The Hexagon of Progress

H/T Goomba News Network

Andrew Marcus at Big Government maps out what's going on in Obama Nation. Please go the the link at the bottom to read the whole article. It explains a lot. Please make sure that this gets to others because it is the Democrat Party's plan for the future.

When a candidate of the Democratic or Republican parties is successfully elected President of the United States, it is widely accepted that by virtue of being the highest elected office holder in the party, they are the “leader” of their respective party.

Why would it be any different when it comes to President Obama’s leadership role in his other political party, the Working Families Party?

If the President and his other party are to be held to the same standard as the Republicans, Greens, and Democrats, etc.. then by all rights he should be considered the leading force or figure within the Working Families Party.

In reality, no matter how one chooses to define the President’s relationship to his other party, the relationship itself demands a close examination of its platform, background, and history, all of which the President would appear to have endorsed by accepting their nomination.

As to their platform, that topic will be covered in greater detail in future posts. This entry is going to focus on the historical roots and background of the Working Families Party.

Very briefly, though, on the platform – you can read it here.

Another example can be found here [emphasis in original]:

Over the last 25 years, the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers have seen their taxes cut in half. When the rich don’t pay their fair share, everyone else has to pick up the tab – often in the form of higher property taxes.

Read the rest at Big Government

Ron Paul : Federal Reserve Policy Audit Legislation ‘Gutted’

We cannot let this happen. Contact your Representative (House.gov) to let them know that you support HR 1207 as it was originally written and do not want to see it watered down.

This is similar to what is going on in the Senate where Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bob Corker (R-TN) last week introduced S 1803 as a weaker alternative to S 604. Let your Senators (Senate.gov) know you are not happy with that either.

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.

“There’s nothing left, it’s been gutted,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that.”

Paul, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has eliminated “just about everything” while preparing the legislation for formal consideration. Watt is chairman of the panel’s domestic monetary policy and technology subcommittee.

Keith Kelly, a spokesman for Watt, declined to comment and said Watt wasn’t immediately available for an interview. Watt’s district includes Charlotte, headquarters of Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender.

Paul said he intends to introduce an amendment to the bill when it comes to the House floor for a vote restoring the legislation’s original language.

Update: more from Rep Paul H/T Campaign For Liberty


Via Bloomberg.com
Via LewRockwell.com Blog
Via Campaign For Liberty

Lord Monckton to Al Gore : Put up or shut up.

H/T SOYLENT GREEN



So Mr Goracle, what's it going to be ?

Scalia: Some on court inventing rights

I used to believe that a liberal interpretation of the Constitution was a good thing and to an extent I still do. The problem I have is that an activist, progressive SCOTUS can go too far and give the legislative and executive branches too much leeway to create a big government, nanny state. Doing so takes the freedoms promised to us as individuals in the Bill of Rights away and creates a collectivism of freedom where we are free as long as it is the popular sentiment of the day and is mandated by the government.

That is not what the founders were all about.

Scalia: Some on court inventing rights

One of the most conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday his more liberal colleagues are trying to manufacture new constitutional rights that were never intended by the drafters.

“The fight is about the Supreme Court inventing new rights nobody ever thought existed,” Justice Antonin Scalia said in an appearance at the University of Arizona College of Law.

Scalia said the Constitution is meant to be an exception to democracy and the rule of the majority, whose views may change from time to time.

He specifically warned that those who approach the Constitution as Breyer suggests will not always find courts expanding the definition of individual liberties. He said a court that decides one day that something is cruel and unusual punishment could as easily decide down the road to allow something that now is considered barbaric.

“It goes both ways,” he said.

“The only thing you can be sure of is the Constitution will mean whatever the American people want it to mean today,” Scalia continued.

“And that’s not what a constitution is for,” he said. “The whole purpose of a constitution is to constrain the desires of the current society.”

Via eastvalleytribune.com

Eat a Salad and Save the Planet

Is there no end to the madness? Eating meat will some day be considered the equivalent of drinking and driving? Where do these nuts come from?

Besides if animals weren't intended to be eaten by people, why are they so tasty?

Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet

People will need to consider turning vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

Of course there is this little disclaimer

Lord Stern, who said that he was not a strict vegetarian himself, was speaking on the eve of an all-parliamentary debate on climate change.

Via Times Online

My immigration reform plan

Let me preface this by saying that I feel that there is a firm belief in this country that the best way to stop a certain behavior is to pass a law to make it illegal. Drugs and prostitution are 2 perfect example of this. There seems to be the thought that by making the behavior illegal, you will stop it. In reality though you don't stop it, all you do is create a black market for it and waste valuable resources that could be better put to use by the police, legal system and prisons.

