$5 Gas Predicted Under Obama

-- What, No Pitchforks?

by Larry Elder - December 30th, 2010 - Creator's Syndicate (Townhall.com)

Five dollars per gallon of gas by 2012! A former president of Shell Oil considers this likely. The average price on Christmas Day for a gallon of regular gas reached $3.28 in Los Angeles County, the highest price since October 2008. [and already more than $1 higher than when Obama took office] In one month, the price rose 13 cents, up 35 cents year to year.

Where are the calls to sic Obama's Justice Department on Big Oil to hold the oil companies accountable for "market manipulation"? Why aren't we hunting down the amoral "oil speculators" responsible for repealing the law of supply-and-demand in order to line their pockets?

This article mocks the hypocrisy of the MSM for their double standard about gas prices. When a Republican is President, high prices are assumed to be collusion by the President with "big oil." When a Democrat is President, high prices are beyond his control.

What is truly annoying about this hypocrisy is that Obama has taken numerous actions that are driving up the price of oil. He actually is responsible for the higher prices. Yet he does not get blamed for these actions. The American consumer (and our economy too) will be damaged by the shortage of oil that is coming. Yet Obama has blocked all attempts to increase our supply of oil. Obama shut down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, even though foreign suppliers continue to drill only a couple of miles outside our territorial waters. The ban on drilling does not protect our environment. It merely increase the amount of money we export to our enemies.

This insanity continues. As does the dream of "green energy."

We will shortly have huge fields of wind turbines in numerous areas of our country, actually producing (as they always do) 25% of the energy they are predicted to produce. Sine they need subsidies to forecast energy production at competitive prices based on the day dreams of what they will produce, actual costs per unit of energy are nearly 8 times higher than oil so they still lose money. No more ignorant use of tax payer money has ever been proposed, save perhaps the bridge to nowhere.

Global Warming Skeptic Predicts Brutal Winter

... Warns “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

by Matt Schneider - December 27th, 2010 - Mediaite

Predicting in November that winter in Europe would be “exceptionally cold and snowy, like Hell frozen over at times,” [Piers] Corbyn suggested we should sooner prepare for another Ice Age than worry about global warming. Corbyn believed global warming “is complete nonsense, it’s fiction, it comes from a cult ideology. There’s no science in there, no facts to back [it] up.” Furthermore, he disputed the underlying assumption of most scientists, arguing that higher carbon dioxide levels does not actually have the effect of increasing temperature, and instead global warming supporters “fiddle the facts to justify political attacks.”

The most annoying fact about global warming is the number of Republicans who still will not believe it is a fraud. I do not understand how so much evidence can be introduced contradicting it, with overwhelming evidence that even proves most of the global warming cultists are themselves not seriously convinced, yet Republicans still are afraid to disagree with the "popular consensus" argument adopted by the press because they "don't want to be criticized."

What gutless wusses!

Time Magazine Foresees Tea Party Breaking Up

... Like the Beatles

by Tim Graham - December 27th, 2010 - NewBusters

Time magazine's failure to choose the Tea Party as its Person or Persons of the Year surely reflects a desire that they will cease to be significant any day now. David Von Drehle's "runner-up" article in its Person of the Year issue concluded the Tea Party has already peaked and is well on its way to collapse: "The Tea Party is a hot brand, but there's no one in power to enforce the trademark. Now that the bailouts are history and Democratic hegemony is broken, what does it stand for? It's a sign of the incredible velocity of politics these days that the colossus of 2010, a movement not even two years old, is already facing an identity crisis."

Though I do not foresee that a breakup is certain and I agree the Tea Party movement is unlikely to ever embrace Michael Bloomberg - there is some truth to the reality that the direction of the movement is currently difficult to define. There are signs of discord and internal anger between branches of the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement.

At least one bit of irony in this article is leftists are now conceding that the Tea Party movement was never a top down evil plot concocted and directed by Dick Armey and a cabal of Republican insiders, which Pelosi and Reid repeatedly insisted that it was in its early days.

Nevertheless the recent attacks on the Tea Party movement by elements within the Republican Party does not imply that the "compassionate conservatives" have acknowledged the damage they did to our nation and the Republican Party by adopting the big government mantle of the left. The "compassionate conservatives" still believe in creating "more efficient" government entitlements. This group with its closely allied social conservative movement is still trying to create a right wing nanny state and will not easily abandon their power or their goals. That these goals are unrealistic in a nation facing bankruptcy does not seem to be accepted.

A large element of the Tea Party movement is composed of social moderates who are very uneasy with the social conservatives who ran them out of the Republican Party during the 90s. The fiscal conservative but social moderates who returned to vote Republican in 2010 have reopened old wounds. It will not be in either group's interest to tear into each other. Yet that can happen.

It is one of the worst aspects of our political life that single issue constituencies never see the overall picture. They are so blindly dedicated to their life's passion that there appears no way to get them to embrace any other issue no matter how important it is. The world's economy cannot sustain the totally abusive spending for excessive retirements and millionaire level health benefits paid to government workers. Welfare, government waste, useless employees that produce nothing and corruption are destroying our nation. Redistribution of wealth has reached a point where those who produce are refusing to produce. That is the point at which a nation collapses. And still those who are upset by same sex marriage and abortion refuse to see the crisis that we face is more important than their issue.

