government - ACTION - Command Center

Rajjpuut's Folly: Recent Rasmussen Polls Highlight Angry Americans

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 17, 2010 at 8:54am

According to the highly accurate Rasmussen Reports polls, 66% of American voters are angry at the media and 33% call themselves “very angry” at the media. The question did not differentiate which media sources were causing this anger. This is not necessarily a new perception, voters for years have insisted that the American media have a strong “liberal bias.” Back in the final months of the 2008 election, 51% of voters said that most reporters were trying to help Obama win the presidency while only 7% said the media was trying to help John McCain and 31% thought media coverage was neutral.

68% of voters say that when covering political campaigns and news, reporters try to help politicians they favor. 48% today believe that most reporters when they write or talk about President Obama are trying to help the president pass his agenda and only 18% of voters believe that reporters are interested in blocking Obama’s agenda. The media fairness issue is big in most voters’ eyes as 54% of voters think most reporters would hide any information they uncovered that might hurt a candidate they wanted to win, up seven points from November 2008 when voters already thought media bias was a problem.

In all 51% of voters today label reporters as more liberal than they are; while only 15% say reporters are more conservative than they are and 55% of voters say media bias is a bigger problem in America than campaign contributions from big donors.

Another area of anger is the Gulf oil spill. The vast majority of Americans are blaming British Petroleum (BP) for the explosion and leak. However, 67% of Americans believe the U.S. government does not inspect offshore oil rigs properly and 33% say it’s very likely that the problem could have been avoided IF government inspectors had done a better job. Certainly, since the ’90 and ’94 safety laws were “signed off on;” BP was one week away from getting a safety award from the government’s MMS; and since ten fire booms were required at the Deepwater Horizon site and zero were there . . . the public perception seems grounded in fact. Since these facts have NOT been widely disseminated by the media, perhaps this too is part of the anger Americans feel toward the media?

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Rajjpuut's Folly: Recent Research Conclusive, Incumbent Politician's KILL jobs

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 12, 2010 at 10:00pm

Harvard Study Reveals: Incumbents KILL jobs

FACTS are Facts, Incumbent Spending KILLS jobs***

OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! Rajjpuut, who distrusts big government mightily, has seldom enjoyed writing anything as much as this blog . . . . it began with a recent Rasmussen poll that said that only 18% of likely voters believed that additional government spending would help the economy. Were they right, those 18%? Certainly our president acts like he believes they’re right. Where to find the truth, where to turn?

Truth is crucially important to the well-being of a democratic-republic. Unfortunately, the newspaper of today is quickly becoming a dinosaur. Meanwhile, only one among the large broadcast TV news organizations is actually trusted more than doubted (FOX News) according to media polls from the last few years. Six important things that clearly can be and must be said about mainstream “lamestream media” today (whether broadcast or print media) are:

1. They love talking to politicians and celebrities in other fields like sports and entertainment.

2. They seem to believe it’s impossible to learn much about government from everyday citizens.

3. They actually believe that a politician and what he/she has to say is “important news” to the detriment of actually chasing down real news about the pain politicians bring into our daily lives and reading and studing proposed laws.

4. They have virtually no curiosity and believe almost anything a liberal or progressive politician tells them and doubt virtually everything a conservative politician utters. And, thus lacking that all-essential curiosity . . . .

5. Add little of value to the American scene. The so-called “Fourth Estate” has degenerated into public relations helpers for the political class (politicians and those whose jobs or livelihood are enhanced by politicians).

6. They have long ago forgotten what real journalism is about.

Rajjpuut intends to remind them what journalism is all about. Let’s take a look at their “a-curiosity” or “in-curiosity” a bit closer . . . at their tendency to believe what politicians they favor tell them and what Americans themselves believe about incumbents. One of the biggest reasons that term limits for congressmen has been an unpopular item is the perpetual editorial you’ll see about the need to maintain the status quo and support a district’s rep or state’s senator because that incumbent is seen as valuable. The idea that virtually all idiot mainstream media hold dear is that incumbency translates into tangible benefits that can be measured economically and in prestige. A one-word definition of that economic and prestige benefit? PORK!

Of course that old wives’ tale is based upon the most common economic myth of all, that private sector jobs can be efficiently and profitably be created by actions that politicians make. Bah humbug! This myth is the bedrock foundation of that idiotic notion known as “Keynesian Economics.” Keynesians consistently claim to have refuted the commonsense proposition that if 75% of all tax dollars were returned to the taxpayers and politicians had to live within a sound budget on the other 25%, this country would see a resurgence of unbelievable proportions . . . an economic miracle that would within half a decade eliminate our national debt and within four decades wipe out all the non-funded obligations. More on proving that later . . . but lets talk about PORK . . . .

While it might be true that PORK helps some, let’s say 3-4% of the populace, it’s undeniable that PORK and other unwise government spending boondoggles and government interference boondoggles (GSBs and GIBs) depreciates the lives of 96% of all American businesses and individuals. However, that last sentence is totally at odds with the myth we’ve been talking about. This myth about the value to a district of an incumbent representative and therefore the need to continually re-elect him is the single greatest driving force behind the swallowing-whole of the private sector by the government . . . . which occurred slowly since 1933, but which has accelerated under progressive politicians from LBJ to the present . . . to be concise every president except Ronald Reagan.

You remember Ronald Reagan, the fellow in office when the Berlin Wall came down and 21 million new jobs were created? And remember this, Reagan was obstructed by Democratic majorities in the house of representatives (the Contract with America in 1994, was the first time that Republicans held a majority there since 1954) for all eight years. He was forced to compromise with the Democrats and let through a huge shipload (whatever) of unwise spending bills to get his tax cuts approved. And Reagan wasn’t proud of the deficits and debt created on his watch . . . but what else could he do? The decade of the 90’s became the second most productive in history given the impetus of Reagan’s years (the most productive was the Roaring 20’s – more on that in a moment).

Four months ago, three Harvard professors at that university’s School of Business (Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval and Christopher Malloy) were researching the “Benefits of PORK myth.” By the way, ‘tis a well known fact that in large part, our universities are dominated by left-wing professors and even our business schools presumably are mostly believers in the Keynesian myths that the Nobel Prize people find so enthralling . . . so it’s utterly REFRESHING to find real curiosity among professors about government activities. Anyway, back to the chase: the threesome named above were examing correlations between “politically-connected firms and powerful legislative chairmen” when the rock they tripped over turned out to be the ultimate gold nugget of truth. In a phrase their serendipity kicked up the troublesome fact that GOVERNMENT SPENDING KILLS JOBS or as Mark Hemingway at Beltway Confidential put it . . . WHEN GOVERNMENT SPENDING GROWS, THE PRIVATE SECTOR SHRINKS. And as they got deeper into it, they concluded that SPENDING by INCUMBENT POLITICIANS KILLS JOBS. You can look over their research (finished three months back) here:

http://www.utahwfc.org/2010_papers/power.pdf

Or here:

http://www.people.hbs.edu/cmalloy/pdffiles/envaloy.pdf

Their study examining government earmark and budget data from the past four decades – found this trend to be consistent across all variables. Specifically, it affected both large and small firms in large and small states, and it followed the ascension of committee chairmen in both the House and Senate. The study found also that damage to the private sector was “partially reversed” when the committee chairmen either lost their seats or retired.

Let us be clear here, these three professors did what journalists should have long ago done, they went to study the assumption (in logic known as the “premise”) that as a state’s congressional delegation grew in stature and power in Washington, D.C., local businesses would benefit from the increased federal spending sure to come their way . . . but they discovered that the opposite was true. Indeed, companies experienced lower sales and downsized, cutback, retooled and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D budgets, and virtually all other expenses. Their study showed that as incumbency acculated following a congressman’s ascendancy to the chairmanship of important committees, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent.

Now Rajjpuut can hear the scared liberals and progressives in particular screaming, “But, but, that’s . . . just one study.” That’s true. One study that cries out for term limits for politicians and limited government and utter fiscal responsibility.

