The Debt Deal rises again.

The next phase of the summer showdown which resulted in the debt deal is playing itself out in Washington this week. Mr. Obama is preparing to ask Congress for approval to dig America's debt grave another $1.2 Trillion deeper. That, of course, is with the debt already diving past $15.2 Trillion.

It isn't likely to be a political hot potato for anyone, however. The debt deal was structured to guarantee passage of the debt increase; all Obama had to do was to wait until Congress was out of session. The deal allows the President's request to automatically pass unless Congress actually meets and passes an objection to the request, which the President is allowed to veto. The only way to stop the request, therefore, is to muster a 2/3 majority to override the veto, and the Democrats and "moderate" GOP members who negotiated the deal knew the Tea Party freshmen would never have the clout to bring that about. And that is assuming they had the stomach for a new political dogfight over the debt increase. As it stands, members of Congress can ignore the debt increase, or complain about it while saying "their hands are tied with Congress out of session," to score political points.

This is how professional politicians game the system. Bad deals, like the debt deal, and unpopular bills, like Obamacare, are set up to take effect at a later time, when those who passed the bill are long gone. That way, the professional politician hopes, the blame and anger by those affected is dissipated and the buck is passed; the politician survives. Yet there is a price to be paid. In this case, somebody (and that's the taxpayers- not the Occupy Welfare Services crowd) is going to owe another $1.2 Trillion Dollars.

This debt deal was supposed to be enough to get the Federal Government through to the 2013 budget year, but if Obama couldn't make it 4 months without borrowing another Trillion plus, he isn't going to make it to 2013 without coming back for more, either.

Ready for Court?

This will seem like a reasonable idea, if you are a part of the New World Order and entrenched in the climate-change movement. The UN, ascending into its proper place as the new Federal Government of the World, will establish a Court to hear legal disputes arising from the effects of climate change.  This Climate Court will have jurisdiction over all nations of the world and will have power to award damages to countries affected by actions of other countries.

In other words, countries like the United States, which are developed and therefore consume more energy than undeveloped countries, would be liable to lawsuits for the "excess emissions" and "climate damage." In such a case, the US could be ordered to pay damages (that's money) to the "damaged" countries, and the Climate Court could order the US to institute laws and regulations to bring down national emissions of carbon, greenhouse gases, or whatever the UN chooses to regulate, and to bring them down to whatever level the UN dictates.

The practical effects would be disastrous. The financial costs out of pocket wouldn't be inconsequential; if the damages demanded were in the Millions of Dollars, you'd be getting off easy. And there would be both the cost and effect of the United Nations required regulations. What would be the effect on most Americans of a requirement to reduce your automobile usage to the daily per-mile usage of automobiles? Americans drive an average of about 15,000 miles per year - how many miles do the rest of the people in the world drive per year? 100 miles, 10 miles? Most Americans do not have access to mass transit; it might mean losing your job - or your home. And what about heating your house; does it use more energy than a mud hut in Africa? If you haven't thought about your carbon footprint, you can bet these climate folks will. And they will expect Americans and the developed nations to pay for it.

Perhaps you think this can't happen in America. Perhaps you think your representatives would never do this to you. If so, the next time some obscure UN treaty comes before the Congress, remember Speaker Pelosi's famous statement about Obamacare; "We have to pass it so you can see what is in it."  Are you ready for Court, America?

Clinton and Obama: America's Foreign Policy Disaster

The American public has been preoccupied with the economic problems in the country brought on by exploding government regulation, debt and spending coupled with chronic high unemployment in the private sector (not the government; they have plenty of money to hire more bureaucrats,) and millions of illegal aliens either taking Americans' jobs and benefits, or pursuing other, less friendly agendas. The American public has also been intently watching the related collapse of the European Union's socialist economies, as news leaks out that the Federal Reserve Bank has loaned Trillions of Dollars to U.S. and foreign banks in addition to the Billions of Dollars they announced publicly.

The American public, with all of these domestic issues, has not been focused on America's foreign policy as it unfolds under Clinton and Obama. Sure, we've been hearing about the revolutions sweeping the Middle East, and we've seen the fall of Mubarak and Quaddafi. That is supposed to be good news, since, the pundits and news articles tell us, democracy is rising in the Middle East, and there will be peace.

The pundits and journalists are wrong. With the fall of the dictators, there will be elections. And that will be the extent of, and the end of, hopes in the Middle East for democracy as we in the West understand it.

What is rising, and will continue to rise, in the Middle East is the Islamist movement. Take a look at Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement is being elected into majority control of the country, and the coalition they are expected to form with the even more Islamic fundamentalist Nour party will allow Islamists to design the new constitution.  The Islamists will undoubedly include Shari'a Law and other Islamic principles.  Libya's new leaders have likewise announced that their new government will be built upon Shari'a Law. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/new-libyan-government-to-impose-sharia-law-tells-world-we-are-moderate/ The government of Kuwait has resigned, and is in caretaker mode awaiting elections over allegations of corruption. Under pressure by "opposition leaders," the Prime Minister has resigned for the first time since the country became a democracy - who might oppose democracy, do you suppose?  In Tunisia, what the BBC characterized as the "moderate"Islamist Ennahada party won the majority of seats, which provoked protests among secularists who fear the radical Islamization of the country.  Pakistan and Turkey, both formerly aligned with the United States as allies, have moved away from American alliances, with open rioting breaking out in Pakistan.

The foreign policy of Clinton and Obama has led to the most radical transformation of the Middle East that has been seen in decades. It is not a change to be taken lightly, as the implications for the United States are serious, and frightening. Yes, the previous governments were unpleasant and unsympathetic dictators, but not particularly averse to working with the U.S. In their place, we now have new governments controlled by Islamists who have openly declared that the destruction of the West is their goal.

Worse yet, the Administration continues to steer full steam into the foreign policy disaster they have caused. Perhaps there isn't any alternative at this point, but it seems that the Administration is simply without a clue and is too arrogant to even recognize the extent of the disaster they have fostered.  For her part, Hillary seems blithely oblivious to the goings-on in the Middle East; it's hard to find any statement of substance by her in the news, although it seems she is working hard to bring peace to Myanmar. Meanwhile, unbelievably, Defense Secretary Panetta hasblamed Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East, which is probably our only remaining ally in the Middle East, for causing this situation, saying Israel should "mend fences" with Turkey and Egypt.  Mr. Panetta, if the Arab Spring is anybody's fault, it's ours, not Israel's.  So while the Middle East explodes with the rise of violent Islamism, while Iran builds nukes, while China and Russia form new alliances with Islamists out to destroy America, this Administration is all for it, as if millions of people shouting "Death to America" is somehow a good thing.

The abysmal lack of understanding of foreign policy issues by the Obama Adminstration is both appalling and dangerous. This country would be safer if we would send this bunch packing; if they stay in Washington, it can only get worse.   Perhaps they could collectively manage a hot dog stand on Coney Island; but then, perhaps not, since none of them have any real-world business experience, either.

Remedial Politics 001

The GOP Senior Republicans, Washington's Inside-the-Beltway Oldtimers, seem to have become confused about the purpose of politics. Members of the House Appropriations Committee are pressuring Speaker Boehner to discipline his caucus to force the newcomers to the House to get in line and vote with the GOP caucus.

The cause of this furor was a vote in the House on a "minibus" appropriations bill, which passed with 133 Republican votes and 165 Democrat votes. 101 Republicans voted against the bill, and the House leadership is upset that these Republicans didn't vote with their caucus. As quoted in Newsmax, one GOP congressman told The Hill. “We’ve got some people who need to learn Politics 101. It either hasn’t been explained to them or they haven’t felt the need to play team ball."

