The New American Elite

February 6, 2012 | Filed Under Alan Caruba, Anti-Americanism, Book Reviews, Budget, Business, Congress, Conservatives, Democracy, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Ethics, Free Trade, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Jobs, Liberals, President, Republicans, Socialism, Taxes, WWII | No Comments

-By Alan Caruba

The only constant in the life of individuals and nations is change. Since the beginning of the last century, the process or rate of change has accelerated with the invention and availability of a myriad of machines, technologies that have altered the lifestyle of Americans as well as of millions around the world.

Let me put it in personal terms. When I was born in the late 1930s, my Mother washed the family laundry by hand and hung it out to dry on sunny days or in the basement of our home if it was raining. We were not poor. We were middle class. My Father was a Certified Public Accountant and we lived in a spacious suburban home in an upscale New Jersey community. Mass produced washers and dryers would arrive after the end of World War Two.

The differences between lower economic classes, the middle class, and upper classes were well defined back then. All, however, generally held the same values regarding societal institutions such as marriage, religion, national pride. Those values have eroded since the 1960s and Charles Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, whose new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010” ($27.00, Crown Forum) tells you how and why.
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OCCUPY GENIUSES (The Constitution vs. Southern Occupiers)

January 31, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Business, Capitalism, Communism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, President, Socialism, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, Washington D.C. | No Comments

Van Jones promised back in November that the Occupy gang will put up over 2,000 candidates for election in 2012. After AIM’s Ben Johnson did some man-on-the-street pop quizzes in the south this past week, we sure hope they come through on Jones’ promise. Ladies and gentlemen: we present to you the fruits of public school social studies programs.

In the meantime, is the Silliness Coming to an End? Occupy DC gets its eviction notice…

… naturally they are communists and anarchists.

Obama Set to Cost Each of Us Hundreds a Year in Higher Electric Costs

January 31, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, EPA, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Liberals, President, Regulation, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Barack Obama’s avalanche of needless regulations on coal-fueled power plants are going into effect and the net result will be the closing of hundreds of power plants all across the country just when our need for power is increasing. This will absolutely necessitate the cost of our power to skyrocket. But, this is exactly what he wants. He wants to rape us for our power. He said so from the beginning.

Well, now that he’s had the opportunity to put into place just some of the new rules and regulations he wants — and he’s only pushed through a tiny bit of what he really wants, indeed — we are already seeing the results of his attack on us.

Look to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland where six coal-fueled power plants are being shut down by FirstEnergy because the retrofitting the power plants will have to undergo to satisfy Obama’s whims is just too expensive to justify.
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PG&E Wants Higher Rates Even While Collecting Millions for Improvements Never Made?

January 28, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, California, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Energy, Ethics, Government, Liberals, Los Angeles, Natural Gas, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Since the several disastrous accidents that claimed the lives of too many Californians, Pacific Gas & Electric has been fighting criticism over its dismal safety record. In response, the energy provider cried poor and said it needed billions for upgrades and repairs and wanted ratepayers to pay even more for its services. But a new report says that PG&E collected millions from ratepayers for repairs and improvements that it never actually made.

Early last year PG&E got a large rate increase, but by August the energy provider was at it again asking for an additional $2.2 billion for upgrades, repairs, and improving its explosion-prone delivery system, a cost to be born on the backs of the ratepayers.

This January, though, the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) reported that PG&E has already collected half a billion dollars that was supposed to go to these repairs and upgrades yet the repairs were never made.
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Exposing a 40-Year Education Crime: Why California Needs School Choice

January 28, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Ethics, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Larry Sand, Liberals, Los Angeles, Public Employees Unions, School Choice, Taxes, Teachers Unions, Unions | No Comments

-By Larry Sand

Busting LAUSD and every other school district in the state for negligence should help kids, but it’s anyone’s guess as to when. In the meantime, giving families more educational options would be a great help, but don’t hold your breath, California.