Here’s a slightly related study:

http://www.icis.com/blogs/green-chemicals/2009/04/the-price-of-green-jobs-learn.html

This link is about a study in which a government spending boondggle took Spain from a booming economy with 3% unemployment 13-14 years ago, to being only behind Greece among struggling European countries and to 17.8% unemployment last year and almost 21% this year. How? By forcing their country into a green jobs commitment similar to what President Obama is now proposing. Obviously, the Spanish citizens are NOT better off because of government spending and government interference. Notice those words in italics “by forcing.” No matter what country you live in, politicians tend to accumulate power and status as they accumulate “tenure.” As power nears abolute power, corruptness such as the PORK in the Harvard study and the “forcible rape” of Spain grow more and more probable. Power can corrupt. Absolute power virtually always does corrupt . . . .

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

*** three brief essays to convince anyone who “buys into” common sense are:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

the most famous essay in economics but one the Keynesians pretend doesn’t exist

http://jim.com/econ/chap02p1.html

is “The Broken Window” parable

http://jim.com/econ/chap01p3.html

is the “one lesson”

http://jim.com/econ/

is the entire book “Economics in one Lesson” from which the broken window and one lesson come

Rajjpuut's Folly: What exactly is a job? A government job? A REAL job?

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 10, 2010 at 9:00pm

Recently President Obama waxed positively orgasmic over the “creation” of 443,000 “new jobs” in the economy. De-emphasized in his glowing report was the fact that 411,000 of these “new” jobs were temporary census positions and not real jobs at all. By the way the Census department has 560,000 odd employees and roughly a full 150,000 of them are permanent employees. Since the cost of running the census this year was $14+ Billion or roughly $10 Billion more than it cost to count everybody in 2000; and since those permanent employees must logically speaking not have much to do for 9.5 years of every ten within the census cycle . . . a whole lot of waste seems to be wrapped up in this particular government department, no?

Waste in government is pervasive and all of it kills jobs. In a similar way, common sense would rule against 90+% of all government spending programs and 88% of all new laws. Without term limits for congress, the evil done by career politicians and particularly progressive Republican and Democratic career politicos feeding at the public trough has become almost fatal to the country as a whole. Perhaps they should wait two days for every ten pages of a proposed new law and cuss and discuss it thoroughly . . . . so the 3,000 page Obamacare bill finally passed would require a minimum of, say, 21 months to get the bill right . . . or better yet, pass a realistic and helpful 150 page law over a period of one month. In any case, government spending annihilates jobs and destroys the private sector. Back to the Census . . . .

In fairness, this is nothing new, President Clinton made a huge deal about a bunch of very similar “new” jobs in 2000 precisely ten years earlier and presumably President George H. W. Bush did so also in 1990 and President Jimmy Carter likewise in 1980, etc., etc. This is, of course, a big lie and the jobs in question are, of course, false entities by any reasonable understanding . . . virtually as soon as they’re “created” they disappear from the economy. Let’s delve more deeply into this matter . . . .

Because of population growth, the American economy right now requires averaging 250,000 “new” jobs to be created every single month just so our official UNemployment rate can stay the same (coming out of college or high school every June etc. we add three million new job-seekers every year . . . as we’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to matter to the politicians whether or not the jobs in question can reasonably be considered REAL jobs or not. To the more reasonable among us, a.k.a. “taxpayers,” however, it makes a huge difference. REAL jobs are permanent and they help slightly offset all the government tax-spending jobs out there which are now being created hand over fist. For now, let that definition of a “REAL job” suffice. Let’s look at government jobs and their characteristics, what are the differences between government jobs and real jobs?

Government jobs tend to be . . .

1. Artificial concepts not precisely “necessary” in the big picture. Are, for example, government census workers and government people examining bee population shifts, and government people researching “human dating behavior” strictly needed? What great loss to society would occur if they didn’t exist? How much taxpayer money would be saved if these jobs were eliminated (or if census workers asked one-third the questions)?

2. Government jobs are UNproductive. No goods or services are added to the country as a result of their existence.

3. Government jobs tend to pay more, thus putting the potentially best and most productive people into Unproductive positions.

4. Government jobs tend to have the greatest benefits adding to the overall cost and since their retirement benefits are among the greatest, that payment goes on sucking away at the country’s lifeblood long after these workers retire.

5. Government jobs tend to have the most substantial perquisites (perks). It isn’t just the President whose actual job cost cannot be calculated, but virtually all the upper echelon government employees whose perks bleed the rest of us dry.

6. Government jobs are destroyers of REAL jobs in the REAL economy. Spain was the poster-child for the European Union about a decade back with a booming economy and only 3% unemployment. Then they adopted a “green-jobs” policy. Today Spain’s unemployment is just over 20%. President Obama threatened us with the creation of five million green jobs. Since the $675,000 subsidization cost of each Spanish green job cost 2.2 jobs in the real Spanish economy, we could expect losing eleven million real jobs?

7. Jobs that create a whole artificial group (the “political class”) within our society which seeks to perpetuate itself and enlarge itself and its budgets at all costs. The “imperatives” of this new “special interest group” seem to be contrary to the interests and needs of mainstream Americans.

8. Jobs whose creation is aligned with bigger, more onerous government, more red tape and more likelihood of finding a “boot on our neck.”

9. Jobs which tend to be temporary such as the census workers’ situation. In the recent Spanish studies of their economic collapse. It was revealed that only one in ten of the green jobs they created actually lasted much beyond the original funding period. In terms of Mr. Obama’s proposal to create five million new green-tech jobs, that means that he’d only be creating 500,000 permanent jobs (at a cost of eleven million real permanent jobs, remember).

10. Jobs for which the real cost is never shown, or even ever known. How much does it cost to have a President of the United States? Obvious things like salary, upkeep of the White House and paying for the White House staff, security, Air Force One, Camp David, travel and entertaining foreign dignitaries and an extensive communications grid in place pale before the perks of the office. Look at the inaugurations, the presidential balls, bringing in of entertainers like Paul McCartney, etc, how much does it cost to have a president of the United States. Rajjpuut estimates this one employee costs us DIRECTLY at least $1 Billion. The indirect cost of Mr. Obama, personally is, of course, potentially in the hundreds of TRillions of dollars and that’s just the money cost . . . . How much does it cost to have an Environmental Protection Agency that puts 40% of some central California workers out of a job by insisting that a two-inch fish was endangered by irrigation pumps to water the vegetable basket of the nation?

11. Sometimes a job whose existence is onerous and an abomination to much of the rest of the country: IRS agents come to mind.

12. Political, often, by their very nature rather than neutral. Jobs aligned with OSHA and the EPA, for example tend to be created by liberals. Defense contracts tend to be created by actions from conservatives.

13. A situation where not only Unproductive but often actually slipshod work is done. Look at our present Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Laws were put in place in 1990 and 1994 to protect our safety. The Bush and Obama administration “signed off” on many of these safety requirements for British Petroleum (such as the need for ten fire booms on site – there were ZERO fire booms present when the explosion occurred). Indeed, the governmental regulation agency MMS was prepared to give BP its highest safety award five or six days after the explosion occurred – that notion is now on hold, and no award has been granted. One of the biggest series of pathetic and scary jokes is the notion of “Close enough for government work.”

14. Often a job where ethical considerations are routinely NOT even considered. During the Bush administration, a governmental oversight group found out that oil companies were routinely wining, dining, having sex with, and providing drugs for the governmental employees charged with oversight for the oil industry. NICE.

15. Despite the “merit system,” of exams, etc. created for civil servants a job given to political friends more often than not. Of all the stimulus funds thus far over 68% has been spent in areas that voted disproportionately for Obama over Mc Cain in 2008. Even though many more actual counties either voted for Mc Cain or slightly-favored Obama , only 31% of the total stimulus funds went there.

16. Despite the so-called merit system, a job given to certain preferred portions of society over the rest of society. Affirmative action in government hiring has been an abysmal failure. The Sotomayor fire-fighter case highlighted some of the obvious discrepancies.