That might be, but it probably isn't. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., is quoted as saying “As we negotiated these last three bills, we went into it with a fairly strong position, and it was really House Republicans and Senate Democrats that drove the train. Now it’s going to be House Democrats at the table in a major way because we have to have their votes to pass the bill." Read that again, and the problem jumps out at you. The House GOP "leadership" went to the Senate Democrats to work out a bill that the DEMOCRATS in the House and Senate wanted, and kicked their own caucus to the curb - and then had the gall to be "offended" that the House conservatives couldn't support them.

The Senior Republicans in the House seem to need Remedial Politics 001 before they take politics 101. Republicans are elected to support the Republican platform. 101 Republicans did that; the Senior Leadership did not. Apparently the Senior House Leadership is so inured to the Number Two position that they can't help but run to the Democrats for leadership ideas. Of course the House Democrats will be at the table in a big way, Representative Kingston; you had the Senate Democrats design the bill, and possibly unbeknownst to you, Senate Democrats and House Democrats are in the same party.

Remedial Politics 001. Senior Republicans need to get on board the Republican platform with their constituents. While it is true that a Representative is obligated to serve all constitutents, these Republicans were elected by a majority of people in their districts who chose to have the Republican ideals represented. Craft bills the Republicans can support and then go negotiate with the Democrats - without giving away the farm. Compromising principles is not the best solution - it really is better to pass no bill than a bad bill.

So enamored of the Democrat party platform is this Senior House Leadership that they can't even properly represent their constituents. And they are confused and offended when other Representatives in their party seek to represent the party as they should.

This sorry excuse for leadership is why the House has been so ineffective at controlling spending and limiting Obama as he bypasses and lawlessly ignores the Constitution. If the Senior House Leadership can't or won't change their ways, Republican voters need to replace them with Representatives who can, like the 101 who stood firm.

Irony in Politics

An ironic twist (or two) in American politics is emerging as the 2012 Presidential election campaign proceeds. One is the ongoing campaign for re-election by the current occupant. Aside from making a few speeches and playing golf, Mr. Obama's Presidency is remarkable only for the number of gala parties and expensive fund-raising events attended by the Obamas. It may reasonably be supposed that Mr. Obama's interests, aside from partying and vacationing, lie primarily in campaigning; doing the work of the President is evidently too tedious and bothersome, but campaigning is fun.

There is, however, a much larger, and much more ironic, trend beginning to be visible in the political scene. A little reflection on the differences between the ACORN-initiated Occupy movement and the Tea Party may be helpful. These groups reflect fundamentally different and opposing philosophies. And while Occupy isn't part of the Democrat party, most of the Occupiers will end up voting Democrat, just as the Tea Party isn't part of the Republican party, and many of the Tea Partiers seem to end up voting Republican.

Occupy professes no clear goals, and in fact, the organizers claim that they don't want to set goals. In spite of that, they have made one thing abundantly clear; they have seen the glittering promise of socialism, and they want that. Socialism promises money (fairness and equity, they call it), and they want it; the government has money, businesses have money, wealthy individuals have money, and they want it. Socialist theory tells them they are entitled to it, and they want it.

The Occupy people know how to get it, too; well, not themselves, but the theory of socialism promises that if they simply turn over all power and responsibility to the government, the minions of government will spare no effort in their complete devotion to the welfare of the people. All the Occupiers have to do is trust (and re-elect) Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and their ACORN appointees and bureaucrats. If they do that, then a benign and loving government will rain down love, world peace, harmony (and wealth) on them. Never mind the collapse of socialist Russia and the Eastern bloc, the crisis and incipient crash of the Western European nations which adopted socialist practices after WWII, and the economic crisis in the U.S. brought on by a headlong rush to socialism here, belatedly following the footsteps of Europe into debt and disaster; nothing can penetrate the clouded minds of the Occupiers in their lemming rush.

The Tea Party movement grew up from a grassroots resistance to the massive deficit spending of the Obama Stimulus and the government power grab embodied in the Obamacare healthcare takeover. Liberal media pundits decry the Tea Party, claiming that it is a puppet organization funded by that conservative bogeyman, the Koch brothers. Conservatives know that is deliberate misdirection by liberals. The Tea Party wants to direct the government back towards its American roots, and has fairly well defined goals; limited government with less spending, lower taxation, less regulation, deficit reduction, trimmed entitlement programs, and stopping illegal immigration by securing the border as the Constitution requires. Yet the Tea Party seems to have lost track of what they are trying to do.

Take a look at the GOP primary race. Mitt Romney has stuttered along consistently, but he is by no means a Tea Party man. Michele Bachmann had garnered initial support, reasonably enough. Elected on a Tea Party platform, a Constitutional lawyer and mother of five, who espouses and votes consistently for Tea Party principles. No dirt in her past, but, (oh no!) her husband counsels homosexuals on how they may leave that lifestyle (and conservatives don't believe in this?) So Rick Perry threw his hat into the ring; he looked "electable" and the conservatives ran to his camp, only to find that Gov. Perry really supports illegal immigration, even though securing the border from invasion is an affirmative Constitutional duty of the Federal Government. Time to look elsewhere; maybe Herman Cain? Good credentials, he even has a plan. But as soon as he rises in the polls, the liberal media (which conservatives claim not to believe, and shouldn't, but do) trumpets allegations of sexual infidelity, without even bothering about proof or substantiation, and off the conservative crowd runs. To Newt. Now, Gingrich is hardly a Tea Party conservative; he makes global warming ads with Pelosi, works for GOP candidates who run against Tea Party candidates (remember Scozzafava?,)  and has more baggage than a traveling luggage salesman, but he looks "electable." For the moment.

That's the irony. The Occupiers sit in their dirty, mostly illegal little camps, chanting "gimme, gimme, gimme," all day long, and they might win. Meanwhile, the Tea Party is careening like a pinball from one contender to another, seeking an "electable" candidate. The Tea Party needs to slow down and take a look at its goals. After all, if "electability" is the main criteria, maybe (tongue in cheek, here) the GOP should draft Hillary Clinton. She's pretty popular with moderates, and even Democrats, and the Establishment GOP could work with her - most of them aren't going to get worked up about all these "moral" issues that seem to bother the GOP base, which in large part is found in the Tea Party.

Seriously, the Tea Party needs to look at the candidates and find the one with Tea Party goals - and work to get that person elected. "Electability" is getting enough votes, and the Tea Party has proven it can deliver honest votes if it chooses to.

This election isn't up to the Democrats, Obama isn't that popular. And it really isn't up to the Establishment GOP - they are perfectly content avoiding responsibility and being Number Two.

It's up to the Tea Party to lose, or win, this election.

Heavier Trucks, or Outsourced Jobs?

There is a movement, led by a group euphemistically called "Coalition for TransportationProductivity," to push legislators to increase the weight limits of trucks allowed on U.S. highways. 

This coalition includes over 100 major shippers such as Tyson Foods and Hershey Co., and a number of the major truck lines that ship nationwide, such as Con-way and U.S. Express. These shippers want to raise weight limits of trucks that travel in the U.S. from the current 80,000 lb. limit to a 97,000 lb. limit, and they suggest there a number of reasons to do so. One is that the current weight limit is often reached before the trailer is filled. Another is that fewer trucks would be required to move the same tonnage. Third, modern containers weigh 97,000 lbs, and the new weight limit would avoid transshipment to smaller, 80,000 lb trucks.

Those aren't necessarily bad reasons, but they probably obscure the real reasons. One, of course, is the cost of personnel. Corporations are engaged in a constant effort to reduce the number of employees; fewer trucks means fewer drivers, and, although businesses always tout on-the-job training opportunities, corporations do everything possible to avoid the cost of training employees.

The second, and more important reason, is hinted at in a quote from Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), "With the Panama Canal being deepened, these larger cargo ships coming in are going to be carrying containers that weigh 97,000 pounds." Coming in where? Ports in Panama or Mexico? That opens the door for Mexican trucks into the U.S. Mexican trucks are already heavier - up to 171,000 lbs, so a 97,000 lb limit is no big deal for them.

But Mexican trucks have other advantages for corporate shippers. Mexico doesn't do safety inspections, doesn't require driver logbooks or out of service (rest) time for drivers, Mexico doesn't take trucks out of service for defective equipment. According to one source, 36 percent of trucks entering the U.S. from Mexico were placed out-of-service by U.S. inspectors for serious safety defects. 

All of safety compliance costs shippers money, and that gives the companies that can avoid those costs a competitve advantage, especially against small-business shippers and owner-operators that can't. It may be that a weight limit increase is justified, but it shouldn't be a wedge to let shippers outsource trucking jobs south of the border.

This may seem like a small issue, but every truck on U.S. roads should comply with U.S. laws. While a heavier 97,000 lb truck might not be dangerous in itself, a defective 97,000 lb truck with an exhausted driver is a recipe for disaster which shouldn't be allowed on American roads, and any legislative change should be certain to ensure the legal compliance of any truck in or entering the U.S.

Professionalism in media.

Where can you find professionalism in media these days? Russia, it seems.

On November 14, a Russian newscaster, while reading on live television a story mentioning President Obama, appeared to give a gesture of disrespect (the raised middle finger, or "the bird"). The Russian TV network, REN TV, issued a statement noting that such behavior was "a gross violation of on-air discipline and unprofessionalism." The newscaster claimed she didn't even know she was actually on the air at the time, but nonetheless the newscaster was fired.

Meanwhile, in America. Michelle Bachmann appears on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." (Presidential candidates have to associate with all sorts while campaigning.) Fallon's band leader picked out what he felt was an appropriate "walk-on" or intro song for a female GOP candidate - a song which featured the refrain "lyin' ass bitch." It wasn't by accident, and the Fallon's band knew they were on the air. It is difficult to imagine a more sexist or demeaning song choice.

Jimmy Fallon later apologized for the song. After the incident garnered national attention on Foxnews, and after a call for an apology by Democrat Representative Nita Lowey, NBC's VP for late night programming, Doug Vaughan, sent a letter ofapology noting that Fallon's band had been "severely reprimanded." For their part, Fallon's band said the song choice was "tongue-in-cheek," but they don't appear to be apologizing. Nor do they appear to have been fired, either.

Is America going to have to bring in the Russian media to cover the Presidential campaigns in place of America's mainstream media to have professional, balanced and unbiased coverage?

The Millionaire roadshow

If you have followed the news recently, you have heard about the group that calls itself "Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength" testifying before Congress recently. They claim to be bona fide millionaires, and we have to take their word for that. They are asking, they say, for abolition of the Bush tax cuts, and for higher marginal rates on high-income earners. Certainly sounds patriotic, doesn't it? Obviously, these "patriotic millionaires" want to see the national deficit reduced, they care about their country with all their heart, and they have come to ask Congress to come together to do the right thing, the "real" thing. That is, make sure everyone pays their fair share as defined by the Democrats, because Democrats care (unlike those nasty, cold-hearted Republicans.) That's what these "patriotic millionaires" want.

Or do they?

Perhaps they really have pure hearts and compassionate souls, as they are portrayed. Maybe - maybe not.  A reporter from the Daily Caller met with some of them and gave them the opportunity to voluntarily donate their own actual cash money to pay down the debt.  Not one of them donated even so much as One Dollar, although one must be fair and assume perhaps they already donate on their tax returns and they're just too modest to say so.  Several of them complained that such donations would have no real effect on the deficit, and perhaps that also is true - a Thousand Dollars, or even a Million Dollars doesn't do much to reduce a now $15 Trillion Dollar debt.   It's also laughably irrelevant, as any middle-income earner knows, since the IRS will be knocking on your door to collect what you owe, however little it may be, if at tax time you choose not to "donate."

It is much more likely that the answer is found elsewhere. In a PBS interview, one member of the group, Garrett Greuner, explained that, "I have built up a number of companies myself, and I have been a venture capitalist now for almost 20 years.... And I can say, for myself, that not a single one of those investments, not one was ever impacted by marginal tax rates."

The interviewer asked Greuner about the small business owners, "Then why do we hear that so often from small -- the millionaire class, which includes many small businesses, we hear, why do we hear that tax rates do have an impact on whether they start their business, whether they hire that one extra person?

GARRETT GRUENER: I think it's -- frankly, I think it's a myth."

Ask your tax preparer about this, because it is important.  Investment income, Gruener's income, is likely to be taxed at lower capital gains rates of 15%. Generally, the higher marginal tax rates of 35% apply to earned income, which is what small business owners have. 

In other words, Gruener is delighted to have marginal tax rates raised, because it appears he doesn't pay them. Investment income is taxed only at 15%, untouched by marginal tax rates, he's happy to have Congress raise those. He is telling Congress to raise taxes - on his competitors, the small business owners who DO pay them. It seems to be sheer self-interest motivating this Millionaire roadshow. Do you suppose Mr. Gruener and his merry band of Patriots would feel as patriotically motivated to have investment income taxed at earned income rates?

This movement seems to follow the lead of Warren Buffett.   Mr. Buffett, it appears, helped design the TARP program for Mr. Obama. Under the rules shaped by Buffet, and adopted by Geithner, Mr. Buffett appears to have made huge profits. You can read about it in Peter Schweitzer's book, Throw Them All Out.

It appears these millionaires may merely be doing what liberals do best: compassionately taxing and spending other people's money.

Stimulated, Obama style.

Evidence continues to mount that the Obama political machine used the Department of Energy loan program as a thinly veiled political payback for Obama campaign donors. One commentator has suggested that 75% of the loans went to companies owned or invested in by individuals who coincidentally made large donations or bundled donations amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Obama election campaign.

The Republicans in Congress are trying to investigate these loans. However, the Obama White House keeps stalling, missing response deadlines and releasing documents late Friday night, when there is little or no press coverage. The White House is also saying the document requests are excessive, or that the documents the White House has chosen to release so far show that politics were not involved in the loan process.

In fact the documents show no such thing.  At least one document indicates, for example, that the Administration was not only aware of Solyndra's troubles, but apparently asked that Solyndra's employee layoff not be announced until November 3, which was the day after the election occurred. It also appears that the Solyndra loan was unusually structured to ensure that the investors (Obama's donors, remember) were protected in the event of failure, rather than the lenders (that's you, the taxpayers.) And Solyndra's executives refused under the Fifth Amendment to testify about the loan funds, on the grounds that to do so might incriminate them.

Right now, the extent of Obama Administration involvement and the extent of political influence in the granting of these loans to Obama donors is not clear, but then, nothing about the inner workings of this "most transparent" administration has been open to public view. With many in the media providing cover, the Administration's conduct goes unreported and uninvestigated. Hopefully, Congressional investigators can get past Administration roadblocks and find the truth about these loans.

Can you see Russia from there?

In a humorous slip of the tongue, Mr. Obama, attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit referred to the meetings "here in Asia."  Of course, what is funny about it is that the summit is being held in, and he is in, Hawaii. Most of us Americans think of Hawaii as part of the United States. And, of course, it's a normal and natural thing for people to make a slip of the tongue, stretch an analogy, forget something under pressure, and the like.

Obviously, that's true for some people, but not all. After all, it's not as if he was running for President of these 57 (as Obama counts them) states. Or at least not as a Republican candidate, anyway - as a Democrat, all will be forgiven by the media.

Rick Perry forgot the name of a government agency in the pressure of a debate, so clearly he is not Presidential material. News stories popped up everywhere about that slip-up, and down go his ratings. The Media declares him "not viable" and stops talking about him to ensure that he becomes not viable.

The Left likes Romney or Gingrich, so they get the favorable coverage.

It's a reminder of how the media covered the last Presidential election cycle. McCain was a "maverick" Republican most voters wouldn't get excited about, but he chose a conservative VP candidate Republican voters did get excited about. So the media went hunting. When that Alaskan VP candidate said you could almost see Russia from her home, the Left went nuts, excoriating her for her ignorance. However, an Anderson Cooper reporter investigated, and found that you actually can see Russia from an Alaskan island - the reporter went on to note dismissively that even though Ms. Palin was right, it was really Palin's domestic policy that was wrong. So even a Republican candidate who is correct is "wrong."

Obama is incorrect in referring to Hawaii as "Asia." It won't matter, the media won't care. It does make you wonder, though. Mr. President, can you see Russia from there?

America's Economic troubles and Socialism

A Washington Times article titled, "China mocks U.S. political model," (part four) suggests that Chinese leaders in both the political and business sectors watching the economic troubles in Washington and Europe are concluding that their political model is proving superior to the democratic political models used in the Western countries. 

In most media conversations, including this Times article, the U.S. is portrayed as being bogged down in partisan politics, gridlocking the government and preventing the implementation of meaningful and effective solutions to America's problems. Many, both inside and outside the U.S., have bought this myth. And it is a myth. Partisan political bickering is not the actual problem, it is merely a symptom of a cultural clash taking place in America. There are two groups with fundamentally opposed and incompatible ideologies at war in America. Everybody knows who these are - the liberals fighting for Quadrant III communist-style socialism, and conservatives battling to keep Quadrant I American freedom. The liberals have taken leadership of the Democrat party and are bringing their populist constituents along with Pied Piper promises; the conservatives are the constituency of the GOP and find themselves trying to push the reluctant, money-centric GOP leadership to acknowledge their moral and social concerns.

It is not a war of guns and bombs; it is not guerilla warfare in the streets; it is not wholesale massacres and mass graves. That these things are not occurring proves that the American system does work, not that it does not, as such things are the hallmarks of typical socialist revolutions.

Those in the East would do well not to become smug, however. It is true that the European Union and the U.S. are having a time of economic trouble, but the trends which caused that trouble, and which caused the prosperity in the East, would be worth some thought.

The countries in the Eurozone are widely acknowledged as having come to enlightenment and moved dramatically toward socialism in the post-WWII era. They have created vast entitlement states, huge bureaucracies and burdensome regulatory structures. While moving in this direction, they have become less productive and borrowed every bit of money they could find to pay their bloated rolls of entitlement payees and bureaucracy. The free ride is over, and the socialist experiment is creaking and collapsing under the strain.

What direction did the U.S. move? As the peaceniks and hippies of the 'Sixties came into leadership in the 'Eighties, America followed Europe and pushed more and more rapidly away from Quadrant I, toward socialism. Entitlement programs mushroomed, government bloated, regulation exploded, America's debt grew exponentially. All of these factors ignited skyrocketing business costs, so businesses moved out of America.

American business owners found it easy to take advantage of low-cost labor provided by the poverty-ridden workers in the East. In America, just as in those Eastern nations, this created a class of very wealthy business owners while driving down wages for the vast majority of people. Socialism, which touts equal wealth distribution, seems to actually do a very poor job.

In contrast, nations like China (although they would never admit it) have moved from hard-line Communist Socialism towards a neo-Fascist, Quadrant IV style that is at least profit-permitting, and have seen their fortunes increase as they have moved right. They are, however, still socialist. And that is why their crowing is premature. To be truly prosperous, these nations must create and permit what America had before the 1960's - a well-educated and self-motivated, self-disciplined electorate capable of understanding and participating in the progress of the nation. America no longer has that, as its educational leadership provides an education which has dropped from the world's best to rank near the bottom worldwide.  The American middle class was built out of the Puritan ethic of Godliness, loyalty not to the nation right-or-wrong, but to American ideals, and unselfish hard work for the betterment of both themselves and their country.

The Eastern nations are not creating self-sustaining economies; socialist economies have proven to have no ability or provision for that. Building vast "ghost" cities (as discussed here, and worth seeing) that few citizens can afford to live in, just to fabricate an artificial GDP, merely fosters an illusion of prosperity. The nations of the East are not creating a counterpart to the American middle class, but are merely flying high on America's huge deficit spending binge. That illusion of prosperity will burst when the American middle-class is exhausted, as the underpaid workers of the socialist countries which provided the cheap labor to facilitate that spending binge will not suddenly become prosperous consumers.

There are plenty of obvious lessons to be learned here. Nations moving into socialism and away from an engaged, moral citizenry also move away from prosperity. Nations moving away from socialism can move toward long-term prosperity, but at present they are just living on the American bubble. They are not moving toward real prosperity, because as with all socialists, they deny or refuse to see that capitalism and democracy only worked because of that Puritan ethic. No political system can create that ethic, and absent that ethic, corruption and self-interest prevents prosperity. Whether politicians and ideologues can learn these lessons remains to be seen.

GPS, Big Brother, and the economies of scale

The Supreme Court is considering a case, U.S. v. Jones, 10 - 1259, which has all the implications of Orwell's 1984. Police conducted surveillance on the defendant through the use of a GPS device placed on his automobile, and the issue is whether warrantless surveillance is permissible under the Fourth Amendment, and to what extent.

The government is arguing, predictably enough, that GPS surveillance is always permissible, since the same results could be obtained by an officer or team of officers conducting visual surveillance. In other words, if you are in public, anything you do is by definition not private.

It's an argument which is misleading by virtue of oversimplification. The fact that you are in a public place as part of going about your business does not lay bare all your business to the public. Think about it - if you go to your bank, does a policeman have the right to intercept you on the public sidewalk and demand account numbers, balance information, passwords? Of course not, and that's one reason why the argument is invalid. Just as the availability of simple and easy electronic surveillance does not give carte blanche to the government to conduct warrentless electronic searches, the fact that a person is in public incident to conducting business should not give license for warrantless tracking of an individual's whereabouts. Police can and should get a warrant if they have legal cause.

There is another consideration which should give the Court pause.

Electronic surveillance is inherently a low-cost method of tracking an individual. Turn on the GPS, and a computer keeps track of the individual for you. Furthermore, economies of scale will apply here. Most newer cars have some form of built-in GPS, and many individuals have services like GM's Onstar which keep track of their cars; all the government has to do is interface its computers and it can get real-time updates on all those cars. The government's costs to conduct surveillance, per individual, go down as the number of people under electronic surveillance goes up. And it can do this with your cellphones, too. Wecome Big Brother.

While the same information is obtained by visual surveillance, the same criteria for conducting surveillance do not apply. It is expensive to deploy officers for surveillance. If visual surveillance is to be conducted, there must be a strong reason to justify that use of officers, and the expenditure of time and money. It is this justification process which protects the individual from thoughtless and baseless surveillance.

Razing Cain

The left is working hard on a new project as Herman Cain's poll numbers are rising up to eclipse those of their preferred GOP Presidential candidate, 2012's John McCain, also known as Mitt Romney.

You see, the liberal Left understands two things the muddle-headed (or "proud to be Number Two") Establishment GOP "thinkers" cannot seem to comprehend. First, liberals are not going to vote for Romney. It absolutely is not going to happen. Sure, he is a left-leaning candidate, but the left already has a lock on left-leaning candidates; Obama, a communist organizer for most of his professional career, obviously has solid left-wing credentials, and if his aren't far left enough, there's always Hillary. Second, moderates will vote for any candidate they "feel good" about, conservatives are going to look at the candidate's conservative credentials. Conservatives won't get excited about a left-leaning candidate like Romney.  Not all of them will stay home, but some of them will, and that will cost the GOP seats in the Senate and the House, and other races, because Romney has no coattails.  So it is important to the Left to keep the GOP conservatives unhappy and the "bow and scrape" subservient Establishment GOP on top.

To understand the practical effect of these two items, it's important to recall that the Left describes the views of many in media, as well. In the major broadcast networks, 88percent of employees donated to Obama's 2008 campaign.  At the same time, self-identified, in-your-face liberals outnumber conservatives in media by a ratio of three-to-one.

In view of the foregoing, the Left's latest project becomes easier to understand. The best name for that project is "Razing Cain." This is a process called "Borking," and it's similar to the massive effort taken to discredit Palin in the public eye; scour the records, talk to friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. Dig up dirt; parade it in public. If there isn't any real dirt, make accusations. Anonymous accusations and innuendoes are the best. Demand "answers" and write lots of op-ed pieces about the "lack of forthrightness" in the candidate while ignoring any issues with the nature of the accusations or accusers.

The National Restaurant Association, where Cain was CEO at the time of the alleged events, has said Cain denied the allegations at the time, didn't know about the settlement, and the Association has agreed to waive confidentiality to allow the complaints to be examined; suddenly, the accuser's lawyer says the accuser "values her privacy" and "is choosing not to discuss" the allegations publicly.  If the public cannot even know the nature of the allegations, all that is left is innuendo.

That is what Cain is facing. Vague anonymous accusations and innuendoes by unnamed accusers about events which might not have happened. It's impossible to answer such things, and the media should know it. Responsible journalists would not even report such things without sources and verification, but responsible journalism is absent here. These same folks aren't concerned that the public can't even see Obama's school transcripts or papers, or that it took years to obtain a mere copy of a birth certificate.

The media folks are even engaging in racist attacks against Cain, referring to him as a "black man who knows his place."  And when they are called on it, they write disingenuous columns defending it, like the outlandish piece written by CNN's Martin, titled "Cain foolish to blame race."  Don't bother reading it if you don't like wading in, well, you know. This same bunch, from Obama on down, was always playing the race card about anyone who objected to Obama's policies.

Herman Cain told us to expect a "high-tech lynching." And this is what it looks like. While the media is working hard to portray "razing Cain" as a legitimate journalistic exercise, it's a lynching, and they know it - and they're proud of it.

Officially Lawless

The American people have seen a plethora of examples of the Federal Government going rogue in the last couple of years, particularly the Executive branch under the Obama Administration. Obama has made it plain that he intends to "go around" Congress and act by executive fiat. And there have been plenty of Agencies going rogue. One example is so-called "net neutrality," which Congress declined to authorize, and the FCC unilaterally pursued by bureaucratic fiat instead. Another example is Obama's unilateral declaration of a moratorium on oil rigs operating and drilling in the Gulf, after Obama sat on his hands and did nothing to help fight the Gulf oil spill; after a Federal Court ordered the moratorium lifted, the policy changed from outright denial of permits due to the drilling moratorium to a policy of "review," which indefinitely "delayed" their issuance.

The lawless actions of the Federal Government have moved to the next step now, however. A Federal Judge in Tennessee, Aleta Trauger, a Clinton nominee, has issued a Temporary Restraining Order preventing Tennessee State Officers from arresting Occupy protesters in Nashville's Legislative Plaza. Tennessee had attempted to institute rules regarding the use of the Plaza and bring some order to the Occupy protests by requiring permits and setting limits to occupancy.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/31/us/tennessee-occupy-protests/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

There are many examples of State (government) hostility to the Tea Party, where many regulatory barriers and burdens were employed to limit, if not prevent, the protests by setting regulatory barriers so high as to be impossible to meet. Tea Partiers were charged permit fees for daily occupancy, required to provide insurance coverage, provide security, and provide sanitation and clean-up services. Occupy has mostly been given a pass by the State on these same regulations; there are numerous reported instances of criminal activity at Occupy sites, and the Occupy protesters won't leave their sites even to allow sanitation and clean-up.

The media displays a shameless double-standard between coverage of the Tea Party, vilifying the participants as riotous, racist, bigoted, hillbilly wing-nuts, when none of those characteristics are displayed, as opposed to coverage of the Occupy movement, which is glorified as intelligent, clear-eyed, and well-planned, when likewise, none of those characteristics are displayed. The ACLU, self-proclaimed guardian of citizen's rights, and which represents the Occupy movement in this case, was notably silent on the issue of protecting political speech rights of the Tea Party from government interference. This shameless double-standard is also displayed in Judge Trauger's decision. The decision just gives official sanction and approval to the lawless protests of the left-wing, government-friendly Occupy movement.

Big Government allies.

Occupy Wall Street is getting a free ride from its allies. As you know by now, OWS has lots of demands, and nobody seems quite sure what they actually think they want, but one thing rings through loud and clear.

OWS does not want the America we know, the America that Conservatives and the Tea Party are working to keep, the America that our founding fathers bled and died for; they want to abolish the horrible captitalist system and replace it with socialism. They "know" socialism is better because the teachers and textbook authors have told them so, and have repeatedly told them throughout their public school and college education that America is sexist, racist, intolerant, non-diverse, and greedy. If you don't recognize that, it is classic Gramscian brainwashing and indoctrination.

Antonio Gramsci was a leading Italian Political Theorist, a Marxist, who argued that social revolution leading to a Marxist State had to be brought about by working through the schools to convert the masses.  He believed that the "ruling elite" controlled the masses by controlling what they learned, thus ensuring belief in and support for the status quo.  And where did all those Sixties Liberals go? Into the schools, the universities, the government, and the media, where the masses' opinions can be shaped.   So the college students of today "know" they want socialism.  Never mind the failures of Greece and Italy, the squalid conditions of the masses in Russia, or even the collapse of the Russian Socialist experiment.  Never mind the poverty of the Chinese workers, despite its massive economic growth, with its own class of uberrich.

In America, of course, there was no real "ruling" elite. Despite the influence wielded by the wealthy, we the people relied on accurate and factual education to "shape" our own opinions. Since the Sixties, however, liberals have worked to make sure more and more people were "educated" to understand the benefits of socialism. Patriotism, "melting-pot" and traditional American values have become targets of disdain, while America has moved steadily deeper into a morass of debt, social entitlements, and regulation.

Similarly, liberals, who believe in regulation and "social" justice, have moved into government positions where "real" power can be exercised. Obama himself exemplifies this attitude: a belief in small government is, he says, a belief in a "small America."

That brings us to OWS, working together with its Big Government allies.

The media gives OWS good coverage, portraying OWS activists as involved, and determined, out to make the world a better place.  One commentary even went so far as to call it the Tea Party with brains.  God help America if OWS is what passes for "brains" in America.

Remember ACORN? It doesn't exist anymore, you know.  However, the same organizations with the same people are operating under new names. Allegedly, they are posing as fundraisers for groups they don't represent to fraudulently raisefunds to actually pay workers to attend OWS activities.  If a rose by any other name smells like a rose, so a rotten acorn still smells like corruption.

Of course, the government itself would remain neutral in these protests. Or you might think so, but that isn't the case. In many places, Tea Party meetings had to obtain permits, buy millions of dollars of insurance, provide security and ensure that the grounds would be returned to pristine condition at the end of an event. Hoops had to be jumped through, barriers surmounted. If you assumed the OWS organizers had to do the same things, you'd be wrong. Across the nation, in city after city, OWS simply moved in and set up camp in public places. No permits, no arrangements for security or sanitation, no insurance. Not even a pretense of compliance with laws prohibiting overnight camping in public parks. Allegations of government favoritism toward the left-leaning OWS events, summarized in a Foxnews article, are surfacing everywhere. 

Big government employees are among big government's biggest boosters.   It shouldn't surprise anyone that liberals in government use their "real" power to favor their allies in the cause of Big Government.

Yet More Transparency!

The Obama Adminstration evidently thinks the meaning of "transparent" is "you can't see it."

Candidate, er, "President" Obama has been hard on the campaign trail. He has attended glitzy L.A. fundraisers and $35,000 per plate dinners. However, you can't see it - it's "transparent." Photographers were barred from the event, because that isn't the image the Obama campaign wants to project. 

What Mr. Obama wants you to see is a stop at the local diner for a fast-food chicken dinner special, so the media is invited in. (Where's "Let's Move" Michelle when all this high-calorie grease is going down the hatch?) Then it's on to collect the big bucks from the rich folks who bankroll his campaign, but you can't see it (it's transparent.)  And where is the media in all this? Gushing over Obama's link with the common man, how he is in touch with the little people at the diner, with hardly a word on the "transparent" fundraisers with the rich. The media could win more trust if they would do their job and stop campaigning for Obama.

It gets better, though. The "transparent" administration is proposing a new regulation which will allow Federal agencies to deny the existence of documents they don't want to release in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.  Under current law, if an agency refuses to release documents, a citizen may go to court to request an impartial review to determine whether documents should be released. With this new rule, the government can simply deny the existence of documents, removing any opportunity to seek a court review. After all, any court action would be dismissed on the grounds that the citizen could not even show that any documents existed to review, after all, it's transparent.
Is this an example of yet more transparency? This rule is simply another blatant attempt by the Obama Administration to ensure that government "of the people, by the people, for the people" shall perish from the face of the earth.

Whoa, let's not gallop right off the cliff!

 Senator McCain, once upon a time GOP candidate for President, is getting a little carried away with the cowboy diplomacy. While attending the World Economic Forum, which is being held right in the middle of the Middle East, the Senator said, "Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what practical military operations might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria.... Iran's rulers would be wise to heed similar counsel."  America just spent Three Quarters of a Trillion Dollars in military operations in the Middle East, and lost over 4,000 American lives, in the last nine years. And you want to gallop right off that cliff again? After nine years in Iraq, you want to engage Iran in a military conflict?

Have you forgotten that you folks in the Congress and the Administration are working to substantially cut the military budget? One-fourth of Obama's magical jobs act is money saved from not fighting wars. And aside from the Billion or so spent "not" fighting the "non-war" in Libya, our President and Fearless Leader has ordered "boots on the ground" in Uganda in a maneuver much like that which sucked America into Vietnam.

Of course, the good Senator is not alone. Ms. Clinton, our august Secretary of State, has been in Pakistan, delivering the message that if Pakistan is unwilling or unable to fight insurgents, the U.S. "would show" them how to fight the insurgents. She says the U.S. has no intention of deploying troops in Pakistan, that the favored method is reconciliation and peace - with the cooperation of the Pakistani government.  However, the "message" was sufficiently alarming that Afghanistan - yes, the place Americans have been fighting and dying to recover from the Taliban - said it would come to the aid of Pakistan, and stand with her against America, should America choose to invade Pakistan.

Afghanistan's response ought to serve as a dash of cold water in the face for Mr. McCain and Ms. Clinton. In other words, whoa up there, let's not gallop right off the cliff, okay? While you cowboys are out saber-rattling, you need to take a good hard look at what has been accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan up to this point.

What about Iraq? We won there, right? Sort of. We are leaving on such unfriendly terms that Obama failed to secure immunity from prosecution for American soldiers, let alone negotiate for U.S. bases in the country.  So the troops are coming home. It's a relief and blessing for the million men and women who served there, and their families. It's a campaign victory for Mr. Obama, who is bringing them home right on President Bush's timetable, but it is a military stalemate. Iraq is not stable, and many of the current leaders have strong ties with Iran, so it is likely to become an Iranian dependency. If that occurs, it means that all the American money and blood spent knocked out a dictator who was little more than an annoyance to us - but who stymied Iran's ambitions for power in the Middle East. Strategically, it could be a disaster for the U.S. While Ms. Clinton assures the world of U.S. commitment to Iraqi democracy, the past nine years have shown that it takes "boots on the ground" to keep it going - and the Iraqis are no longer keen on having our boots on their ground.

Then there's Egypt of the "Arab Spring." While that revolution was brought about as a popular rebellion, try finding the secularists and socialists now. They are quietly disappearing from the news, except for reports like the man sentenced to three years in prison for Facebook comments denigrating Islam. 

And our NATO "victory" in Libya? The National Transitional Council has just announced that Libya intends to adopt Shari'a Law as the basis for its legal system and repeal all non-Shari'a laws. Yes, the dictator is gone, but the radicals are moving in. And America, the country that can't stand even a whisper of the Bible or Judeo-Christian ethical system on which it was founded, is busy congratulating them even as they choose the Islamic religious system as the basis for their laws.

Strategically, that's 0 - 4, if you are keeping score.

For decades, America negotiated with and successfully made treaties with those who held common interests, while we tolerated, or perhaps ignored, those nations which did not harm us. Not all of the governments were necessarily "good" or "free," but then, we didn't deem it the job of the American Government to make everybody "good" or "free," either. It was not nations which have proved to be the most formidable threat to the U.S., but small groups committed to death-dealing ideology. If America would return to its founding ideology, instead of denying, distorting, and demonizing that ideology, it would survive, for ideology must be countered with ideology. However, "tolerating" and "accommodating" the ideology of those who would kill you is no protection. The worst thing America could do is send another million soldiers off the cliff of Syria, or Pakistan, or Iran; it merely gives the radicals every excuse they need to recruit new followers.

Out of Iraq

 Obama has announced that American troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the year! For all those who have courageously and ably fought for America during the last nine years, that is good news.

However, one has to ask - why now? Did the insurgents all come in and lay down their arms? Was there a successful treaty negotiation? Has peace finally come to Iraq? Have the issues surrounding the U.S. withdrawal been resolved with the government of Iraq?

And the answers to the last four questions, in order, are no, no, no, and no, the talks actually have broken down. President Obama, it seems, set a December 31st deadline for withdrawing the troops. He is, he says now, honoring his 2008 pledge to end the war. Strange how that didn't happen right after he was elected in, or at the end of 2009, or anytime in 2010.

So, why now? If it's time to get out of Iraq at the end of 2011, and not in those earlier years, there must be a strategic reason. Well, take comfort; there is a good strategic reason. You see, the re-election campaign season is underway, and bringing the troops home makes for good campaign press, so this is the best time from a strategic point of view for the campaign....

Oh. Did you think there was a good reason from a military point of view? What's that got to do with anything Obama does?

Lawless Liberals - the Better Way

Janet Napolitano has been testifying to the U.S. Senate about the question of removing illegal aliens from the country. As you may remember, the Obama Administration created a new policy which they disingenuously call "prosecutorial discretion." Of course, there has always been a policy of "prosecutorial discretion" in criminal cases, as a prosecutor has to have the ability to decide whether a case should be prosecuted based on the nature of the alleged crime and the availability of witnesses and evidence to support a prosecution in a case.

But, as always, the lawless liberals give a new twist to the meaning of an otherwise established term. Under the Administration policy, prosecutors will seek primarily to remove criminals, fugitives and repeat offenders In a removal case, the only evidence needed is whether the person is in the country illegally. That's the standard of law set by Congress, but according to Napolitano, "that's one way to do it. Or the other way and the better way … is to say we want to focus on" criminals and the like.

"The other way and the better way," Ms. Napolitano? That is the typical attitude of the lawless liberal. Congress makes a law, and the lawless liberals don't obey it, because they know "another way" and a "better way." The Executive Branch (that includes Ms. Napolitano, Mr. Obama, and all of their well-meaning elitist minions) does not make law. Congress already told DHS to send home those here illegally; it may be "one way to do it," but there is no other legal way.

But DHS doesn't care about obeying the law. In fact, they are still granting work permits to some who they elect not to deport. Under a procedure established in 1986, DHS can grant conditional work permits to some. The only requirements are that the illegal alien must be residing in the U.S., must apply within 18 months of November, 1986, and have arrived before January, 1982. It's not likely anyone still meets those requirements, but since there is a bureaucracy in place to grant permits, DHS isn't likely to worry about the legal niceties. After all, lawless liberals always have a better way.

A "New" Stimulus

 Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Democrat, has proposed his own "new" stimulus bill.  It will only cost another $804 Billion, a little less than the nearly One Trillion Dollars spent by Obama, and not even twice the (purported) cost of Obama's latest $450 Billion Dollar stimulus proposal. Jackson, unlike Obama, does not even pretend that his plan is paid for.

Mr. Jackson promises that his plan will bail out all the unemployed, all the cities, and all the states. It's a fairly simple plan: create a civilian conservation corp, or a Works Progress Administration, and employ all unemployed people for $40,000 per year for five years at a cost of about $600 Billion, and bail out the cities and states with about $200 Billion. The cities and states, having been relieved of debt, can go back to spending and borrowing as usual, and presumably stop whining about unfunded mandates since they now owe the feds a big favor. And the people will pay taxes and buy products. Thus, he says, our economy will "work its way out of this protracted recession."

Sound familiar? It should. FDR proposed and implemented these plans following his election in 1933. These plans didn't help the people then, and they won't now. As Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Treasury Secretary said, "I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started." After all, how much has Obama's vaunted stimulus reduced unemployment? Not at all; it has been a failure.

Jackson, though, says it's the "only way out of this crisis." He is wrong.  In American business, contractions and even collapses have occurred regularly. Downturns, and even market panics, occurred in 1873, 1893, and 1921. In a short while, they sort themselves out. For example, after the panic of 1893 it required about four years to recover and thrive again. 

In the 1930's, however, the government began intervening in the market. Hoover, who believed that the government could control market behavior, just as Bush (remember TARP?), began meddling with tax rates and massively increasing Federal spending.  None of this worked, and FDR took over in 1933, creating the very same programs Rep. Jackson proposes now.  All these programs did was to drag the people through prolonged poverty, and in the end, dragged the world into a prolonged depression. And in the 1930's, that prolonged depression created the conditions which gave rise to National Socialism, and world war.

Rep. Jackson is wrong. Obama is wrong. The Democrats and Liberals are wrong. Even the Establishment Republicans are wrong.  Government has proven itself totally incapable of preventing the ups and downs which must naturally occur in the business world.  Tying government to the markets does not prevent those natural cycles, but it may drag the government down.  The Russian government tried to control the price and demand cycle, and their economy and their government collapsed. No matter what the politicians or the socialists say, nothing is too big to fail.

It's a Braindead New World, or Buddy, can you spare a Soma?

You remember those Tea Party rallies? According to the media, hardly anyone showed up, and those that did were mostly racist kooks, "right wingnuts," Klan types prone to violence. So the media basically stayed away, and the op-ed pieces comments were full of what Tea Partiers "probably" said, "probably" wanted, "probably" intended. Conservatives were vilified, and although the public gave the Republicans victories in the midterm Congressional elections, they were vilified and marginalized.

That's not the case with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests. Or not quite. Here, the media seems to be doing its best to present OWS as a well-organized movement with a rational, well-organized agenda to bring down corruption on Wall Street. It is not that.

In Atlanta, the OWS branch is called "Occupy Atlanta." They have adopted a logo: the raised clenched fist of solidarity on a background similar to the War Flagof the Japanese Imperial Army , surrounded by the olive branch. The fist has been a symbol of the SDS, the Black Panthers, the United States Communist Party, and the French and Soviet revolutions.  Occupy Atlanta's demands, which you may read here, are classical Marxist rhetoric.

The book, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, was published in 1932, and posited the world as it might be in 2540 A.D. The citizens, or perhaps inmates is a better term, are given "Soma" to keep their minds dull enough to stomach living in such a world, and rights are sternly delegated according to class status.  Brave New World, if you haven't read it lately, is a frightening commentary on what the future might be if we do not take care.

The "progressives," the liberals and the Democrats are bringing America perilously close to the Brave New World in a much shorter time. Sadly, America's socialist "progressives" don't seem to have a clue how a republic or a democracy works, or even socialism for that matter. At a recent "Occupy Atlanta" meeting, Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights hero, sought an opportunity to address the crowd. He never got the chance; you should watch the video, because you won't believe it. 

It's not a Brave New World looming before us, it's a Braindead New World.  Rational thought seems to have little place in the world of the "progressive." If we allow this nonsense to gain political momentum, we will all be saying, "Buddy, can you spare a Soma?"

Wait Just A Minute!

Change can be a wonderful thing. It can be a useful thing. It can be the right thing. It can even be a necessary thing. But it isn't always any of those things; sometimes it is absolutely unwise. Furthermore, if change is needed, you really need to determine what is supposed to be changed, and in what way.

Right now, Occupy Wall Street, with the approval of Obama and his Wall Street funded cronies are pushing for more socialism, more regulation, and higher taxes on earned income.

When Mr. Obama was elected in 2008, his signature sound bite was "Hope and Change." Everyone wants hope, and America wants change. Obama did not, however, specify what change he promised, and the change he has given America is a vast acceleration of the move towards socialism that became fashionable in the 1960's.

That was not the change America wanted, however. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 67 percent of America's political class thinks America's move toward socialism is the right direction, while 84 percent of America's citizens want to turn around and move the other direction. 

Wait just a minute, here. Sixteen percent of the country wants socialism. They want to throw away all that God and Country nonsense, all that capitalism and free-market nonsense. In their view, this is an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Europe, the Soviet Union and its satellites, China, and so on: an opportunity to break America free from the grip of backwards conservatives.

So why should America change that to socialism? America was founded as a Democratic Republic on Judeo-Christian principles. America has, as the pilgrims hoped, stood as a lighthouse to the world. It has been a unique place. People who have "enjoyed" socialism flee to America from all over the world; there really is no other country that people with conservative views can move to and live in.

On the other hand, there are many socialist countries in the world, many places a true socialist could choose to live.  You don't see the liberals packing up to move, however. They could go to a country that is already socialist and make it better there; show them how socialism is done. Down deep, they know that socialism makes exorbitant promises and does not deliver. America's "socialists" are, at heart, little more than spoiled children. Their slovenly behavior at their protests suggests that what they are most "green" with is envy of the success others have worked for and achieved in the America that Conservatives built.

Steve Jobs

The media and the internet are replete with articles, tributes, and pans of the life and career of a man named Steve Jobs, who passed away this week. Some people who worked with him call him a tyrannical micromanager, difficult to work with, and he may have been. I'm not one of those people; I never met him, and I can't say. It's certainly a characteristic of innovators. Edison, for example, liked to work long hours and expected much of his employees.

There are people who consider him little more than a successful pitchman, a person who shamelessly took other people's ideas and work and hawked them as his own; both might be true to some extent. On the other hand, his name is on some 300 United States Patents. Your name can't be there if you are just a manager or company owner; the law requires that only those who actually participated in the invention can be on a valid patent. With all the patent lawsuits Apple has been in, if Jobs was not legally on those patents, somebody would have been happy to point that out.

Then there's the "reality distortion field" that supposedly surrounded Jobs. According to his critics, this caused people by the millions to line up and buy products they neither liked nor wanted. Here is a partial list:

• Apple ll: first widely available consumer personal computer, not a kit-built
  hobby machine
  
• Macintosh: intuitive graphical user interface with mouse, menu bar with
  drop-down menus,built-in peer networking capability, with Microsoft
  Word and Excel, What You See Is What You Get document display,
  multiple fonts and typefaces(the interface was modeled after
  one demonstrated by Xerox PARC research labs,where management,
  in its best imitation of the Dilbert comic, had decided not to
  implement.)
  
• iPod: easy to use digital music player eliminates cassettes and CD's
  
• iTunes: easy and inexpensive access to music by track or album
  
• iPhone: creates market for smartphone with intuitive touchscreen OS and
  computer capabilites
  
• App Store: applications online and available anytime
  
• iPad: creates tablet PC market
  

Jobs vision and his goal, from the time the Macintosh was conceived, and which was achieved in the iPad, was to design an "appliance computer that would turn on and just work." Other computer makers of the day were determined to stay with the command line interface. That is, after all, how computers worked; the user was expected to learn a few hundred arcane commands to get the job done, and IT people would teach a user the ins and outs of the application they deemed best for any user. However, when Microsoft copied, or "innovated" the graphical user interface some years later, PC use took off, and there is virtually no computer system which does not use it today.

"Reality distortion field?" Hardly. Jobs had a "clarity field." Jobs saw that there are hobbyists and enthusiasts who want to build their own computer, get "under the hood" into the operating system; these folks generally tend to become the IT people. But he saw something they could not. 98 percent of the users do not want anything to do with the operating system or the hardware; we want that out of the way; it's just a tool. We don't buy a device to work on the device itself, but to use the device.

And Steve Jobs, more than anyone else, saw clearly and made that possible.

If you're interested in more about Steve Jobs, you might want to order his authorized biography coming out at the end of this month.

Occupy Wall Street wants what?

Just what is it that this Occupy Wall Street bunch wants? Some public protest, on some level, seems understandable enough.

Take a look at Obama's accomplishments; after all, since Obama took office, the rate of un- and under-employment just went right on up. Obama proposed a Trillion Dollar Stimulus that just had to be passed to generate shovel-ready jobs and keep unemployment under 8 percent. Obama passed a healthcare bill, his "signature legislation" that is setting America up for a healthcare disaster; premiums headed to record levels, Doctors and medical providers ready to bail out of the system, and, yes, a review panel with the power of life and death purportedly untouchable by legislation or any court. Obama regulators are driving coal power plants out of business with regulations coming into play which will cost millions or billions of dollars. After the Gulf oil rig fire and spill, Obama placed a unilateral and illegal moratorium on drilling; when the Court ordered the Administration to resume issuing drilling permits, the application process suddenly simply stalled out. Obama regulators at the FCC, possibly exceeding agency authority, have passed a rule to institute "net neutrality," which will place the government in control of internet access. The government's debt grave is dug to the tune of $14 Trillion, and the economy is stalled out as companies are sitting on their bank accounts, too scared to hire in the recessionary economy with thousands of pages of expensive, burdensome regulations rolling out to destroy America's ability to do business.

So the protesters are angry. You'd think the foregoing would upset anyone - but what does this bunch want? Some want socialism, some want more Obama, some are just flat-out clueless. It is an article of faith with these folks that socialism works; if it isn't, you're just not doing it hard enough. If a Trillion Dollar stimulus gets results opposite of those promised, spend another half Trillion. Should that fail, too, you just need to spend even more. If over-regulation is driving business out of the country, pass more regulations; somehow that will mitigate the regulatory impact. If people can't afford health insurance, require them to buy it and fine them if they don't have the money. And just on and on - there's no problem benevolent, all-knowing government can't solve with expanded power, right?

They don't really seem to understand what socialism entails, but they have lots of demands. Here is one example of Occupy Wall Street Demands. Please note the disclaimer in the Administrator's note, which correctly notes there is no "official" list of demands. The note goes on, with what passes for typical Liberal logic, to say although Occupy Wall Street posted these demands, it is irresponsible to say Occupy Wall Street posted these demands. At any rate, the demands posted seem to be typical of what the protesters seem to want, and just some of which are as follows:
no more free trade;
raise minimum wage to $20/hour and guarantee a living wage for everyone, working or not;
guaranteed healthcare;
free college education;
stop the use of nuclear plants and fossil fuels (that is, stop all planes, trains, ships and motor vehicles, and stop generating electricity, other than by solar or wind);
spend a Trillion Dollars on infrastructure (with no cars, will we need it?);
spend a Trillion Dollars on ecological restoration, removing all dams and allowing rivers to return to the natural state;
open the borders to anyone all the time with no limits;
all debt of every type whatsoever, between people, banks, nations, internationally, be forgiven.

The person posting these feels this "will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them...."

These demands contain many assumptions that seem to have little basis in rational thought. What legal authority does the United States government have to compel the forgiveness of all debts of all types worldwide? None. How many people will work when both working and not working pays the same? Probably not many. Are there enough Nissan Leaf and Toyota Prius electric cars to replace semi-trucks and freight trains? Where will the electricity come from? The wall socket, just like food comes from the grocer - it's just magically there. The United States can open its borders, but will that cause all other countries to do the same? No - we practically have during the last three Administrations, and that hasn't been good for Mexico, or us. Finally, who is going to pay for all this? The Federal Government borrows 40 cents of every dollar spent now, but the cost of meeting these demands would make the present Federal budget seem paltry. The answer is that no one can pay the price of meeting these irrational demands. One can hardly resist the feeling that these protesters are nothing more than big cry babies who want everything for free from Big Brother.

Free people can protest that freedom is not perfect. They can vote to put on the chains of socialism and become wards of the state. A ward is a person under the custody and guardianship of the state, and wards cannot "vote" to end that guardianship. Once the chains are on, only the benevolent state can decide to remove them, and they don't. Ask those who have enjoyed the benevolent leadership of Saddam Hussein, Assad, Mubarak- or Hitler, or Stalin. That is where the Liberal Left wants to blindly go. And it is what America's Conservatives have always stood, and must continue to stand, against.