With National School Choice Week underway, we see many positive things happening across the country. In states like New Jersey and Louisiana, governors are taking the lead in proposing ways to break the devastating monopoly that government run schools – their educrat leaders, corrupt and/or inept school boards and the powerful teachers unions — have held for far too long.

As an example of Big Education gone bad, I write in City Journal about a crime that has been perpetrated on the children of California for 40 years and the lawsuit that addresses it:
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Destroying America by Denying Access to Energy

January 27, 2012 | Filed Under Alan Caruba, Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Energy, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Jobs, Liberals, Money, Oil, President, Senate, Taxes | No Comments

-By Alan Caruba

It is the crime of the century that America, home to some of the world’s greatest reserves of coal, natural gas and oil, is being deliberately destroyed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior as they do everything in their power to restrict access and drive energy producers out of business.

It is common sense that a nation that cannot produce sufficient electricity to turn on its lights and power its manufacturing sector will be destroyed if current Obama administration regulations and actions continue. Our vital transportation sector and all others that utilize petroleum-based products will suffer, too.

While President Obama babbles about millionaires and billionaires, everyone will be impoverished by the loss of jobs and revenue our energy sector produces now and can produce in the future.

This isn’t an “energy policy.” It’s a “no-energy policy” and it is a guarantee of economic disaster.
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Conservatives: Occupy Wall Street Shows How We Can’t Get Our Message Out Over Old Media Din

January 26, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Business, Capitalism, Communism, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, New York City, President, Socialism, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

The gauzy puffery that the Old Media slathers upon the Occupy Wall Street movement has helped keep most Americans in the dark about how nasty, how violent, how outrageous, and even how incredibly lacking in integrity this movement is. On the conservative blogs the truth is well known, of course, but the fact that few Americans seem to know how bad the OWSers are shows that as conservatives we are not effectively getting our message out there.

For the initial two years of its existence the Old Media spent its every waking moment destroying, maligning, and out right lying about the Tea Party movement. Even today you’ll see an occasional swipe at the Tea Patiers made by some hater from the left and the Old Media is happy to “report” the slander, naturally.

You might remember when Obama operative Anna Park tried to start a counter movement that she prosaically called “the Coffee Party” during the heyday of the Tea Party. You may also recall that those Old Media mavens, while daily lying and lambasting the Tea Partiers, fell all over themselves to play up the silly and quickly failed and forgotten “Coffee Party” effort.
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Rep. Walsh Schools National Park Service Director About Occupy DC

January 25, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Jobs, Joe Walsh, Liberals, Republicans, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why does the National Park Service think they should treat Occupy DC with kid gloves? Because they have “occupy” in their name… er… something. At least that is according to the head of the National Park Service, Jonathan B. Jarvis.

8th District Congressman Joe Walsh (R, ILL) wonders why Park Service personnel are not just tolerating the OWSers but actively assisting them and giving them aid for their protests!

Are we paying our taxes so that the Park Service can become part of an anti-American protest movement? Apparently we are.

Congressman Walsh did a great job showing that these OWSers are not something to be coddled.

(H/T Marathon Pundit)

SOTU Speech: Same Old, Same Old Obama Failure

January 25, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Education, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, President, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

If you thought the 2012 State of the Union was very similar to President Obama’s past State of the Union speeches, you were right…

Video courtesy of www.gop.com/

If Republicans Want to Win, They Must Rebrand ‘Capitalism’

January 23, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Economy/Finances, Elections, GOP, Jobs, President, Republicans, Selwyn Duke, Taxes | No Comments

-By Selwyn Duke

One of the simplest rhetorical truths is that the side that defines the vocabulary of a debate wins the debate. Yet, amazingly, we still see experienced conservative politicians with access to advanced polling operations and an array of advisors use the Lexicon of the Left. And this election cycle is no exception.

I could almost cringe when I hear – as I did repeatedly during Monday’s South Carolina GOP debate – Republicans talk about “capitalism.” “I believe in capitalism….” “Barack Obama doesn’t believe in capitalism…..” Capitalism this and capitalism that – look at me with my plump wallet, walking stick and tony top hat. Oh, it’s not that I don’t believe in free enterprise; it’s that we shouldn’t use words that conjure up sentiments akin to the preceding rhyme.

