If ugly truth is worse to you than lovely myth, go read someone else’s blog, I won’t myth you.   Most Americans are woefully ignorant of their foundations and the great vision of the Founding Fathers.  Over the years the progressive minority has attacked those foundations and the Founding Fathers incessantly and used that ignorance against us as they seek to destroy our Republic and replace it with a communist state. Progressivism, after all, is a desire to “progress” beyond the “ill-conceived and outdated” American Constitution in order to achieve progress toward a progressive-socialist (Marxist?) utopia on earth.

            Barack Obama believes that American Exceptionalism doesn’t exist and never actually existed. Most Americans feel there’s something definitely wrong with the President’s approach to things, but find it difficult to point a finger at exactly what’s not right. Let me give you a clue. The word “democracy” that he and others bandy about so pointedly is meaningless. 

Democracy is certainly over-rated. Here in America, we have a Republic and the most successful republic in history and American Exceptionalism is alive and well, but severely threatened by Mr. Obama and his cohorts. The most Republican documents in our nation are: Paine’s Common Sense; the Declaration of Independence; The Constitution of the United States; The Bill of Rights added to the U.S. Constitution; and recently two more have been added  . . . The TEA Party’s “Contract from America;” and the Republican Party’s Pledge to America.   Perhaps two or three American in every 1,000 have read all six of these documents: a great pity that so many are so willfully ignorant. Here are some brief excerpts to serve as background before we get to the meat of this discussion with links to the whole documents provided so that the ignorant folk you know might be educated:

http://pledge.gop.gov/

“America is more than a country

“America is an idea – an idea that free people can govern themselves, that government’s powers are derived from the consent of the governed, that each of us is endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America is the belief that any man or woman can – given economic, political, and religious liberty – advance themselves, their families, and the common good.

           “America is an inspiration to those who yearn to be free and have the ability and the dignity to determine their own destiny.

           “Whenever the agenda of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to institute a new governing agenda and set a different course.

            “These first principles were proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, enshrined in the Constitution, and have endured through hard sacrifice and commitment by generations of Americans.

            “In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent.”     From “A Pledge to America” a 2010 document of the Republican Party

http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense/text.html

            “SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

            "Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.”    From Common Sense by Thomas Paine

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .” from the Declaration of Independence unanimously approved by the 13 colonies

http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

                “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”    The Preamble to the United States Constitution notice the huge size of the first three words . . . .

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

                                                “Amendment X

              "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”   as added to the U.S. Constitution four years after the Constitution was approved. Of the 27 Amendments to the Constitution, the first ten are the vital Republican documents cementing our freedoms and limiting government known as the Bill of Rights.

http://www.contractfromamerica.com/Idea.aspx

The Contract from America

      We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Individual Liberty

      Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.

Limited Government

      The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.

Economic Freedom

      The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.

1. Protect the Constitution

      Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)    From the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party Contract from America in which Americans voted on their top ten issues and resolutions from among 24 key proposals. In the case of this #1 “plank” 82.03% of respondents thought that it was vital and it became the #1 issue for the TEA Party.

                In fairness, Rajjpuut has included some input from “the other side”:    When Barack Obama wrote his first autobiography, Dreams from My Father, here are the dreams he was referring to from his father’s article in the “East Africa Journal” as taken from a liberal website:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9610.html

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM41_eastafrica.html

                    “Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100 per cent of income . . . I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more . . .”    From Barak (no ‘c’) Hussein Obama’s article “Problems with our socialism in the East Africa Journal

                So, the question naturally becomes, “Besides Obama’s attacks upon American Exceptionalism and his utterly weak foreign policy, what exactly is it that Barack Obama, the progressives of both parties, the Democratic hierarchy and the union leadership are doing that threatens to destroy the American Republic? We could write whole volumes . . . .  

               Three main things come to mind:  1) Undermining the American Dollar and preparing its elimination as the world’s reserve currency right now thanks to Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Banks’ unrestrained money-printing, theoretically the 2011 dollar is worth about 3.2 pennies from the late 2008 dollar 2) Bankrupting the federal government with trillion dollar deficits and refusing to aim for a balanced budget and reduction of runaway federal spending and 3) Setting up multi-state bankruptcy so that the individual states (re-

read the 10^th Amendment above) will be made so weak and so totally dependent upon the federal government that all power will reside in Washington, D.C. and the federal government will run the life of the country totally and completely with the states no more than weak agencies of the federal government. 

               One of the overlooked aspects of Obamacare is that it mandates state takeover of much of the present federal side of Medicaid and of a great share of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. These provisions would bankrupt all 50 of the states sometime between 2022 and 2026.  

              The main reason that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats did not pass a fiscal-2011 budget is that they had hidden $105 Billion in set-up fees (unconstitutionally hidden in Obamacare’s 2,900 pages. That is, they illegally took away all power from future congresses to control Obamacare and to save the states from financial ruin. If they’d passed a budget that $105 Billion would have stood out as stark evidence of their malfeasance. That final copy of the 2,900 page bill was given to the House to vote on just two hours before the vote. At that last minute, a cave-in by so-called anti-abortion Democrats led by Michigan’s Bart Stupak passed the bill (on receipt of a one-page promise from Barack Obama that no federally funded abortions would ever be part of Obamacare – so far over 200,000 have been paid for under Obamacare) with every Republican and 32 Democrats voting against it.

              Barack Obama wants to nullify the power of the states and the power of the individual citizens guaranteed by the 10^th Amendment and his and the Union leadership's assault on Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan aims to hamstring all the states with government workers unions once and for all.

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Is Trickle-Up Poverty the New Prosperity?

           While being assaulted on all sides with Barack Obama’s “trickle-up poverty” and other progressive government boondoggles like Obamacare on top of trillion-dollar national deficits as far as the eye can see and well beyond . . . a strange new phenomenon has emerged to further muddy the waters already obscuring our future hopes. China is now selling off American debt and ridding itself of dollars so that now the largest holder of American debt is . . . drum roll, please, Maestro! . . . the United States Federal Reserve Banking System. Yes, you read that correctly. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is now in the voodoo economics business all the way up to his fuzzy skull.  

           Over the last three months, China has sold roughly $19 billion in treasury bonds and other U.S. debt instruments. China, in other words, has become concerned about the sheer size of the U.S. overall debt and the high probability that the Federal Reserve’s unceasing money printing for the last twenty-nine months has debased and devalued the world’s reserve currency for ‘lo these last 60+ years: the American Dollar. Looking back in history that’s exactly what happened to the British Pound Sterling which had been the World’s Reserve Currency for over two hundred years until the Brits ousted Winston Churchill with World War II still not entirely won and brought in their Labour (progressive-liberal) Party to run the show. Labour inflated their once proud currency so much that the citizens and nations of the world began dumping the Pound and fleeing for gold, silver, the gold-backed Swiss Franc and most commonly for the American Dollar.

            The American Federal Reserve now standing as the largest holder of U.S. Treasury debt means that financing Obama’s third trillion-dollar federal budget deficit in succession has become something the rest of the world has begun to shy away from. China is still the largest foreign-holder of American debt, but the Chinese seem determined to remove their names from the top of that dubious list (other top foreign holders of U.S. debt instruments include: Japan, Russia, Brazil, India, Korea, England, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia). It also suggests that faith and trust in the “Almighty Buck” may be reaching a low-ebb.