17. Often a job that works at cross-purposes to the rest of society. Rajjpuut recently found himself with a suspended driver’s license courtesy of a ridiculous clerical error when a paid speeding ticket dropped through the cracks in the system. When asked how to get the matter straightened out . . . ‘you’ll have to wait 30 days that’s the requirement, can’t get around it,” no way to correct their mistake . . . . So many of burdensome errors and deliberate red tape and obstruction and waste of time in society is attributable to government officiousness. OSHA and the IRS and EPA cost of tens of billions of dollars every year. Teachers across the nation (hired by the school districts but loyal only to their union) are now teaching that the Founding Fathers were tyrants and racists and otherwise no goodniks while praising labor unions and socialism in their classes. In Los Angeles the lie that the two Arizona immigration laws are racist has been ordered taught in civics classes. One L.A. history making a "field trip" to Arizona to protest the Arizona immigration law before travelling posed before a mural in their school with Castro, Che Guevarra, Uncle Ho and Lenin. Three other L.A. social studies teachers are overtly and directly emphasizing to Hispanic students (at least 40% of them illegals) the need for a Revolution within the United States to give back lands lost by Mexico in 1946's Mexican-American War . . . . which government are these govt. employees working for?

18. Many government jobs are “make-work” creations designed to expand the empire of some muckety-muck bureaucrat. Promotions routinely come (all out of proportion to actual “production”) to those in government who command the most money . . . which usually means those who command the most subordinates. Expand the “scope” of your office (usually unnecessarily and unwisely) and get promoted to a higher position where you, of course, want to expand again. Activity is easily confused for results in government . . . .

19. Without exception, governmental regulatory jobs are absolutely dominated by the industries they supposedly oversee – remember our example of the (literally) in bed together relationship between the big oil companies and MMS. For another example, at the managerial and supervisory levels, the FDA is virtually, the best job in the world for ex-bigwig pharmaceutical workers to consider. The ethics, or lack thereof, of this incestuous relationship literally kills many Americans every year. What is the number three cause of deaths and number five cause of hospital visits in the country? Huge numbers of "iatrogenic" deaths and injuries from legally prescribed medicines result every year from FDA incompetence. The ADA and its oversight of the food industry is presumably even less compent than the FDA now, over a century since Sinclair Lewis wrote his blockbuster novel, "The Jungle" exposing corruption and uncleanliness in the American food industry.

20. Require “emergency” spending virtually every year. To “justify their budgets, government agencies routinely find themselves spending money willy-nilly so that next year’s budget can be as large or larger.

21. Is often a necessary job, which when done rightly puts the job occupant out of work. This happens when a war is won, for example. But most of the time on the rare occasion when a government job has solved the problem it was created to end, the job is somehow made a permanent drain upon society. In fact, it’s often a job whose self-perpetuation is an actual danger to the country. Most people do not know that originally, the U.S. congress met every other year for 140 days only. Texas in its wisdom has a similar part-time legislature even today. The cost to the nation of a permanent legislature is incalculable, bad laws clearly outnumber good ones by about a 12/1 ratio. Then there’s the pork and other corruptions that occur because of the need to get re-elected of the incumbent rascals that have already hurt us . . . etc., etc., ad nauseum.

22. A government job is quite often a position whose day-to-day operating standards and procedures defy all logic. Families or small businesses who operated using the same guidelines that government routinely follows would be quickly ruined. Big businesses could survive a bit longer but who can operate successfully a) without a budget such as our present Congress is now doing even though a budget is required by law b) continually spending much more than you have c) creating set-asides such as Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid and then never actually setting the money required by law aside so that now besides our almost $14 TRillion national debt we also have almost $110 TRillion in UNfunded obligations d) Not honoring simple common-sense, for example the new "Pay-Go" law was a good idea. It said no new spending could occur without either the generation of a new tax or the cutting in costs from elsewhere in the federal budget to pay for the proposed new project. How often has Pay-Go been followed since it was created in February? NEVER! The rascals simply call everything an "emergency" and then forget about Pay-Go.

23. When it comes to progressive job creation, there seems to an "ivory tower" approach consistently in evidence. Let's talk about the Gulf oil spill again. Rabid environmentalism stopped much of the inland drilling and pumping and all the near shore drilling and pumping. The facts are that BP screwed up monumentally; governmental regulators -- whose responsibility it was to keep BP operating safely -- screwed up monumentally; and environmentalists who pushed for exactly the deep offshore drilling we now are faced with when we didn't really have the completely safe technology to do it are also deeply at fault. Another example: in 1972, worldwide deaths from malaria amounted to fewer than 50,000. However, since the U.N. and the United States outlawed DDT, fifty million people have died around the world due to pseudo-science claims that DDT was harmful to non-insect life never proved. The president's aim to create five million green-tech@@ jobs is likewise based upon the pseudo-science of global warming^^ and is presuming that "saying it's so makes it so." If President Grant had said that we were going to create 800,000 new electric jobs in 1870 . . . his saying it's possible is NOT equivalent in reality to it being possible. 800,000 American jobs in electricity didn't come to be until about 1922 over half a century later. How many real jobs would have been lost over those fifty years if Grant and his successors had followed such an ignorant path? What would have been the economic and overall history of the country? Promising the unachievable has grown into a virtually criminal political art.

Here, in a very brief essay, is much that people need to know about how economics actually works in modern life . . . .

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

Liberals and Progressives do not know nor appreciate that little essay, they believe that the creative problem-solving part of human nature is actually benefitted by big government. The sad pattern is that liberals and progressives do not have even the slightest understanding of economics and therefore proselytize a utopian picture totally out of contact with the demands and conditions of the REAL world. Survival and "thrival" in the Real world is based upon surplus goods, a.k.a. profits. Liberals and progressives have a real yen for criticizing profits and business at every turn. Not realizing that prosperity means surplus, and "obscene profits," Liberals condemn the very lifeblood of modern society. REAL jobs are created by four possible motivations:

a. survival problems

b. profit/surplus problems

c. combinations of a and b

d. innovation and entreprenuerial expression

Taking things back to "basics" two million years ago . . . virtually everything that was done by humanoids other than children's play and sex during pregnancy was a necessary "job" for the individual and group's survival. In particular, the need for nomad hunter-gatherers to find adequate shelter; protect themselves from large carnivorous animals; and most importantly to secure adequate food and water was often an hour-to-hour imperative. Their eonomic system was absolutely 100% communistic.

Shortly after the coming of CroMagnon man roughly 35,000 years ago, earlier patterns of nomadic hunting became culturally locked in and tied to technological innovations (like taming of the dog; making of spear-chuckers, bows and arrows, spears and hand tools, domestic tools, tents, clothing, sewing tools, water bladders, leather bags, and later even baskets) and for the first time ever . . . occasional surpluses were possible. The necessity of constant travel made it impossible to carry much in the way of surplus clothing, tools, weapons, etc. -- even heavy tents were a huge problem . . . but food and water surpluses were absolutely necessary for Cro-Magnon's. Virtually every culture gathered vine-dried fruits equivalent to raisins and learned to dry meat. A well-known example, during the late Cro-Magnon years, the American Indians' pemmican was one of the greatest such innovations: a fat-dense**, calorie-rich, nutritious, easily carried food surplus. Virtually every family had their own "spiced-up" pemmican recipes passed down from mother to daughter. Because each family was largely responsible for its own survival and creation of surpluses a cross between communism and light "capitalism" say 98% communistic. (We exaggerate some in calling any part of this system "capitalistic" because until the adaptation of money in many cultures roughly 7,000 years ago, very little "specialization of labor " beyond gender and age specialization which had been going on for almost two million years actually existed.) Again, we're talking 98% communistic or socialistic society.

When natural "Edens," such as in coastal situations in the Mediterranean and California and Egypt, existed greater surpluses were possible and less travelling was necessary. Soon rudimentary agriculture became possible and domestication of the horse, goat, sheep, cattle and semi-domestication of the cat (feral cats loved "amber waves of grain" and the mice, rats and other rodents that fed upon the crops) provided the possibility of "permanent villages" existing. And what exactly made this all possible? SURPLUS a.k.a. PROFIT. Specialized labor like carpentry, pottery, basket-weaving, farming, fishing, metalworking and even soldiering first appeared during this era in these Edens. No longer was it necessary for the full range of hunter-gatherer skills to be practiced by virtually every single member of the tribe. At first a strictly barter economy existed but soon money was created. After the initial idea of surplus (storing up some of the excess food against "rainy days" which operated over two million years to ensure mankind's survival and advancement) money was the greatest single innovation for mankind's survival and advancement of all. Money was, in effect, nothing less than "stored surplus work." While this might sound to most of us today like pretty much a 100% capitalistic society . . . reality was considerably different since forcible tax collection (of grain and goods and coin) by tyrannical rulers was pretty much the order of the day. Later as "nobility by direct bloodline from God" became a normal part of the ruling class's rationale for existence, various sorts of feudal-type arrangements became the norm in virtually every "civilized country" or duchy in the world with a trifling few short-lived Republics thrown in among all the ordinary despotic states and semi-benevolent monarchies.