So now that you have an understanding of where I am coming from, here is what I would do to address the problem of illegal immigration and by extension help our national security.

1a. Give the Border Patrol the resources and personnel it needs to secure and patrol the borders

or

1. Militarize our borders. Yup, you heard me correct, put troops on the northern and southern borders. Congress would need to amend the Posse Comitatus Act but could do so with very specific language.

2. Allow for anyone to come in once they are fingerprinted, have a criminal background check done and pay an immigration fee which can be used to cover the costs of the increased enforcement and social liabilities. I haven't done the math but $5K seems like a nice round number. These immigrants would then have an ID card and number, similar to a Social Security card, which would allow them to gain employment and pay federal and state taxes. The same would go for anyone already in this country illegally or overstayed on an H1B visa. I would give a 6 month grace period and then after that, deportation if you have not signed up. Non-citizens who are in prison/convicted of a crime are automatically deported with no chance of getting back in. This would be the beginning of the path to citizenship for which you have 10 years to become naturalized. After all, isn't that the point of coming here?

3. No access to social services other than to basic education and healthcare. I believe that everyone should have access to an education or else they are a greater burden to society. Same for heath care. Again the immigration fee and taxes collected would be used to offset the costs. Remember, people in the country illegally now are already using these services but not contributing anything. But that's it, no welfare, food stamps, unemployment, federal grants for higher ed or anything else from the federal or state governments. That is reserved for citizens.

4. No more anchor babies. If a child is born in this country, he or she is a citizen but that cannot be used as an excuse to skirt the rules. The parents would still be required to register and pay the fee. If not they have to leave. The child can come back whenever he or she wants since they are a citizen after all.

I would also like to add

5. Legalize and tax marijuana and sell it like alcohol. What does this have to do with illegal immigration you might ask? Well it's more of a border security issue since, according to Arizona AG Terry Goddard 75%, of the money that the Mexican cartels get is through the sale of pot in the US. Cut that funding and you have given the bad guys a lot less incentive to try to get into the US along with less money to buy weapons to be used against the Border Patrol. Besides, these are generally the same people acting as coyotes that smuggle illegal immigrants across the southern border.

Now this may seem simplistic and I'm sure people smarter than me can shoot the plan full of holes, but it is what I can come up that gives all sides of the argument something.

President "bails" on Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen

So it looks like the viral video of Lord Christopher Monckton’s speech at a recent Minnesota Free Market Institute event, spread by yours truly and half the blogosphere, has got the White House to decide against the President attending the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December.

At least I'd like to believe that we had some influence.

President Obama won’t talk climate change in Copenhagen - Times Online

President Obama will almost certainly not travel to the Copenhagen climate change summit in December and may instead use his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to set out US environmental goals, The Times has learnt.

With healthcare reform clogging his domestic agenda and no prospect of a comprehensive climate treaty in Copenhagen, Mr Obama may disappoint campaigners and foreign leaders, including Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, who have urged him to attend to boost the hopes of a breakthrough.

The White House would not comment on Mr Obama’s travel plans yesterday, but administration officials have said privately that “Oslo is plenty close” — a reference to the Nobel ceremony that falls on December 10, two days into the Copenhagen meeting.

Poor Al Gore and his merry band of Enviro-Nazis must be so disappointed.

Via memeorandum

Our economy is so screwed

So sayth the Government
TARP chief: Banks possibly ‘in more danger now’

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general managing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that the government's decision to support bank mergers over the past year may have put the U.S. economy more at risk.

"These banks that were too big to fail are now bigger," Barofsky said. "Government has sponsored and supported several mergers that made them larger and that guarantee, that implicit guarantee of moral hazard, the idea that the government is not going to let these banks fail, which was implicit a year ago, is now explicit, we've said it. So if anything, not only have there not been any meaningful regulatory reform to make it less likely, in a lot of ways, the government has made such problems more likely."

"Potentially we could be in more danger now than we were a year ago," he added.

"I think this cynicism, this anger, this distrust of government that's born in part from a lack of transparency could have far-reaching ramifications, whether there's a next crisis or when anytime the government is going to call on the American people, the taxpayer, to support necessary programs," Barofsky said.

So sayth Ron Paul
Ron Paul on the recession: "None of this is behind us"

The U.S. has moved past none of the core issues that brought the economy to its knees last fall, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) suggested Tuesday.

Paul asserted that while some big financial institutions may be starting to reap large profits again, the bailouts put in place to help those firms last year have only worsened the long-term economic standing in the country.

"None of this is behind us," the libertarian Republican said during an appearance on CNN. "All we have done is prolong the agony and very soon people are going to realize, in spite of all these huge profits, Wall Street is still a shaky place to be."