And polls inform that this is precisely what “capitalism” does. For example, Pew Research Center reports, “Slightly more than half (52%) react positively to the word ‘capitalism,’ compared with 37% who say they have a negative reaction.” According with this is a 2009 Rasmussen poll showing that, shockingly, “only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.” And the picture looks even worse with certain demographic groups. Writes Pew, “Fewer than half of young people, women, people with lower incomes and those with less education react positively to ‘capitalism.’”
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The U.S. is on a Suicide Watch

January 22, 2012 | Filed Under Alan Caruba, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Cold War, Communism, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Free Trade, Government, Liberals, President, Socialism, Taxes | No Comments

-By Alan Caruba

In 1991, the Soviet Union, arguably the greatest experiment in Communism, collapsed. After Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors moved to shift its Communist economy to one that embraced Capitalism while retaining centralized government control.

Following World War Two, the recovering nations of Europe were rescued from Communism by the Marshall Plan, but adopted Communism-Light in the form of Socialism. The U.S. was already headed in that direction, creating programs that we now call “entitlements.” For most of the nation’s history, such “entitlements” did not exist.

What binds together the financial problems of the West is the common thread of infantile behavior and thought. One might call it wishful thinking. Instead of encouraging people to provide for old age and possible illness, politicians decided to turn government into Big Daddy, the eternal source of money for everything.

Need to go to college, start a business, or plan for retirement? Government would be there to help. All this ignored the need to actually pay for these programs. In the case of Social Security Congress began to dip into its funding to pay for other programs! This is what children do.
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VIDEO: ‘Change has come,’ Alright! But How Good Has it Been?

January 20, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Jobs, Liberals, Money, President, Senate, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

In 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced that change had come to America. After three years, the results of that change make many Americans ready to change it back.

And here is a great for-instance of how the Old Media establishment is covering for their Obammessiah. Let’s get in the way back machine and recall how the price of gas was used as a sledgehammer with which to beat George W. Bush about the head. Remember how it was front page news on a daily basis? Well now gas has lingered at highs that it never stayed at during the Bush years and now analysts are saying gas will reach to $4 a gallon this year — an all time high.

Where is the media on this story? Why isn’t it as big a deal as it was 5 and 6 years ago? Ah, yes. We have The One in office. Gosh. How could I forget that the Old Media doesn’t want negative stories about their messiah? Silly me.

Courtesy AllAmericanBlogger.com

Indiana Democrats Fleebagging Again, Abandoning Their Jobs

January 19, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Indiana, Jobs, Liberals, Mitch Daniels, Public Employees Unions, Republicans, Right To Work, Senate, Teachers Unions, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again Indiana Democrats are playing the fleebagger game. Because they don’t have enough votes in the Indiana Statehouse, Hoosier Democrats are abandoning their rightful duties and fleeing the Capitol over Indiana’s right-to-work bill currently under consideration in Indianapolis.

Indiana Senate Bill 269 and House Bill 1001 would make it illegal to require workers in Indiana to join a union as a condition of being allowed to have a job. Allowing workers a choice seems like an inherently American idea, doesn’t it?

After all, how could anyone tell you that you must belong to a union or you’re not allowed to have your job? That sort of forced association seems so contrary to the American character. But forcing people to join unions just so that they can have a job is precisely what Indiana Democrats are fighting to protect.
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Raiding of the Treasury to Bribe the Irresponsible

January 19, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Congress, Crony Capitalism, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Frank Salvato, GOP, Government, Liberals, President, Taxes | No Comments

-By Frank Salvato

A little publicized political story, if played out to the satisfaction of California Democrats (read: Progressives), would not only set the stage for a politically motivated raid on the US Treasury, it would afford President Obama, his administration and political operatives plausible deniability in any “coincidental” benefit to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. And if you don’t think that has David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and David Plouffe salivating, you haven’t been paying attention for the past three years.