How these conflicts are resolved will determine whether the Tea Party movement continues to play a dominant role in 2012. Times seems to hope that the Tea Party movement will lose its impact. However one point that Time seems to have missed in their analogy with the Beatles. The music leaders the Beatles introduced, McCartney and Lennon, dominated music for the next generation.

Sarah Palin, Scoop Artist

Editorial - December 26th, 2010 - The New York Sun

One of the questions raised by the news that the Obama administration is going to use regulation rather than legislation to bring in the so-called “death panels” as part of Obamacare is how it happened that this was first foreseen not by the newspapers or the members of Congress but by Governor Palin. Confirmation of Mrs. Palin’s scoop was brought in by the New York Times in a dispatch issued Christmas day, more than a year after Mrs. Palin issued her warning about Obamacare leading to government involvement in end-of-life issues.

At the time, Mrs. Palin’s prophecy touched off an enormous hue and a cry among the liberal intelligentsia, so much so that the scheme was dropped in Congress. Yet even though it was dropped by Congress the New York Times is reporting that “the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation” and will start doing so January 1.

It is interesting how successful the left wing extremists (along with the equally frightened right wing professional political advisers) have been in smearing Sarah Palin and convincing the general public that Governor Palin is an extremist with little experience and less intelligence in contradiction of extensive evidence.

Stories about her amazing memory are ignored.

The speed with which she repeatedly analyzes complex topics and comes up with the right answer is ignored.

Her well known talent for negotiating is ignored, even disputed in contradiction of extensive evidence.

On another topic not related to intelligence - her track record of fighting corruption is well documented. She does not even get credit despite the fact that not a single one of the hundreds of complaints filed against her by a small number of extreme leftists was found to be based on truth.

Until the Alinsky smears started, she was the most popular governor in America. There were good reasons that was true.

Repeatedly Governor Palin provides common sense answers that will work to overcome the problems our nation faces. The response by her enemies is mindless attacks that never provide specifics about her "well known" lack of experience and "obvious" flaws. One of the best men in our nation's history, Barry Goldwater was equally denigrated. It took 20 years but in the end it was clear that none of the lies told about him had any basis in fact. The smears against Sarah Palin are equally groundless yet they are convincing many people that where there is smoke their must be fire. Sadly the fire they fear is coming from the liars who attack Palin.

Lies told by corrupt right wing political operatives and corrupt left wing extremists are still lies. The truth will come out in time. The question is whether it will be too late for our nation to resist the road to ruin on which Obama currently has us moving.

Kudzu: A Lesson In Big Government Failure

by Joseph Haas - December 26th, 2010 - The American Thinker

Kudzu can be seen in a larger context when examining the New Deal. Roosevelt's aggressive domestic policy and massive expansion of the federal government are still with us today. The bureaucracy created under the New Deal is continually spreading, tightening its grip, and smothering the American people -- just like kudzu's effect on the environment. There is little to no political will to curb and fix Depression-era policies like entitlement programs (and kudzu). One day, America will wake up to find herself smothering -- not under the green leaves of a vine, but under the red tape of the same government who created the kudzu crisis.

If this story was better known it would be handy to call the progressives that engendered the disasters, both disasters, "Kudzu Democrats." It would be a great analogy. Unfortunately it will probably never be understood because ignorance of the consequences and accountability for the failures are still not sufficiently well known by the voters whose lives are damaged.

Obama Goons Go After Whistleblower Pilot

Pilot punished for pointing out airport security flaws with YouTube videos showing TSA shortcomings

by Staff - December 24th, 2010 - London Daily Mail

Late last month a 50-year-old pilot, who asked that his name and the airline he works for not be made public, recorded mobile phone videos showing the problems that still exist in airport security systems.

The videos show how easily ground crews at San Francisco International Airport were able to access secure areas.

The man, who lives outside Sacramento, has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputised by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.

[Snip]

The man is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.

Three days after he posted six video clips recorded at the major airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff's deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm.

The socialist dominated government of Barack Obama loves whistle blowers who expose what they view as right wing errors, but have no tolerance for anyone who dares expose their left wing incompetence. The latest target is this pilot who questions the sanity of "groping" pilots during inspections while allowing baggage workers unfettered access with no check at all.

The typical knee jerk action of attacking the whistle blower unless he targets the "right" people, is exactly what opponents of Obama have been predicting he would do. No one is surprised, but we have to stop it before freedom in America is a memory, not a reality.

There has been little coverage in America outside of Fox News, yet this is a top story in the rest of the free world. They at least understand the consequences of our government goons being able to destroy citizens who complain.

13 Republicans Join Democrats To Pass START Treaty, 71-26

by David Lightman - December 22nd, 2010 - The Tribune (San Luis Obispo)

Signed by Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague last April, New START commits the U.S. and Russia to reduce deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550, within seven years, down from the current limit of 2,200.

Among other things, critics were concerned about verification procedures and the implications for future U.S. plans to deploy missile defenses, to protect itself and allies from missile attack from hostile states like Iran.

Many Republicans also argued that a treaty of such importance should not be rushed through in the waning days of Congress.

The Heritage Foundation, which advocated against ratification, noted that it was the first time the Senate had given its advice and consent to the ratification of a major treaty during a lame-duck session.