"You know, it is said that the Congress didn't have enough strings attached to the money that they were giving away, but I think the strings go in the other direction," Paul said. "I think Wall Street has the strings on Washington. And they pull and do what they want and that's where the corruption is. They control the monetary system."

So sayth Gerald Celente
Trends Research Institute founder predicts that the worst is yet to come

"This is a sucker's flame," Celente said from his office in Kingston, N.Y. "It's a false-flag recovery. The stimulus, bailout and buyout packages being forced on the nation, by an administration that misread how bad the economy was, will only lead to Obamageddon: The Fall of Empire America."

Celente cites the global financial system as terminally ill because it has been built on endless supplies of cheap money, rampant speculation, fraud, greed and delusion. He sees a collapse coming, and predicts that by 2012 everyone will face the truth, and we will be in the midst of the Greatest Depression of them all.

"Washington is inflating the biggest bubble ever: the bailout bubble," Celente said. "This is much bigger than the dot-com and real estate bubbles. When the bailout bubble bursts, it should be understood that a major war could follow."

The economist expects tax and food riots to pervade the country. People will be giving each other food stamps for Christmas. Crime will increase to all-time highs. Then the worst possible situation will arise: the United States of America will disunite.

"There could be a day the U.S. goes the way of the former Soviet Union," Celente said. "It's going to start breaking up because people are going to realize Washington does not have the answers."

"Prepare for the worst, then you have the luxury to pull back," Celente says. "It costs nothing to prepare."

Via CNN Political Ticker
Via The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
Via The Daily Orange

Hurricane Katrina Victims Have Standing To Sue Over Global Warming

I think Frédéric Bastiat nailed this one over 150 years ago with his famous Candlestick makers' Petition

"We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious [Britain] (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us."

Not that living in an area below sea level to begin with had anything to do with the flooding. Maybe Cass Sunstein can join the suit on behalf of the poor loggerhead turtles that were displaced due to Katrina too.

For years, leading plaintiffs’ lawyers have promised a legal assault on industrial America for contributing to global warming.

So far, the trial bar has had limited success. The hurdles to such suits are pretty obvious: How do you apportion fault and link particular plaintiffs’ injuries to the pollution emitted by a particular group of defendants?

Today, though, plaintiffs’ lawyers may be a gloating a bit, after a favorable ruling Friday from the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which is regarded as one of the more conservative circuit courts in the country.

The suit was brought by landowners in Mississippi, who claim that oil and coal companies emitted greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming that, in turn, caused a rise in sea levels, adding to Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity.

For a nice overview of the ruling, and its significance in the climate change battle, check out this blog post by J Russell Jackson, a Skadden Arps partner who specializes in mass tort litigation. The post likens the Katrina plaintiffs’ claims, which set out a chain of causation, to the litigation equivalent of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

The central question before the Fifth Circuit was whether the plaintiffs had standing, or whether they could demonstrate that their injuries were “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s actions. The defendants predictably assert that the link is “too attenuated.”

But the Fifth Circuit held that at this preliminary stage in the litigation, the plaintiffs had sufficiently detailed their claims to earn a day in court.

In so holding, the court notably quoted a recent Supreme Court opinion that “accepted as plausible the link between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming” along with the fact that “rising ocean temperatures may contribute to the ferocity of hurricanes.”

So what is the broader significance of the ruling? We checked in with Jackson for his take.

At a minimum, he says, the ruling will invite more climate-change litigation in the future.

“With this decision,” he says, “you are now pretty well assured of seeing others file these kinds of claims.”

Last month, he notes, the Second Circuit held that states and municipalities had standing to sue to impose on caps on certain companies’ greenhouse gas emissions.

In contrast with the Second Circuit, the Fifth Circuit case may be particularly inviting to tort lawyers, since the New Orleans court opened the door to “a case by private litigants, a class action, seeking an enormous amount of damages,” Jackson says.

Still, Jackson notes, the Katrina case is at an early stage, and the Fifth Circuit’s ruling “does not mean there is enough causation evidence to survive a motion to dismiss.”

Via Wall Street Journal Law Blog

Action Needed: Stop Senators from Selling Out Audit the Fed

H/T Campaign for Liberty

On Tuesday, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced S 1803 "The Federal Reserve Accountability Act," an attempt to kill HR 1207/S 604 by passing a bill that prevents a full audit and full transparency from America's secretive central bank.

While language in this bill would permit a limited audit of the Fed's actions in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and similar high profile bailouts, it would not allow an audit to review the Fed's inflation of the money supply or its agreements with foreign central banks, among other shortcomings.