            Unlike hard money (gold and silver) and all hard-money backed currencies such as the Swiss Franc and the Kruggerand-backed South African money . . . paper money has zero intrinsic value . . . it only exists and continues to serve so long as people trust the government issuing the paper bills (and that goes double for a nation’s paper debt instruments).    Bernanke has run the printing pressings so long that on a sheer mathematical basis the dollar of today is technically worth only as much as 3.4 pennies compared to the dollar of late 2008 when the financial crisis reached its low spot and the U.S. government started stepping in. What’s going on here? Why is Bernanke printing so much money?

            Bernanke is a well-known student of the Great Depression and has written numerous articles suggesting that the reason the Great Depression turned from a “little-d depression” into a “capital-G/capital-D Great Depression” is because there was never sufficient money in circulation to head off relentless deflation. That is, he believes a vicious-circle of deflation was created and that the continuous dropping of prices fed off itself and destroyed jobs which destroyed buying power which destroyed businesses which destroyed more jobs, etc., etc. 

            There is some truth to what Mr. Bernanke suggests . . . but it’s a lot like yanking your starting pitcher off the mound with the score going from 2-1 in the 6^th to 8-1 against you in the 8^th . . . once so much damage has been done . . . almost nothing will work. Perhaps the twirler should have been sent to the showers when he looked tired after 120 pitches before the start of the 7^th?  Or after he’d allowed a home run and walked the next two batters with no outs in the 7^th? Poor decisions early in a process can make finding good decisions later . . . very, very difficult.

            Rajjpuut suggests a different reading of history is more accurate.    Almost precisely a full decade before the infamous 1929 stock market crash we had a depression start-up that 98% of Americans never heard about. Progressive Woodrow Wilson’s so-called “Invisible Depression” started in late 1919 and was full-blown by the time Warren G. Harding was elected in November, 1920; and much worse when Harding took office in March of 1921 (they had a four-month Lame-Duck session in those days). Production had already dropped nation-wide by 26%. Ignoring the suggestions of his Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover for immediate implementation of numerous government aid programs and other subsidies . . . Harding did only four things:

1.       Cut government spending by 48%

2.      Cut taxes by 49%

3.      Paid down the nation’s debt by 30%

4.       Slashed government regulatory interference across the board

            In fifteen months the economy had rebounded mightily (just a couple months later,  Harding died in office so he barely got to enjoy his success). The United States was now well into the “Roaring Twenties” the most single prosperous rebound of any economy in the recorded history of the planet. Calvin Coolidge, Harding’s vice-president continued the Harding policies faithfully, but chose “not to run” in 1928.   One of the most popular men in America and a famous philanthropist and author, Herbert Hoover ran for the presidency for the Republicans and won in a landslide over Democrat Al Smith.  Only three men in history have become president of the U.S. without extensive military or business executive or elected experience: Taft, Obama and Hoover.

            Hoover was a famous geologist and mining engineer who married the daughter of a rich banker.  He believed mightily in the “Efficiency Movement” (if you’ve read Cheaper by the Dozen, the father, Frank Gilbreth, was founder of the Efficiency Movement) and believed that the economy was riddled with waste and inefficiency which could be dramatically improved by “experts” like him once they identified the problems and solved them. Hoover became, according to the New York Times “one of the Ten Most Important Living Americans” for his charitable and humanitarian work during World War I.  

            Hoover administered distribution of over two and one-half million tons of food to nine million war victims and was later named head of the brand new U.S. Food administration by Woodrow Wilson when the country entered the War. A member of the Supreme Economic Council after the war, as well as head of the American Relief Administration he continued organizing shipments to millions of starving people in Central Europe.  A well-known philanthropist, Hoover like Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson was like them a self-described “Progressive and Reformer.”

             He came to be known as “Wonder-Boy” during the Harding-Coolidge administrations for his notorious and comical lust for expanding portions of everybody else’s bailiwicks into new roles for the Commerce Department. The reporters of his day called Hoover, "the Secretary of Commerce... and Under-Secretary of Everything Else!" Long before he had entered politics he had abandoned laissez-faire economic thinking. Outside of engineering and charitable work he was a terrible micro-manager always on the look out to fix what wasn’t broken.  History shows that Hoover did one very important thing as Commerce Secretary:  he codified and standardized traffic lights across the nation. 

              As soon as he was elected president Hoover set about planning the undoing of much of the good work created by Coolidge and Harding.   He raised government spending and taxes and debt.  He initiated numerous “eleemosynary” style federal activities (reminiscent of his charitable work in World War I) to protect workers and farmers and businesses from the natural vicissitudes of the free market economy. His biggest mistake was instituting a huge tariff designed to protect American farm workers from foreign competition but remove such protections from business; the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was to cause great consternation in the business world. The agricultural tariff increase was the second highest in U.S. history and put a lot of people out of work. Overall, once the stock market crashed in 1929, Hoover instituted the biggest big-government policies the nation had ever seen.

             Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who had once praised Hoover in 1919 and tried to get him to run as the Democratic presidential candidate) and his v-p running mate Garner accused Hoover of being a socialist and promised that when elected they would:

1.      Cut government spending severely

2.      Cut taxes dramatically

3.      Pay down the nation’s debt

4.       Slashed government regulatory interference across the board and eliminate many of the socialistic programs of Hoover

          Since these amounted to little more than promises to do what Harding had succeeded with in 1921, people embraced FDR and he won in a landslide taking office in March 1933. History shows that the bottom of the Great Depression was reached in July, 1933, and the bottom of our own “Great Recession” was reached in March, 2009, in each case shortly after the new president took office. Ordinarily the expectation is that after the bottom is reached, prosperity begins to return within six months. In both FDR’s and Barack Obama’s cases, however, government interference made things much, much worse.

          FDR, of course, did exactly the opposite of what he promised. He dramatically raised taxes and government spending and debt and deficits. He expanded all of Hoover’s social and economic programs and added 40 of his own (just one law in 2010, Obamacare, created 384 new government agencies, so FDR was a piker compared to Barack) and made big government a way of life. He also confiscated gold coinage and then instituted an overnight inflation of 69% by pegging the dollar to gold at $35 per ounce (he’d given the citizens just $20.76) impoverishing the taxpayers while enriching the government. Of course doing what Harding did and avoiding what Hoover and FDR did is just common sense . . . something seemingly beyond Obama and Bernanke . . . .

          In June, 2009, when the full-folly of the Obama policies began to outline themselves in sharp contrast to common sense . . . the Chinese held $896 billion in American debt; today they hold $764 billion a 15% reduction in greenback holdings. Since an outright flooding of the market with U.S. debt notes would destroy China as well as the U.S., it seems the Chinese are now buying up gold and silver in large quantities and making an orderly retreat from the dollar – leaving our suspect currency in the hands of less astute nations and of Ben Bernanke. Since the American trade deficit with China alone reached a record $273.1 Billion in 2010, the Chinese are going to have to work awfully hard to keep lowering their dollar holdings . . . so one suspects that gold and silver will continue to rise quickly.

          Bernanke’s monetary policy, known as “Quantitative Easing” a.k.a. “irresponsibly printing money,” has seen the Federal Reserve recently buy up $600 billion worth of Treasury debt. Big Ben’s plan is to hold down interest rates and thus help lower the cost of federal government borrowing (to cover the Obama deficits) and incidentally increase inflation which he believes will stimulate economic growth and create jobs. This is a very Keynesian economic philosophy. In the months prior to his death in 1946, John Maynard Keynes (as the ending of the British Pound Sterling’s  200- year reign as the world’s reserve currency approached) who had long preached against the classical economic wisdom of Adam Smith and Smith’s “invisible hand of the marketplace,” like an atheist seeking God at the last hour repented . . . .