I do not trust these people. The list of 13 Senators includes:

Lamar Alexander (Tenn.),
Bob Bennett (Utah),
Scott Brown (Mass.),
Thad Cochran (Miss.),
Susan Collins (Maine),
Bob Corker (Tenn.),
Judd Gregg (N.H.),
Johnny Isakson (Ga.),
Mike Johanns (Neb.),
Richard Lugar (Ind.),
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska),
Olympia Snowe (Maine) and
George Voinovich (Ohio).

The constant effort by so many liberal appeasers to assure us that the words of the Treaty, which ban work on missile defense according to the Russians, don't really ban missile defense, is not just troubling. It is totally unpersuasive to any but the most gullible.

Through the incompetence of George W. Bush and the ideology of Barack Obama, nuclear proliferation is becoming rampant in the world even as we disarm. It will soon be a reality that irrational dictators and religious fanatics will have their hands on nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them. We are going to see nuclear bombs fired at America and the best chance we have of stopping them is to shoot down the missiles before they explode. No matter what these 13 Republican traitors say, the millions of Americans that will die because we will not create an effective missile defense is blood on their hands.

The Republican Class War

by Ramesh Ponnuru & Reihan Salam - December 20th, 2010 - National Review

There is now a class divide in the Republican party. Mitt Romney, the leading establishment candidate for the party’s presidential nomination in 2012, draws support from affluent, college-educated Republicans. Voters without college degrees, on the other hand, look more favorably on Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin — the potential candidates who most consistently rail against “elites” and “country-clubbers.”

This division is relatively new to the Republican party. In the past it was the Democrats who were riven by class conflict.

This is an interesting look at economic classifications and their impact on the Republican electorate. It is curious the article ignores the issues of free markets and individual liberty that are equally strong factors in the recent surge of enthusiasm in the party with the arrival of the Tea Party movement.

At one point in the article the writers actually make the point that Republicans will have to appeal to voters on the basis of government welfare for the middle class to be effective. So obviously these writers are more susceptible to the George W. Bush progressive wing of the Republican party than they are to the Ronald Reagan wing of pragmatic conservative-libertarians. It would be highly improbable they care at all for the extreme libertarian wing of Ron Paul or the paleo conservative wing of Pat Buchanan.

It is nevertheless an extremely valuable article simply for the research into the demographic characteristics of Republican voters. I don't concur that the war in the Republican Party is nearly so much about class as they argue, but there is no doubt that there is a war going on for leadership in the party.

To a great extent this war in the party reflects the war in the nation over how to get a handle on the nanny state dominance of welfare programs that are bankrupting the nation.

Coldest December Since Records Began

... as temperatures plummet to minus 10C bringing travel chaos across Britain

by Staff - December 18th, 2010 - London Daily Mail

Swathes of Britain skidded to a halt today as the big freeze returned - grounding flights, closing rail links and leaving traffic at a standstill.
And tonight the nation was braced for another 10in of snow and yet more sub-zero temperatures - with no let-up in the bitterly cold weather for at least a month, forecasters have warned.

For the 4th year in a row what is known as the 'arctic oscillation' has reversed from the pattern experienced since around 1970 for reasons that government climateologists are unable to explain. This has resulted in increasingly cold winters in the Northern Hemisphere. This 'arctic oscillation' reversal was typical of the period known as the 'little ice age' which occurred from around 1400 to around 1700 and its return as the current pattern could presage another period of extreme cold if it continues. This is certainly NOT something that the 'global warming fraud' movement predicted. It is almost humorous that these extremists can muster no explanation other than the extreme cold is caused by global warming.

Eight Republicans Back ‘Don’t Ask’ Repeal

by Shira Toeplitz - December 18th, 2010 - Politico

The Republican senators voting “yes” with the Democrats on repeal were Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mark Kirk of Illinois, John Ensign of Nevada, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine.

Richard Burr is going to have a great deal of trouble with this vote. Aligning himself with the most liberal elements of the Republican Party and the Democrat Party, Burr has by this act declared that he thinks it is okay for militant homosexuals to work their way into positions of power in our military so that they can coerce young men into having perverted sex. Because that is what this vote was about.

Homosexual rights is not about freedom to act in the privacy of the bedroom. It is about the power of militant and bitter perverts to deny you the freedom to be offended by perversion. If you think there is perversion on TV and in magazines today, you do not understand at all where the militant homosexual movement wants to take our culture. Flaunting homosexuality in your face is going to continue to grow. Homosexuals are outraged that anyone finds their sexual proclivities to be perverted and they are determined to ram it down your throat that they have won.

The Climate Bugaboo Is The Strangest Intellectual Aberration Of Our Age

by Viscount Monckton of Brenchley - December 17th, 2010 - London Telegraph

"But don’t you realise," said the bearded, staring enviro-zomb with the regrettable T-shirt, “that global cooling is what we must expect because of global warming?”

"Don’t you realise," I replied, "how silly that sounds? The lowest temperatures ever recorded here in Cancun six days in a row; four extreme winters on the trot in the Northern hemisphere; more people dying in one three-day cold snap in little England in 2002 than Oxfam pretends died of ‘global warming’ worldwide throughout 2010; where’s your perspective, man?"

