This is simply what your president and all the little brained liberal minions need to understand about economics and psychology. But he being an asshat and they believing that everyhting a liberal thinks is a golden thought will never understood the simple principles contained in this blog post.
by InvestorPolitics | Apr 25th 2012
If you think gasoline prices are volatile now, stay tuned. President Obama's plan to clamp down on oil speculators is going to make things worse.
I'm sure you've seen the news by now.
The president wants to clamp down on so-called "oil price manipulation" and has proposed a $52 billion plan to increase federal supervision of oil markets.
What the president doesn't understand is that the oil markets already have this function built in.
Speaking from the Rose Garden last week, President Obama noted specifically that we can't afford to have "speculators artificially manipulating markets buy buying up oil, creating the perception of a shortage and driving prices higher – only to flip the oil for a quick profit."
Evidently, the president hasn't passed Econ 101.
If he had he would know that prices on everything from eggs to houses are by their very definition self regulating.
Speculation, as opposed to manipulation, is a vital part of the markets – they are not the same thing despite the fact that the president is interchanging the terms.
If prices are too high, people stop buying. If prices are too low, they stop selling. By authorizing $52 billion in oversight, he's chasing a ghost that he'll never catch.
The Real Problem with Oil Prices
The real problem is that the United States consumes 20% of the world's crude but only produces 2%. It comes a time when oil demand is expected to rise more than 25% (to 105 million barrels a day) by 2015, according to a new report titled Oil and Gas: A Global Outlook by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
If you want the biggest piece of the pie from the deli, you have to pay a premium.
There is no hocus pocus and there's no additional oversight necessary. Rather, we need to enforce the laws we already have on the books.
Sure the $10 million fines he's jawboning about (up from $1 million) sound great but they're really a non-starter. In fact, given that Exxon alone generated an average of $1.33 billion a day in 2011, they're little more than an acceptable cost of doing business. Nice try.
Take gasoline, for example.
Prices have jumped 78.2% since the president took office and that doesn't sit well with the party faithful who are convinced that evil oil price speculators are responsible.
They are distraught that traders put hundreds of billions of dollars into energy every month because that may cause prices to rise.
This is not complicated. Any time there are more buyers than sellers, prices go up. Any time there is more demand than supply, prices go up.
Contrast what's going on in the oil markets with what's happening in natural gas.
Prices for natural gas are at ten- year lows. Demand has risen but supply has risen faster. There are more suppliers than buyers. So natural gas prices drop.
Natural gas, by the way, is traded by many of the same traders who trade oil.
Oil Price Manipulation, Gas Prices and the Free Market
Gasoline prices at the pump have never been proven to be a direct consequence of oil price manipulation. But it's widely conjectured.
Believe me, I hate paying more just as much as the next person, but get over it.
Geopolitical tensions, supply constrictions, war, tyrants with spigots and other buyers are the real factors at work and they always have been. When risks go up, so do prices – that's the way free markets work.
Apple didn't produce nearly 115 million iPhones and iPads in 2011 for kicks. It did it because there's huge demand for its products and it can make big bucks.
Things are just more critical now because we've failed to develop a comprehensive energy policy over the past 50 years at a time when global demand is increasing rapidly in absolute terms.
The president wants votes in an election year; this is pure political pandering.
For example, China's per capital oil consumption has increased by 350% since the early 1980s.
The International Energy Agency estimates that China alone will account for 42% of global oil demand by 2015. And it is one of the slow growers with consumption rising a mere 100% in the last 10 years.
Other countries like Malaysia have seen per capita usage quadruple since the 1960s. Brazil and Thailand have seen oil demand double to 5.7 barrels/year and 4.8 barrels/year per capita.
And don't forget the weak dollar. Because oil is generally priced in dollars, Bernanke's weak zero interest rate policies are helping drive prices higher. Producers have to compensate with higher prices to make up the reduction in margin being forced upon them by greenbacks that have diminished purchasing power.
Speaking of which, the Beltway Boys, in their infinite wisdom have got it in their heads that margined trading – meaning you can borrow money to control more of the underlying asset – gives too much power to financial investors aka the speculators.
What they don't realize is that:
•Even if you tighten up margin requirements, traders will shift to derivatives like options, swaps and other so-called exotics.
•Higher margin requirements lead to less liquidity which, in turn, actually exacerbates the speculative volatility they're trying to control.
Think about it.
Futures markets like those which drive oil and gas prices are a function of two groups of market participants – hedgers and speculators. Those, incidentally are the CFTC's terms so don't confuse them with the politically charged versions the p resident is using.
Hedgers are farmers, importers, exporters and manufacturers who depend on consistent pricing to make, sell or otherwise produce something using oil. They participate in the markets in order to keep prices stable to protect against pricing risk. But they can only buy or sell so much. They are actually interested in delivery of the oil or gas they need.
For example, McDonald's wants to hedge against rising potato costs that could affect the profitability of its world famous french fries. The farmer who sells them potatoes normally wants to hedge against falling potato prices so as to maximize crop prices and his profit margin.
The position is much the same for Starbucks and coffee just as it used to be for dentists and the silver they used for fillings, for example.
Speculators, on the other hand, are those who profit from the price changes against which hedgers are trying to protect themselves. They are not interested in taking delivery.
Speculators serve a very important function in that they bridge the gap between higher and lower prices often buying and selling when hedgers can't or won't.
If speculators are taken out of the picture, prices become less liquid and more jumpy.
Instead of moving smoothly from $100 to $120 a barrel, for instance, oil prices might simply gap higher because hedgers will be forced to trade directly with each other or through intermediaries who have effectively got their financial hands tied.
This would back all the way through the gasoline refinery process to the pump.
And investors who are dumfounded by the price increases we've seen so far, may be absolutely gob fobbed when things jump $1 or more at a time. Then there really would be a link.
Shutting down speculators would be like banning ice cream delivery trucks in July.
The President Is Chasing a Ghost He Can't Catch
To think that oil companies will not shift to other pricing mechanisms is naïve. If U.S. markets are restricted, traders will simply shift to London or Shanghai and conduct business as usual using new contracts structured specifically to avoid additional U.S. regulation.
They will also create trading entities that act as a proxy for the "speculators" the White House has targeted in this latest gambit.
This is exactly what many did with credit default swaps after the United States clamped down on them.
Why do you think funds shunted to London are at the heart of the MF Global fiasco or Goldman's most aggressive traders are located there? Because money goes where it's treated best. There are more accommodative regulations in the land of crumpets.
We don't need more regulation. We need to enforce what we have. This is another misguided political con job drawn from the well of bad ideas.