Additionally, the names of the institutions who received the funds would not be available until one year after each "emergency" program ended, and you know how quickly the federal government likes to end programs.

You see, you and I have the FED and their internationalist supporters in the Senate running scared.

We've seen it time and time again in recent months.

Now, this is how they will fight back -- by having establishment senators who oppose a full audit the Fed, proposing watered down compromises in an attempt to sabotage our real goal.

We knew this moment would come. Now you and I must fight back.

Seventy-five percent of the American people, over two thirds of the House of Representatives, and over a quarter of the Senate support Ron Paul's Audit the Fed legislation.

With those historic levels of support, there is no excuse for settling for anything less than a full Audit the Fed bill. Anything less is merely an attempt to stop our efforts as we get closer to passage of a real bill.

The freedom movement will not back down on requiring transparency and accountability from an institution that has helped to destroy our economy. This is another test of our strength and will.

Let's finish what we've started. Take action to stop this dangerous attempt to stop the real Audit the Fed bill TODAY!

Contact your Senators (Senate.gov or (202) 225-3121) and let them know you expect them to support the American people's demand for full transparency, not some watered down measure designed to stop a full audit!

I don't call them mediots for nothing

H/T Left Coast Rebel
H/T Another Black Conservative

So what's worse?

That the main stream mediots fell for this today...

From POLITICO.com:

In a dramatic shift, the Chamber of Commerce announced Monday that it isthrowing its support behind climate change legislation making its way throughthe U.S. Senate.

Only it didn’t.

In a story posted Monday morning, Reuters declared: “The Chamber of Commerce
said on Monday it will no longer opposes climate change legislation, but wants
the bill to include a carbon tax.”

Reuters updated the story to acknowledge the hoax, but it was too late: The Washington Post and the New York Times had already posted the fake story on their Web sites.

The Yes Men, a left-leaning activist group that often impersonates officials
from organizations they oppose, took responsibility for the hoax.

or found out that the Big O and his merry band of Marxists play them like a fiddle?

From World Net Daily:

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.

"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.

"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.

Continued Dunn: "Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. … Making the press cover what we were saying."

And they say FOX isn't a real news outlet.

Are we to blame too?

In the first of his 5 part series Held by the Taliban NYT reporter David Rohde offers a glimpse into his 7 month long ordeal as a captive of the Taliban and offers an interesting view into some of their motivation.

My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged. America, Europe and Israel preached democracy, human rights and impartial justice to the Muslim world, they said, but failed to follow those principles themselves.
...
American soldiers routinely disgraced Afghan women and men, he said. They forced women to stand before them without their burqas, the head-to-toe veils that villagers believe protect a woman’s honor. They searched homes without permission and forced Afghan men to lie on the ground, placing boots on the Afghans’ heads and pushing their faces into the dirt. He clearly viewed the United States as a malevolent occupier.

So the question is, what is David Rohde trying to tell us? Is he saying what many of us have believed for some time now that America's intrusion into other parts of the world to force democracy and western ideals on them is partially to blame for their hatred is us?

Many of our Founding Fathers foresaw what a quagmire could be caused by being involved in the internal workings of other nations. Jefferson, in his first inaugural address said

"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none;..."

If the politicians in DC took this to heart, we may not be in the situation we are today.

Or take this quote from Rep Ron Paul in 2002

[T]here are two sides to the dispute, and that the focus of American foreign policy should be the best interests of America – not Palestine or Israel. I argued that American interests are best served by not taking either side in this ancient and deadly conflict, as Washington and Jefferson counseled when they warned against entangling alliances. I argued against our crazy policy of giving hundred of billions of dollars in unconstitutional foreign aid and military weapons to both sides, which only intensifies the conflict and never buys peace. My point was simple: we should follow the Constitution and stay out of foreign wars.
...
It's easy to dismiss the noninterventionist view as the quaint aspiration of men who lived in a less complicated world, but it's not so easy to demonstrate how our current policies serve any national interest at all. Perhaps an honest examination of the history of American interventionism in the 20th century, from Korea to Vietnam to Kosovo to the Middle East, would reveal that the Founding Fathers foresaw more than we think.

And it is also important to remember why we are in Afghanistan in the first place, to capture Osama Bin Laden (if he is even still alive Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive? which is another discussion for another day) and bring he and his Al-Qaeda cohorts to trial for their alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Does it really take 68K troops to capture one man who may have died years ago? Or do we need another 40K like Gen McChrystal is asking for?

So what is our reason for being there with such a high level of troops? And why are we fighting the Taliban on behalf of Karzai? We've seen this movie before and the Soviets lost, left in disgrace and went bankrupt. Sort of their Vietnam.