The economic system known as capitalism was found almost purely among guild-craftsman and folks like independent black smiths and cottage industries like weaving particularly in England and until about 1750 that's the way it was. The "most capitalistic" country in the world with its merchants, craftsman, cottage industries and independent farmers was perhaps 40% capitalistic. The feudal system with all the British lords and ladies was still deeply tied into the overall economic picture. Then came James Watt and the Industrial Revolution. Although the Luddites (cottage weavers put out of work by the water and steam power looms and other textile innovations) rebelled, the benefits to all British society of cheap cloth was among the most shocking and positive things that had ever happened in all of history.

Without the expansion of nobility into the American colonies, rugged individualism prevailed and this nation quickly became the most capitalistic society the Earth has ever seen, perhaps 99.7% so in 1787. The last burst of capitalism released upon America occurred during the Reagan years 1981-1989 when 21 million jobs were created. However, because Republican Reagan was faced with Democratic control of the House and Senate and needed to compromise with Dems to pass his own pet projects . . . the National Debt skyrocketed.

The single-most Capitalistic period in American history was the Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge era sandwiched between progressive presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover. The "Unknown Depression" of 1921-22 was met steadfastly by Harding and Coolidge (after Harding's Death) by cutting taxes 50% and spending 49%. The Roaring Twenties that ensued was the single most transformational decade in history as the Unknown Depression ended in late 1922. Little known by most people is that Democratic progressive Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran constantly and was elected for promising he would return to the Harding-Coolidge tax-reduction and spending- reduction paradigm as he succeeded progressive Republican Hoover. He obviously lied and did the opposite and America suffered under a dozen-year Great Depression extended by his socialistic efforts while the rest of the world had a fairly short "little 'd' depression." Ultimately, the facts of economic life are this: as in so many other ways, when it comes to jobs and the economy: "that government is best which governs least."

Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

** should you ever find yourself in an extended survival situation, it isn't only getting enough calories and traditional nutrients that matters, you could actually get 3,500 calories a day and die malnourished if you can't supply the body's need for fat from the ultra-lean rabbits, fish and birds you're most likely to catch.

@@the Spanish green-tech economic debacle is clearly pertinent

^^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece

"THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE BUT FIRST IT WILL MAKE YOU MISERABLE"

Posted by GrizzlyMama on June 4, 2010 at 11:25am

Yesterday I heard it was James A. Garfield who said "The truth will set you free but first it will make you miserable.

I'm just asking; Is America uncomfortable or miserable enough to welcome the light of truth and freedom? What form of misery will strike the fire of truth in American hearts and souls? Do today's Americans believe in God? Will people of God welcome His light upon their decisions and actions while they defend and uphold our constitution and country? Will America first be uncomfortable and miserable in God's truth in order to restore it's freedom and liberty? Must Americans suffer greater misery at the hand of tyranny?

For about 110 years people have been trying to take this country apart piece by piece, little by little The Progressive Movement (Communism, Socialism, etc) deliberately, manipulated, attacked and subverted our Constitution. Four Presidents, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Lyndon Johnson and now Barrack O'bama have executed the Progressive agenda. Each President did a lot of damage to America however Progressives and their process have now escalated to unimagined proportions.

Our parents and Grandparents fought Progressives and succeeded in 1946. After World War II the Progressives wanted to return the country to prewar conditions. Americans had experienced the "Great Depression", FDR and his destruction and they wanted no more. Our parents and Grandparents had enough and started a strong campaign of "ENOUGH". Americans fought the enemy together during the war and they stood strongly united after the war. They stopped further erosion of our constitution by electing a Republican and the Progressive Movement though not eradicated was slowed down. At the assassination of John F. Kennedy the country mourned and Lyndon Johnson took office he did more damage put the agenda had been slowed and Johnson didn't run for reelection. Progressive Republicans only proved to be more patient and slower in their reform of America. We had changed leadership but didn't dig out the roots of the Progressive Movement; they just slithered into hiding.

Average Americans just wanted to settle into living the American dream.

A Progressive education system took hold and changed the country's written history; a new generation soon forgot. Progressives in hiding created special interest groups under the disguise of working for the good of the people and continued to invade our culture, religions, values and principles. Sadly, we let them because we had worked hard, fought hard and wanted the good life without misery for our children and ourselves. We easily slipped into denial and apathy while we lived the American dream and gave our children all we could. There were many reasons; political correctness being one that supported closed eyes. We finely lost our common sense, lost sight and found ourselves blind to the "Truth". The Magnificent Giant dozed off too often and then finally fell into a deep sleep.

I believe in America, her people are capable of doing anything when they are ready, have had enough and accept the truth. The "Magnificent Giant" is awakening, not one by one but thousands at a time. I'm just asking, have we had enough? Are Americas ready or making ready for the misery we will endure as truth's fire within grows, purifies, cleanses and changes our lives forever? "

The truth will set us free, but first it will make you miserable" The fire of truth does not consume; with truth we will find our individual redemption, restore our honor and country and we will be set free.

It's the American way.

I was told by a civil war expert at a NC historical park, the civil war was not fought over slavery

Posted by Stanley Bolten on May 30, 2010 at 12:30am

Author: Brian D. Hill

Source: USWGO Alternative News

Note: What I am talking about here is where the confederacy was more for states separation rights which should be guaranteed in the Constitution and the whole thing was not mainly over slavery and not
over racism but states rights were not given which seem to have
triggered the civil war.

I was told at a civil war state park by a knowledgeable woman that worked at a North Carolina historical park that seem to not be afraid to speak the truth even if it may have been against the US Government.

She told me that the civil war was not fought mainly over slavery, that the south was going to eventually abolish slavery just as the North, that it was mainly over the Confederates wanting to create a
union that supported states running their own governments and that they
can separate from the union.

So was this whole slavery civil war talk a lie, propaganda from the Federal Government to turn people against separating from the union anytime the Federal Government gets hijacked by special interest groups
and secret societies and which we are clearly seeing at this time.

This woman was very knowledgeable but I will refuse to tell her name and the historical park she worked at for safety purposes and so she can keep de-brainwashing people without the federal government
targeting her.

I think it is interesting that she speaks the truth, that the whole civil war, the whole confederacy was not mainly fought over slavery but was actually fought over states rights.

Also she was saying that the North was making more money then the South even though they did work in agriculture but made less money because the North used Industry and I guess they felt they were being
underpaid and were being used by the North so all these different
reasons started the Confederacy which led to the civil war and it was
not mainly fought over slavery.

I am shocked that a person working for a state parks service which is government-run would speak out against the federal government or teach that propaganda has turned people against the confederacy but I
guess since shes working with the state and not the federal government
she rather the states ran things then the federal government I agree
with her if that is what she believes.

The Federal Government is a centralized power establishment and if a few elites run the whole country disaster can unfold like it has with politicians taking bribes to pass stupid and unconstitutional laws,
secret societies taking control of politician seats, and manipulating
the media to their own uprising of their expandable powers.

So I rather be for states rights then being a federalist because our federal government can be easily hijacked and overthrown and if our troops were run by states they can tackle the corrupted states if those
states planned to overthrow the free states, then the free states can
fight back against those that wish to destroy those freedom supporting
states.

So we need to start debunking the propaganda that the states that wanted separation from the union or the confederacy was all for slavery and racism but that they just wanted to have decentralized power
because the only way to commit treason at a very high level and take
over a high percentage of the whole world is centralization because it
would be too hard to practically commit treason in every state so the
treasonous traitors of the elite thought about centralizing government
and have all 50 states under their control.

I thank this anonymous educator for bringing out the real truth about the confederacy.

Rajjpuut's Folly: Obama's Power-Grabbing Repeately Violates 10th Amendment

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on May 24, 2010 at 2:24am

Patriotism: a High-Demand Commitment

Part II: Guaranteeing Our Freedoms

Audacity of Presidential Power-Grabbing

Abhorent to Nation’s Founders

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism

http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/06/01/meaning-of-federalism/

http://www.umt.edu/law/faculty/natelson.htm

In the first installment of this series on constitutional-conservativism
(http://rajjpuutsfolly.blogtownhall.com/2010/05/19/obama,_mainstream_media_label_tea_party_insurgents.thtml) we looked at freedom, per se. Rajjpuut continues with a close look at personal and state freedoms as discussed in the all-important 10^th Amendment, sometimes known as the “Federalism Amendment.”

Barack Obama is the national nightmare that some supporters of the Articles of Confederation and other anti-constitutionalists back at the nation’s founding strenuously condemned. Seemingly ignoring all seventeen of the allotted powers (enforcing our borders; standing up to our nation’s traditional enemies; obeying the uniform laws of bankrupties; and keeping treaties with our friends are all powers which Barack Obama has not chosen to exercise according to the folks in Arizona; South Korea; certified creditors of GM in Indiana; and allies in Poland to name just a few instances), Obama has made himself a picnic in abusing the constitution by advancing powers NOT granted by the Constitution. Many thought that Franklin Delano Roosevelt grossly overstepped the bounds of federalism with the 40 new agencies his administrations created. Barack Obama created almost 390 new agencies just in one law: Obamacare.

The powers of the federal government are listed in Article I, Section 8. They are available for anyone to read and simple to understand. More importantly, these powers

A. follow a simple, predictable pattern and

B. Much discussion was also made of which powers the federal government definitely did not have and should not have.

In its obvious general outline of powers for the federal government which amount to the 17 specific powers allowed, the Constitution provides for a government which protects the nation’s borders and defends against foreign invasion by maintaining an efficient army and navy; deals with custom and tariff matters; conducts foreign relations including war and treaties; settles disputes among the states and facilitates trade and intercourse among the American people and states and with the peoples and states within sovereign foreign nations.

Before looking at the powers the founding fathers refused to grant to the federal government, it’s crucial to understand that in a federal system such as ours the efforts over the entire two hundred plus years of the nation’s existence to turn the states into “departments or extensions” within the federal government . . . that is, into mere “administrative units” of the national govermnet is the greatest single threat to our nation’s survival as the founders foresaw and planned for it. Recent “States Rights” discussions (that is, up until the contemporary furor in Arizona over that state’s immigration laws and the 21 State “rebellion” against Obamacare directiives for the states that would literally bankrupt every state both calling for a new appreciation of the 10^th Amendment to the Constitution) arguments were as insipid as the notion that people wishing upon stars might somehow influence the cosmos to somehow influence our fates. Lyndon Johnson’s expansion of the “Welfare State” is the prime example of this insidious trend both in Welfare itself and in Medicaid especially . . . the states were turned into administrative arms of the federal government’s policies. Nixon’s policies of “federalistically” turning over large grants of federal monies to the states has undoubted great practical value, but only confuses the issue . . . why is that money in the federal hands in the first place?

Federalism, and specifically the 10^th Amendment, is the single greatest system ever devised for the protection of individual and state liberties and for providing counter-balance to over-reaching by the federal entities. Powerful centralized government is the threat to our listed freedoms and to freedom of action. That is, because we don’t have LISTED LIBERTIES for the individual or the states . . . but they are free to do whatever is not listed as criminal . . . we have true liberty. Confusion about the limits of federal government must be cleared up and must be always aligned with the intents of the founding fathers if this blessed state of liberty is to prevail. All powers NOT listed in the Constitution are specifically reserved for the states and individual citizens.

And just how far has the nation strayed from this wise path? Virtually no one today understands the breadth of discussion, consideration and debate that ensued once it was popularly agreed that the Articles of Confederation were too weak. During the argument going on over possible adoption of the Constitution, the Constitution’s advocates also enumerated powers the federal government absolutely would not have. The Bill of Rights was, one answer to critics. The most Republican document in the world still stands us in good stead 223 years after its creation. But the biggest protection, the thing that satisfied virtually all the Constitution’s detractors was the addition to the Bill of Rights of the last of the original Amendments: the 10^th Amendment. The federal government would NOT be granted the potential for unlimited power but severely limited in power and abuse potential and all powers NOT specifically enumerated for the federal government would be reserved to the individual states and to individual citizens.

In addition, moreover, the Constitution’s proponents publicly told the people some of the important subjects which fell within the states’ exclusive jurisdiction - and outside the federal government’s control in a variety of speeches, newspaper articles, letters, and pamphlets. Chief among these proponents were, of course Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Other names of note include:

James Wilson (convention delegate and chief proponent in Pennsylvania), Edmund Pendleton (chancellor of Virginia and chairman of his state’s ratifying convention), James Iredell (North Carolina judge, pro-Constitution floor leader at his state’s ratifying convention and later U.S. Supreme Court Justice), Maryland Congressman Alexander Contee Hanson, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant (a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court), Alexander White (Virginia lawyer, ratifier, and later U.S. Senator), prominent businessman Tench Coxel and John Marshall (ratifier and later U.S. Chief Justice).

Here are some of the powers they solemnly promised would be outside the federal sphere:

governance of religion
training the militia and appointing militia officers
control over local government
most crimes
state justice systems
family affairs
real property titles and conveyances
wills and inheritance
the promotion of useful arts in ways other than granting patents and copyrights
control of personal property outside of commerce
governance of the law of torts and contracts, except in suits between citizens of different states
education
services for the poor and unfortunate
licensing of taverns
roads other than post roads
ferries and bridges
regulation of fisheries, farms, and other business enterprises.

The vast majority of these areas have been encroached upon by the federal government already. For example, the national endowment for the arts and other such organization is not a federal matter; involvement in the welfare state is forbidden; as is educational involvement; interstate highways; income taxes; inheritance taxes; family affairs; the national guard as we know it; control of personal property; and a hundred other areas where the federal government has crossed the line drawn by the 10^th Amendment.

Right now our National Debt is approaching $14 TRillion; more shockingly our national obligation for Government Spending Boondoggles and Government Interference Boondoggles (GSBs and GIBs such as Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid) has reached $109 TRillion . . . all this problem debt was created in areas where the Constitution forbid the federal government to tread. The lifeblood of the nation has been poisoned by this wanton and total ignorance and denial of the 10^th Amendment. Most Americans not only don’t understand the provisions of the 10^th Amendment, but because of the welfare state and the gross entitlement sentiment many citizens would also feel threatened by the loss of federal government involvement. The problems are exacerbated when its realized that these programs were all created as set asides and that congress never obeyed its own laws and set the money aside for these programs. Here, then lies the root cause of our present fiscal unaccountability and the potential for danger from the Obama administration’s headlong power grab . . . .

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

WOODY ALLEN WANTS TO MAKE OBAMA DICTATOR IN CHIEF

Posted by Cathy O'Brien on May 20, 2010 at 1:29pm

Timing is everything. I say this being a reformed lib, raised in a family of thespians, studying "make believe" with the hopes of following in their footsteps, but eventually becoming a very young mother and raising a child in the 1960's, no less. Liberalism was doomed, as the last leftist I ever voted for was Jimmy Carter -- God help me! But, my upbringing did give me a certain perspective into the mind of far left radicals (which my parents were not), especially in the entertainment field.

WOODY ALLEN WANTS TO MAKE OBAMA DICTATOR IN CHIEF... http://bit.ly/bKDKXF

OBAMA'S GOV'T IGNORED BY HISPANIC/LATINO PROTESTS

Posted by Walt on May 1, 2010 at 6:12pm

Since Arizona's just illegal immigrationlaw states in large part what federal law already states, why arepro-illegal groups and persons not protesting out in front of the WhiteHouse and threatening D.C. with silly boycotts?

Since 1986,federal law (Title 8 US Code, 1304 & 1324)has held that: it is acrime for aliens to refuse to register and be fingerprinted;

aliens 18 years and older must carry an alien registration card or proof of registration;

employers are prohibited from hiring illegal aliens;

employersmust verify identify and eligibility of all new hires through thepresentation of specified documents - if they do not have the correctdocuments that cannot be employed.

News reports on Arizona's newlaw love to mis-use the word "now" when telling listeners/readers thatimmigrants must "now" carry documents to prove their legal status inArizona.

This has been the case since 1986 throughout the wholecountry, thus the word "now" is used to inflame the controversy andoverstate the significance of the new law.

But that's expected,many reporting the news, like Katie Couric, have never really proventhemselves to be professional newspersons.

obama hasn'tinvalidated these laws so shouldn't he be included in the criticismfrom those who favor illegals making themselves at home?

Similarly,obama's Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano, as democrat governorof Arizona in 2007 signed the Legal Arizona Workers Act which gavecourts the right to revoke the business license of any business thatemploys illegals...why are they not protesting Janet?

Now thatshe is in obama's government however, Janet is questioning theconstitutionality of the current illegal immigration law signed by thecurrent republican governor.

That's being sort of Kerry-esque: "I was actually tough on immigration before I was weak on it."

In2007 there were at least 35 local ordinances passed along the samelines as the Arizona law, so Arizona's law is not nearly as historicaland earth shattering as CNN would leave you to believe, yet it isgetting played as such.

Some twit with a crayon included aneditorial cartoon in USA Today on Thursday which showed a sheriffconfronting a group of people holding the constitution and demanding tosee their "papers."

This has been ok under federal law since 1986, has he used this cartoon before? Probably not.

Federallaw illegal immigration law since 1986 has not been carried out -enforced, there in lies the source of today;s discontent.

Aphoto caption in April 28 edition of USA Today said that demonstratorsin Illinois were recently arrested as they attempted to interfere withthe scheduled transportation of immigrants ordered to be deported.

They are protesting the carrying out of the law...incredible.

These people ought to be put on hold when they next call 911.

Anotherphoto caption showed protesters of Arizona's law in NY City anddescribed these twits as "supporters of illegal immigrants..."

Supporting illegal activity?

What other laws would you like us to ignore?

Can I choose one?

Wow.

The Wall Street Reform Act: Is it the fox designing the hen house?

Posted by Richard Burns on April 28, 2010 at 10:17am

The big debate in Washington is how to fix Wall Street. Wall Street’s greed caused the financial collapse. Wall Street earns too much money. Wall Street is the root of the problem in “haves” and “have-nots”.

H.R. 4173, Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 is bill that the House Committee on Financial Services has written to fix the problems with Wall Street. The bill’s intention will be to avoid another financial meltdown. The Chairman of this committee is Congressman Barney Frank.

The highlights of the bill are as followed:

1) Consumer Protections: A new consumer protection agency, CFPA, to protect Americans from Wall Street. The sounds good, but the idea of Wall Street is based on speculating. No bill can protect the consumer from loosing money on a bad speculation. However, this new agency, CFPA, will create more deficit spending, increase the national debt and reduce America’s ability to compete.

Sensible Sally Animated Webisode Series: A forth graders POV on The National Debt

Posted by Richard Burns on April 28, 2010 at 10:16am

At deficitaid.com, I've been working for a year building content to inform, educate and entertain those interested in government spending, deficit spending and the National Debt. Our belief and approach is that this country can not change without first understanding the basic issues. Many don't know the difference between the deficit and National debt which is a real big problem. More don't even care - that's worse.

Using an animated cartoon character, Sensible Sally, with a bit of humor, iphone apps for National Debt Counter and providing a resource to find articles, videos and charts on government spending is what we are doing to try to spark an interest and debate.

Sensible Sally, the cartoon series, is currently running three episodes. My favorite is Monopoly Money. You can find it on the homepage deficitaid.com.

I'm happy to participate on this website.

Thanks.

WHO YOU GONNA TRUST?

Posted by Cathy O'Brien on April 22, 2010 at 6:06pm

America is waking up, but is the damage done so far irreparable? I'd like to think better late than never, but there's a lot of hard work ahead in order to keep our country on its intended track as laid out by our Founding Fathers. The biggest immediate task is to carefully choose constitutional conservatives for both houses this coming November -- in SIX months.

WHO YOU GONNA TRUST?
We need more distrust of government for the very good reason...
http://bit.ly/d6A47o

Rajjpuut's Folly: Government Malpractice and Financial Malfeasance Peak with Obama

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on April 20, 2010 at 10:56pm

http://www.forbes.com/2002/07/25/accountingtracker.html

If Ol’ Rajjpuut were to visit the web link above and take the top twenty-two corporate scandals before 2003 and then throw in our present financial Armageddon’s corporate misdeeds and add them all together . . . that is, all the Wall Street, all the Bank and lending institutions, and AIG insurance malfeasance dropped into the mix already created . . . and stack all that money in a pile of George Washingtons, one-dollar bills. We’re talking about a stack reaching roughly the distance from the earth to the moon and back down and once around the earth’s equator . . . a truly significant stack of money -- so far, so good.

IF now in a separate pile we take the full cost of federal government malfeasance from just nine sources including both debt and unfunded obligations: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid’s federal component, the two separate stimulus bills in late 2008 and early 2009, and the cost of the government’ three mortgage-guarantee bills (‘1977 Community Re-investment act; 1992 expansion forcing Fanny and Freddy to join the CRA ’77; and Clinton’s 1998 mortgage-guarantee on steroids expansion of the two earlier bills) and finally the so-called health care ‘reform’ law popularly known as “Obamacare.” In the government stack let’s use Ulysses S. Grant, fifty-dollar bills. And, lo and behold the government’s stack of fifties is roughly the same size as the stack of ones . . . oooooops, maybe we shouldn’t be giving government all this control of our lives.

Now Rajjpuut isn’t saying financial reform isn’t needed. True reform is, indeed needed. But “Barack Banking” as contained in the 3,137 pages of the bill before the House of Representatives is just a ploy to expand government control and also a subterfuge to allow all the ACORN-clones now operating under different names to receive renewed funding from the federal government. This is quadruple-dangerous because all Rajjpuut’s loyal readers now realize that ACORN and lawyers like Barack Obama were the agents provacateur abusing the three poorly-written and poorly-conceived mortgage-guarantee laws to force banks and lending-institutions to grant ridiculously unwise loans to people without jobs; people without I.D.; people with abysmal credit ratings; people without home addresses; and especially undocumented illegal aliens. These Cloward-Piven actions by ACORN are the single-most exacerbating events responsible for the creation of the housing bubble and the sub-prime lending crisis that brought this country to its knees.

Given all the evidence, let us just say this: government is ever trending toward becoming more and more government-centric and it’s becoming more and more difficult if not impossible to get government to pay attention to the Constitution, the people and the states . . . in today’s world government only listens to government and the itch to build more government is their main rallying point. This Barack Banking bill is just one more example of a GIB/GSB (government interference boondoggle/government spending boondoggle) that is truly aimed at giving government more power and corrupt ACORN a brand new lease on life with our tax money.

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

OBAMA'S PLAN IS NOT WORKING

Posted by Walt on March 31, 2010 at 6:01pm

Yet, similar to how he won the election,his admirers and most important, he himself, are satisfied that usingrhetoric to exaggerate the extent of his successes will be enough toindoctrinate far too many of the voting citizenry with a belief insuccessful change.

The nation's unemployment rate as of February 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, remains just under 10%.

This despite the promise that billions for a shovel ready jobs bill would bring it down below 8% within a year.

And they've added billions more to it while also tying every bill that comes before them as being a jobs creator.

The rhetoric and the reality do not match.

Then there was the trillion dollar purchase of mortgage backedsecurities...to save people's homes and ignite the home buying market.

For the past 12 consecutive months foreclosures have averaged over 300,000per month and sales of new homes in Feb. 2010 fell by 2.2% to an annualpace of only 308,000, the slowest rate of growth since records werefirst recorded in 1963.

The government's purchase of these securities is expected to end this month, the special $8,000 tax breakis due to end in April, mortgage rates are expected to rise, and withonly 170,000 mortgages restructured as part of this plan, they areapproimately 3.8 million restructured mortgage short of their goal.

The rhetoric and the reality do not match.

Then there's the transparency we were promised. Bloomberg News and Fox Newshad to file separate lawsuits, which a federal appeals court ruled onin their favor, to gain access to documents that show which banksreceived emergency short term lending from the the Federal Reserveafter obama's government denied their requests.

And now we have great rhetoric being hurled about on his healthcare "reform." We havethe line in the sand with Iran being continuously redrawn. We haveChina telling us no, Israel telling us no, and Russia making it looklike Carter is still President.

obama's track record leaves us with little hope.

While those that criticize him do so for the most part with remarkably little informed criticism, the rhetoric wins.

OBAMA WINS WAR OF RHETORIC

Posted by Walt on March 29, 2010 at 6:00pm

..but the republican effort was quite lame.

Despite what the majority of the public thinks (50.8% opposed,RealClear Politics poll average, 3/28), obama and the main stream mediaare all giddy over the passing of obamacare.

He has won the war of rhetoric and since we will not know for sure thatthis bill is a front and a fraud for another 7-10 years, obama has thewon the privilege to run about the country as egotistical as ever.

Some in the media will print what lies in the bill below obama'sguess-work rhetoric and expose what the bill really means to theaverage American.

Despite the sensibility of some of these discoveries, some exposed byfacts, obama has the advantage in knowing none of it will be actuallyproven until his presidency is dead and gone.

What a wonderful position for a sleazy politician to find himself.

obama has put off the guts of the bill for another 5 years and untilthen he and his foot soldiers will be able to cast any opposingopinions on the bill as right-wing, tea-bagging nonsense...as politicsas usual and as actions of the status quo.

He'll use pretty speeches and half-assed comedic statements on thestump to energize and indoctrinate his already blind supporters inbelieving his continued rhetoric.

Because we will not see the tragic consequences of this bill's passing until it slaps us up side the head.

obama's staff has told us that they have a mega-marketing campaignplanned to get the word out on what is in the bill. Shouldn't thishave been something they did months ago?

Actually they have, using the same rhetoric and dragging out some poorcrippled person or cancer patient to exploit for political gain.

They will not tell us what is actually in the bill or what it willactually mean to us, really, what they will tell you is how greatchange is and this is something you can believe in.

If you are not questioning why we never heard detailed specifics on howthis bill will work and its affects on the country from obama, his footsoldiers, and the media, then obama's rhetoric will fire you up sillyand you will clap your hands with glee while God blesses your ignoranceand the Constitution protects it.

We will be indoctrinated, not informed, with the message theadministration wants us to believe this bill will do and what itmeans. Unless we dig and search for the truth, obama has the advantageof hiding behind the curtain and providing us only with bright lights,pretty words, and stories of woe.

Most presidents will seek support from the public before a bill ispassed, obama has changed this method by first passing the bill nomatter what the public thinks.

Why?

Because he is well aware of how infatuated the public can be overpretty speeches and clever denouncements of the opposition's silly, offfocus antics; especially when supported by a biased and unprofessionalmedia.

With that infatuation, that indoctrination, obama can claim a hugevictory for change and thus an even bigger 'I told you so' at electiontime...yet, like his election, a claim based solely on style andlacking substantive substance.

It could have been different. Republicans in Congress should have donetheir job and reported to their constituencies the more egregiouselements of this bill. Similarly, the voting public could have donetheir research and added a little thought to imagine what couldactually happen under this bill and its affect on further legislation.

Republicans instead stuck by the "scrap it and start over" plan whichwas not a crowd pleaser and which was heavily criticized by the media.Not a good plan.

They played into obama's play on the obstructionist angle and they paid for it.

Then when they did offer 29 amendments to change the bill, obama's foot soldiers gleefully rejected the whole lot.

Yet it did not matter, obama has won the war of rhetoric.

obama could sleep with eldrick's leftovers now and it wouldn't matter for health care...he has won the war of rhetoric.

NOW IS THE TIME TO FOCUS THE TEA PARTY ON A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Posted by Jeff Renner on March 26, 2010 at 11:30am

The short term Tea Party goals are important. We must remove irresponsible politicians from Washington DC and try to regain some measure of control over our government. This is only a stopgap measure, however, since the legal loopholes that allowed this gargantuan government to evolve are still in place.

We can argue about what we consider Constitutional until we are blue in the face, but as long as the Supreme Court rules in favor of big government with vague interpretations, the Republic will always be at risk.

The first time I saw a map with 38 states taking action to legally oppose Obamacare, it suddenly dawned on me: 38! Just the number of states needed to ratify an Amendment to the Constitution! We have the momentum and now support from the several states.

THE TIME IS RIGHT TO FOCUS THE TEA PARTY ON A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION TO ELIMINATE THE GENERAL WELFARE CLAUSE AND MODIFY THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE CLAUSE FOREVER

OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION FLUNKS SMALL BIZ TEST

Posted by Walt on February 21, 2010 at 8:08am

How has your small business been doing under obama’s administration?....

A recent USA TODAY/Manta.com survey askeda similar question of small business owners.....

11% of respondents said things were good.....

13% of respondents said things haven’t changed (“change you can believe in!”).....

77% of small business respondents said that obama’s small business policies have negatively affected their small businesses.....

This can’t be!....

As part of the non-spurring stimulus bill left to obama’s administration toimplement, $200 BILLION was to be used to assist small business owners.....

It was to be Main St. over Wall St.....

However, the owner of your favorite coffee shop down the street sat with his other smallbusiness buds and watched as obama’s great economic minds handed out TARP cashto banks and large corporations.....

Things were not going as obama’s treasury secretary Timmy Geitner had originallyplanned.....

So, in March 0f 2009, obama had another plan.....

Give them more money (since the money was notcoming directly from the Treasury, no Congressional approval would benecessary.)....

obama goes for political points as he makes a tiger woods-like public announcementthat $15 BILLION more would beallocated from TARP monies to help out small business guys.....

“This will unlock our frozen credit markets which is essential for economicrecovery,” obama assured us.....

obama’s chosen SBA chief, Karen Mills, said that small businesses “create 70%” of newjobs each quarter.....

The plan was to use tax-payer monies to back 100% of SBA loans. The thinking was that this would loosen upcapital, create jobs and give small business owners “change they can believein.”....

How’s that unemployment rate working out for ya?....

We’re not investment bankers, but we play them in D.C.....

To spur interest, obama signed off on removing the restrictions on executivecompensation for those receiving TALF (small business bailout plan) funds.....

Did it work?....

Between June 2008 and June 2009, 6 months after obama’s small business plan, small business bankruptcies were up81%.....

For the first 3 quarters of 2009 (latest for which figures are available), smallbusiness bankruptcies were up 13%.....

In October 2009, Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said, woa, we needmore cash for this thing. He proposes thatanother$50 BILLION be made available for this most excellent plan.....

Oh, it worked in some places.....

Back in Maine, where obama’s chosen SBA chief Karen Mills hails from in her pastlife as a venture capitalist; aluminum trailer maker Alcom, Inc easily receiveda $1.1 million dollar loan from obama’s government.....

But down in Fort Lee, New Jersey, small business owner James Daigle said that hewas “laughed off” when he attempted to get a loan for his business.....

They are cheering in Oman and Bahrain however.....

obama’s SBA announced in February of 2010 that they had just entered into a partnershipwith Middle East and African countries to provide access to capitol and tostrengthen small enterprise in those regions.....

Greaaaat; Oman, Bahrain. Those aren’t cities inSouth Dakota.....

Also in February of 2010, obama said an additional $30 BILLION should besent to little community banks around the country…I think he meant thiscountry, not sure. ....

It appears that too many banks that received the original funds for this most awesome plan were just hoarding the cash andnot lending it and the little guys were getting screwed…or so the storygoes. ....

Who’s ordering dusty daiquiris in Bahrain right now?....

Toyota wasn’t doing to bad with the plan.....

$750 million of the original plan funds were to go to World Omni Financial Corp, thecompany that makes loans through Toyota Motor Corp. And a great American company it is.....

Massive amounts of tax-payer money paid out in stimulus funds by the obamaadministration and we watch as large banking executives continue to awardthemselves billions in bonuses.....

Massive amounts of tax-payer money paid out by the obama administration for a jobsstimulus and unemployment rises; then billions more are asked for.....

Massive amounts of tax-payer money paid out by the obama administration for the homemortgage industry and still we see increases in mortgage bankruptcy filings.....

Massive amounts of tax-payer money paid out by the obama administration for a failedsmall business bailout; and still more money is allocated.....

I’ve got another plan. Let’s stop givinganything incorporated any of our money, and start giving the billions out toindividual tax-payers. We will spend,we’re good at that. We’ll savebusinesses, help the economy, and then travel to Bahrain to buy a Toyota.....

How lies caused the ban on DDT and cost half a billion lives!

Posted by David Toy on February 8, 2010 at 9:45am

Last Friday, my son’s ninth grade class was required to read a four page excerpt from “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson, a far leftwing environmentalist whack-o. This totally fictional book was one of the main reasons DDT was banned - - - and hundreds of millions of people around the world have died of malaria, typhus and several other diseases. I helped my son write a factual report about DDT and how the ban came about; if your child encounters the same propaganda in school as mine did, please feel free to use the report below in any way you like to clarify matters.

DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane)

DDT: This compound was originally made in 1873 by an Austrian student, but did not receive much attention until it was developed in 1939 to protect U.S. soldiers from typhus and malaria during World War II. In 1948, Paul Hermann Müller received the Nobel Laureate in Medicine for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods, including plague carrying fleas. The bug-killer is also highly effective in killing mosquitoes and is largely responsible for wiping out malaria in the United States, Canada and Northern Europe.

In the fourteenth century, the Bubonic Plague, carried by fleas, killed one fourth of the people living in Europe and two thirds of the people in Great Brittan. Before DDT and the discovery that it was carried by mosquitoes, yellow fever killed millions and more than one hundred epidemics of typhus, a lethal fever spread by lice, have ravaged Europe and Asia with death rates as high as 70%! However, the biggest killer of all was malaria.

On July 2, 2001, Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the New Yorker: It is hard to overestimate the impact that DDT's early success had on the world of public health. In the nineteen-forties, there was still malaria in the American South. There was malaria throughout Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. In India alone, malaria killed eight hundred thousand people a year; now, —none there die of the disease.

Silent Spring: In 1962 environmentalist and extremist Rachel Carson published her book, “Silent Spring.” Even she claimed the book as fiction and stated that nothing in it really happened, but she was very much against all pesticides, DDT in particular, and structured her book to alarm the public falsely.

There was an article published in: 21^st Century Science & Technology Magazine in 1992 titled: “The Lies of Rachel Carson” by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards — “A well-known entomologist documents some of the misstatements in Carson’s Silent Spring, the 1962 book that poisoned public opinion against DDT and other pesticides.” The author, Dr. Edwards, points out many ways in which Carson deliberately tries to deceive readers; here are some of his examples and comments:

As I neared the middle of the book, the feeling grew in my mind that Rachel Carson was really playing loose with the facts and was also deliberately wording many sentences in such a way as to make them imply certain things without actually saying them. She was carefully omitting everything that failed to support her thesis that pesticides were bad, that industry was bad, and that any scientists who did not support her views were bad.

Dedication: A Lie! In the front of the book, Carson dedicates Silent Spring as follows: “To Albert Schweitzer who said ‘Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the Earth.’”

This appears to indicate that the great man opposed the use of insecticides. However, in his autobiography Schweitzer writes on page 262: “How much labor and waste of time these wicked insects do cause us ... but a ray of hope, in the use of DDT, is now held out to us.” Upon reading his book, it is clear that Schweitzer was worried about nuclear warfare, —not about the hazards from DDT!

The implication that DDT is horribly deadly is completely false. Human volunteers have ingested as much as 35 milligrams of it a day for nearly two years and suffered no adverse affects. Millions of people have lived with DDT intimately during the mosquito spray programs and nobody even got sick as a result. The National Academy of Sciences concluded in 1965 that “in a little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million [human] deaths that would otherwise have been inevitable.” The World Health Organization stated that DDT had “killed more insects and saved more people than any other substance.” A leading British scientist pointed out that “If the pressure groups had succeeded, if there had been a world ban on DDT, then Rachel Carson and Silent Spring would now be killing more people in a single year than Hitler killed in his whole holocaust.”

Extensive hearings on DDT before an EPA administrative law judge occurred during 1971-1972. The EPA hearing examiner, Judge Edmund Sweeney, concluded that "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man... The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife."

Overruling the EPA hearing examiner, EPA administrator Ruckelshaus, a member of the Audubon Society, banned DDT in 1972. Ruckelshaus never attended a single hour of the seven months of EPA hearings on DDT. Ruckelshaus' aides reported he did not even read the transcript of the EPA hearings on DDT.

After reversing the EPA hearing examiner's decision, Ruckelshaus refused to release materials upon which his ban was based. Ruckelshaus rebuffed USDA efforts to obtain those materials through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming that they were just "internal memos." Scientists were therefore prevented from refuting the false allegations in the Ruckelshaus' "Opinion and Order on DDT." (Note: Ruckelshaus is a Registered Republican who endorsed Obama for the presidency.)

In 2002, The American Council on Science and Health announced that between three-hundred and five-hundred million people suffer from malaria each year, 90% are in Africa and it is the leading cause of death of African children.

In 2006, the World Health Organization reversed years of policy and backed the use of DDT to control malaria outbreaks.

Orlando, Florida Helped Save Countless U.S. Soldiers: In 1942, the J.R. Geigy company of Switzerland sent a hundred kilograms of DDT, the miracle powder, to its New York office. The package lay around, undisturbed, until a chemist, Victor Froelicher, happened to translate the extraordinary claims for DDT into English, and then passed on a sample to the Department of Agriculture, which then passed it on to its entomology research station, in Orlando, Florida. The Orlando laboratory had been charged by the Army to develop new pesticides, because the military, by this point in the war, was desperate for a better way to protect its troops against insect-borne disease. Typhus, —the lethal fever spread by lice had killed millions of people during and after the First World War and was still in the war zones. Worse, in almost every theatre of operations, malaria-carrying mosquitoes were causing illness. As Robert Rice said in this magazine almost fifty years ago, the First Marine Division had to be pulled from combat in 1942 and sent to Melbourne to recuperate because, out of seventeen thousand men, ten thousand were incapacitated with malarial headaches, fevers, and chills. Malaria hit 85% of the men holding onto Bataan. In fact, at any one time in the early stages of the war, according to General Douglas MacArthur, 2/3 of his troops in the South Pacific were sick with malaria. Thousands of candidate insecticides were tested at Orlando, and DDT was by far the best.

Sources:

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/carbaryl-dicrotophos/ddt-ext.html,

Liberty and Tyranny by Mark R. Levin,

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1948/muller-bio.html

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/Carson.html

http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_07_02_a_ddt.htm

http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html

government (417)

Rajjpuut's Folly: Recent Rasmussen Polls Highlight Angry Americans

Rajjpuut's Folly: Recent Research Conclusive, Incumbent Politician's KILL jobs

Rajjpuut's Folly: What exactly is a job? A government job? A REAL job?

Government jobs tend to be . . .

2. Government jobs are UNproductive. No goods or services are added to the country as a result of their existence.

3. Government jobs tend to pay more, thus putting the potentially best and most productive people into Unproductive positions.

4. Government jobs tend to have the greatest benefits adding to the overall cost and since their retirement benefits are among the greatest, that payment goes on sucking away at the country’s lifeblood long after these workers retire.

5. Government jobs tend to have the most substantial perquisites (perks). It isn’t just the President whose actual job cost cannot be calculated, but virtually all the upper echelon government employees whose perks bleed the rest of us dry.

8. Jobs whose creation is aligned with bigger, more onerous government, more red tape and more likelihood of finding a “boot on our neck.”

11. Sometimes a job whose existence is onerous and an abomination to much of the rest of the country: IRS agents come to mind.

12. Political, often, by their very nature rather than neutral. Jobs aligned with OSHA and the EPA, for example tend to be created by liberals. Defense contracts tend to be created by actions from conservatives.

16. Despite the so-called merit system, a job given to certain preferred portions of society over the rest of society. Affirmative action in government hiring has been an abysmal failure. The Sotomayor fire-fighter case highlighted some of the obvious discrepancies.

20. Require “emergency” spending virtually every year. To “justify their budgets, government agencies routinely find themselves spending money willy-nilly so that next year’s budget can be as large or larger.

Here, in a very brief essay, is much that people need to know about how economics actually works in modern life . . . .

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

a. survival problems

b. profit/surplus problems

c. combinations of a and b

d. innovation and entreprenuerial expression

Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

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How lies caused the ban on DDT and cost half a billion lives!

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