          As Britain’s economic hole under the progressive Labor Party deepened, and his own death drew near, Keynes told Henry Clay of the Bank of England of his hopes that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” would somehow save the English economy and yank Britain out of the economic swamp it found itself in: "I find myself more and more relying for a solution of our problems on the ‘invisible hand’ which I tried to eject from economic thinking twenty years ago." The inflation destroyed the Pound Sterling as the Labor Party continued with government largesse and Keynes’ deathbed conversion went to naught.

          Here in America recent spikes in food prices and energy costs are a direct consequence of Bernanke’s unofficial devaluation of the dollar. The government continues under-reporting of inflation assisted by the Labor Statistics Bureau’s refusal to include fluctuations in prices of food and energy. Bernanke, however, believes that deflation is still the rule and continues to inflate the currency to avoid a second Great Depression. Since job creation by the private sector is the key, perhaps the government ought to try: cutting spending; cutting taxes; eliminating debt; and getting the government out of the way of the free market . . . oops, that’s been mentioned before . . . .

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Al-Jazeera Channel Given Rave Reviews

by American Secretary of State Clinton

     You might be as surprised as Rajjpuut is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has now become a great fan of the Arabic newspaper Al-Jazeera long known as an “instigator of anti-American viewpoints” and propaganda . . . .

http:// seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/television/2014428287_webclinton07.html?syndication=rss

     Has Al-Jazeera done a dramatic about face or is Clinton entering early senility? “Al-Jazeera, Clinton suggests has become a leader in “changing people’s minds and attitudes” according to what Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Like it or hate it, it is really effective,” Ms. Clinton continued. Going to the horse’s mouth, however, Rajjpuut discovered that Clinton’s contention that Al-Jazeera was gaining an American following was pure horse crap, unadulterated pure horse crap. According to my old friend Amin,   a retired navy officer who would prefer NOT to have his last name in print, Al-Jazeera is part of the problem with Muslim radicalization . . . rather than just some neutral dispenser of news.

     According to Amin, Clinton is out to popularize Al-Jazeera because the progressives in America and the radical/political Islamists have the same agenda: hate for conservative America (and more pointedly in the case of Al-Jazeera:  for America as the #1 super-power). He says the Al-Jazeera channel has made almost no inroads in America except in Washington, D.C. and that Clinton was exaggerating when she described how popular the Muslim network was becoming in the United States.   Al-Jazeera is a broadcast and cable Arabic TV station headquartered in Qatar that is an ultra-popular and ultra-radical voice across the Muslim Middle East.

     Amin shows no ambivalence about the station, “Al-Jazeera is “very, very dangerous.” They often show the same news in English that they show in Arabic. Amin describes the English language version as always “muted and comparatively neutral” alongside the Arabic language broadcast which is "very inflammatory." Besides this many American Muslims can read the Arabic writing scrawling along the bottom of the screen which often gives a totally different impact; and they are often referred to the Al-Jazeera and other radical websites available in both English and Arabic. 

     “Secretary Clinton is being very naïve if she thinks Al-Jazeera can serve her purposes, whatever they are, without bringing all of us some severe repercussions.” He described the so-called ground-zero mosque controversy as an example of the left “bedding down with rabid dogs” . . . Shariah Law is “not a joke unless you consider public floggings; stoning; beheadings; and all loss of female rights as humorous.” They are absolutely serious when they talk about the “flag of Islam someday flying over the White House and the implementation of Shariah Law here in the U.S. eventually.”   Amin related the near Ground Zero-Mosque issue to one of the most popular programs on Al-Jazeera: “Shariah and Life” and said that the English version of the program included many references to the Quran which actually were, if you bothered to read them, totally opposite in meaning from the English words spoken on the program. The following link which expands Amin’s ideas . . .

http://staringattheview.blogspot.com/2010/07/al-jazeera-christian-muslim-coexistence.html

is about a particular program from "Shariah and Life" talking about Christian-Muslim co-existence and Jewish-Muslim co-existence neutrally in the English language version but which actually turns out to be (if you visit the Quran) one unending anti-Semitic and anti-Christian hate message after another. Don’t you just love Hillary Clinton?

            This phenomenon of Muslim radicals aligning with the American Progressive left is becoming more commonplace. Between February and mid-April in 2010, leading union activists from this country and Britain made an extended field trip to the Muslim countries of the Middle East to press upon the unemployed there; the young; and many young and middle-aged workers how much unions could help their plight; and giving them instructions on how best to incite the rebellions we now see taking place across North Africa and the Middle East.   Now “surprisingly” we are seeing out-and-out rebellion in the same countries the union reps visited (what a coincidence)! Now the Union leaders in Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin are talking repeatedly about “Wis-Cairo” and implying that American unions are being inspired by the “Democratic activism” among Muslim countries . . . OH, PLEASE! Not that word “Democracy!” Democracy absolutely does NOT matter . . . here’s why . . . .

     In one nationwide study, 85% of the Egyptian’s surveyed just before the demonstrations that eventually led to the ousting of strongman Mubarak, said that Sharia Law (allowing thieves’ hands to be cut off; requiring raped women to provide four male witnesses to pursue a case against her attacker; stoning adulterers to death; requiring women to cover their bodies from head to foot; allowing beheading of those who practice or discuss other religions; allow public flogging for minor offenses) . . . Sharia law, they said, overwhelmingly, was the best governing and legal system . . . thus, according to more than five out of every six Egyptian citizens surveyed, infidels like you and me should be killed for the good of Egypt and of Islam, NICE! 85% of any country’s population is a powerful force. And how do you feel about 85% of a country supporting savagery, idiocy and condemning freedom of religion and all the other freedoms guaranteed by the United States Constitution?  Their so-called “Cries for Democracy” will undoubtedly result in merely another country like Iran where Muslim Thuggocracy/ Theocracy dominates everyday life. This is what Democracy looks like? God forbid, but it may be closer than you think.

     Just a few Sundays ago radical British Muslim activist Anjem Choudary revealed the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood’s plans for western civilization:  “The East and the West will one day be governed by Shariah. One day the flag of Islam will fly over both the White House and #10 Downing Street.” Mob rule and stoning deaths seem far-fetched, of course, but the takeover of the Wisconsin Capitol and the flight of the Democratic senators have moved us several giant steps closer to Rule by Super Thugs compared to which, the union thugs even those like the obese Mr. Trumka are utter bantam weights.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Politicians Need to Listen

to the Voters NOW!

      Despite adding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending laws and Obamacare (a massive new entitlement program) in 2010, Nancy Pelosi’s Democrat-controlled House of Representatives didn’t bother to pass a budget last year.  Now Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, another Democrat, have decided that despite the results of November’s election, the only budget concerns that matter today (spend, spend, spend!) are theirs.   Taxpaying voters, meanwhile according to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey say, “A pox on both of your houses, shut down the government, until agreement on substantial CUTS*** is reached.” 

      While the two parties haggle, 58% of voters would rather see a partial shutdown of the federal government rather than maintaining spending at current levels ($3.7 TRillion in the Obama budget) according to the ever accurate Rasmussen Reports. Only 33% of likely voters told Rasmussen they’d prefer to see government spending continue at present levels rather than shutting down the government.   Opinions fell upon partisan lines with 58% of Democrats opting for maintaining spending levels; contradicted by 80% of Republicans and 59% of Independents who thought partial shutdown until agreement on cuts was the better idea. Overall just 6% of voters support more spending while 61% say cuts are in order. 