If these enviro extremists were not creating so many evil consequences in the world they really would be funny. Their latest mantra is that global cooling is proof of global warming.

Another 'reality' identified in this article which proves the idiocy and bigotry of the enviro extremists to anyone who is objective is when Viscount Monckton reports that he was only allowed to attend if he accepted that no one who disagreed with the enviro extremist's position would be permitted to speak at the conference. Touted as a conference to discuss the issue, it turns out it was a conference to exclusively promote the green side of the issue and their new mantra.

Of course that bigotry has long been the position of the enviro extremists no matter how hard they try and hide it. Agree with us or shut up. That is the new 'scientific method' they promote.

The Coming Republican Civil War

by Jeffrey T. Kuhner - December 16th, 2010 - Washington Times

The greatest threat facing America is the skyrocketing debt. Everything else - the war on terror, Afghanistan, the economy, securing the border, health care, abortion, gay marriage - is insignificant if the country goes bankrupt. This is the reality of dysfunctional Third World states: Debates on issues are irrelevant because changes cannot be implemented effectively. The countries lack the capacity to do so. That's what runaway deficits eventually lead to - the destruction of national cohesion.

Washington is drowning in red ink. The bailouts under the Bush administration, Mr. Obama's trillion-dollar budget deficits, Obamacare, out-of-control entitlements and the nearly $1 trillion stimulus have put America on the path toward financial insolvency. In several years, the country will reach the tipping point: Total national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product will exceed 100 percent. That is Greece. No country has ever come back from those fiscal depths.

The different blocks within the Republican Party are starting to go after each other over this issue of fiscal restraint. It is interesting but not useful to note that there is a lot of overlap between the groups and on different issues some people are aligned with totally different people than on other issues. That does not mean that there will be a peaceful resolution of these conflicts.

Among the nine or ten wings of the the Republican Party, there are four wings with high overlap on fiscal issues supporting big government. They are still different wings in the final analysis. These are the country club wing, the Wall Street wing, the Rockefeller wing and the beltway intellectual elitist wing. All of these wings hate the Tea Party movement for its positions on fiscal discipline. A major reason is many Tea Party activists have abandoned the Republican Party in recent years over fiscal issues and their return is reopening old wounds. None of these wings of the party really have any problem with big government spending, if it is the right big government spending. Right now they are all circling the wagons for one group, Wall Street and its corporate welfare dependent on business as usual.

The primarily fiscal conservatives of the Tea Party movement are indifferent to the desire of Wall Street to have rules that allow them to make more profits than the productive corporations whose stocks they are trading as a side show. Wall Street makes most of its money dealing with the Fed on special rigged sales of money assets that others are excluded from participating in. Such corporate welfare is popular with the Wall Street wing and anathema to the Tea Party movement.

The argument in the article by Kuhner is correct. The special deals must end or America is bankrupt. Yet the beltway insiders and elitists cannot believe their special corporate welfare is going to be challenged. They have rationalized a belief that they can handle the complex monetary manipulations. Just let them finagle their way through this and everything will be okay. However they keep ignoring that future collapses like the one that happened in 2008, must NOT result in government bailouts. The Wall Street firms that bet wrong must be allowed to go bankrupt. The reality is that these corrupt manipulators still do not think it is wrong for them to depend on a government safety net based on the premise they are too big to be allowed to fail.

The world will not end if Wall Street ceases to exist. Just the opposite. There are many in the Tea Party who believe the world will end unless we destroy Wall Street and the government monetary institutions like the Fed, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA and other government welfare programs for Wall Street. This war is going to become more vicious in the coming months. There is no simple answer that will not destroy one group or the other.

At least that is my opinion.

Is This Our America Anymore?

by Patrick J. Buchanan - December 16th, 2010 - World Net Daily

Buried in the Oct. 30 Washington Post was a bland headline: "Report Points to Faster Recovery in Jobs for Immigrants."

The story, however, contained social dynamite that explains the rage of Americans who are smeared as nativists and xenophobes for demanding a timeout on immigration.

In the April-May-June quarter, foreign-born workers in the U.S. gained 656,000 jobs. And native-born Americans lost 1.2 million.

From July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010, foreign-born Hispanics gained 98,000 construction jobs. Native-born Hispanics lost 133,000. Black and white U.S. construction workers lost 511,000 jobs.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, from Jan. 1, 2000, to Jan. 1, 2010, 13.1 million immigrants, legal and illegal, entered the United States, a decade in which America lost 1 million jobs.

From 2008 and 2009, the figures are startling. In 24 months, 2.4 million immigrants, legal and illegal, arrived, as U.S. citizens were losing 8.6 million jobs.

Query: Why are we importing a million-plus workers a year when 17 million Americans can't find work? Whose country is this?

Based on the attitude of La Raza and the community of illegal invaders demanding rights, free services, anchor baby status and chain migration - they own America. They have nothing but contempt for you or anyone else who is legally here. They are not idiots as we are. When they take over they will change the law so that you have no rights, just as you have no rights in Mexico or any of the other Hispanic nations of this hemisphere. Being born here will mean nothing. Citizenship in a Hispanic dominated country is based on race and you are the wrong race.

Climate Change: It's The Sun, Stupid

by Randall Hoven - December 14th, 2010 - The American Thinker

Guess who wrote this.