The president says he wants cheap gas, yet he kills the Keystone Pipeline, stymies drilling and allows the Fed to engineer a bailout of that put trillions into the system over the past four years – every dollar of which makes gas more expensive.
He says he wants to rein in speculators while not drawing a line between what constitutes legitimate speculation (as a function of free markets) and already illegal manipulation.
If anything, the federal government is the biggest manipulator in the history of manipulators.
Quantitative easing has done more damage to gas prices and the wallets of millions of consumers than a few speculators ever could. Frankly, it's a miracle prices aren't $10 a gallon at the pump by now.
I say let the markets work. Prosecute the true oil price manipulators but otherwise quit meddling. Piling on more regulation will only detract from economic activity, not create it.
Oh…and by the way, investors need to stay long energy especially in growing economies using more fuel.
Higher oil prices mean higher oil profits and there is a link between rising fuel consumption and GDP growth.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Motor City Mad Man
Ted Fucking Nugent telling it like it is. Obama's worst nightmare; a genius with balls.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Obama's War on the Constitution
This yet another great post from Americanbreakingpoint.com. At the end I included a comment from an anonymous poster because it is the same shit I have been telling my friends here since the early nineties. But here in Jersey I am called "crazy" and "a nut" good to see that others think Lincoln was a lying scumbag and the "War of Northern Aggression" was just that. Its the 21st century now how can people still think the Government in this country is still of, by and for "the People?" Clearly since 1860, and maybe sooner, government only functions of, buy(yes I meant to spell it that way), and for the politicians. Only the framers know what they wanted unfortunately over the past 200+ years their writings of the constitutional convention are being convinently ignored. They put way too much faith in future generations to want to be free. I am sorry Mr. Franklin but there are just not enough of us to hold onto the Republic you have given us. We will get it back tyranny cannot stay in power forever when men know it is to be free.
by Mr. Curmudgeon | Apr 11th 2012
"It's not just absolute power that the Founders sought to prevent. Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or ‘ism,' any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course … The Founders may have trusted in God, but true to the Enlightenment spirit, they also trusted in the minds and senses that God had given them. They were suspicious of abstraction and liked asking questions, which is why at every turn in our early history theory yielded to fact and necessity."
-- President Obama, in his book The Audacity of Hope
Translation: There is no transcendent truth, but we must all "yield to fact and necessity." Since there is no truth, it falls to those noble souls (Progressive community organizers?) best able to manufacture truth substitutes and bring order to this natural chaos – what philosopher Thomas Hobbes called man's state of nature … (Bellum omnium contra omnes – the war of all against all) where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Hobbes' solution? The definition of truth, or reality, should fall to a figure of unquestioned power and authority, "Whose commands have already the force of laws; that is to say, by any other authority than that of the Commonwealth, residing in the sovereign, who only has the legislative power."
In short, the political leader with the biggest stick decides where to put the cardinal points on the compass and in which direction the needle will point "true" north. Otherwise, we're forever lost at sea. If there is no truth, then force is the only truth – Obama's so-called "fact and necessity."
Obama's literary protestations notwithstanding, the Founders embraced truth. In fact, the Declaration's assertion that the people of America must "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" is predicated on the "self-evident" truth that mans' natural condition is freedom. This God-given freedom, like the breath that gave life to Adam, instills within us a natural sense of justice. It is this spark of divine virtue, which obliges us to form governments whose chief purpose is to secure and protect the liberty of all – equally.
Faith in the Founders?
Obama isn't the only politician who has questioned the Founder's truth. During the early 1850s, the Senate debated over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed slavery to expand into the territories. Indiana Senator John Pettit, a Democrat, argued that the Declaration's assertion that "all men are created equal" was "nothing more to me than a self-evident lie."
"If it had been said in old Independence Hall seventy-eight years ago," responded Abraham Lincoln in a speech, "the very door-keeper would have throttled the man, and thrust him into the street.
"… Already the liberal party throughout the world, express the apprehension that the one retrograde institution in America [slavery], is undermining the principles of progress, and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw … Is there no danger to liberty itself, in discarding the earliest practice, and first precept of our ancient faith?"
Ah, yes, faith.
In the end, as Lincoln observed, it boils down to faith. Lincoln understood that the Declaration of Independence represented the spiritual underpinning of the United States Constitution. The institution of slavery was an ugly reality dividing the spirit and tangible letter of the law, undermining the nations' declared dedication to the self-evident truth of individual liberty.
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure," said Lincoln at Gettysburg. When we say, "Lincoln saved the Union," we usually mean our union of states. However, by destroying the inconsistency of slavery, Lincoln brought "a more perfect union" between our Founder's Declaration and the Constitution.
Progressivism: The Enemy of the Free
Today, the Obama presidency unmasks a similar wedge now widening the rift between the spirit of the Declaration and the substance of the Constitution: Authoritarian Progressivism.
The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) reveals Progressivism for what it is – an enemy of individual liberty and a threat to the spirit and letter of the law – a refutation of what Lincoln called "our ancient faith." In calling the law's financing mechanism an "individual mandate," Obama and his Progressive cohorts show their contempt for individual sovereignty.
This explains why Solicitor General Donald Verrilli choked on his words during oral arguments in defense of the individual mandate. In this brave new world, there are no individuals, there are no states, and there is no separation of powers. There is only the "fourth branch of government" … the permanent, bureaucratic administrative state. Pampered, protected and answerable to itself alone.
"… Repeal the declaration of independence," cried Lincoln during a debate with his Democratic rival for the Illinois, Senate Stephen A. Douglas, "repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak."
The Supreme Court is not the only body to speak for or against the nation's founding principles. The American people must decide this November if, as Lincoln once said, the nation "will become all one thing, or all the other."
"Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction," said Lincoln, "or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states …"
Today, the great contest is between liberty's self-evident truth and the Audacity of the enslaving abstraction of the Progressive lie.
Anonymous wrote:"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."Lincoln's savage war to prevent Southern secession brought into being the Leviathan state that today acknowledges no limitations on its powers.You forgot to mention that "Lincoln's savage war to prevent Southern secession," ended the pretensions of Southerners to govern blacks as sub-human property. Thank God for Lincoln and, more importantly, that his war to preserve the Union insured the South would never rise again.
by Mr. Curmudgeon | Apr 11th 2012
"It's not just absolute power that the Founders sought to prevent. Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or ‘ism,' any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course … The Founders may have trusted in God, but true to the Enlightenment spirit, they also trusted in the minds and senses that God had given them. They were suspicious of abstraction and liked asking questions, which is why at every turn in our early history theory yielded to fact and necessity."
-- President Obama, in his book The Audacity of Hope
Translation: There is no transcendent truth, but we must all "yield to fact and necessity." Since there is no truth, it falls to those noble souls (Progressive community organizers?) best able to manufacture truth substitutes and bring order to this natural chaos – what philosopher Thomas Hobbes called man's state of nature … (Bellum omnium contra omnes – the war of all against all) where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Hobbes' solution? The definition of truth, or reality, should fall to a figure of unquestioned power and authority, "Whose commands have already the force of laws; that is to say, by any other authority than that of the Commonwealth, residing in the sovereign, who only has the legislative power."
In short, the political leader with the biggest stick decides where to put the cardinal points on the compass and in which direction the needle will point "true" north. Otherwise, we're forever lost at sea. If there is no truth, then force is the only truth – Obama's so-called "fact and necessity."
Obama's literary protestations notwithstanding, the Founders embraced truth. In fact, the Declaration's assertion that the people of America must "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" is predicated on the "self-evident" truth that mans' natural condition is freedom. This God-given freedom, like the breath that gave life to Adam, instills within us a natural sense of justice. It is this spark of divine virtue, which obliges us to form governments whose chief purpose is to secure and protect the liberty of all – equally.
Faith in the Founders?
Obama isn't the only politician who has questioned the Founder's truth. During the early 1850s, the Senate debated over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed slavery to expand into the territories. Indiana Senator John Pettit, a Democrat, argued that the Declaration's assertion that "all men are created equal" was "nothing more to me than a self-evident lie."
"If it had been said in old Independence Hall seventy-eight years ago," responded Abraham Lincoln in a speech, "the very door-keeper would have throttled the man, and thrust him into the street.
"… Already the liberal party throughout the world, express the apprehension that the one retrograde institution in America [slavery], is undermining the principles of progress, and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw … Is there no danger to liberty itself, in discarding the earliest practice, and first precept of our ancient faith?"
Ah, yes, faith.
In the end, as Lincoln observed, it boils down to faith. Lincoln understood that the Declaration of Independence represented the spiritual underpinning of the United States Constitution. The institution of slavery was an ugly reality dividing the spirit and tangible letter of the law, undermining the nations' declared dedication to the self-evident truth of individual liberty.
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure," said Lincoln at Gettysburg. When we say, "Lincoln saved the Union," we usually mean our union of states. However, by destroying the inconsistency of slavery, Lincoln brought "a more perfect union" between our Founder's Declaration and the Constitution.
Progressivism: The Enemy of the Free
Today, the Obama presidency unmasks a similar wedge now widening the rift between the spirit of the Declaration and the substance of the Constitution: Authoritarian Progressivism.
The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) reveals Progressivism for what it is – an enemy of individual liberty and a threat to the spirit and letter of the law – a refutation of what Lincoln called "our ancient faith." In calling the law's financing mechanism an "individual mandate," Obama and his Progressive cohorts show their contempt for individual sovereignty.
This explains why Solicitor General Donald Verrilli choked on his words during oral arguments in defense of the individual mandate. In this brave new world, there are no individuals, there are no states, and there is no separation of powers. There is only the "fourth branch of government" … the permanent, bureaucratic administrative state. Pampered, protected and answerable to itself alone.
"… Repeal the declaration of independence," cried Lincoln during a debate with his Democratic rival for the Illinois, Senate Stephen A. Douglas, "repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak."
The Supreme Court is not the only body to speak for or against the nation's founding principles. The American people must decide this November if, as Lincoln once said, the nation "will become all one thing, or all the other."
"Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction," said Lincoln, "or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states …"
Today, the great contest is between liberty's self-evident truth and the Audacity of the enslaving abstraction of the Progressive lie.
Anonymous wrote:"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."Lincoln's savage war to prevent Southern secession brought into being the Leviathan state that today acknowledges no limitations on its powers.You forgot to mention that "Lincoln's savage war to prevent Southern secession," ended the pretensions of Southerners to govern blacks as sub-human property. Thank God for Lincoln and, more importantly, that his war to preserve the Union insured the South would never rise again.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Diplomatic Duplicity
Oliver North hits the nail right on the head yet again. I cannot tell you all enough to read everything this man writes. Simple yet eloquent and always on the right of truth.
Diplomatic Duplicity
Oliver North
Mar 30, 2012
In the summer of 1987, just before my "television debut," a true friend instructed me in a congressional hearing, "Remember, the microphone is always on -- even when it's not!" It's a lesson I never have forgotten. Apparently, Barack Obama doesn't have any friends to give him similar advice, or he doesn't learn well. Either way, an open mic during this week's nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, has revealed our president's extraordinary hubris and his penchant for dangerous diplomatic duplicity.
The video clip of an unscripted exchange March 26 between Obama and outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev should be grounds for the American people to hire a new commander in chief in November. The two leaders, evidently unaware they were being recorded, were discussing new limits on U.S. ballistic missile defense.
Obama: "On all these issues -- but particularly missile defense -- this can be solved, but it's important for him to give me space."
Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space -- space for you."
Obama: "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."
Medvedev: "I understand. I (will) transmit this information to Vladimir."
Note to reader: The "him" in Obama's opening soliloquy and the "Vladimir" in Medvedev's final remark are the same person: Vladimir Putin -- the former and future president of Russia. On May 7, Putin and Medvedev exchange places in Moscow's revolving-door government.
This surreal moment of unintended transparency from the Obama administration immediately went viral around the world. In Warsaw, where pro-U.S. politicians are still bruised from endorsing U.S.-built missile defenses -- only to have the O-Team "postpone" the project -- the president's conversation is seen as proof that "Obama will cave in to Russia." One Polish paper's headline read, "Were they trading Poland?"
In the immediate aftermath, officials in Romania and the Czech Republic -- both of which are slated for ballistic missile defense sites -- wouldn't comment on the Obama gaffe. But more than one political commentator observed that this is what we should expect from the Obama "reset" with Russia.
Unfortunately, the Obama reset hasn't worked at all -- and Putin didn't need any privately delivered message from his lackey Dmitry to tell him that. Putin has been playing Obama as Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello. And now, thanks to what happened in Seoul, everyone can hear the music. The indelibly corrupt regime in Moscow has spurned every effort at improving relations with the U.S. and repeatedly used its veto threat in the United Nations Security Council to pre-empt any onerous sanctions against its clients in Iran and Syria.
Despite repeated entreaties from the White House to endorse Obama's naive hope for "a world without nuclear weapons," Putin is proceeding to quietly modernize Russia's own arsenal -- while we do not. Notably, Putin has spurned an invitation to the May 20-21 NATO summit in Chicago, where ballistic missile defense is on the agenda.
The fallout from the fiasco in Seoul is undoubtedly good news to the ayatollahs in Tehran. Buoyed by the precipitous withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq last November and talk of an early pullout from Afghanistan, Iranian advocates for pressing ahead with their nuclear weapons program just gained further evidence that the American president is a paper tiger with a big mouth but no teeth.
The day after he bared his political soul in Seoul, Obama tried to make light of the matter. As he walked into the summit meeting, he clowned for the world press by placing his hand over the microphone on the dais and said, "Is the mic on?" They all laughed.
But it really isn't a laughing matter. Who can imagine Ronald Reagan saying or doing such things anywhere -- much less at a summit of world leaders -- on or off mic? Can any of us recall Reagan in 1984 talking about "my" election? He knew it wasn't his; it was ours.
We shouldn't want a clown for a president. We ought to have a commander in chief who knows that his primary job is to protect the American people from harm. We deserve a head of state who will bow before God Almighty and no one else. And we need a chief executive who will tell the truth to our allies, our adversaries and, most importantly, the American people. It would be good to remember all this, particularly these dangerous diplomatic deceits, in November.
Oliver North is the host of War Stories on the Fox News Channel, the author of American Heroes in Special Operations and the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance, a foundation that provides college scholarships to the sons and daughters of servicemembers killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty.
Diplomatic Duplicity
Oliver North
Mar 30, 2012
In the summer of 1987, just before my "television debut," a true friend instructed me in a congressional hearing, "Remember, the microphone is always on -- even when it's not!" It's a lesson I never have forgotten. Apparently, Barack Obama doesn't have any friends to give him similar advice, or he doesn't learn well. Either way, an open mic during this week's nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, has revealed our president's extraordinary hubris and his penchant for dangerous diplomatic duplicity.
The video clip of an unscripted exchange March 26 between Obama and outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev should be grounds for the American people to hire a new commander in chief in November. The two leaders, evidently unaware they were being recorded, were discussing new limits on U.S. ballistic missile defense.
Obama: "On all these issues -- but particularly missile defense -- this can be solved, but it's important for him to give me space."
Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space -- space for you."
Obama: "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."
Medvedev: "I understand. I (will) transmit this information to Vladimir."
Note to reader: The "him" in Obama's opening soliloquy and the "Vladimir" in Medvedev's final remark are the same person: Vladimir Putin -- the former and future president of Russia. On May 7, Putin and Medvedev exchange places in Moscow's revolving-door government.
This surreal moment of unintended transparency from the Obama administration immediately went viral around the world. In Warsaw, where pro-U.S. politicians are still bruised from endorsing U.S.-built missile defenses -- only to have the O-Team "postpone" the project -- the president's conversation is seen as proof that "Obama will cave in to Russia." One Polish paper's headline read, "Were they trading Poland?"
In the immediate aftermath, officials in Romania and the Czech Republic -- both of which are slated for ballistic missile defense sites -- wouldn't comment on the Obama gaffe. But more than one political commentator observed that this is what we should expect from the Obama "reset" with Russia.
Unfortunately, the Obama reset hasn't worked at all -- and Putin didn't need any privately delivered message from his lackey Dmitry to tell him that. Putin has been playing Obama as Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello. And now, thanks to what happened in Seoul, everyone can hear the music. The indelibly corrupt regime in Moscow has spurned every effort at improving relations with the U.S. and repeatedly used its veto threat in the United Nations Security Council to pre-empt any onerous sanctions against its clients in Iran and Syria.
Despite repeated entreaties from the White House to endorse Obama's naive hope for "a world without nuclear weapons," Putin is proceeding to quietly modernize Russia's own arsenal -- while we do not. Notably, Putin has spurned an invitation to the May 20-21 NATO summit in Chicago, where ballistic missile defense is on the agenda.
The fallout from the fiasco in Seoul is undoubtedly good news to the ayatollahs in Tehran. Buoyed by the precipitous withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq last November and talk of an early pullout from Afghanistan, Iranian advocates for pressing ahead with their nuclear weapons program just gained further evidence that the American president is a paper tiger with a big mouth but no teeth.
The day after he bared his political soul in Seoul, Obama tried to make light of the matter. As he walked into the summit meeting, he clowned for the world press by placing his hand over the microphone on the dais and said, "Is the mic on?" They all laughed.
But it really isn't a laughing matter. Who can imagine Ronald Reagan saying or doing such things anywhere -- much less at a summit of world leaders -- on or off mic? Can any of us recall Reagan in 1984 talking about "my" election? He knew it wasn't his; it was ours.
We shouldn't want a clown for a president. We ought to have a commander in chief who knows that his primary job is to protect the American people from harm. We deserve a head of state who will bow before God Almighty and no one else. And we need a chief executive who will tell the truth to our allies, our adversaries and, most importantly, the American people. It would be good to remember all this, particularly these dangerous diplomatic deceits, in November.
Oliver North is the host of War Stories on the Fox News Channel, the author of American Heroes in Special Operations and the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance, a foundation that provides college scholarships to the sons and daughters of servicemembers killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Obama Will Say and Do Anything
For holy crappin' crap! I have been saying this for years. Let's not forget he just continues to add lie on top of lie and yet still finds room to make up new ones. What douche we have as president.
April 9, 2012
Obama Will Say and Do Anything
By W.A. Beatty
Lying. Dissembling. Peddling half-truths. Redefining words. Taking credit for something in which he had no part. Those words/phrases describe what President Barack Hussein Obama has said or done and is now saying or doing.
Lying: "Big Oil" and Lobbying
"Big Oil" has become a favorite Obama target. On March 29, 2012, Obama said, "Congress up until this point has thought it was a good idea to send billions more of your tax dollars to the oil industry." Obama appealed to Congress to "stand with the American people" and vote to end subsidies to the oil and gas industry. But there is one problem: "Big Oil" receives tax incentives. In no sense can what "Big Oil" receives be called a subsidy -- the sending of "billions more of your tax dollars to the oil industry." Further, the incentives (sometimes referred to as tax breaks) are available to any US company.
On November 10, 2007, candidate Obama said, "I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."
The Obama administration recently hired former lobbyist Steve Ricchetti, a registered federal lobbyist for nearly a decade, to serve as counselor to Vice President Joe Biden.
Although Obama signed an executive order codifying this pledge on his first full day in office, the administration has made use of a loophole in the order that permits waivers for former lobbyists to serve. In some cases, the administration has hired former lobbyists without a waiver.
Dissembling: ObamaCare and Oil Reserves
The Obama administration's argument for ObamaCare had been that it will initially increase costs and deficits. But it pays for itself, the administration says, in the long run because it reduces costs in coming decades. However, the CBO says that in its second decade, ObamaCare significantly increases health care costs, increasing deficits even more than in the first decade.
Obama's own first-decade numbers were built on arithmetic trickery. New taxes to support the health care plan began in 2011, but the benefits part of the program doesn't begin until 2015. That excess revenue is one-time-only, making the first-decade numbers look artificially low, but once you pass 2015, the yearly deficits become larger and eternal.
Regarding oil, Obama has said numerous times, "With only 2% of the world's oil reserves, we can't just drill our way to lower gas prices, not when we consume 20% of the world's oil." It turns out President Obama's statement is not entirely accurate.
The 2% figure Obama uses refers to proved oil reserves and greatly undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually has. In fact, far from being oil-poor, the country has vast quantities of oil -- enough to meet all the country's oil needs for hundreds of years. The U.S. has 22.3 billion barrels of proven reserves, which is a little less than 2 percent of the entire world's proven reserves, but proven reserves are a small subset of recoverable resources because they count only the oil that companies are currently drilling for in existing fields.
When you look at the whole picture, it turns out that there are vast supplies of oil in the U.S. according to various government reports. The U.S. has 60 times more oil than Obama claims.
Peddling Half-Truths: Auto Industry Loan Repayment and Domestic Oil Production
While technically true, General Motors (GM) did, indeed, pay its government bailout loan early. How GM accomplished that feat had nothing to do with earnings, management, or sales. GM did it by taking Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money to pay off the bailout loan, and now it must pay off the TARP money. Overall, GM's debt remained the same.
This is how GM and the Obama administration used a PR gimmick to fool the American public in hopes of winning some favor. All of these shenanigans were going on while Obama hailed auto industry's comeback.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) wrote in April 2010: "The taxpayers are still on the hook, and whether TARP funds are ultimately recovered depends entirely on the government's ability to sell GM stock in the future. Treasury has merely exchanged a legal right to repayment for an uncertain hope of sharing in the future growth of GM. A debt-for-equity swap is not a repayment," Grassley wrote, referring to the $60-plus-billion loan which the Obama administration allowed GM to convert to an "unsecured" "security."
And here is a bit of news that you will not hear from Obama or the MSM. The Detroit News reported in February 2012 that the U.S. Treasury now says it has lost an extra $170 million in the auto industry bailout because the price of GM stock has fallen 35% from its high.
And, by the way, while Obama, his administration, and the MSM hail TARP money payback, how it was done is, at best, a half-truth.
On March 22, 2012, in Boulder City, NV, Obama said, "We're going to continue to produce oil and gas at a record pace." In another speech, he said, "Under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years."
Again, what he said is technically true, but while domestic oil production may have increased under Obama, it has absolutely nothing to do with his policies. Again, Obama is telling a half-truth. Approximately 96% of the total increase in domestic oil production between 2007 and 2011 occurred on non-federal land, which Obama does not control. Not only did almost all of the production take place on land beyond the Obama administration's control, but it decreased on land within his control.
So, yes, he was truthful, but not completely truthful. Are we being generous to credit him with half the truth?
Redefining Words: "Subsidy" and "Fair"
One of the favorite words Obama likes to throw around is "subsidy." A bill, the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act, introduced by Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) -- a bill that Obama favored -- purports to "put an end to the unfair tax subsidies that only benefit Big Oil's bottom line[.]" Further, they say the bill "will put an end to taxpayer handouts to the 5 largest oil companies making record profits."
Obama, while in Boulder City, NV, said, "The current members of the Flat Earth Society in Congress, they would rather see us continue to provide $4 billion in tax subsidies, tax giveaways to the oil companies." Isn't it rather ironic that the word "subsidy" is being redefined in view of Solyndra, Beacon Power, and Ener1? It appears that, in light of Obama's failed "green energy" policy, he is trying to hide behind his redefinition of the word.
Another of Obama's favorite words to redefine is "fair" (adjective)." While speaking at Osawatomie, KS, in December, 2011, he called for rich to "pay their fair share." If we are supposed to be fair, to play by the same set of rules, why do we need 30-plus "czars" to exercise powers over Americans who have committed no crimes? If we're all going to be fair, to play by the same rules now, does that mean that Obama's buddies are going to return their ObamaCare waivers?
The central concept of liberal and socialist thought, the progressive tax system, is founded on the concept of treating people "unfairly." Obama didn't speak of the huge number of "unfair" rules designed to penalize activities of which the government disapproves, or about subsidies received by activities of which the government does approve.
I guess "fair" depends entirely upon how Obama defines, or redefines, it.
Taking credit for something in which he had no part: Keystone XL Pipeline, Fracking, Killing Osama bin Laden
Obama was in Cushing, OK on Thursday, March 22, 2012, to "fast-track" the southern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL Pipeline, announced that it will build the southern half of the pipeline and does not need Obama's approval.
So what Obama did was make a photo-op of a private company's project that was going to be built anyway. You will remember that in January 2012, Obama blocked the northern portion of the pipeline -- the part that does need his approval. Obama's attempt to take credit for a pipeline he blocked and against which he personally lobbied Congress is staggering in its disingenuousness.
In his State of the Union speech on January 24, 2012, Obama said, "And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock - reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground."
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), when questioning Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu, asked, "The president took two pieces of credit in his State of the Union that I wanted to just question you on factually. First of all, he said the Department of Energy created fracking. He took credit for that in the State of the Union. My understanding is fracking was created 60 years ago." Chu replied, "It's absolutely true that there were earlier ventures in the fracking [technology]." He said DOE invested in the technology from 1978 until about 1992, but then "got out."
Regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden, Obama said, "[s]hortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al-Qaeda[.]" That statement was followed by a bunch of "I" sentences. "I was briefed ... I met repeatedly ... I determined today ... at my direction, the United States launched..." Former President George W. Bush is not mentioned until Obama noted that Bush had made clear that this was not a war against Islam.
Obama never said anything about the CIA, the Navy SEALs, or the efforts of the Bush administration. Obama clearly built on efforts initiated during the Bush administration. It is true that ultimately Obama had to make the final decision on whether to proceed, but he may have given a bit more public credit to his predecessor.
I have highlighted just a few of Obama's words/sayings/tactics. I'm quite sure you can easily expand on my effort.
Obama's actions will only intensify as November 2012 draws near. The most disheartening part is that the MSM rarely, if ever, says anything about what comes from Obama's mouth or what he does.
Dr. Beatty earned a Ph.D. in quantitative management and statistics from Florida State University. He was a (very conservative) professor of quantitative management specializing in using statistics to assist/support decision making. He has been a consultant to many small businesses and is now retired. Dr. Beatty is a veteran who served in the U.S. Army for 22 years. He blogs at: rwno.limewebs.com.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/obama_will_say_and_do_anything.html#ixzz1rakV35HK
Saturday, April 7, 2012
The Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets
Never trust the government no matter who is is charge. We the People has ceased to be a long time ago now we are up against giant A-holeas who only wish to hold onto their power and titles. Now you must ask yourself these three questions:
1. Obama and his minions are doing this to try to enslave; yeah I said it and meant it, the citizens of this country or
2. Obama and his minoions are sure they cannot win and are planning to intimidate voters at election time or
3. DHS knows Obama cannot win again and is preparing for the riots and the B.S. that accompanies a minority people feeling wronged.
I do not know what the truth is but I am preparing for any scenario you should too.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is getting an "indefinite delivery" of an "indefinite quantity" of .40 caliber ammunition from defense contractor ATK.
U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over five years, according to a press release on the deal.
The high performance HST bullets are designed for law enforcement and ATK says they offer "optimum penetration for terminal performance."
This refers to the the bullet's hollow-point tip that passes through barriers and expands for a bigger impact without the rest of the bullet getting warped out of shape: "this bullet holds its jacket in the toughest conditions."
We've also learned that the Department has an open bid for a stockpile of rifle ammo. Listed on the federal business opportunities network, they're looking for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammo to be exact. The .223 is almost exactly the same round used by NATO forces, the 5.56 x 45mm.
The deadline for earlier this month was extended because the right contractor just hadn't come along.
Looks like the Department of Homeland Security means business.
Thanks to loyal BI Military & Defense Twitter follower Allen Walter for the heads up.
1. Obama and his minions are doing this to try to enslave; yeah I said it and meant it, the citizens of this country or
2. Obama and his minoions are sure they cannot win and are planning to intimidate voters at election time or
3. DHS knows Obama cannot win again and is preparing for the riots and the B.S. that accompanies a minority people feeling wronged.
I do not know what the truth is but I am preparing for any scenario you should too.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is getting an "indefinite delivery" of an "indefinite quantity" of .40 caliber ammunition from defense contractor ATK.
U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over five years, according to a press release on the deal.
The high performance HST bullets are designed for law enforcement and ATK says they offer "optimum penetration for terminal performance."
This refers to the the bullet's hollow-point tip that passes through barriers and expands for a bigger impact without the rest of the bullet getting warped out of shape: "this bullet holds its jacket in the toughest conditions."
We've also learned that the Department has an open bid for a stockpile of rifle ammo. Listed on the federal business opportunities network, they're looking for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammo to be exact. The .223 is almost exactly the same round used by NATO forces, the 5.56 x 45mm.
The deadline for earlier this month was extended because the right contractor just hadn't come along.
Looks like the Department of Homeland Security means business.
Thanks to loyal BI Military & Defense Twitter follower Allen Walter for the heads up.
ObamaCare Confronts a Hard Reality
by Mr. Curmudgeon | Apr 3rd 2012
I Dream Things that Never Were …
-Robert F. Kennedy
A recent New York Times article contemplates the unthinkable:
"For the White House and the president's re-election team, the challenge begins immediately. They must publically defend the law's [ObamaCare's] constitutionality and push back against suggestions that the battle is already lost, even as they privately piece together a contingency plan if the law – or part of it – is overturned."
The excerpt above is a masterpiece of Orwellian "double-think," the ability to hold diametrically opposed ideas within a single thick skull. But it beautifully expresses the divide between storybook fantasy and cold reality, demagogic politics and analytic law, tyranny and freedom.
"Well," said President Obama in a 2009 address before a joint session of Congress, "the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care."
There were two major flaws with the president's calculations:
1. A majority of Americans opposed ObamaCare from its inception. Who doesn't recall the stream of YouTube videos showing boisterous town hall meetings of constituents giving their erstwhile representatives an earful, sounding like Patrick "give me liberty or give me death" Henry. Obama's congressional allies came off sounding like Prince John's sniveling henchmen in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
2. The second problem, one the media's talking heads insisted posed no problem at all, was whether nationalizing one-sixth of the economy, creating a government-run health insurance market and forcing every American into this clattering Rube Goldberg contraption, fell within the confines of the Constitution's enumerated powers; you know, that funny term used by the guys in the powdered wigs who convened in Philadelphia in 1787 and insisted their new government was legally obliged to do only those things allowed, well, by law.
Many legal analysts, CNN's Jeffrey Toobin for one, assured Obama's nervous re-election team – by which I mean virtually every editor and writer in virtually every newsroom in America – that James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson's enumerated powers were the intellectual jet fuel behind Mao Tse-Tung's Great Leap Forward. Toobin told the vacant-headed interviewer Charlie Rose that the U.S. Supreme Court would sanction the president's little experiment in totalitarianism by a 7-to-2 or an 8-to-1 vote.
The Brick Wall of Reality …
The first hint that ObamaCare was in trouble was when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pleaded for her Democratic colleagues to "pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy."
In saying this, she telegraphed two important realities: Transforming a free society into one that is not is very complicated – ObamaCare represents 2,700 pages of scintillating reading; and, second, America's transformative shift from representative government to a Czar-directed regime that renders congressional service to constituents superfluous.
When Pelosi's Democratic majority overwhelmingly voted not to read the bill, by passing it, many Americans realized there was something terribly wrong with our two-party system. With Republicans profoundly disinterested in resisting Obama and Pelosi's power grab, it fell to ordinary citizens to wage a two-front war against both political parties in the name of one overriding principle – restoring Constitutional normalcy to America.
Tea Party America unseated many a Pelosi Democrat and compliant Republican-in-Name-Only (RINO). The disastrous 2010 midterm elections, dubbed the "shellacking" by Obama, helped change the conversation in America from "What can government do for us" to "What can we do to shield ourselves from imperial government."
Somebody Call the Cops …
"When the President does it," the disgraced Richard Nixon famously said, "that means that it is not illegal."
A presidential pardon saved Nixon from testing his novel theory in open court, sparing him an embarrassing perp-walk and time behind bars. Much to Nixon's credit, his criminal inclinations tended toward the petty: Break-ins, wiretaps, and using the police powers of the FBI, CIA and IRS to harass political enemies. He never attempted to change America's more than 200-year constitutional arrangement between a free people and its elected government.
Nixon was tricky … but not that tricky.
The real trick was convincing lawmakers and the public that ObamaCare was just a benign way for Congress to nudge the country into engaging in a little regulated interstate commerce – even if Congress created that market, its main product and its readymade customers. This arrangement seemed at odds with a free society and more familiar in practice with the illicit powers exercised by New York City's mafia crime families.
Tell It to the Judge …
When Solicitor General Donald Verilli stood before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend ObamaCare, he had trouble getting the words out. He repeated himself, coughed, cleared his throat and stopped to drink a glass of water. He was undoubtedly nervous. Not for arguing the government's case before the nation's high court, he has done so 17 times before. It was that his argument took previous misguided Supreme Court rulings to their logical conclusion, and in defense of one principle: The power of Congress is infinite.
Supreme Court rulings since the heyday of the New Deal have expanded federal authority through novel interpretations of the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause. Under this argument, economic activity links us to one another, like the oxygen we breathe or the rays of the warming sun.
Karl Marx sought to place the "means of production" in the hands of the state, by which he meant factories. ObamaCare, through its individual mandate, covets the individual by radically redefining us as necessary cogs in the machine of government-created "commerce." ObamaCare perceives what Marx failed to see: That free men and women are the means of production.
But totalitarianism is beset with many internal contradictions. During the first day's oral arguments, the government lawyer insisted the courts had no legal authority to rule on the issue. He reasoned that the individual mandate was a tax and that Congress was simply exercising its taxing authority. Since no one has paid a fine for running afoul of the individual mandate (scheduled to begin in 2015), no injury has been inflicted and the courts cannot hear the case (the Anti-Injunction Act of 1867). The very next day, Verilli argued ObamaCare was not a tax but an Interstate Commerce and Necessary and Proper clause issue.
In one ironic moment, Verilli argued that the individual mandate required the IRS to function like a bill collection agency to guarantee that health care recipients "pay" for what they get. After all, Verilli insisted, many currently receive "health care service anyway as a result of social norms … to which we've obligated ourselves so that people get health care." Justice Antonin Scalia's answer to that was simple – "Don't obligate yourself."
Justice Anthony Kennedy, considered the high court's swing vote, framed his comment, Jeopardy-like, in the form of a question, "When you are changing the relation of the individual to the government in this, what we can stipulate is, I think, a unique way, do you not have a heavy burden of justification to show authorization under the Constitution?"
You're Such a Burden ...
Ah, yes, the "burden of justification … under the Constitution." That statement by Justice Kennedy caused shivers to run up the collective spines of American Progressives. The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne was apoplectic, "Last week's Supreme Court oral arguments on health care were the most dramatic example of how radical tea partyism has displaced mainstream conservative thinking."
Dionne then expressed the darkest fear lurking in the hearts of his Progressive brethren, "It's not just that the law's individual mandate was, until very recently, a conservative idea. Even conservative legal analysts were insisting it was impossible to imagine the court declaring the health care mandate unconstitutional, given its past decisions."
For modern Progressives, American history begins with FDR's New Deal, and the subsequent Supreme Court rulings upholding the expansion of federal power under creative reinterpretations of the Constitution's clear language and meaning ("penumbras and emanations"). If you have no reasonable expectation of amending the founding document through the democratic process, the next best thing is to dub it a "living Constitution," leaving the amending to a nine person star chamber.
But Supreme Court justices read the newspapers just like the next guy – even the Washington Post. They would be hard pressed not to notice American Progressivism, which views the welfare-state police powers of Congress as infinite, is moving our nation inexorably toward fiscal ruin and a decidedly more authoritarian government.
If, as the Post's Dionne suggests, five Supreme Court justices are listening to the ruminations of the tea party, it's not the clamorous souls of the 2010 midterm elections … it's the guys in the tri-cornered hats who threw tea into Boston Harbor on a cold winter's eve in 1773. They predate today's meaningless left/right debate.
And that's the point. The Founder's believed the best way to preserve individual liberty was to create a national government of limited and enumerated powers while granting the various states unlimited power. This way, if a so-called "conservative" like Gov. Mitt Romney should enact a health care law with a totalitarian mandate in Massachusetts, free spirits could simply vote with their feet, fleeing to a nearby liberty-loving state. A national government with unlimited power forces its view on the whole nation, eliminating the safety our constitutional diversity of states was designed to provide. Obama and Pelosi's mandate was meant to be the final blow to that constitutional arrangement.
Politics are a lot like a magic act. Its success has more to do with the dazzling and distracting props of the magician – not to mention his deft sleight of hand. More importantly, the audience is predisposed to being fooled.
Law, on the other hand, relies on fact and precedent. Unlike the magician's audience, practitioners of the law are supposed to be predisposed skeptics who rely on reason and sound argument to arrive at the truth before dispensing justice.
The creeping totalitarianism of American Progressivism is about to get a swift kick in the pants by the very court that conjured the beast now threatening us.
I Dream Things that Never Were …
-Robert F. Kennedy
A recent New York Times article contemplates the unthinkable:
"For the White House and the president's re-election team, the challenge begins immediately. They must publically defend the law's [ObamaCare's] constitutionality and push back against suggestions that the battle is already lost, even as they privately piece together a contingency plan if the law – or part of it – is overturned."
The excerpt above is a masterpiece of Orwellian "double-think," the ability to hold diametrically opposed ideas within a single thick skull. But it beautifully expresses the divide between storybook fantasy and cold reality, demagogic politics and analytic law, tyranny and freedom.
"Well," said President Obama in a 2009 address before a joint session of Congress, "the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care."
There were two major flaws with the president's calculations:
1. A majority of Americans opposed ObamaCare from its inception. Who doesn't recall the stream of YouTube videos showing boisterous town hall meetings of constituents giving their erstwhile representatives an earful, sounding like Patrick "give me liberty or give me death" Henry. Obama's congressional allies came off sounding like Prince John's sniveling henchmen in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
2. The second problem, one the media's talking heads insisted posed no problem at all, was whether nationalizing one-sixth of the economy, creating a government-run health insurance market and forcing every American into this clattering Rube Goldberg contraption, fell within the confines of the Constitution's enumerated powers; you know, that funny term used by the guys in the powdered wigs who convened in Philadelphia in 1787 and insisted their new government was legally obliged to do only those things allowed, well, by law.
Many legal analysts, CNN's Jeffrey Toobin for one, assured Obama's nervous re-election team – by which I mean virtually every editor and writer in virtually every newsroom in America – that James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson's enumerated powers were the intellectual jet fuel behind Mao Tse-Tung's Great Leap Forward. Toobin told the vacant-headed interviewer Charlie Rose that the U.S. Supreme Court would sanction the president's little experiment in totalitarianism by a 7-to-2 or an 8-to-1 vote.
The Brick Wall of Reality …
The first hint that ObamaCare was in trouble was when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pleaded for her Democratic colleagues to "pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy."
In saying this, she telegraphed two important realities: Transforming a free society into one that is not is very complicated – ObamaCare represents 2,700 pages of scintillating reading; and, second, America's transformative shift from representative government to a Czar-directed regime that renders congressional service to constituents superfluous.
When Pelosi's Democratic majority overwhelmingly voted not to read the bill, by passing it, many Americans realized there was something terribly wrong with our two-party system. With Republicans profoundly disinterested in resisting Obama and Pelosi's power grab, it fell to ordinary citizens to wage a two-front war against both political parties in the name of one overriding principle – restoring Constitutional normalcy to America.
Tea Party America unseated many a Pelosi Democrat and compliant Republican-in-Name-Only (RINO). The disastrous 2010 midterm elections, dubbed the "shellacking" by Obama, helped change the conversation in America from "What can government do for us" to "What can we do to shield ourselves from imperial government."
Somebody Call the Cops …
"When the President does it," the disgraced Richard Nixon famously said, "that means that it is not illegal."
A presidential pardon saved Nixon from testing his novel theory in open court, sparing him an embarrassing perp-walk and time behind bars. Much to Nixon's credit, his criminal inclinations tended toward the petty: Break-ins, wiretaps, and using the police powers of the FBI, CIA and IRS to harass political enemies. He never attempted to change America's more than 200-year constitutional arrangement between a free people and its elected government.
Nixon was tricky … but not that tricky.
The real trick was convincing lawmakers and the public that ObamaCare was just a benign way for Congress to nudge the country into engaging in a little regulated interstate commerce – even if Congress created that market, its main product and its readymade customers. This arrangement seemed at odds with a free society and more familiar in practice with the illicit powers exercised by New York City's mafia crime families.
Tell It to the Judge …
When Solicitor General Donald Verilli stood before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend ObamaCare, he had trouble getting the words out. He repeated himself, coughed, cleared his throat and stopped to drink a glass of water. He was undoubtedly nervous. Not for arguing the government's case before the nation's high court, he has done so 17 times before. It was that his argument took previous misguided Supreme Court rulings to their logical conclusion, and in defense of one principle: The power of Congress is infinite.
Supreme Court rulings since the heyday of the New Deal have expanded federal authority through novel interpretations of the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause. Under this argument, economic activity links us to one another, like the oxygen we breathe or the rays of the warming sun.
Karl Marx sought to place the "means of production" in the hands of the state, by which he meant factories. ObamaCare, through its individual mandate, covets the individual by radically redefining us as necessary cogs in the machine of government-created "commerce." ObamaCare perceives what Marx failed to see: That free men and women are the means of production.
But totalitarianism is beset with many internal contradictions. During the first day's oral arguments, the government lawyer insisted the courts had no legal authority to rule on the issue. He reasoned that the individual mandate was a tax and that Congress was simply exercising its taxing authority. Since no one has paid a fine for running afoul of the individual mandate (scheduled to begin in 2015), no injury has been inflicted and the courts cannot hear the case (the Anti-Injunction Act of 1867). The very next day, Verilli argued ObamaCare was not a tax but an Interstate Commerce and Necessary and Proper clause issue.
In one ironic moment, Verilli argued that the individual mandate required the IRS to function like a bill collection agency to guarantee that health care recipients "pay" for what they get. After all, Verilli insisted, many currently receive "health care service anyway as a result of social norms … to which we've obligated ourselves so that people get health care." Justice Antonin Scalia's answer to that was simple – "Don't obligate yourself."
Justice Anthony Kennedy, considered the high court's swing vote, framed his comment, Jeopardy-like, in the form of a question, "When you are changing the relation of the individual to the government in this, what we can stipulate is, I think, a unique way, do you not have a heavy burden of justification to show authorization under the Constitution?"
You're Such a Burden ...
Ah, yes, the "burden of justification … under the Constitution." That statement by Justice Kennedy caused shivers to run up the collective spines of American Progressives. The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne was apoplectic, "Last week's Supreme Court oral arguments on health care were the most dramatic example of how radical tea partyism has displaced mainstream conservative thinking."
Dionne then expressed the darkest fear lurking in the hearts of his Progressive brethren, "It's not just that the law's individual mandate was, until very recently, a conservative idea. Even conservative legal analysts were insisting it was impossible to imagine the court declaring the health care mandate unconstitutional, given its past decisions."
For modern Progressives, American history begins with FDR's New Deal, and the subsequent Supreme Court rulings upholding the expansion of federal power under creative reinterpretations of the Constitution's clear language and meaning ("penumbras and emanations"). If you have no reasonable expectation of amending the founding document through the democratic process, the next best thing is to dub it a "living Constitution," leaving the amending to a nine person star chamber.
But Supreme Court justices read the newspapers just like the next guy – even the Washington Post. They would be hard pressed not to notice American Progressivism, which views the welfare-state police powers of Congress as infinite, is moving our nation inexorably toward fiscal ruin and a decidedly more authoritarian government.
If, as the Post's Dionne suggests, five Supreme Court justices are listening to the ruminations of the tea party, it's not the clamorous souls of the 2010 midterm elections … it's the guys in the tri-cornered hats who threw tea into Boston Harbor on a cold winter's eve in 1773. They predate today's meaningless left/right debate.
And that's the point. The Founder's believed the best way to preserve individual liberty was to create a national government of limited and enumerated powers while granting the various states unlimited power. This way, if a so-called "conservative" like Gov. Mitt Romney should enact a health care law with a totalitarian mandate in Massachusetts, free spirits could simply vote with their feet, fleeing to a nearby liberty-loving state. A national government with unlimited power forces its view on the whole nation, eliminating the safety our constitutional diversity of states was designed to provide. Obama and Pelosi's mandate was meant to be the final blow to that constitutional arrangement.
Politics are a lot like a magic act. Its success has more to do with the dazzling and distracting props of the magician – not to mention his deft sleight of hand. More importantly, the audience is predisposed to being fooled.
Law, on the other hand, relies on fact and precedent. Unlike the magician's audience, practitioners of the law are supposed to be predisposed skeptics who rely on reason and sound argument to arrive at the truth before dispensing justice.
The creeping totalitarianism of American Progressivism is about to get a swift kick in the pants by the very court that conjured the beast now threatening us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