      The public seems more clear-thinking on fiscal matters than our elected representatives according to numerous Rasmussen polls. The majority of voters for years have said that cutting taxes and reducing government spending are best for the economy.   Of all Mr. Obama’s promises casually-made and super-casually-unfulfilled, voters have consistently rated “cutting the federal deficit by half  by the end of his first term” as the most important promise that nominee Obama made. Today survey after survey confirms that few voters expect he’ll keep it.  

      Mr. Obama’s present $3.7 TRillion budget will see government spending increased taking it over $4 TRillion very soon unless some drastic cuts and changes to the Washington modus operandi are quickly made. Who’s going to make the hard decisions?   70% of voters believe that the voting public is more willing to make the hard choices necessary to reduce federal spending than our politicians are.   66% of polled voters say that the Democratic Party is NOT interested in cutting spending; and 49% say Republicans don’t go far enough with the spending cuts they’re seeking. These voter opinions on government spending have held very consistent since late 2005. The survey-meister himself, Scott Rasmussen observed in his 2010 book In Search of Self-Governance that . . . .

                     "The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians(and power brokers) who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18^th century." Rasmussen added that “The American people don’t want to be governed from the left, the right, or the center. They want to govern themselves.”

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery

“Barack is Standing With Us”

“Wis-Cairo’s” Senate Desertion, “Capitol Take-Over”

Orchestrated by Re-election Committee and DNC

          Nancy Pelosi used the term “astro-turf” to describe what she saw as a “fake grass-roots” movement, the TEA Party, created, she said:  by the Republican Party.   It appears now that the “leftist pot” has been calling the “tax-paying kettle” black for quite some time now.

            It begins with information provide by two union workers . . . who said they took part in the planning of “Wis-Cairo” and were told “Barack is standing with us,” and who insisted, “They’ll kill us, I mean it, they WILL kill us, if they ever find out” . . . was revealed because the two men were active TEA Party members in the Midwest.  According to the men, who will be called “Tom and Jerry” because that’s not their real names . . . .

Item #1: The campaign of labor unrest was dubbed “Wis-Cairo” very early in the campaign. Union leaders in early spring, 2010, had visited Egypt, Tunisia, and many other Middle-Eastern nations to foment a “grass-roots” movement toward democracy among the young, the unemployed, the malcontented, students, etc. The idea was to make it appear that a world-wide grass-roots rebellion against the “evil” status quo was occurring virtually simultaneously. The Middle-East was chosen for the “first-wave” because so many of the leaders were dictators that almost no one approved of.

Item #2: Both the decisions for Democratic senators to abandon their posts and flee their states (thus preventing key votes) and for Union protestors to “take-over” the Capitol in Wisconsin came from the Obama Oval office with members of the president’s 2012 re-election campaign, “Obama for America,” the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and two key Union Bosses involved. Washington has been “calling every move, every step of the way.”

Item #3: The president referred to his “Wis-Cairo Campaign” as a chance to “revisit his roots” as a community organizer. (The President was an attorney for ACORN shaking-down mortgage lenders to force them to comply with the CRA ’77 law and make knowingly bad loans to high-risk of default clients. As an ACORN attorney, Obama was famous for not only getting the loans and promises of further loans from beleaguered bankers, but even coaxing out ACORN donations from them.) He reportedly told some Labor Department officials and at least one Union Boss, the exercise made him “feel like a General.”

Item #4: The term “Wis-Cairo,” invented by AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka and it pleased Obama immediately. One thing that did not please President Obama was his own involvement . . . . Almost as soon as he made his (Cambridge-police-like) comment three weeks ago attacking Wisconsin governor Scott Walker for bringing an all-out attack on the rights of working people, President Obama regretted his words. He regretted them even more once Walker suggested that Obama needed to pay attention to Washington matters and work on “reducing his own debt.” Rather than following up on his comment about Walker being out to destroy collective bargaining, Obama elected to remain silent for roughly three weeks because media attention on himself, the White House, the DNC and his election committee would undermine public perception that a grassroots, simultaneous up-swelling of emotion was taking place in Wisconsin. 

Item #5:  From the start “spreading the excitement” to Indiana and then backlash against Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey was part of the plan as were all the coordinated union demonstrations at other state capitols held on Saturday, February 26.

Item #6: The campaign has just begun. According to Tom and Jerry, further coordinated efforts aim at . . . .

a)    “making ‘them’ start laying off people”

b)    “making  ‘them’ shut down the government”

c)    “embarrassing FOX to get a ‘media neutrality’ law passed”

d)   “spreading this thing across the entire country”

          In related news, President Obama elected to re-join the fray today both personally and through his Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Solis said, “The fight is on” and vowed that she was going to be part of it. Nice, the federal government entering a labor battle to the detriment of a state’s citizens and taxpayers, NICE! Obama’s comments were much more toned down, he not only did not mention Wisconsin or Walker by name, but also merely re-iterated his opinion that “attacks upon working people” by government entities must be fought. Both put efforts at “collective-bargaining” repeal among Wisconsin government employees at the heart of the matter. Solis, meanwhile went further and blamed not just Walker but the entire Republican Party for “trying to strip the rights of America’s workers.”

         Walker himself was not inactive, he gave the hooky-playing fourteen Wisconsin Democratic Senators “24 hours” to return to the state and vote on the bill so that he would not be forced by law to begin laying off 1,400-1,500 government workers to make up the state's budget red-ink. Wisconsin is facing a shortfall of $3.6 Billion.  While the unions belated agreed to accept some slight cuts in pay and benefits the crux of the matter has been "collective bargaining" on items other than pay.  Walker, saying that the typical budget battle and union negotiations at the county and local and state levels takes fifteen months . . . aims to remove the union's power to dominate Wisconisn affairs.  As one measure of how pervasive Wisconsin union influence is, according to Tom and Jerry, their workers never have to pay union taxes because the money is "automatically removed" from the workers' checks and then the state pays the dues in one lump sum to the unions.  Wow . . . . excuse Rajjpuut's "tell" (never have had a poker face) but what an obvious conflict of interest that's taken part in Wisconsin for 'lo these many years.

         At the protest site in and around the Capitol in Madison, FoxNews reporters and camera crew have been heckled, shouted down and otherwise interfered with. Reporter Mike Tobin was caught on camera being shoved and punched twice. Tobin laughed and called the affronts “part of my job.”

         Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., despite reports of “secret negotiations” between House and Senate Republicans and Democrats, no movement toward any sort of compromise or action leading to passing a new CR (continuing budget resolution) to keep the government “fully operational” has been spotted. A shutdown appears imminent, but complicating the issue is that the cuts most recently requested by Republicans were items President Obama approved of axing. One way or another, we can hope that some money will be saved, either by shut-down or by deliberate budget cuts.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Obama, Lame Duck Semi-Conservatives

Sabotaged Nation

            America is now standing at the critical crossroads of fiscal- and Constitutional-destruction brought about by over a century of progressive (we must “progress” beyond the outdated and ill-conceived Constitution if we are to make “progress” toward our Socialist-Marxist utopia on earth) politics. This foolish progressivism has created a severe insolvency fiasco both in the states and the federal government created by 109 years of overstepping the Constitution. Right now the problem seems to be assaulting our states more severely because the federal government has shown itself willing to impoverish the people and the states by destroying the American Dollar, a resource thankfully not available to the individual states.  How did we get to this sad situation? It all began with the compromises of the 2010 Lame Duck Congressional Session.

