campaign, are there some people who still think through the prism of race when it comes to evaluating me and my candidacy? Absolutely. Sometimes they vote for me for that reason, sometimes they vote against me for that reason. I'm sure that was true during the campaign, I'm sure that's true now. But I think you actually put your finger on what this argument's really about. And it's an argument that's gone on for the history of this republic. And that is what's the right role of government? How do we balance freedom with our need to look after one another?

The President is absolutely correct. The argument here is about the role of government, not race. The President pointed out that the argument about the government's role goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson versus Alexander Hamilton, and that it always evokes passionate debate. Nothing has changed. Our President is apparently much more intelligent than many of his clueless supporters, who play the race card at the drop of a hat. Kudos to President Obama for saying this.

After the racism charge, the number two free speech stopper used by the left is the politics of fear (which I seem to remember the left condemning not too long ago, ironically enough), in the form of those right-wing boogeymen I mentioned earlier. Apparently, liberals think there are cadres of right-wing nutjobs sitting in front of tv sets and radios all across the country, with their helmets on, armed with hand guns, hand grenades, and Billy Beer, just waiting for Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck to give them their marching orders about who or what to go blow up. We saw Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) playing the politics of fear card recently, when she weepily worried about potential violence in front of the cameras. The latest version of this inanity I've read came from the blissfully ignorant Media Matters (aka, George Soros Media Inc.), who had a profound enough lack of self-awareness to write a piece called 'A President was killed the last time right-wing hatred ran wild like this'. That President was John F. Kennedy, of course, and, as much as I hate to pierce Media Matters' bubble of historical revisionism, JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a self-avowed communist. The last I heard, communism was a left-wing ideology. It wasn't "right-wing hatred" that killed JFK. It was left-wing hatred. Not that Media Matters let's the truth get in the way of a good old phony political diatribe.

I can point out ten acts of left-wing violence for every act of right-wing violence over the last several decades, and left-wing governments killed approximately 100 million people in the 20th century alone, (yet somehow liberals NEVER profess a fear of left-wing violence), but liberals do have a real right-wing boogeyman to whom they can point. That is Timothy McVeigh, the man who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in the 1990's, killing 168 people. Heinous. He received the death penalty, which he richly deserved.

McVeigh was an anti-tax, anti-big government Libertarian who voted for Libertarian candidate Harry Browne in the 1996 Presidential election. That makes McVeigh sound a lot like……ME. I voted for Harry Browne, and I agree with many Libertarian ideas. In light of McVeigh's violence, the question is, does that make the ideas themselves dangerous ??? Should I stop writing what I do because some nut might misinterpret it ? Should I self-censor my political rhetoric ? Liberals have been answering "YES" to that question for months now. They see a bunch of peaceful Tea Party protests (zero examples of right-wing violence) as some kind of powder keg, ready to explode. Liberal accuse the Tea Partiers of fear-mongering even as liberals fear-monger themselves. It's absurd, and we should all be able to see right through it.

Here are a couple things Timothy McVeigh said that I agree with (horrors ! You better arrest me NOW):

"Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight"

"The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful."

Dangerous ideas ? I think not. The Founding Fathers held those ideas, and they are ideas about liberty. I think the dangerous people are the ones who don't object to the ever-growing government, which has the inevitable crushing effect of taking away ever more property and choice (freedom) from the citizenry. McVeigh's gigantic mistake was moving into calls for civil war and violence. Naturally, I don't agree with that. I'm all for using peaceful means, as Martin Luther King advocated. You don't defeat tyranny by becoming a tyrant yourself. In America, we can defeat tyranny at the ballot box.

What McVeigh does represent is what I'll call The Lunatic Factor. We have a country of over 300 million people. Because human nature is fallible, some of those people are bound to be unhinged (I should name names here, but I'll resist). These people might listen to political speech and be motivated to do stupid and destructive things, as McVeigh did. What liberals seem not to understand is, this can manifest itself across the political spectrum. Liberals quake in their boots over largely imaginary right-wing violence, but then they turn around and call right-wingers racists, which is about as inflammatory as political rhetoric can get. If so-called "dangerous" speech is to be controlled, as liberals are advocating, then we can start with the liberals themselves. By labeling all the Tea Party protesters as racists, are not liberals, by their own standards, inciting violence against those alleged "racists" ? After all, racists are dangeous people who must be stopped. If Limbaugh and Beck are inciting violence, so are Olbermann, Garofalo, Maxine Waters, Jimmy Carter, etc.

It's one more liberal example of "do as I say, not as I do." The lack of self-awareness is nothing short of astounding. Are liberals incapable of remembering all the way back to LAST YEAR, when they were calling former President Bush all manners of inflammatory names ? For that matter, they still are calling Bush those names.

The bottom line here is, free speech is allowed in this country. We can't ever allow that to be lost. The people we should always cast a skeptical eye upon are the ones who are attempting to stifle it with their scare tactics. At this moment in history, the stiflers in this country are coming from the left. That also happens to be where the stiflers most often come from – from the big, all-powerful totalitarian governments the left is constantly advocating for (knowingly or not). The belief in freedom is not just an ideological exercise. The real world consequences are immense.