According to a report by TheHill.com:

“A long list of California Democrats is urging President Obama to name a new housing regulator using a controversial recess appointment.

“In a letter to the president, more than two dozen House members said the temporary head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Edward DeMarco, simply hasn’t done enough to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure. The lawmakers are pushing the president to name a permanent director ‘immediately.’

“‘FHFA has consistently and erroneously interpreted its mandate far too narrowly and as such has failed to take adequate action to help homeowners,’ the lawmakers wrote. ‘Installing a permanent director of the FHFA will allow the FHFA to move forward to make key decisions that will help keep families in their homes and improve our economy.’”

Okay, let’s first examine the FHFA. According to their website:
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Occupy Wall Street Stealing From The Poor to Give to Themselves!

January 16, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Banks, Business, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, GOP, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, New York City, PCism, Republicans, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is more common everyday. A man buys a house, the market collapses and suddenly his house is worth less than the mortgage, then he loses his job until, as a single father, he finds himself in foreclosure with no place to raise his two preteen daughters. It’s a case made for the Occupy Wall Street movement to swoop in and right wrongs, right? Maybe not because the OWSers in New York stole this poor guy’s home away from him in order to give it to one of their own members. Confused? Read on.

A Brooklyn man living in an apartment with his two daughters was alerted to the fact that his in-foreclosure-home had been broken into and occupied by Occupiers, as in Occupy Wall Street activists. When he rushed to his home he found a group of strangers that had broken into his home claiming to have “reclaimed” the house and given it to another family.

“They’re trying to take a house and say the bank is robbing the people because the mortgage is too high — so contact the owner!” fumed Wise Ahadzi, 28, who owns the home at 702 Vermont St. in East New York.

Apparently Ahadzi had bought the house in 2007 for the princely sum of $424,500 but during the housing bubble of 2009 the house ended up being worth only half that. Then, when he lost his job and got behind on the mortgage, the bank foreclosed on the property.

Enter — illegally, mind you — Occupy Wall Streeters who discovered the home in foreclosure and decided that they’d steal it away from “the bank” with the ostensible goal of helping the needy.
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VIDEO: The Story of Broke Response, Why Annie Leonard is Wrong… AGAIN!

January 13, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Communism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Government, House of Representatives, Jobs, Liberals, Senate, Socialism, Stimulus, Taxes, Unemployment, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

Extremist “progressive” Annie Leonard recently perpetrated another video attempting to “explain” why capitalism and the United States is evil. Well, LearnLiberty.org couldn’t let her lies and left-wing propaganda go by unaddressed. So, they made this excellent video…

Prof. Art Carden responds to “The Story of Broke”, a recent video by the creators of “The Story of Stuff.” In “The Story of Broke,” Annie Leonard claims that the government isn’t actually broke. Rather, the government just wastes resources on the wrong things like subsidies to the dinosaur economy and war. She claims that the government should change its ways, and instead, subsidize firms that will bring us the future we really want.

Art Carden agrees with Leonard that war and subsidies are wasteful, but is skeptical of notion that there is one unified vision for the future. To Carden, everyone has a different vision for the future. Our path to the future, he argues, is determined by the interactions of billions of unique individuals pursuing their own objectives.

Additionally, Carden questions Leonard’s distinction between bad subsidies and good subsidies. Every subsidy, deemed good or bad, must be allocated through the political process. Lobbyists and special interests exert a large degree of influence on political decisions, and they use this power to direct subsidies in their own favor at everyone else’s expense.

Carden concludes that government spending won’t buy a brighter future. A brighter future will emerge when people are allowed to spend money on things they care about. Put another way, positive change will come from billions of people cooperating freely and voluntarily with one another, not from pushing trillions of dollars through a broken political process.