           The most sensational sites for this national progressive shipwreck, besides Washington, D.C. itself, are found in a dozen moderate to high profile states. The strikes and nonsense now playing out in Wisconsin are likely to soon see ugly sequels in California, Illinois, Arizona, Nevada and even perhaps in Florida, Rhode Island, Oregon, Washington, and Michigan. Meanwhile two other states in very bad fiscal condition (New York and New Jersey) appear to have a great chance of avoiding Wisconsin’s fate because their two governors (Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie, respectively) have shown immense backbone and common sense in attacking their state’s debt crisis head on and their state legislative bodies have largely kept out of their chief executives’ way; not so in Wisconsin where the entire Democratic senate had refused to come to work and is now hiding out in Illinois.   How did we get to this sad situation? It all began with the compromises of the 2010 Lame Duck Congressional Session.

           The situation in the nation stood dramatically better on election eve, 2010 than it stood on New Year’s Eve 2010-2011. The deterioration of the prognosis owes itself to the idiocy of the semi-conservative Republicans holding forth in the 2010 Lame Duck session who caved into President Obama’s demands on virtually all fronts instead of standing strong and letting the newly-elected representatives and senators deal with Mr. Obama’s foolishness in 2011. At that time Mr. Obama’s “strong”-approval rating showed a minus -18 percentage points, while today in many polls the overall (mild + strong approval and disapproval ratings) ratings show President Obama has climbed from 41% overall approval and 56% overall disapproval (a -15% overall rating) to showing him at +2% (51% to 49%) a dramatic increase in the president’s perceived competence after Republicans compromised with the President’s agenda.

           It’s to be hoped that House Speaker John Boehner and his chief lieutenants Ryan, Simpson and Cantor and their House Republican colleagues . . . learned volumes from the failures of Newt Gingrich dealing with the clever Bill Clinton and of the recent 2010 Lame Duckers in facing Obama. But just in case they haven’t, here are the lessons they should learn:

1.       DO NOT compromise on principles. Make a stand for statesmanship.

2.     Do NOT compromise on the Constitution: follow your promises from the 2010 Republican “Pledge to America” 100% to the letter.

3.     Do NOT compromise on taxes, spending, deficits, borrowing, the national debt or the entitlement mess. Save our country.

4.     Do NOT compromise with our Marxist president on any single thing. He wished to gain re-election. He can only do that IF he appears to American voters as a reasonable and center-dwelling politician. Make the Marxist skunk show his stripes.

5.     HOW does the G.O.P. save this country?

           By never giving in and fighting the president tooth-and-nail at every step of the way, that’s how. Specifically: don’t swing for the fences, make solid contact on every ball and be content with walks and singles.   If baseball is NOT your cup of tea, look at things this way, the battle before them is a marathon not a sprint . . . because every easily-gained compromise makes Barack Obama look reasonable and statesmanlike. Every grudging compromise by Obama shows his true ultra-socialist colors plainly for the entire country to see.

            The G.O.P. was elected by landslide numbers across the country to stand up to the president and his apocalyptic philosophy of spending, taxes government interference and unfettered government growth. They must do what they were elected to do . . . bring sanity back to Washington. Sanity without the presidency or the senate means only one thing: deadlock. If the issues that doomed Democrats to wide scale defeat in 2010 are still foremost in the voters’ minds, the Senate and the Oval Office can be won and sanity can prevail. If Obama through slight of forked-tongue can make himself appear “reasonable” to the electorate and re-elected in 2012, there is no limit to the harm that our nation will face (bankruptcy will be the smallest part of it). It’s a strategic battle . . . a chess game.

            Rajjpuut has coached children as young as two years old to become strong chess players and helped some of them earn five Colorado Chess Team Championships in the elementary, middle school and high school divisions in Colorado. No matter what the game involved (or the personal, military or commercial requisite) is, strategy always comes down to this:

1)      Play so that the opponent’s weaknesses become the key factor in the game. If he’s got an exposed King, a bad Bishop or tripled Pawns . . . make them stink up the board.

2)    Play so that your own weaknesses are irrelevant.

3)    Play so that your opponent’s strengths are irrelevant or unusable.

4)    Play so that your own strengths are the dominant factor across the whole board.

5)    Play aggressively if possible; or play defense so tenaciously that the opponent will face a lot of tough situations and in frustration will eventually slip however slightly.

            What are the G.O.P.’s strengths? The TEA Party “Contract from America” and the G.O.P. “Pledge to America say 90% of it all. If 60% of voters became familiar with these documents, Obama would have trouble getting 30% of the vote. The Republicans have also appeared more statesmanlike over the past two years and reasonable; and conservative-fiscal and Constitutional-conservativism is the approach that won the day on Election Day, 2010.

            What are Obama’s strengths? People don’t look at the truth of what he’s saying because they want to like him so much . . . thus, he can get away with almost anything and Republicans have not held his feet to the fire.   For example, the President has never told Americans that he worked as an ACORN attorney shaking down mortgage lenders to force them into compliance with CRA ’77 and he even went so far as to tell his “car in the ditch story” in at least 150 speeches while the Republicans were so foolish as never to expose Obama’s ACORN activities; CRA and Cloward Piven’s role in the meltdown; or Bush’s efforts to undo CRA ’77 and prevent the sub-prime lending crisis which led to our financial meltdown. This truth has never been revealed or understood by the voters as a whole, and until it has been, Obama will personally seem almost unassailable . . . .

            The TRUE CAR IN THE DITCH Story

                      In January, 2005, President George W. Bush saw that progressive Democrats, ACORN, Clinton and Obama were deliberately pushing the car (our American economy) toward a 500-foot ditch. He jumped in the driver’s seat and grabbed the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes. Despite Democratic opposition for 30 months, he was able to guide it into the nearest friendly-looking ditch by July, 2007.

             Since that is the 100% truth which 96% of Americans don’t know and since that underlined word “deliberately” ties the whole thing to the progressive movement and the aims of Cloward, Piven, George Wiley and Wade Rathke and to the ACORN presidencies of Obama and Clinton . . . no matter what obstacles the lamestream-mainstream media throw in their path, that history of treachery must be revealed.

             Here are five “fact paintings” to push the point into America’s permanent memory:

#1: In 1975 before CRA ’77 only 1 in 404 home loans was “suspect,” that is issued at 3% down-payment or less. America in 1975 with 62-65% private home ownership is the envy of the world. That solid beneficial status rests upon the accepted standards of long years: a 20% down payment requirement for home buyers and great credit ratings. CRA ’77 FORCED home lenders to knowingly make stupid loans to unqualified recipients at ultra-low down payments.

#2: In 1985 after eight years of CRA ’77 and ACORN operating in Clinton’s Arkansas alone and in no other states:  1 in 196 home mortgages was suspect. That is the rate of bad loans has doubled just from ACORN browbeating lenders in one state, Arkansas.

#3: In 1995 after three CRA ’77 expansions by Clinton (two of them legislatively) and the expansion of ACORN nationwide: now 1 in every 7 home loans was suspect. By the way, Barack Obama worked as an ACORN attorney during this era, browbeating mortgage lenders into making knowingly horrific loans to bad risks.