Now can you really blame the radical Muslim groups for hating us? We've invaded Iraq to depose a dictator we helped put in power, built up enormous troop levels in Afghanistan to fight an enemy we also helped put in power and are threatening Iran with military action. Also toss in their feelings about US-Saudi and US-Israeli policy and you have created a ready-made reason for them to be pissed off at us.

Even if the politicians in DC believe that this is the best course of action to take they must remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and there are always unintended consequences when action is taken, particularly in war.

Maybe I'm naive, but it is just my opinion.

Via NYTimes.com
Via Salon.com

Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty, Claims British Lord

This has been spreading across the interweb courtesy of Walter Scott Hudson at Fightin' Words. If true, Obama is making good on his promise of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America" and it is bad news for anyone who values freedom, liberty and the ideals of our Founding Fathers.

Immediate action must be taken before we lose our country. Contact the President (WhiteHouse.gov), your Senator (Senate.gov) and your Representative (House.gov) to let them know that you won't stand for the shredding of the Constitution. Let them know in no uncertain terms that we will fight to retain the sovereignty of the United States and that we will, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, refresh the tree of liberty "with the blood of patriots and tyrants" if need be.

The Obama administration and the nudging of our Republic towards transnationalism must be stopped.

The Minnesota Free Market Institute hosted an event at Bethel University in St. Paul on Wednesday evening. Keynote speaker Lord Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, gave a scathing and lengthy presentation, complete with detailed charts, graphs, facts, and figures which culminated in the utter decimation of both the pop culture concept of global warming and the credible threat of any significant anthropomorphic climate change.

A detailed summary of Monckton’s presentation will be available here once compiled. However, a segment of his remarks justify immediate publication. If credible, the concern Monckton speaks to may well prove the single most important issue facing the American nation, bigger than health care, bigger than cap and trade, and worth every citizen’s focused attention.

Here were Monckton’s closing remarks, as dictated from my audio recording:

At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your president will sign it. Most of the third world countries will sign it, because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regime from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it.

I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, “climate debt” – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.

How many of you think that the word “election” or “democracy” or “vote” or “ballot” occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it – Now the apotheosis as at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign it. He’ll sign anything. He’s a Nobel Peace Prize [winner]; of course he’ll sign it.

[laughter]

And the trouble is this; if that treaty is signed, if your Constitution says that it takes precedence over your Constitution (sic), and you can’t resign from that treaty unless you get agreement from all the other state parties – And because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out of it.

So, thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege merely to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free. But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your prosperity away forever. And neither you nor any subsequent government you may elect will have any power whatsoever to take it back. That is how serious it is. I’ve read the treaty. I’ve seen this stuff about [world] government and climate debt and enforcement. They are going to do this to you whether you like it or not.

But I think it is here, here in your great nation, which I so love and I so admire – it is here that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, at the fifty-ninth minute and fifty-ninth second, you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty, that purposeless treaty. For there is no problem with climate and, even if there were, an economic treaty does nothing to about it.

So I end by saying to you the words that Winston Churchill addressed to your president in the darkest hour before the dawn of freedom in the Second World War. He quoted from your great poet Longfellow:

Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Via Fightin' Words
Via Minnesota Free Market Institute
Via Goomba News Network

CSI : Subliminal shot at Obama?

Ok, is it just me or did the writers of CSI take a shot at the POTUS at the closing of the 10/15 episode "Coup De Grace"?

Nick : "So where's the bad guy in this?"
Langston : shrugs "You tell me."

Camera pulls back, as the CSI crew walk away, to show fast food restaurant sign that was the scene of an officer involved shooting where another officer was killed. Name of the restaurant... White House.

Coincidence? I think not. I think the bloom is off the rose and now that SNL has opened the door, El Presidente is fair game.

Happens starting at 2:15 of clip (courtesy of Coup de Grace climax)

Ron Paul Responds to Lindsey Graham

Via Campaign for Liberty

Saving Face in Afghanistan

To quote The Who "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

It doesn't matter which party is in power, the Neocons are still running the show and haven't figured out that the playbook from Vietnam didn't work then and it won't work now. Maybe we should send copies of Sun Tzu's The Art of War to DC (by the way it's playing out it looks like the Taliban and Al Qaeda have studied it) so they can figure out how to win and get the hell out. Better yet, just get the hell out. Or maybe they don't want it to end and believe that perpetual war is needed maintain control of the populace and solidify their power.

Saving Face in Afghanistan
by Ron Paul

This past week there has been a lot of discussion and debate on the continuing war in Afghanistan. Lasting twice as long as World War II and with no end in sight, the war in Afghanistan has been one of the longest conflicts in which our country has ever been involved. The situation has only gotten worse with recent escalations.

The current debate is focused entirely on the question of troop levels. How many more troops should be sent over in order to pursue the war? The administration has already approved an additional 21,000 American service men and women to be deployed by November, which will increase our troop levels to 68,000. Will another 40,000 do the job? Or should we eventually build up the levels to 100,000 in addition to that? Why not 500,000 - just to be "safe"? And how will public support be brought back around to supporting this war again when 58 percent are now against it?

I get quite annoyed at this very narrow line of questioning. I have other questions. We overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 with less than 10,000 American troops. Why does it now seem that the more troops we send, the worse things get? If the Soviets bankrupted themselves in Afghanistan with troop levels of 100,000 and were eventually forced to leave in humiliating defeat, why are we determined to follow their example? Most importantly, what is there to be gained from all this? We've invested billions of dollars and thousands of precious lives - for what?

The truth is it is no coincidence that the more troops we send the worse things get. Things are getting worse precisely because we are sending more troops and escalating the violence. We are hoping that good leadership wins out in Afghanistan, but the pool of potential honest leaders from which to draw have been fleeing the violence, leaving a tremendous power vacuum behind. War does not quell bad leaders. It creates them. And the more war we visit on this country, the more bad leaders we will inadvertently create.

Another thing that war does is create anger with its indiscriminate violence and injustice. How many innocent civilians have been harmed from clumsy bombings and mistakes that end up costing lives? People die from simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a war zone, but the killers never face consequences. Imagine the resentment and anger survivors must feel when a family member is killed and nothing is done about it. When there are no other jobs available because all the businesses have fled, what else is there to do, but join ranks with the resistance where there is a paycheck and also an opportunity for revenge? This is no justification for our enemies over there, but we have to accept that when we push people, they will push back.

The real question is why are we there at all? What do our efforts now have to do with the original authorization of the use of force? We are no longer dealing with anything or anyone involved in the attacks of 9/11. At this point we are only strengthening the resolve and the ranks of our enemies. We have nothing left to win. We are only there to save face, and in the end we will not even be able to do that.

Via lewrockwell.com

Election 2010: CT and KY Senate Races

h/t Left Coast Rebel

The first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey for the Connecticut and Kentucky Senate races are in and show that libertarian leaning candidates Peter Schiff (CT) and Rand Paul (KY) have a long way to go in their first bids for elected office but the news isn't all bad.

In CT Rasmussen finds

Republican challenger Rob Simmons leads Dodd 49% to 39% in an early look at next year’s potential match-up. Five percent (5%) say they’d prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are not sure.

While Simmons, a former congressman, is the strongest early challenger to the Democratic incumbent, there are several other Republicans in the running. Dodd finds himself essentially even with state Senator Sam Caligiuri, former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley and Peter Schiff, the high-profile president of Euro Pacific Capital. In each of those match-ups, Dodd earns between 40% and 43% of the vote while the Republicans all fall in the same range.

Dodd is viewed favorably by 40% of voters statewide and unfavorable by 59%. Those figures, weak for a long-term incumbent, include just 10% with a Very Favorable opinion and 39% with a Very Unfavorable view.

His challengers are less well-known. Just 13% have a Very Favorable opinion of Simmons while 10% hold a Very Unfavorable view.

Caligiuri is viewed Very Favorably by eight percent (8%), Schiff by six percent (6%) and Foley by four percent (4%). All three of these candidates have a slightly larger percentage who hold a Very Unfavorable opinion of them.

While in KY

Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson beats Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo by seven points 44% to 37%. Four percent (4%) of Kentucky voters like some other candidate, and 14% are undecided. Both men have announced their candidacies. Mongiardo was the unsuccessful Democratic challenger to Bunning in 2004.

Grayson runs dead-even 40% to 40% against another announced Democratic candidate, state Attorney General Jack Conway, with just three percent (3%) opting for some other candidate. Seventeen percent (17%) are undecided.

Rand Paul, an opthamologist and the son of Congressman Ron Paul, also has announced his bid for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Kentucky. Paul beats Mongiardo by five points – 43% to 38%. Six percent (6%) prefer another candidate, and 13% are not sure.

But Paul trails Conway by four – 42% to 38% - in that hypothetical match-up. Four percent (4%) choose some other candidate. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.

Thirteen percent (13%) of the state’s voters have a very favorable view of Grayson, while three percent (3%) regard him very unfavorably. Paul has 16% very favorables and nine percent (9%) very unfavorables.

It looks like Dr Paul is in better shape right now but as Rasmussen notes, it is far too early to tell, and both have over $1M in their campaign chest at this early point in the race. The polls also do not reflect how the respective candidates will do head-to-head in their state's primary, where according to recent Quinnipiac University and Daily Kos/Research 2000 polls

at least 38 per cent of respondents support former Representative Rob Simmons, while author of “Crash Proof 2.0” Peter Schiff only received one or two per cent and Sam Caligiuri is polling between 4 and 7 per cent.

where 43% of Republican respondents are undecided.

In an early September Rasmussen poll

Paul manages to get 25% of the Republican primary, versus 40% for Grayson.

Fortunately it is still early and both candidates have the time and money to get their messages out.

Via Election 2010: Connecticut Senate Race
Via Election 2010: Kentucky Senate

The honeymoon is over for the POTUS : SNL takes a shot

SNL's Fred Armisen as Obama on what he has accomplished so far.



It was just a matter of time before the prez was fair game.

Towards a New Kind of Libertarianism: The Future of the Libertarian Movement

Here is a great concept proposed by The Humble Libertarian on his blog.

This is what libertarianism is all about, respecting the rights of others and is really in the spirit of JFK's famous line "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

So ask not what others can do for you - ask what you can do for them. Set an example for others to follow and you will lead the way.

A spectre is haunting America- the spectre of Libertarianism. All the Powers of old America have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Bush, Pelosi, Obama, McCain, the NeoCons, the ACLU, the mainstream media.

No, wait. That's not right. What a lame way to start off an important manifesto. Better try again:

I won't tread on you. That's where libertarians need to start in the 21st century if they plan for their message and proposed form of government to take root and last longer than that of the libertarians of the 18th who started by saying "Don't tread on me." It worked for a while at least, but did not affect a lasting change in mindset and policy because it started and ended with the wrong premise, the premise of "my rights," the "me" premise. If libertarians in this century plan to make any headway in the global and respective national dialogues about politics and the proper role of government, they must turn this premise on its head. They must start thinking the other way around. And I'm not simply proposing a change in how libertarians present their views, as a mere marketing tool, but a fundamental change in our very views themselves so that they reflect more accurately the true nature of humanity. The result will not only be a more successful fight for our beliefs- we'll end up by fighting for something even better than what we were previously fighting for, a better way of thinking and a better way of living.

Libertarian thought often starts with "me" and says to others "you shouldn't violate my rights," which is certainly true, but somewhat off-putting because it's egocentric. Aside from being off-putting, it's the moral low-ground. It's moral and true, but it pushes the moral imperatives of libertarian thought off on someone else. The moral high-ground is to accept and practice the moral imperative for yourself. Libertarians would always do better to say, "I shouldn't violate your rights- I won't violate your rights." In practice this makes a world of difference. On the issue of welfare and property redistribution, for example, the first approach would sound like this: "Who are you to take my hard-earned money and give it away to the poor? Even if I should give it to them, you have no right to confiscate my property from me." The second approach is a sharp contrast to the first in both tone and content: "Who am I to take your hard-earned money and give it away to the poor when I'm likely not even giving enough myself? Even if you should give it to them, I have no right to force you to, especially when I'm not giving enough myself. How hypocritical of me would that be?" See how much more humble that is and sounds?

The first example is a challange. Its tone is antagonistic and its premise is egocentric. The second example is an invitation and a catalyst for conversation. Its tone is humble and its premise is philanthropic- motivated by love and concern for other human beings and their rights. The distinction here can ultimately boil down to these alternatives, egocentric libertarianism on the one hand, and philanthropic libertarianism on the other. It is encouraging to know that in some quarters of libertarian thought, I might be "preaching to the choir." For people who already implicitly share the premise I am advocating and who instinctively feel that it is correct, I hope that the value I offer here is to put this premise in its clearest and most explicit terms, to bring into focus and reveal to the world a new kind of libertarianism, a better kind.

Libertarians of the world, be nice!

To promote this kind of libertarianism place a badge on your blog or website by clicking on the flag below



Via The Humble Libertarian

Has Glenn Beck "jumped the shark"?

I have been watching Beck's show for 2 years now from back when I first saw him on CNN HLN up to his current run on FOX and have to say that I'm not happy with the direction that he is going in. I also have to add that since I do not listen to his radio show, my only point of reference is what I see from him on TV.

In the past Beck would have great guests on regularly like Peter Schiff, Stephen Moore from the WSJ, former US Comptroller General and current PGPF CEO David Walker, The Forgotten Man author Amity Schaes and occasionally Dr Ron Paul among others. Recently, however, he has seems to be focusing more on exposing the likes of Van Jones, ACORN and lately Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. He has also taken more to promoting his 912 Project, the Tea Party Movement and of course his books. His 20 minute monologue to open the show can sometimes be tedious also.

Now while this is not all necessarily bad, and has been great for his ratings, it changes the balance of the show for me from giving hard facts as to why the directions the Bush and Obama administrations were hurting the country from an economic and civil liberties standpoint to a more of a shock-jock jumping on a bandwagon. Today he tends to be more intent on inflaming the passions of the hard right than promoting libertarian ideas, as I see it.

The problem with what he is doing is that it not only distracts from the message that big government is harmful, but it moves him more toward the fringe and gives detractors of libertarianism more ammo to dismiss our arguments. He also runs the risk of his, and by extension the up-swell in libertarianism, becoming just another fad.

While I don't agree with all his positions, I find him to be a closet Neocon, the old Beck was a good introduction to people that were interested in libertarian ideas and didn't know where to begin. Now, I'm not so sure.

Picture of the year

Oh yeah, according to Roland Burris we only have Dubya to blame.

Burris stated in an interview, shortly after the announcement, that the image of the U. S. has been so tarnished in the last 8 years that, even Barack Obama making an unprecedented pitch for the games could not overcome the hatred the world has for us as a result of George Bush.

Picture via No Sheeples Here

Via CMR

The Recovery That Isn’t

Hopefully the voters of Connecticut see through the BS next November and elect someone who knows a thing or 2 about economics and how to fix the mess we're in.

For those market boosters who are prattling on about the possibility of a “jobless recovery,” I offer an invitation to join me for a breakfast of “fat-free bacon,” “eggless omelets,” and “no-carb bread.” As unappetizing as such a meal may sound, it would nevertheless offer more substance than the oxymoronic concept of an economic resurgence without job creation.

Those who do cling to the absurd belief that, absent exponential productivity gains, the economy can expand while workers are being laid off will undergo a massive test of their convictions now that it’s clear the employment picture is bleak. Today’s weaker-than-expected report on non-farm payrolls revealed that employers shed 263,000 jobs in September. The losses propelled the headline unemployment rate to a 26-year high of 9.8%. U6, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most complete measure of unemployment, has risen to a dismal 17%. This figure includes those people who want to work full time, but have simply given up looking, or who have accepted part-time work in the interim. As it is similar to the methodology used during the Great Depression, U6 offers better historical perspective on the severity of our current crisis.

Taken together with yesterday’s larger-than-expected pickup in unemployment claims (first time claims rose by 17,000 to 551,000), today’s report makes it certain that the job market is still contracting, even while some indicators like GDP and consumer confidence are moving in the opposite direction.
...
Robust economies utilize all spare capacity, or restructure it for better use. Having 17% of our able-bodied population sitting at home or working part-time at Cinnabon indicates that our present policies are weakening the economy – even if GDP is growing. There is no “jobless recovery,” only senseless cheerleading.

Read it all
The Recovery That Isn’t by Peter Schiff

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Black Sea Wars update

As was noted last week by Pat Buchanan in Black Sea Wars, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is at it again and hasn't learned from his beatdown at the hands of the Russian Army even after an EU report faults Georgia for triggering the hostilities in South Ossetia last August (EU Report Blames Russia and Georgia for War). Now chinaview.cn is reporting that Georgia has clashed with Abkazia in a border area.

TBILISI, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- Georgia clashed with its breakaway republic of Abkhazia in the border area on Wednesday night shortly after an EU report said Georgia started the war with Russia in last August, the Caucasus press news agency reported on Thursday.

Georgian border guards said Abkhazia launched the clashes by shooting at Georgian villages. The EU observer group and other international organizations in Georgia have been informed of the shooting event.

Regardless of who fired the first shot, didn't Saakashvili learn the first time? As much as he was provoked by Russia last year, he is foolishly taking the bait again. He has to be stupid not to realize that, while he has the sympathy of the hawks in DC, the US has no real interest or need to get involved in this fight and they will leave him to twist in the wind again.

In this respect it is a good thing that John McCain and his Neocon adviser Randy Scheunemann are not in the White House. Scheunemann after all was a lobbist for Orion Strategies who was hired by the Republic of Georgia to lobby for Georgian admission to NATO. And McCain tried to talk tough during the last go-around. At least President Obama has the sense to end the missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland, which would be akin to Russia putting missiles in Cuba, with the hope that this would quell some of the concerns in Moscow and gain their assistance in other areas as a quid pro quo.

This is just another reason that our Founding Fathers, and today Dr. Ron Paul, believe that the US should not intervene in other nations quarrels. We have nothing to gain and everything to lose.