Barack Machiavelli

January 13, 2012 | Filed Under Alan Caruba, Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Liberals, Money, President, Taxes | No Comments

-By Alan Caruba

The Founding Fathers, authors of the Constitution, were obsessed with any form of government that could become too powerful, too willing to use force to oppress citizens. They had cause. They had fought a long war against the greatest power of their age, ruled by a king with nearly absolute power. They fashioned an instrument designed to ensure that the President could not rule by edict and defused power among three branches of government.

We have a President currently running for reelection against Congress, Wall Street, Republicans, and the right of citizens to be free of an overly intrusive government.

Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution says: All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

All appointments of the President must be approved by the Senate while it is in session and the Senate, even over the Christmas and New Year’s vacation has remained in session, if only in a pro forma, technical manner. Every three days it has been convened to assert its powers.

Even so, President Obama has announced several “recess” appointments, all clearly a challenge to the Senate and all clearly a tyrannical power grab. He appointed Richard Cordray as the first director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new function that puts government between the lender and the citizen. In theory, all loans in the future will be subject to government approval. This is Communism, not Capitalism.

Obama Excuses Over 500,000 Union Members From Obamacare

January 12, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Health, House of Representatives, Liberals, Obamacare, President, Public Employees Unions, Senate, Socialism, Taxes, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember back in the days of the debate over Obamacare when unions were the biggest voices screaming in support of the legislation? Many labor union bosses said that nationalized healthcare was exactly what they wanted. Further they said it was what was good for the country. Yet now we learn that Obama has given waivers to some 550,000 union members so that they don;t have to suffer under Obamacare.

Paul Connor reports that a classic Friday evening document dump from the White House shows that unions employing up to 543,812 members have received waivers fro the Obama administration.

Fridays are often the one day of the week when government agencies satisfy transparency rules and release documents that show what they’ve been up to. They release them on Friday in the early evening because they understand that reporters are already headed home for the weekend and TV news departments have already programed their evening newscasts. These agencies also understand that news agencies don’t often cover heavy news on weekends. Further, by the time Monday rolls around the document will be “old news” and many of them will simply escape attention.
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Promises, Promises: The Reality of Campaign Speak

January 11, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Communism, Constitution, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, DOJ, Economy/Finances, Elections, Ethics, Frank Salvato, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, President, Socialism, Taxes | No Comments

-By Frank Salvato

As the campaign cycle progresses we are going to hear a lot about what one candidate or another is going to do about this or that. We will, to the point of weariness, be inundated with campaign promise after campaign promise, albeit, between gratuitous attacks, both political and personal. This is politicking and the American electorate – for better or for worse – has come to accept a certain amount of it from the people in the political class. But expecting grandiose pledges and believing in the unattainable, well, those are two different things. It is the truly foolish who believe half of what a political candidate says he can deliver, and the blame for that foolishness must fall on the shoulders of the individual voter.

While Presidents sign legislation into law, it is Congress – the House and the Senate; the Legislative Branch – that actually crafts and passes legislation. Therefore, any promise made on the campaign trail by a presidential candidate, be it by the incumbent or the challenger (or the field of candidates vying to be the challenger), is subject to the debate and acquiescence of those in the Legislative Branch; in Congress. It is because of this that any promise made by a presidential candidate must be received by the voting public as more of an intention, rather than a promise. To accept a campaign promise as an impending reality is to set oneself up for almost certain disappointment. And to blame a successful candidate for not living up to those campaign promises requires a level of certainty that the promise was actually ignored, not thwarted.

A good example of campaign promises thwarted comes in the form of the Republican TEA Party supported congressional freshman class who, during the 2010 Mid-Term Elections, promised to “repeal or defund Obamacare” and to “bring fiscal responsibility to Washington.” Each of those elected sincerely believed that they would be able to succeed in doing what they promised. In fact, HR2 of the 112th Congress did, in fact, attempt to repeal Obamacare and many of the TEA Party supported members of the House took it straight on the chin during the debt, deficit and budget debates. But for all of their good intentions and actions, the freshmen Republicans of the 112th Congress learned that unless you have a veto-proof majority in the House, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a friendly inhabitant in the White House, absolutes in campaign promises do not exist.

The same must be said about the Executive Branch and the President of the United States, although he has some additional quivers in his pouch where getting his way is concerned: the bully pulpit (self-explanatory) and the Executive Order.

RATE Coalition: We Are on Track to Have the Highest Corporate Tax Rate in the World

January 10, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

A group called Reform America’s Taxes Equitably (RATE) has a new video:

Reducing the corporate tax rate would be a boost for American competitiveness, investment and job creation,” the video concludes. “To get America back on track and bring jobs back where they belong, Congress must act and Reform America’s Taxes Equitably … This is our economy fair and simple.

RATE’s goals are to reform the tax code, making it fairer and simpler and improving the prospects of growth and jobs in the U.S. economy by reducing the corporate income tax rate to make it more competitive with our nation’s major trading partners.

http://www.ratecoalition.com/
http://www.facebook.com/RATECoalition

Obama’s Electronic Medical Records Requirements Already Causing Job Loss

January 9, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Health, House of Representatives, Jobs, Liberals, Money, Obamacare, President, Senate, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

While the Old Media has been ecstatic over recent job numbers, claiming that some 200,000 jobs have been added to the economy, we should note that while Obama giveth Obama also taketh away. The media may be trying to claim the President has “created or saved” jobs (the latest weasel word is he’s created job opportunity) but his policies have also cost jobs. In particular his policies are costing jobs in the medical field.

Last week, layoffs were announced in Mississippi at the University of Mississippi Medical Center due in part to the 80 million dollars that it will cost to implement a new computer system named EPIC Systems, Obama’s newly mandated electronic medical records system.

Naturally, the system Obama is forcing on an entire nation of medical professionals and hospitals is the same system owned and operated by Judith Faulkner, one of his own big donors. Faulkner is also a big donor to the Democrat Party. Not surprisingly, besides affording her the lucrative, crony capitalist business deal, Obama also put Faulkner in a key role on the Health Information Technology Policy Committee, the committee responsible for implementing the President’s e-records policy. She has become known as Obama’s medical records czar.

As hospitals and doctors are forced to launch their own EPIC Systems portals, the costs are forcing hard choices for administrators. All to implement what many call a flawed system.
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Albany Police Chief Slams ‘Occupy’-Supporting Councilmen

January 8, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, New York, Newspapers, PCism, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Albany Police Chief Steven Krokoff came in for heavy criticism by fans of the Occupy “movement” after he ordered the clearing of their downtown encampment pursuant to a court order. The arguments over the actions by police have raged since the December 23 conflagration with Chief Krokoff getting savaged repeatedly by the media and some city councilmen alike. But this week Krokoff confronted his critics and he wasn’t gentle about it!

The big criticism arose when officers used pepper spray when the Occupiers became violent. Since then several Councilmen, such as Anton Konev, have criticized the police saying that their actions were unnecessary. Konev, for instance, has announced that he has no confidence in the Chief and is angling to have him fired. Naturally, Konev has been an open agitator for and supporter of Occupy Albany.

But on January 6, Chief Krokoff came before the city council with a strong defense of his and his officers’ actions delivering a withering blast to some of the councilmen that have come to the defense of the lawless Occupiers.
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Santorum’s Post Iowa Caucus Address

January 4, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Conservatives, Economy/Finances, Elections, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, President, Republicans, Rick Santorum, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

This was a great extemporaneous speech and deserves to be seen by more people…

The Essential Lies Underneath Occupy Wall Street

January 2, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Warner Todd Huston | 4 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

The folks at Fox News made a fantastic video that helps elucidate the lies floated about how wonderful, how pro-America, and how peaceable the Occupy Wall Street “movement” has been. It is important to watch this video for the truth.

The whole nonsense that OWS is a “peaceful movement” is the bigger lie than all of them, too. By John Nolte’s count there have been upwards to 417 serious criminal actions perpetrated by OWSers.

Worse, the claim that OWS supporters make that theirs is essentially a true American movement is also a pile of steaming garbage. Every one of these protests are filled to the gills with communists, socialists, anarchists, and other anti-American “ists.” The people that are the most active simply are not interested in America, its ideals, and its processes. They are essentially un-American.

The way the Old Media has gone out of its way to come to the support of OWS is telling. The same media attempted to destroy the Tea Party Movement casting all sorts of aspersions upon it. Yet, OWS has been by many magnitudes more criminal, more destructive, more anti-American and the Old Media has gone out of its way to be nice to the OWSers.

This pretty much proves the Old Media’s bias against anything conservative, Republican, or center right.
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Wash. Post Plays Hate-The-Rich-Republicans With Graphic Chart

December 30, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Jobs, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Money, Republicans, Senate, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, Washington Post | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Wednesday morning the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake posted an infographic that was a perfect example of how one can use a graphic chart to influence the public in subtle ways, ways that we of the center right better start employing in our own efforts if we want to win over the public.

Blake’s post, “Why People Hate Congress,” fits in well with President Obama’s class warfare rhetoric as employed in his campaign to set different economic classes against each other in a desperate and cynically populist bid to get reelected next year. There is little of substance to Blake’s post other than to fan the flames of the sort of hatred that he wants to see grow in order to aid Obama in 2012.

The Post’s Blake also ended up having to pull the graphic off his The Fix blog post because it simply did not illustrate what he claimed it did in his story — but that is another issue that we’ll deal with at the end of this report.

Blake begins his piece asking, “Want to know why Americans hate Congress?” He then goes on to claim it is in part because our elected representatives in Washington D.C. are members of the eeeevil rich.

The fact that members of Congress are getting richer (and 57 members come from the top 1 percent, according to USA Today) confirms what Americans suspect about the people who are running this country: that they don’t empathize with normal people.

Of course, with a dispassionate application of logic, having a few dollars more than the next guy does not ipso facto make the richer guy so out of touch that he cannot empathize with anyone in a lower salary range. Only those filled with hate make this assumption. Empathy has nothing to do with class, money, or politics. It has to do with one’s character.

Further there are plenty of members of Congress with the character to understand and have empathy with others. Then there are some that don’t. People are people, rich or poor.

It is also telling that even Blake admits that Congress has always been filled with “the rich.” The founders were not groveling in poverty, after all. It often takes a person that has achieved a certain place in society to become elected. I mean, should they be elected, how can anyone expect “the poor” or even the lower middle class to afford to fund homes both in D.C. and back in their district? Who can afford to leave their family and business if half the year off more to fly off the D.C. to attend to government business? And with the costs of elections and the Byzantine election laws these days causing many candidates to self fund, it will only be natural that “the rich” end up being our representatives in Congress.

But special attention has to be paid to the graphic Blake used to illustrate his story. And what a masterwork of subtlety it is. Blake claimed that the illustration made by a well-known hate-the-rich researcher from California showed in graphic form the distribution of wealth among both chambers of Congress. The graphic depicts the “top 1%” and the “next 9%” in the color red. Then it uses blue to show the “following 10%” and the “bottom 80%.” Notice what is going on? That’s right, this graphic uses the color red to depict the eeevil rich. And what is the color red in politics these days? None other than the color the Old Media has assigned to the Republican Party.
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The 2012 Check List for America’s Survival

December 29, 2011 | Filed Under Alan Caruba, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, President, Republicans, Taxes | No Comments

-By Alan Caruba

Many people make resolutions to start the year, but I think a list of things that must be done to protect and preserve the Republic should be tallied.

1. President Obama must be defeated in 2012 and the obstructionist Democratic Party must lose power in the Senate to ensure both houses of Congress will be Republican and in a position to initiate real change.

2. The Environmental Protection Agency must be reined in with increased Congressional oversight and legislative limits on its rule-making capacity. Having fulfilled its 1970 mandate to clean the nation’s air and water, it should be scaled back to the maintenance of these functions.

3. Americans, despite the administration’s efforts to redefine and distract us, must keep clearly in mind the threat of Islam to the nation and the world. A Middle East in turmoil lays ahead for 2012.

4. To jump-start the economy, taxes and spending must be reduced across the board. A tax on consumption, rather than income would be a good start. Only 49% of Americans currently pay income taxes, the lowest in decades.
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New York: Occupy Wall Street Hypocrites Cause 91 Workers to Lose Jobs

December 18, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Business, Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Jobs, Liberals, RightPundits.com, Socialism, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Occupy Whatevers claimed they were all about “the little people.” They were about small businesses that stand against corporate giants. They were for the local shops that employ the middle and lower classes. And now the OWSers are responsible for the loss of almost 100 jobs for the very people they claimed they were trying to help.

Last June a small lunch spot was opened called the Milk Street Cafe. It was quickly becoming a favorite little eatery in the financial district — that is until the Occupy destroyers arrived to wreck the small start-up’s business.

A few weeks ago, struggling to survive the destruction wrecked upon it by the OWSers, the cafe laid off 21 people. Owner Marc Epstein had hoped that it would be enough to keep his little cafe afloat but to no avail. This week he has announced that he’s laid off his other 70 workers and is closing his business. That’s 91 workers that have lost their jobs thanks to the OWSers.
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Read the rest at RightPundits.com.

America’s Communist President

December 16, 2011 | Filed Under Alan Caruba, Barack Obama, Business, Capitalism, Communism, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Liberals, President, Socialism, Taxes | Comments Off

-By Alan Caruba

In his extraordinary book, “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century”, the historian, Dr. Paul Kengor, stated in his introduction that “We now know that American Communists and their masters in Moscow were acutely aware that they could never gain the popular support they needed to enlist the support of a much wider coalition that could help them push their private agenda.”

Most threatening, however, was Dr. Kengor’s discovery that “it was nothing short of stunning to research this book during the presidential bid of Barack Obama and hear so many of the names in my research surface repeatedly in the background of the man who became president of the United States of America. The way in which so many names and themes from the Cold War past aligned and made their way into Obama’s orbit was chilling.”

Obama’s December 8th speech in Osawatomie, Kansas revealed to anyone paying any attention that the President is a Communist. Speaking of the nation’s economic system that has created the greatest wealth for the most people anywhere, Capitalism, Obama said, “It doesn’t work. It has never worked.”

No one would argue that capitalism is “fair”, nor would they argue that life is “fair.” These are things that never were and never will be, but Obama’s reelection campaign theme will be that Americans are suffering because of Capitalism, because of a lack of fairness.

In a December 8 Washington Times commentary, Jeffrey T. Kuhner wrote, “There is only one problem with the White House’s narrative: It’s completely false. Mr. Obama is not a defender of the middle class but has been its mortal enemy. His policies have impoverished working-and-middle-class Americans.”
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Stimulus Bigger Failure Than First Thought

December 14, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, President, Regulation, RightPundits.com, Stimulus, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Democrats have for at least a year claimed that Obama’s various stimulus plans were a great success — that they even “saved the country” — and put people back to work. But a new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is proving that claim to be chimerical.

Past news reports of Obama’s stimulus spending has claimed that 3.5 million jobs were “saved” or created by the stimulus programs. But new CBO numbers puts that at a far, far lower 600,000 jobs making the expense incurred to “save” or create those jobs ring in at $1.3 million per job. Not a very good deal, that….

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.

Debunking Myths About The Great Depression

December 14, 2011 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Financial Reform, Franklin Deleno Roosevelt, Government, Corruption, History, Liberals, Nanny State, President, Stimulus, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, WWII | Comments Off

The New Deal Was A Failure: Hoover and FDR Prolonged the Great Depression with Big Government

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains how the statist policies of Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt lengthened and deepened the Great Depression. The video also briefly explains how reductions in the burden of government spending helped the economy recover from a deep recession after World War I and to grow after World War II.