#4:  In 2005 following seven years of Clinton’s 1998 “steroid-version” expansion of CRA ’77: 34%, roughly 1 in every 3 home loans was suspect with many issued with 0% down-payment. Thanks to Clinton’s ’98 steroid expansion of CRA ’77 it’s now easier for ACORN to force home lenders to put an unqualified would-be home buyer into a $440,000 home than it was a decade earlier for Barack Obama and other ACORN attorneys to put the same person into a $110,000 home . . . and it’s now far more likely that the loan recipient a) won’t have a job or b) won’t even have a rental history or c) won’t even have I.D. or d) will list his only “income” as food stamps; or be on welfare or e) will have a terrible credit rating or f) will be an illegal alien.

#5 Luckily Al Gore didn’t win the presidency in 2000. Gore was a big believer in CRA legislation. Instead George W. Bush is elected between the two ACORN presidents, Clinton and Obama, and rather than driving the “car” into the ditch by incompetence as Obama loves to imply, Bush keeps the economy from utter ruin created by the deliberate actions of ACORN in abusing CRA ’77  (a deliberate Cloward-Piven effort to overload the system and create chaos using Saul Alinsky tactics) and prevents it going over the cliff, but rather he steers it into a friendly ditch and away from the abyss the progressives were pushing us toward. It happens like this . . . .

In January, 2005, George Bush makes the first speech (of 19 speeches he’ll make in the next 30 months) on the dangers of the CRA ’77 law and its expansions seeking repeal of the worst aspects of the laws. However, the bill he supports is defeated by the progressive Democrats and various compromise bills will continue to be defeated by them until a very weak version of his bill is  finally passed in July, 2007. It is, of course, too little and too late and the sub-prime lending crisis is soon underway. Nevertheless, the new law Bush passed is hailed in August 2010 by Obama’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as saving the country’s economy from a truly hideous recession and an absolute meltdown in housing prices.

            These truths, of course, are as unpopular with the mainstream, lamestream media as Bush himself was . . . yet, these are the truths that will set the country free . . . These truths; the “chess-like” strategy mentioned above and simple patriotic stubbornness*** are the secrets to dealing with Mr. Obama and his progressive ilk.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

*** D. Morris at his website dickmorris.com put it like this:

                    “If the Republicans hold firm in demanding huge spending cuts and Obama does not give in, the question of whether or not to cut spending will dominate the nation's political discourse for months on end and will spill over into the 2012 election.

                    “To assure that it will, the Republicans should hold firm to their budget spending cuts without surrender or compromise. If necessary, it is OK to vote a few very short-term continuing resolutions to keep the government open for a few weeks at a time, always keeping on the pressure.

                    “When the debt limit vote comes up, they should refuse to allow an increase without huge cuts in spending. If the debt-limit deadline passes, they should force the administration to scramble to cobble together enough money to operate for weeks at a time.

                    “If Obama offers a half a loaf, the GOP should spurn it for weeks and months. Then, rather than actually shut down the government, let them accept some variant of their proposed cuts but only give in return a few more weeks' time, at which point the issue will be re-litigated. Don't go for Armageddon -- just keep fighting the battle.

                    “Same with the debt limit. Extend it for a few hundred billion dollars and then go back for more cuts in return for a further extension. Make Obama pay for each continuing resolution and each debt-limit hike with more cuts to spending.

                    “Always avoid cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Save those for after 2012. For now, focus on Medicaid block granting and discretionary spending (including some modest cuts in defense).

                    “Like a guerrilla army, never go to a shutdown (a general engagement) but keep coming up with cuts, compromising, letting the government stay open for a few more weeks, and letting the debt limit rise a few hundred billion, and then come back for more cuts and repeat the cycle.

                    “And don't just demand spending cuts. Go for defunding of Obamacare, blocking the EPA from carbon taxation and regulation, a ban on card-check unionization and constraints on the FCC's regulation of the Internet and talk radio. Put those items on the table each time, each session.

                    “Every time the issues come up, every time the cuts are litigated, Obama's efforts to appear to be a centrist will be frustrated. Time and again, he will have to oppose spending cuts. Over and over, he will come across as the liberal he is, battling for each dime and opposing any defunding.

                    “Obama's campaign strategy has two elements: Change the subject from the 09-10 agenda and move to the center. A tough, determined Republican budget offensive, embracing all these elements and fought in this guerrilla style, will frustrate both and lead to his defeat.”

Republican Ownerships as Potential Scandal Emerges



            Yes, Virginia, Santa Obama does know who’s “naughty and nice” and does pick the winners and losers! Naughty Republicans get coal in their stockings and Nice Progressive Democrats (forget those “Blue Dog moderate Dems, young lady) get to hold onto their part of the American Dream, ho, ho, ho!



            As most Americans are aware, “GM” now might as well stand for “Government Motors.” Both General Motors and Chrysler as official corporate “wards of the state” are government-controlled entities run by the Obama administration . . . run, it seems with quite a bit of partisanship and crony-capitalism in mind.     



            Let’s put this apparent partisan scandal in personal terms, imagine yourself a businessman or businesswomen whose family has owned a car dealerships for the last 80-90 years. Imagine yourself being told that your well-respected and highly profitable GM dealership is ordered closed while nearby dealerships less profitable or even ones actually losing money are allowed to stay open. Would you be shocked? Would you be outraged?   Imagine further that GM comes to you and orders you to turn over your list of car customers and service-department customers (presumably to help your less-profitable competitors) . . . would you like the idea that your $15 million business was made worthless overnight so that an Obama campaign contributor competing with you might now find the playing field “more level?”



            Well you don’t have to imagine any of this after all:   after the auto bailouts were first announced, a second announcement was almost immediately made stating the intention of Chrysler and General Motors to close roughly 2,100 dealerships across the nation.   Later it became known that some of the proposed closures involved highly profitable dealerships in the same vicinity as less profitable or even UNprofitable ones which were to remain open . . . why the citizen-voter asked himself would you close any profitable dealerships, much less the MOST profitable ones?   If you’re closing dealerships why would you leave any UNprofitable opens at all? Apparently politics may have played a big part since the numbers of McCain campaign contributors dramatically outnumbered the numbers of Obama donors among those to be closed down. No wonder surveys show 42% of Americans say they won’t buy Chrysler or GM cars because of the bailouts . . . .



            To top matters off, an additional 2,800 dealerships have recently been notified that they’ll be closed down this year.   Yes, including some profitable and highly-profitable ones located near other UNprofitable or barely profitable ones allowed to stay open once again. These issues are now being contested bitterly by about 22% of the notified dealerships, but rest easy there’s hope;  it seems after all, if Barney Frank or other Democratic representatives or senators like your politics, dealers protesting the closures are far more likely to win the right to stay open after all.



            Given the scenario shown above, how much confidence would you place in a “Car Czar” named by President Obama whose integrity, qualifications and past history had never been investigated by Congress or the FBI (as customarily occurs with real presidential appointees)? Would you be surprised to find that said Czar (one of 40+ Czar appointments made by Obama to run the country like a personal empire without Congressional oversight), a fellow named Steve Rattner, was a very close personal friend of Barack Obama and one of the most successful Democratic political-fund raisers in history. Besides Czar Steve Rattner being himself a powerful Democratic fund-raiser; his wife Maureen White was formerly the finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Rattner was himself also formerly a reporter for the New York Times, among the most progressive newspapers in the country.   One might expect the tendency toward favoring Democratic contributors over conservative businessmen must have been difficult for Rattner to overcome . . . .