"The Sun is the primary forcing of Earth's climate system. Sunlight warms our world. Sunlight drives atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Sunlight powers the process of photosynthesis that plants need to grow. Sunlight causes convection which carries warmth and water vapor up into the sky where clouds form and bring rain. In short, the Sun drives almost every aspect of our world's climate system and makes possible life as we know it.

"... According to scientists' models of Earth's orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling -- perhaps the next ice age...

The 'climate scientists at NASA' is the answer to the opening question. They continue to dispute the pseudo science of global warming despite the promotion of this fraud by the political hacks heading NASA. They tried to silence James Hansen and any NASA scientist who disagreed with their political opinion that global warming was a serious problem. Global warming was (and remains) a political scam and never had any serious science behind it, though a few self interested scientists who considered political grants more important than their reputations promoted the scam for close to 30 years.

An important aspect of this issue is the idiocy of Ethanol subsidy, one of the ignorant programs foisted on us by the global warming fanatics. That scam is still being promoted to waste our tax dollars and even Republicans still do not get it. They caved and allowed this idiocy to be part of the so called 'tax cut compromise' they accepted with Obama and the Democrats.

Do the Republican leaders ever read anything but the politically correct gibberish of the Washington Post and the New York Times?

In a related article an even more important condemnation of the arrogance of some 'climate change' fanatics is described. The Christian Science Monitor has an article by Patrik Jonsson titled, "Snow storm snarls Midwest: Is US facing another extreme winter?".

In this article the prediction by global warming defender Joe Bastardi that 2010 would be a mild winter is reported as apparently being proved wrong. This forecast does not appear reasonable so far based on the extreme cold we have seen. As a result it is challenged by sceptic Jonathan Martin that "Given our level of ignorance about what's going on, we don't want to compound that with a level of arrogance by saying we know what's going to happen in a month." Mr. Bastardi, like most global warming proponents, is still insisting that the cold winter so far does not mean anything, just as he insisted until the end that last winter's extreme cold was not relevant.

His insistence reminds me of the response by some global warming defenders that the extreme cold is "caused by global warming."

An Extraordinary Speech

by Alan Fraser - December 12th, 2010 - The American Thinker

What follows is a transcript of an extraordinary speech given by Lieutenant General John F. Kelly USMC on November 13, 2010. What renders it so is that General Kelly's son, First Lieutenant Robert Michael Kelly, was killed in action in Sangin, Afghanistan only four days before Lt. Gen. Kelly gave this speech. Lt. Gen. Kelly's eldest child is also A U.S. Marine.

Semper Fi Gen. Kelly. Thank you for a lifetime of service to our nation. At this time of year with its emphasis on introspection, this speech is a great read.

Ron Paul, Author Of ‘End The Fed,’ To Lead Fed Panel

by Phil Mattingly - December 9th, 2010 - Bloomberg News

Representative Ron Paul, Texas Republican and author of “End the Fed,” will take control of the House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve.

House Financial Services chairman-elect Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican, selected Paul, 75, to lead the panel’s domestic monetary policy subcommittee when their party takes the House majority next month, the committee chairman said today.

“This is the leadership team that crafted the first comprehensive financial reform bill to put an end to the bailouts, wind down the taxpayer funding of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and enforce a strong audit of the Federal Reserve,” Bachus said in a statement.

Left wing economists are in a rage about the very idea of taking away their monetary manipulation. Wall Street has extended its control over our government infrastructure by controlling this radical group of banking tyrants. Though there is some value to the acts they take in furtherence of currency stability, the extortion and profit abuses have long since overwhelmed the value to our currency.

To those who profit from this control over our lives the idea of losing the control is intolerable. Ron Paul has studied the abuses for years and is as well versed in how this abusive system works as those who depend upon it for their wealth. Any control by the voters over the Fed invokes panic from the Wall Street manipulators. They have smeared Paul for years with the most grotesque mischaracterizations and insults. Can you imagine what they will do now? It is going to get really ugly.

Tea Culture: This Party Is Not Just About Politics

by Chris Stolte - December 9th, 2010 - Daily Caller

American culture is complex, but most can agree that America is a culture of self-reliance and self-determination. These ingrained values are closely linked to past political movements. From the Women’s Suffrage Movement to the Civil Rights Movement, their origins can be traced to a clash between the political system and Americans’ most deeply held values.

Today we are witnessing the rise of another movement, the Tea Party, and its foundation is no less cultural. A point that’s often missed in the unending dissection of Tea Party motivations is that the movement is more inherently cultural in origin than political. Tea Partiers feel a political class is dictating that they should be submissive citizens — such orders directly conflict with the distinctly American values of independence and self-sufficiency. Tea Partiers became political because they didn’t want a new culture imposed upon them.

It is curious how many of the Tea Party prime movers are people who have either left our two political parties, or were inactive and passive about politics until the Tea Party movement started. Our few Democrats, the numerous independents, and even most of the large number of Republicans, cannot be said to be political activists... until now.

This article notes that the primary focus of the Tea Party movement has been on the war between statism of the Democrats and free enterprise by Republicans, with a strong undercurrent of anger at the abandonment by some Republicans with concern for free enterprise. That undercurrent is the source of much of the rage against George W. Bush and Karl Rove for their big government abandonment of free enterprise. It is amazing how many people in the Tea Party movement are committed to fixing what they see as a failure of our society to educate our own citizens on the principles that made us great. You hear peole talking about education at every meeting.

No End In Sight To U.S. Economic Crisis

... as 'scariest jobs chart ever' shows post-recession unemployment is at its worst since World War Two.

by Staff - December 6th, 2010 - Daily Mail (London)

As unemployment in the U.S. nears the dreaded 10 per cent mark, it is a chart to chill the bones of any job hunter. Comparing previous recoveries from all 10 American recessions since 1948 to the current financial crisis, the stark figures show almost no improvement in employment figures in the past year.

The dot com bubble burst during the Clinton Presidency and the recession was under way for 20 months when 9/11 hit. The tax reductions of 2001 and 2003 worked to reduce the damage of both the Internet bust and the huge financial damage from 9/11. During that entire period the press constantly hammered Republicans about "their" horrible unemployment. Neither the dot com bust nor 9/11 were the fault of Republicans yet that is not what the press said. Still the tax reduction response worked to keep the recession fairly mild even though it was hysterically opposed by the main stream media. It would have worked sooner and better if the reductions had not been phased in slowly and been set up as temporary.

The sub prime mortgage crisis triggered the recession that started at the end of the Bush years. Though is is arguable that Bush did not support the actions that led to the sub prime bust, neither did Bush really fight against them. His response - to create a huge corporate stimulus bailout - was the worst possible response and did nothing to reduce the damage. Since Obama backed the plan it is intolerable that he still tries to tie the problems solely to Bush. The constant harangue that this Obama supported bailout "prevented" an economic collapse but the failure to fix the problem was Bush's fault is idiot economics at its worst. Allowing some Wall Street failures would have had little impact on the actual productivity of our nation, since Wall Street produces nothing but derivative scams, credit default swap jokes and other pyramid schemes to rip off unsuspecting investors. Wall Street has long since abrogated its job of finding and funding good companies with top management. Today the little funding Wall Street does is to create monopolies by merging giant corporations.

What is interesting is unemployment was not as bad under the Bush recession as it had been under the Clinton recession - UNTIL the Bush-Obama stimulus! That is when unemployment increased and reached the horrible levels we still see. History is a good teacher. When you do the opposite of what has worked before and the results are worse than other times, it is idiocy to claim that what you did worked and people just don't realize how bad it might have been.

What we need right now is a tax rate reduction (which will as it always has increase tax receipts). All we are getting according to today's news is the tax increase is delayed two years paired with a one year extension in unemployment benefits. I do not believe the response to that is going to be the huge and rapid recovery that is traditionally the response to a recession. Look at the graphs. The last two recessions have been the most damaging of all since the war. All the rest ended with a huge surge in employment! There is a reason the last two have been different. It is the way these two have been handled. We need that huge surge in employment.

America's Reality Show

by Kathleen Parker - December 6th, 2010 - Merced Sun Star

Pending catastrophe is not an easy notion to entertain, much less sustain. Americans moreover have a low tolerance for doom and gloom. We are the nation of optimism, after all. We elect leaders who promise hope and change. We are the shining city on a hill.

But what happens when the lights go out? Can't happen.

Won't.

We're America. The most powerful nation on Earth. The land of plenty and opportunity. The place all others want to live. We are the dream.

But. But. What if ... they do? As they say, denial ain't just a river in Egypt. Count me among those who wish not to see what is horrifyingly apparent. Having recently arrived at the conclusion that the worst-case scenarios we've been hearing about for months (and even years to those more alert) might be true, I feel my optimism flagging.

Certainly a part of Ms. Parker's unhappiness must come from the vitriolic hatred she has received in response to the hate she aimed at Sarah Palin. From the delusions of her inside-the-beltway-bubble conventional wisdom about conservatives, she denounces conservatives but rarely targets progressives. Conservatives were and are evil. Progressives control the media and therefore she is very tolerant of their view. Ms. Parker claims she is a Republican, not a conservative. Therefore she was delighted to mock Governor Palin and smear her children as well. The avalanche of hate she got back caught her by surprise. Actually, she has now become the darling of the left because of her attacks on Palin. However even her TV Show, paired with the prostitute using Governor, has not given her the respect she believes she deserves. That must really depress her.

That does not mean she is not correct in her assessment of the future of our nation. There is certainly much to fear. The problem is that the cause of that fear is not universally consistent. The left is convinced that we must spend our way to success by the redistribution of the wealth of a few. The right is convinced that the history of failure from that policy must be avoided at all costs. Yet as long as Obama is President, the primary leadership of our nation will drive the left's agenda forward, not the agenda of the right.

Parker does not make it clear which side she has chosen, just that the fear from both sides has some validity and it is depressing her. Parker is a fuzzy loving moderate caught in a world of absolutes. Much of what angers the Republican beltway leadership which adores the middle (Kathleen Parker, Ed Rollins, Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer) is that people like Palin are giving them little cover to straddle the fence as they usually prefer. Parker has long been one of those pretend conservatives in the middle and she is outraged as much by the pressure to take sides as she is by the hopelessness that both of the more absolutist sides currently embrace.

China's Credit Bubble On Borrowed Time As Inflation Bites

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - December 5th, 2010 - London Telegraph

The Politburo said on Friday that China would move from "relatively loose" money to a "prudent" policy next year, a recognition that credit rationing, price controls, and other forms of Medieval restraint are not enough. The question is whether Beijing has already left it too late.

Diana Choyleva from Lombard Street Research said the money supply rose at a 40pc rate in 2009 and the first half of 2010 as Beijing stoked an epic credit boom to keep uber-growth alive, but the costs of this policy now outweigh the benefits.

[Snip]

Ms Choyleva said China drew a false conclusion from the global credit crisis that their top-down economy trumps the free market, failing to see that the events of 2008-2009 did equally great damage to them – though of a different kind. It closed the door on mercantilist export strategies that depend on cheap loans, a cheap currency, and the willingness of the West to tolerate predatory trade.

[Snip]

Albert Edwards from Societe General said the OECD’s leading indicators are signalling a "downturn" for Asia’s big five (Japan, Korea, China, India, and Indonesia). The China indicator composed by Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics has fallen almost as far as it did at the onset of the 2008 crash.

"I remain convinced we are witnessing a bubble of epic proportions which will burst – catching investors as unawares as the bursting of the Asian bubbles of the mid-1990s. Ignore these indicators at your peril," he said.

What is even worse for the world is the reality that China has a huge excess of men looking for wives due to the now restricted one-child policy that China practiced aggressively for over a generation.

As noted in the article, we have the same situation with world debt that drove the world to war in the late 30s. Though it happened again in the 80s, the U.S. was not practicing redistribution of wealth at the time and our prosperity drug the world back from the brink.

This time, we are once again under a Democratic Keynesian regime and we are not producing enough growth that the world can rely on us to bail them out. I understand that nothing is quite that simple, but the reality is that these unique pressures are the tipping point of World Wars.

When any autocratic regime is under pressure they look for scapegoats. China can easily point to the U.S. and blame us for our efforts to block their imports as acts of war. An attack on Taiwan would not be defended by our current President. The resulting chaos would not necessarily end well.

Bankruptcy? No Worries! California Is “Going Green!”

by Austin Hill - December 5th, 2010 - Townhall.com

California currently suffers with its’ self-inflicted $6 billion shortfall in this fiscal year’s budget (a wound that is supposed to swell to $24.5 billion over the next 18 months). 2 weeks ago outgoing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called for a “special legislative session” so the state Senate and Assembly can “fix” the budget crisis, but then quickly announced his legislative priority for the special session: a law to “ban” plastic grocery bags.

I still have a large number of friends from my over two decades of life in California. It used to be a special place. Right now I feel sorry for them.

One of the last things I worked on before I moved back to North Carolina was the Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign for Governor. In learning about Arnold during the campaign, I came to admire him as a man. I thought he had promise as a politician too. However the last few years have caused me to lose most of my respect for him. He was always a man who needed admiration. I am sorry to see that he has allowed that need for personal admiration to destroy his values about hard work and the need for government to stay out of people's lives. I cannot believe that he thinks making his legacy about banning plastic bags is a smart move. This sounds more like his wife Maria than Arnold. She was always the rich limousine liberal from the Kennedy clan.

Looking back I cannot see that Arnold made much difference in slowing down the rush to socialism and redistribution of wealth that has nearly destroyed this former special place called California. I think you have to rate his period as Governor as a failure if you want to be honest. Having a Republican like Arnold as Governor did more to smear the image of Republicans than it did to fix the problems.

Obama & Company, Growing Up Fast

by Victor Davis Hanson - December 3rd, 2010 - National Review Online

Old laws predicated on human nature cannot so easily be discarded — even by utopians who think they have the power to cool the planet and stop the rising seas. Borrowed money really has to be paid back. Governments cannot operate without confidentiality. Nations perish if they cannot protect themselves from existential threats. Watching a therapeutic Barack Obama grow up and learn these tragic lessons is as enlightening as it is sometimes scary.

Victor Davis Hanson is an honest writer with great insight into history. More than most on the right he interjects into his criticisms a more intelligent synopsis of the shortcomings of those on the left. That is much of the reason I admire his writings. This article is an excellent summation of the problems that Obama is facing in his struggle to govern a nation that he does not understand, in a world which is dramatically different than his ideologically driven biases influenced him to expect.

Gore Swears Off Ethanol Kool-Aid

by Gary Jason - December 2nd, 2010 - Orange County Register (California)

... Al Gore, a devout environmentalist if ever there was one... just came out against the U.S. program of subsidizing ethanol. As he told a green-energy conference last week in Athens, "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol. First-generation ethanol, I think, was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small."

You will not persuade farmers of this. They are adamant that this useless and stupid program must continue. In reality, it has become a major factor in the militant support for Democrats by the farm community. They have proved, by their support for this program that is useless in aiding in any way the claims of "global warming" proponents, that self interest and greed means more to the farmers than America does. This ignorant law has driven food prices up dramatically, again something that farmers are delighted to see. If a few million people starve to death their response is a cavalier "screw them."

Oil Drilling Moratorium Is An Act Of Treason

by Alan Caruba - December 2nd, 2010 - Canada Free Press

If you had any doubt that Barack Obama’s agenda is to destroy the United States of America, but still want more proof, I offer you the announcement that his administration will not provide any offshore oil leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, or Atlantic coasts…for at least seven years!

In October, a study by the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University concluded that the reduction of shallow water oil drilling permits that followed the BP oil spill would put as many as 40,000 jobs at risk and cost the region $4.3 billion in lost wages and revenues.

At the same time, a consortium of foreign oil companies led by the Spanish firm, Repsol, working with India’s state-run Oil & Natural Gas Company and Norway’s StatoilHydro are exploring for oil off the coast of Cuba where drilling in its waters will proceed even while American and other oil companies will be denied access to vast reserves off the coasts of all of the Gulf States.

Barack Obama continues to run our nation based on the views of those who hate our economic success. The indifference over the damage to our economy from acts promoting socialism and extreme-environmentalism drives many of his decisions that have his enemies on the right outraged. The right sees these decisions as malevolent and ignorant. Of course the standard response from the left is that those on the right are not sincere in their frustration. The view from the left is that those who are outraged at Obama's actions are simply racist rich fat cats who are stealing from our society. The left is adamant in their criticisms. How the left reconciles these views with the nearly 40% of our nation who see Obama as deluded is not clear. Do they really think that 40% of our nation are rich and racist? It would appear so.

To the right, these acts are treason. To the left, they are justifiable acts of retribution against the racist rich. Why is anyone surprised that the public conversation has devolved into hate speech?

Gas Prices Surge Past $3.00 Per Gallon

by Shannon Halligan - December 1st, 2010 - WWLP TV

Gas prices are on the rise and many stations are hitting the dreaded 3 dollar mark.

This is just the start of price increases driven by the idiocy of the Federal Reserve printing money and the Obama Regime borrowing and spending like there is no tomorrow. There is always a tomorrow and the consequences always come due.

Fed ID's Companies That Used Crisis Aid Programs

by Jeannine Aversa - December 1st, 2010 - Associated Press

The Federal Reserve revealed details Wednesday of trillions of dollars in emergency aid it provided to U.S. and foreign banks during the financial crisis.

New documents show that the most loan and other aid for U.S. institutions over time went to Citigroup ($2.2 trillion), followed by Merrill Lynch ($2.1 trillion), Morgan Stanley ($2 trillion), Bear Stearns ($960 billion), Bank of America ($887 billion), Goldman Sachs ($615 billion), JPMorgan Chase ($178 billion) and Wells Fargo ($154 billion).

The world's monetary system is totally corrupt. Having first allowed itself to become a partner with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in extending credit to people with no jobs and no way to pay back the loans under fraudulent approvals that hid the risk, the world's bankers then created derivatives and credit default swaps and various other criminal scams based on the standard pyramid logic that Madoff type scum have long used to steal from the gullible to blur accountability for the corruption.

The American tax payer is the most gullible of all, so George W. Bush and his fellow Wall Street buddies - joined by Barack Obama with his Soros led global hedgefund buddies, then committed both the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve to bailout the people who did the stealing. The biggest thieves were the entrenched fat cats at Citigroup. Why is anyone surprised that in addition to the billions they borrowed from TARP, they took another $2.2 TRILLION from the Federal Reserve Bank? Why is anyone also surprised that Obama's budget chief Orszag has just been named to head Citigroup?

What does seem bizarre though is why the Federal Reserve thought that they had the right to send hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign banks. They were not subject to the rules that had hung the American banking industry out except for their own greed. Why are we supposed to protect foreign banks from their own greed? Oh. That's right. It is because it is a crisis. Call it a crisis and no one is supposed to look for who created the crisis. Certainly not the equally corrupt politicians who are owned by these global banking titans.

Coming: Goverment By Regulation Instead Of Law

by Phyllis Schlafly - November 30th, 2010 - Investor's Business Daily

Republicans are assuming that cap-and-trade (aka cap-and-tax) is dead because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lacks the votes to bring up the House-passed bill and because this issue proved a loser in the 2010 House races. Like the famous Mark Twain saying, its death may be exaggerated.

The Senate's environmentalism expert, Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., warns us that the Obama administration is trying to implement cap-and-trade anyway by bureaucratic regulations. Directives issued by the Environmental Protection Agency are coming down the pike to increase energy costs and kill jobs.

Cap and trade (really cap-and-tax) through the EPA, net neutrality (really Internet-control) through Homeland Security; The Obama regime is extending executive branch control over our lives at a pace that is overwhelming. In the last two years while unemployment has plunged down, the federal bureaucracy has skyrocketed up. The number of bureaucrats has increased by 25%. The number of different agencies to which we are subject has increased by nearly two hundred. The number of regulations to which citizens are subject has increased by several thousand pages (each of which you are required to understand perfectly under the concept that ignorance of the law is no excuse).

Each and every one of these regulations, agencies and bureaucrats is taking away your liberty under the guise of protecting you from decisions you might make that the federal government disagrees with you having the freedom to choose.

Nothing in the recent elections has happened that will reduce this vast expansion of government. The growth may have been slowed. That is all. There is no realistic chance that any of it can be undone.

Watch your electricity and gas bills skyrocket over the next two years and accept, liberty in America is now dependent on the whims of a President who is a borderline dictator. Nothing has changed that. While these rates go up be aware that at the same time hundreds of thousands of new bureaucrats are just waiting for their chance to rule your life with the same indifference to the consequences for your freedom.