            But, but, but, would you be surprised to then find Mr. Rattner only a few months later quietly giving up his Car Czar position and, to avoid criminal punishment, paying out $10 million in settlement fees to the State of New York for his part in a kickback and influence-peddling scandal pulled off four years earlier. Would it surprise you that such a crucial player in the Obama administration was now hawking a book on his extensive experience in the auto industry despite having virtually none?   The extensive Imperial Obama czardoms are full of such stories and it’s not likely we’ll find fairness and free-market values well-protected by their ilk.



http://teapartyorg.ning.com/video/is-anyone-minding-the-store-at



            Supposedly the American Arbitration Association is now handling the 600+ claims from among the 2,800 revoked dealerships, but in actual fact numerous documented instances show that dealers who visited Democratic representatives and senators found themselves immediately granted face-to-face interviews and eventual successful retention of dealerships while dealers who’ve relied on merely filling out the required arbitration paperwork get no such preferential treatment . . . one can only imagine the huge amount of Democratic-butts that are kissed and the eventual campaign donations involved in this fair and unbiased process.   Of course  Republican congressman Buchanan who found his Chrysler dealership slated for closure (while a competing dealership chain in Missouri and Arkansas partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty and partly owned by a huge Democratic fund-raiser who have magically seen numerous nasty conservative competitors eliminated) has not had much luck appealing his case to the powers that be . . . it’s probably just a coincidence that while hundreds of G.O.P. contributors are being closed down, so far just one Obama 2008 contributor among all the hundreds of closures so far has surfaced.



            The Republican representative in question, (who has a Nissan dealership as well in Venice, Florida), called the proposed closures an outrage, “It’s no problem for me, it’s not about me, I’m going to be fine; but we’re talking about 100,000 jobs around the country . . . we’re supposed to be creating jobs.” Were these Chrysler and GM ownerships closed down for voting or donating to Republican candidates?



http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-trying-to-figure-out-if-chrysler-dealerships-were-politically-motivated-2009-5



            A  lawyer representing a group of  Chrysler dealers who are on the “hit list” deposed senior Chrysler executives and later told Reuters News Agency that the closings have been forced on the company by the White House. "It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers. It really wasn't Chrysler's decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President's automotive task force," according to attorney Leonard Bellavia.



            Government making economic decisions is bad, bad news . . . but government intervening in the free market (car dealerships are just small businesses after all) can be ultra-political at worst and just plain stupid at best. Since a significant amount of the closures were of profitable dealerships and since the Obama administration’s auto task force is doing the deciding on whose business lives or dies, on the face of it this looks very ugly. The “criteria” for these decisions MUST BE RELEASED to the public. 



            In fairness, we must say that since car dealerships are small businesses and often family-owned small businesses . . . any educated guess would have to put the political propensities of dealership owners at anywhere from 75% to 90% conservative. Since conservatives overwhelming favor low taxes, low government spending and operating government in a businesslike fashion without deficits and debt . . . one would expect donations from dealership owners to be overwhelmingly Republican. However, contrast the treatment of teachers (union members 90%; Democrats 86% and well-documented Obama supporters) with that of their handling of small businessmen in general, not to mention this potentially scandalous treatment of GM and Chrysler dealership owners . . . would we expect to see Mr. Obama’s people closing down school teacher positions in the rather brusque and unintelligent, indeed counter-intelligent fashion they’ve used on car dealers? Even IF no actual scandal emerges . . . surely all of  this points out the evil inherent in letting government pick and choose winners and losers in the free market?



            Let us be even more pointed in criticizing the egregious corruption we see here . . . Even the New York Times as well as hundreds of other liberal newspapers recently criticized Mr. Obama’s lackluster budget attempt. Your blogger Rajjpuut would say that in this "Obama-Motors Scandal" Mr. Obama willfully used a frayed toothpick when it came to cutting out parts of the bloated federal budget but chose a bulldozer when dealing with the GM and Chrysler dealerships.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Obama Budgets Much, Much Higher Taxes,

Spending, Interest, Debt, and a Useless Train

     After three years of promising America “hope and change,” Barack Obama has proven himself fixed in cement, immobile and unable to change. His recently submitted budget was hyped as “innovative” and “ground-breaking” and as “a solution for the $14.1 TRillion debt-bomb” now haunting the nation . . . instead it’s proven itself more of the same old same old tired tax and spend progressive politics.Mr. Obama has apparently forgotten the five high profile speeches he’s made to America’s citizens pledging each time that he would dedicate or re-dedicate himself to jobs-jobs-jobs. What his recent budget dedicates itself to, however, is a relatively few government created jobs created at the cost of impaling the entire private sector’s job-creating ability for the next decade. 

     His plans will completely gut the private sector’s ability to create jobs and destroy the jobs that ultimately provide the revenue for all government spending. In a phrase, Mr. Obama’s proposed budget would guarantee a rise in unemployment to around 12% within two years; and a $26 TRillion debt by 2021;  he also does NOT take into account the overall effect of the interest on the national debt which by 2018 would become the single largest item in the budget beyond even defense and Medicare.   That is, where a wise man would be looking to pay down the debt, Mr. Obama is increasing debt so dramatically that the very interest on that debt will become larger than the entire budgets for 98% of the world's nations.

     Under the guise of cutting spending and using a set of ultra-rosy economic projections that would make an Optimist’s Club president blush, Mr. Obama’s proposals for fanciful items like a nationwide high-speed rail system all comes down to far more government attempts to stimulate the economy based on a whole set of new taxes on corporations and individuals that will actually hammer the final nail into the coffin for America’s REAL economy. After initiating a high profile “Debt Commission” in 2010 which came up with some mild, but at least sensible approaches to handling the debt crisis, Mr. Obama has not only totally ignored the recommendations of his own commission, but decided not to even face the largest five problem areas: Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Social Security and the whole bundle of so-called “non-discretionary spending,” but rather to grandstand as an “innovator” when his real title should be “fiscal madman.” AmTrack has been losing money fast enough for five decades, Barack; we don’t need to lose ten times as much at six times the speed.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Americans Now Learning Real History,

A recent Rasmussen Reports Survey seems to show that Americans are starting to understand that the country was NOT rescued from the Great Depression by government spending and government policies (a.k.a. interference in the free markets), but rather that the government actually cost the nation millions of  jobs, intensified a normal recession with its increased spending, creating and lengthening the depression and eventually turning it into the “Great Depression.” The lesson, however, is not necessarily transferring into a greater understanding of today’s economics . . . .

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/february_2011/43_say_government_policy_mistakes_created_great_depression_of_1930s_26_disagree

According to the Rasmussen survey, 43% now say that government policy mistakes created the Great Depression of the ‘30s; while only 26% disagree and 31% say they are unsure. Americans, today however, are still greatly confused about the cause of the financial meltdown which, they think, began about October, 2007. More on that later . . . .

Despite the Rasmussen poll results, thanks to two and a half generations of revisionist history ,today far too many Americans still believe that Herbert Hoover was  a) a conservative rather than a progressive  b) that greedy Wall Street created the Great Depression c) that Hoover’s administration spent almost nothing fighting the economic problems d) that government spending can create jobs in the private sector e) that in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaigned for president against Hoover’s “conservativism” f) that FDR did virtually everything entirely different than Hoover and g) that FDR saved the country from the Great Depression. Let’s quickly put those lies to rest before dealing with today’s situation, eh?

Since progressivism (we must ‘progress’ beyond the out-dated and seriously flawed U.S. Constitution if we are ever to make ‘progress’ toward an earthly socialist or even Marxist Utopia) first became a serious undercurrent in American Politics in the 1890’s only once in the following 120 years has a serious economic downturn been handled by pure conservative restraint . . . and no, Ronald Reagan was NOT president when that happened (Reagan actually increased government spending while cutting taxes extra-severely and created some whopping deficits in the process of also creating twenty million jobs). 

Teddy Roosevelt was our first progressive president. You’ll remember that his “Bull Moose Party” was actually a third party officially known as, wait for it:  the “Progressive Party.” Teddy certainly had done a lot of questionable and presumably out-and-out unconstitutional things earlier when he was a Republican president, luckily most of them worked out pretty well for the nation.  Perhaps a Progressive president once every century or so wouldn’t be a bad thing, but certainly no more often?

Our first ultra-progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, however, was another story. Besides giving us the Federal Reserve Banking system and the income tax (still called today: “progressive” income tax), Wilson was a great propagandist who ran for a second term under the slogan “He kept us out of War” but within a month after his March, 1916 inauguration he deliberately and unnecessarily thrust us into World War I. He was the first truly big-spending president the country had ever known . . . way, way beyond the costs of the war. When his term was winding down, we were in a serious recession much worse than the recession sparked by the 1929 collapse. When he left office in March, 1921 the country was in a full-fledged depression.Curiously, those events are generally overlooked by history. People in the know, however, speak of “The Invisible Depression” or of the “Not-so-Great Depression.” Why was the Invisible Depression so invisible we don’t even know about it today?

            Two things: 1) revisionist progressive historians have done everything possible to hide this quite remarkable set of events and keep us from comparing it to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s approach while creating an enormous myth of FDR as a savior and 2) these policies worked out as the launching pad for the World’s most expansive decade in free market history and gets lost in the shuffle while everyone writes books and novels and treatises about the “Roaring ‘20’s” instead. What actually happened was this:

            Warren G. Harding and his vice president, Calvin Coolidge took office in March, 1921 with a full-fledged economic contraction underway. The full story is available from the Cato Institute here:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9880

but let’s sum it up briefly.  Unemployment stood 150% higher than it was a year earlier; and GDP was only 76% of 1920 levels. Harding immediately cut government spending 49%; taxes 48%; and reduced government debt 30%.   Unlike the business-bashing that Wilson, FDR, LBJ (Lyndon Johnson) and Obama are infamous for, the Harding administration did everything it could to get government out of business’ way.   In fifteen months the country was humming again and the Invisible Depression was over. When Harding died, VP, Calvin Coolidge continued the same policies saying “the business of America is business.” 

Where did Herbert Hoover come from? Hoover was a highly respected humanitarian with an engineering background that Harding installed as his Secretary of Commerce to appease certain Eastern Republican interests.  Under both Harding and Coolidge was very ineffective. Hoover promoted government intervention under the rubric "economic modernization" and tried to get Harding to dole out unemployment benefits to ease the pain of the high 1921 joblessness. Through the next eight years both presidents Harding and Coolidge largely ignored Hoover. 

Hoover was, in short a progressive . . .   Some people are aware of that but here’s what most don’t know. At the end of World War II, Hoover’s humanitarianism including involvement in a program akin to the Marshall Program after World War II which benefitted defeated Germany and the Bolsheviks in Russia. Hoover was so influential and well respected that the New York Times named him “One of the ten most important living Americans. Woodrow Wilson considered Hoover “my ideal successor,” Democratic leaders looked upon Hoover as a strong presidential candidate and FDR said, “There could be none finer.”    Hoover, who up to then was a-political, said that because of his childhood memories, he had no interest in being a Democrat (supposedly the only Democrat in his home city was “the town drunk) and ignored Democratic overtures.   Hoover decided he’d become a Republican and announced his candidacy for president but couldn’t get much Republican support although he did finish 2^nd in the 1920 California Primary.   Despite the gridlock at the RNC Convention that year, Hoover’s name was never seriously discussed and Harding became a popular compromise candidate and he won the nomination on the 10^th ballot.

After the 1920 Republican -- to appease influential Republicans on both coasts -- Harding installed Hoover as his Secretary of Commerce. Hoover’s only real contributions during his stint as Commerce Secretary were some important traffic safety (embracing motor vehicle standards, rules of the road, and urban traffic control) innovations. Nevertheless, he sought to expand the Commerce Secretary domain in every possible way. He became known for trying to take over parts of other cabinets so much so that the joke was that Hoover was "the Secretary of Commerce... and Under-Secretary of Everything Else” and Coolidge called him “Wonder-boy.” 

            After the combined Harding-Coolidge administration ended in 1928, Hoover again ran for president. As soon as he was elected in 1928, he set about making the government much bigger. His biggest moves began right after his inauguration and including implementing a wide series of farm programs and a much-criticized huge tariff increase.   A self-described “Progressive” and “Reformer,” Hoover saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by regulation and by getting government involved encouraging of volunteerism. Long before entering politics, he had denounced laissez-faire thinking.  As Commerce Secretary, he had taken an active pro-regulation stance. As President, he helped push expensive and interventionist tariff and farm subsidy bills through Congress. Hoover also increased taxes and increased the federal budget 50% (for comparison Barack Obama so far has only increased the budget 41%). It’s obvious that the real Hoover was nothing like the do-nothing Hoover that Progressive historians have insisted he was.  

Just as they did back then, the left (the progressives of today’s  Democratic Party) is now seeking to blame the current economic crisis on a conspiracy that is an inversion of the actual facts. By the way, back in 1932 FDR and his first VP-to-be called Hoover a “socialist” and promised to use Harding’s methods to regain prosperity . . . that is FDR promised to pay down debt; slash taxes; and slash government spending. Instead he actually raised the budget 100% above Hoover’s last budget; confiscated the nation’s gold and in other ways undermined the recovery so badly that only the nation’s entry into World War II nine years later got us out of the depression.

Most Americans have no idea about the facts you’ve just read and their opinions about government’s ability to create jobs in the private sector by increased spending are largely based upon the “Savior myth” of FDR as the man who heroically saved us from the Great Depression. 

When it comes to today’s problems and today’s myths the infamous Obama-car-in-the-ditch myth (blaming all our woes on conservatives and the free markets) tops them all.   The truth, however, is:

The fact that Frances Fox Piven is today still openly calling for bloody revolution and urging the poor and unemployed to “use their anger” and begin the Marxist “revolution” while the lame-stream, mainstream media is accusing the TEA Party of hate-mongering and ignoring Piven is the greatest possible journalistic malfeasance.

The fact that George W. Bush’s administration recognized the problem as early as January, 2005 and sought to repeal the horrific CRA ’77 laws but the vote was defeated. And that Bush made at least 19 separate speeches on the matter and continued to strive for elimination of CRA ’77 right up until finally in July, 2007 (30 months later) when a much weaker law was passed has not been allowed as part of the history of the meltdown even though Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in August, 2010 credited Bush with preventing an absolute collapse of our financial system and with preventing total disintegration of the housing market again reflects poorly on the so-called journalistic “profession.” The “watchdogs of the Republic” have turned on us . . . this is the biggest story of the last half of the 20^th and of the first decade of the 21^st Century and naturally, it’ll never be reported by the present generation of mainstream journalists . . . .

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut