Monday, March 2, 2009
Obama buries Reaganomics under $3.6 trillion mountain
As Barack Obama prepared to deliver his speech to a joint session of Congress last week, his aides raced to television studios to deliver the official spin. Evoking the cheerful optimism in tough times of a fondly remembered president, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs predicted his boss would be ''Reaganesque''. (Snip)
The Great Communicator of the 1980s would have recognised his successor’s upbeat tone, but not his policies...
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Gingrich raps Obama for 'big-government' budget
Washington - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is labeling President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget plan a ''higher-tax, weaker-economy, fewer-jobs'' blueprint that should trigger the most crucial policy debate since 1980.
The leading Republican said he he actually agrees with much of Obama's rhetoric, but that there's a ''gap between the words and reality'...'
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THE OPTION
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Washington solutions of more money, more government, more power for politicians, more debt, and more bureaucrats will not lead to real growth in jobs and prosperity.
We need a clear and decisive alternative that creates jobs and rewards work, saving, and investment.
We need a clear and decisive alternative that creates jobs and rewards work, saving, and investment.
1. Payroll Tax Stimulus. With a temporary new tax credit to offset 50% of the payroll tax, every small business would have more money, and all Americans would take home more of what they earn.
2. Real Middle-Income Tax Relief. Reduce the marginal tax rate of 25% down to 15%, in effect establishing a flat-rate tax of 15% for close to 9 out of 10 American workers.
3. Reduce the Business Tax Rate. Match Ireland’s rate of 12.5% to keep more jobs in America.
4. Homeowner’s Assistance. Provide tax credit incentives to responsible home buyers so they can keep their homes.
5. Control Spending So We Can Move to a Balanced Budget. This begins with eliminating Congressional earmarks and wasteful pork-barrel spending.
6. No State Aid Without Protection From Fraud. Require state governments to adopt anti-fraud and anti-theft policies before giving them more money.
7. More American Energy Now. Explore for more American oil and gas and invest in affordable energy for the future, including clean coal, ethanol, nuclear power and renewable fuels.
8. Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains. Match China, Singapore and many other competitors. More investment in America means more jobs in America.
9. Protect the Rights of American Workers. We must protect a worker’s right to decide by secret ballot whether to join a union, and the worker’s right to freely negotiate. Forced unionism will kill jobs in America at a time when we can’t afford to lose them.
10. Replace Sarbanes-Oxley. This failed law is crippling entrepreneurial startups. Replace it with affordable rules that help create jobs, not destroy them.
11. Abolish the Death Tax. Americans should work for their families, not for Washington.
12. Invest in Energy and Transportation Infrastructure. This includes a new, expanded electric power grid and a 21st century air traffic control system that will reduce delays in air travel and save passengers, employees and airlines billions of dollars per year.
[and as always, 'go viral' - pass this on...]
[your children will thank you]
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Congressmen Question Saudi Lobbyist for Head of National Intelligence Council
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Which of the following would disqualify a person for the position of chairman of the National Intelligence Council, whose"goal is to provide policymakers with the best information: unvarnished, unbiased and without regard to whether the analytic judgments conform to current U.S. policy"
?
A. Heading an organization which accepted $1 million donation from the Saudis;
B. Lobbying for the Saudi government;
C. Accusing Israel of Nazis tactics; [snip]
F. Promoting public schools textbooks which the independent Textbook League describe as "a vehicle for disseminating disinformation with the principal purpose of inducing teachers to embrace Islamic religious beliefs;
G. Marketing educational materials which recreate world history and refer to the land of Israel only as Palestine;
H. Blaming the U.S. for the terror attack of 9/11;
I. Praising Hamas as the only democratically elected government in the Arab world;
Two congressmen are answering, "All of the above" in response to the appointment of Chas W. Freeman Jr. for the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council. [snip]
Another question might be: how could the President think that assigning a key intelligence post to someone whose prejudices are so extreme that they have convoluted history, who excuses enemies of the U.S., and who condemns its friends would be able to provide the unvarnished, unbiased information that the nation needs for its security?
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"OPPOSE FREEMAN NOMINATION TO NIC"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
..
Mubarak is the Only One Who Got it Right
[HT:BD, Re: latest Hamas actions in Gaza]
There may be a lot of things that one can say about President Mubarak, not all of them complimentary, but one thing that cannot be said is that he is either a newcomer or naïve in the nuances, strategies and politics of the Middle East. Here is what President Mubarak said in a speech last week: "Why did (Hamas) object to our attempts to prolong the cease fire? And why did they not heed our warnings that their positions constitute an open invitation for an Israeli assault? Was this planned and deliberate? For whose benefit?... the recent crisis has exposed an attempt to exploit the Israeli aggression in order to impose a new reality on the Palestinian and Arab arena -- a new reality that will stack the cards in favor of a well known regional force, Iran, for the benefit of its plans and agenda." [snip]
In the words of Presidnet Mubarak" I have stressed this before and I'll say it again (Hamas) must face the cost benefit test... of the benefits it has brought for their problems along side the casualties, the pain, and the destruction it has caused... For how long will Arab blood be shed, only to listen to those who admit their mistakes later... and who wave resistance slogans over the corpses of casualties, the ruins and the destruction."
One wonders when some in the Western media will begin asking the same question and demanding the same answers.
[Recommended > ]
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How Did This Happen?
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Isn't it worth, say, ten minutes to try to figure out how this happened? [snip >]
Actually, how do we know the bad thing spread from the US to the rest of the world, and not vice versa? I invite you to look at the data. If you do, you will find that Europe's economic decline started before, and is deeper than, the US's.
Look at the 2nd quarter of 2008, for example. In that quarter, the US economy grew 0.7%. Yet the economies of France, Germany, Italy and Japan all shrank by 0.3% to 0.9%. In fact, the average for the Euro area was an economic shrinkage of 0.2%.
Those European economies that shrank in the 2nd quarter also shrank in the 3rd. By that time, so did the US's economy - but by just 0.1%. The Euro area's average shrinkage was twice that. The economies of Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom shrank five to six times as fast. [snip]
I don't think this is Bush's fault. I also don't think it's Barney Frank's fault. I think even looking for the blame in some part of the US, whether its housing market, some mysterious lack of regulation or some politician, is a red herring. If this situation is "inherited," I'd say we inherited it from Europe.
Given that no one involved, from the US to Iceland, Latvia or Europe generally, has been a bastion of "laissez-faire" capitalism, I think we can also dismiss blaming capitalism or free-markets for this one.
[Lots of good info., Highly Recommended > ]
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Brown woos Obama on global deal
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GORDON BROWN hopes to forge a partnership with President Barack Obama in Washington this week, to call for a “global new deal” to lift the world out of recession.
As he prepares for his first White House visit since the president’s inauguration, the prime minister has hinted that he is ready to make tax cuts to boost the UK economy. [snip]
Many US politicians believe economic policy should put America first, and have shown little interest in concerted global action.
[Too true: this is yet another scam-America ploy: we're to escalate our enormous spending and incur of generations of debt, while signing up for 'world' standards that will undercut our economic sovereignty - while they implement tax cuts to truly stimulate their economies...
Oh well, if it will make the President a more popular 'world citizen'...]
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Marxist-Leninism is Coming to America
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A new Fox Dynamics Poll shows really how much trouble we currently have in America. Universal food? Should the government provide food for every person? In the Fox Poll, 68% say yes. Healthcare? 66% say yes. Housing? 52% say yes. A job, 51% say yes.
People haven’t been taught why socialism is bad. We can no longer sit back, just go to work, and assume everything is going to be okay. America voted for “change.” Contrary to what conservatives have been saying, the Fox Poll seems to indicate that the voters may very well have known exactly the type of change they wanted. Is there any doubt that Obama, Pelosi and Reid are going to attempt to deliver European-style socialism to America by the end of 2010?
Or, would it be more correct to say that they are going to deliver “more than socialism”? Nationalizing banks and dictating to private corporations is beyond socialism; we are moving towards a Marxist State. When the Obama stimulus package fails, as it will, there will be a demand for more government. This is exactly what happened in the 1930’s...
[I.e., this isn't a simple case of 'majority rules' when choosing our political system and the role of government because socialism doesn't work - it is not a viable option.
But evidently another generation, which has been indoctrinated into believing desire can somehow serve as functional policy {despite all historical evidence to the contrary}, will have to learn for itself, the hard way, that it just isn't so.
When we decline to insist on responsible behavior from our institutions such as education and the major media, there are consequences.
Highly Recommended - especially for Californians [addressed] > ]
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The Obama Revolution
Paid for by the people.
In the closing weeks of last year's election campaign, we wrote that Democrats had in mind the most sweeping expansion of government in decades. Liberals clucked, but it turns out even we've been outbid. With yesterday's fiscal 2010 budget proposal, President Obama is attempting not merely to expand the role of the federal government but to put it in such a dominant position that its power can never be rolled back.
The only impetus for growth in this budget comes from the government spending more money that it is taking out of the job-producing private economy. With $1 trillion of new entitlements, $1.4 trillion in new taxes, and $5 trillion in new debt, America's entrepreneurs aren't getting any help soon from Washington.
Democrats will want to rush all of this into law this year while Mr. Obama retains his honeymoon aura and they can blame the recession on George W. Bush. But Americans are only beginning to understand the magnitude of Mr. Obama's ambitions, and how much of their own income will be required to fulfill them...
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Carbon Regulation: One Scientist's Unscientific Dream?
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There's an understandably growing unease about the likely prospect that the Obama administration will soon choose to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. But that disquiet would likely turn quickly to rage if more people knew the truth about the scientific conclusions on which this unprecedented incursion on both industry and individual freedom was based. You see, it appears that those conclusions weren't based on accepted scientific procedure at all, but were instead predetermined -- and perhaps by a single man. [snip]
"In the early days of the IPCC, I was visiting the head of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy -- the director, Dr. Robert Watson, who later became the first Chairman of the IPCC.
He informed me and a work associate with me that since we had started to regulate Ozone depleting substances under the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the next goal, in his mind, was to regulate Carbon Dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning.
This was nearly twenty years ago. There was no mention of a scientific basis for that goal. So, as you can see from the beginning of the IPCC process, it has been guided by desired policy outcomes, not science." [snip]
With green believers ruling both the Executive and Legislative branches, and a Judicial majority voting sympathetically alongside them in April of 2007, these words from Lindzen just one month prior have never rung more foreboding:
"Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life."
Needless to say -- our language offers countless pejoratives for governments that control lives through big lies, extortion and intimidation.
Not to mention the scientists who formulate or sustain those lies.
[An astounding look of how the 'authoritative body' re AGW really works - Highly Recommended > ]
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Caught in the chaos
[HT:SN]
A 22-year-old man from Houston and his 16-year-old friend are hauled out of a minivan in Mexico, shot execution style by thugs in a black Lincoln Continental, and left dead in the dirt.
The body of a 65-year-old nurse from Brownsville is found floating in the Rio Grande after a visit to a Mexican beauty salon.
An American retiree, an ex-Marine, is stabbed to death as he camps on a Baja beach with his dog.
More than 200 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2004 — an average of nearly one killing a week, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation into the deaths.
Rarely are the killers captured.
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More freedom, less government, for education
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I share President Obama's concerns about education. We certainly need to do a better job, particularly in our low-income communities. But, from what I see so far, we're on very different pages regarding how to think about the problem.
According to Department of Education data, reported by the Cato Institute, K-12 spending per student, adjusted for inflation, went from $5,393 in 1970 to $11,470 in 2004. Over the same period, there were tiny increases in math scores among 17-year-olds and no improvement in reading scores.
In his address to Congress, Obama was clear that he understands it's not just money but how it's spent. " ...our schools don't just need more resources, they need more reform," he said.
But can we really believe that over the thirty-five years that per pupil spending doubled it did not dawn on any educator that reform was in order? There are endless new ideas about how to spend money to manipulate kids into learning.
The problem with professional bureaucrats is that they think we learn about human beings in laboratories and academic studies. It never occurs to them the problem is a bankrupt culture, which they themselves often reflect, and what's needed is a return to traditional values.
We need more common sense and freedom in K-12 education -- not more government programs and money.
[And I would add less 'contrary interests', by which I mean unions.]
Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (www.urbancure.org). She can be reached at parker(at)urbancure.org
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Obama told Idahoans he wouldn't take away their guns. He lied.
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Remember back in February 2008 when President Obama came to Boise and spoke at a big rally? He made a big point of saying, "I won't take away your guns," because those nasty, dishonest Republicans were saying that Obama was going to do that.
It sure didn't take long for Obama to reveal his intentions. The afternoon of the inauguration, the White House Web site's Urban Policy page admitted that he is indeed going to try and do exactly that."Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof."
It is impossible to make guns "childproof" without making them adultproof. So far, I have seen no technology that works well enough to do one without doing the other. That's why many of the proposed laws requiring "childproof" gun technology exempt guns sold to police departments. Police department guns have to work reliably; civilians defending themselves from criminals, obviously, don't need reliable guns, because criminals will stop their attack when they realize that you are having a malfunction.
So far, it appears that President Obama misled the hard left wing of the Democratic Party about where he was going to go on foreign policy - at least, judging by his picks for Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense. But he did more than mislead Idahoans when he said, "I won't take away your guns." He lied to us.
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Lawyers: ACORN Destroying American Elections
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Activist group ACORN is subverting America's election system by using fraud and corruption to mislead poor, minority communities, and the media is complicit in the effort, an organization of Republican lawyers claims.
The group discussed ACORN’s track record of election fraud, which is concerning considering the group is the largest grass roots organization in America with 170 affiliated organizations. Despite a series of complaints of voter registration fraud by ACORN representatives, however, the mainstream media is reluctant to report on the group’s transgressions, RNLA officials say.
“If somebody testifies in court, under oath, and tells the truth and has evidence, certainly then the truth will come out,” Heidelbaugh surmised. She then brought the court transcript to the CNN investigative reporter covering the court case.
“I was interviewed by a CNN reporter with a camera at the trial. It [the story] never got out,” Heidelbaugh said. “I was later told, ‘We’re not going with this story; it’s a game-changer.’ ABC World News tonight? Same story. This is the failure of our democracy. This is the failure of the mass media to enforce our First Amendment.”
Heidelbaugh said the Obama campaign provided a spreadsheet listing its maxed-out donors to ACORN to raise funds, which was admitted into evidence and was released to every media outlet in Pennsylvania, the Associated Press, and CNN.
“After two days of working with the news outlets, the investigative reporter for CNN said, ‘We’re shutting the story down’" “There might be one thing worse than having Al Franken in the Senate,” Heidelbaugh quipped, “and that’s ACORN conducting the census."
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Arrest Made in Home Foreclosure Civil Disobedience Program
Police in Baltimore today made what is believed to be the first arrest in a civil disobedience program aimed at supporting homeowners who refuse to vacate their foreclosed homes.
An activist with ACORN — the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now — faces criminal charges after breaking into a home in southeast Baltimore on Thursday to protest the foreclosure crisis sweeping the country.
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Gingrich Challenges Holder to 'Dialogue About Cowardice'
."We now have more than enough evidence of what this administration thinks of the American people," ... "Let me say to Attorney General Holder, I welcome the opportunity to have a dialogue with you about cowardice, anywhere, anytime."
He suggested the face-off— "dialogue, not a debate. Let's be above partisanship," he said. —could happen in Detroit, Mich., a city ill-served by the liberal policies Holder and the Obama administration promote;
"Let's discuss the total failure of the Detroit political system, which has taken a city of 1,800,000 with the highest per capita income and has driven it into the ground so that there are now fewer than 900,000 living there," ... "With a per capita income that is 62nd in the United States."
"I hope Attorney General Holder will talk about the failures of the institutions he supports, the failure of the unions he supports, the failure of the policies he supports, and let's talk about it in a one of the cities that has been betrayed by those policies most sadly and most tragically."
"It is the function of bad government, bad politicians, bad bureaucracy, bad ideas, Let's talk about that."
A challenge to take on the first black attorney general in Detroit's inner city on race issues and the domestic issues that disproportionately affect African-Americans? You can't fault him for not being bold.
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Elect a crazy council, get crazy results
[HT:LW]
Nowhere is Michigan's brain drain on greater display than in the Detroit City Council chambers. My hopes for Detroit's future faded as I watched the tape of last Tuesday's council meeting, the one that considered the Cobo Center expansion deal.
It was a tragic circus, a festival of ignorance that confirmed the No. 1 obstacle to Detroit's progress is the bargain basement leaders that city voters elect. The black nationalism that is now the dominant ideology of the council was on proud display, both at the table and in the audience.
Speakers advocating for the deal were taunted by the crowd and cut short by Council President Monica Conyers, who presided over the hearing like an angry bulldog; whites were advised by the citizens to, "Go home."
[And the media re: this un-American activity? Hello? Will such conduct be included in our national discussions on 'race relations'?]
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When Is a Deluge Still a Drought?
CALIFORNIA
Call it Dickinson’s First Law of Editorial: A media narrative, set in motion, will persist in the face of clear, even overwhelming, contradictory evidence.
Exhibit A: California “drought” coverage.
Here’s the reality. California has had a really dry couple of years and this year’s January — usually a wet and wild month — was eerily mild and bone dry. This state of affairs triggered the state and the national media to go big with the OMG IT’S a DROUGHT! coverage. And rightly so. The pattern was alarming.
But then Feburary comes along and the rain starts dumping. Pouring. Build and Ark! kinda rains. Rain totals that were at 60% of normal are now up to 85 and 90%. Some places in the Southland are brimming at 120% and 130%.
The crisis is clearly over. But not the media narrative.
The San Francisco Chronicle, to cite but one example, goes front page today with DROUGHT! coverage, continuing to sound the alarm about dangerously low reservoir levels.
But you read along and you come by this bit of information:
San Francisco, for example, draws its water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite. Normally, the reservoir runs at about 70 percent of capacity at this time of year - currently it’s 67 percent.
Here’s a banner story about the “drought” in San Francisco’s paper of record, and the actual news is that the city’s water source, Hetch Hetchy, is at 95.7% of normal.
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Media ratings
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The TV ratings for February have been tabulated, and in the world of cable news there is weeping on the left. Fox News Channel, which is generally more inquisitive of the president's politics, hammered the two networks that most favor President Obama - CNN and MSNBC.
Also, unique visitors to the Obama-loving Web site Daily Kos have declined a whopping 73 percent since last fall - a disaster. What’s going on? [snip]
The recession is bringing massive pain to America, and responsible citizens want the truth about public policy, not partisan cheerleading. [snip]"I think it’s fair to say that this brutal economic downturn took most Americans by surprise. It certainly shocked me. Even though I’m a journalist, I had no idea that mortgage companies were gaming the system [created by government regulation] by bundling risky loans and selling them to dunces at Lehman Brothers. I was clueless. In hindsight, I should have been more skeptical of the housing bubble."
The point is that concentrating on ideology instead of accumulating information can lead to a distorted view of reality. Ideology has corrupted the watchdog press that our Founders envisioned...
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It Just Keeps Getting Worse
[a good piece re: why I think there's an alternative agenda]
Remember when liberals were wringing their hands and accusing President George W. Bush of being a dictator and a king? Of course, that was breathtakingly absurd, but what's really ironic is that these people actually want a king, provided they get to pick him.
As Barack Obama feverishly presses forward with his socialist agenda, one wonders whether any act of executive overreaching might cause the compliant, nay, conspiratorial Democratic congressional majorities to pause or, better yet, to resist.
I think not. Every assault Obama inflicts on the budget is met by Congress with: "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"
I realize liberals take umbrage at the pejorative terms "Marxist" and "socialist," but in invoking them, my purpose is neither to exaggerate nor to provoke. If the terms bother you, could you please tell me how Obama would be behaving differently if he were a socialist or Marxist just elected in this country?
Better yet, given the policies Obama and Congress are cramming down our throats, please tell me why you even mind those terms? Why not wear them proudly?
Just before the election, I wrote: "With (Obama's) ideas about spreading the wealth, entrepreneurial selfishness … (and) the inherent evil of corporations … are you not concerned at just how far Obama might go if he's got a nearly veto-proof Democratic majority at his back? … Before our very eyes, America stands poised to elect as president the most radical man ever to run for this office credibly. Don't say we didn't warn you."
Some, including certain highbrow right-wingers, accused me of hyperventilating. They told us knuckle draggers that Obama is pragmatic and centrist and that we should just calm down and give him a chance. We responded that we didn't have the luxury of being calm, because if we let our guard down, Obama would rush through his agenda before we had time to react.
Tell me, now that we're five weeks into this administration, which of us has egg on his face?
It's not just elitist conservatives. I'd also like to know how self-professed conservative Democrats, who have always vehemently denied their liberalism, would explain their blind faith today. At this point, I swear they'd walk off a cliff for Obama if he told them to.
Even if some on both sides of the aisle are slow to grasp this, what we're really witnessing here is the fury of liberal power unleashed. In the name of compassion and fairness, they are exerting increasing control over our lives and using the economic crisis as cover, as they seek federal power to:
--Further dictate our children's education curricula. "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work." Where did we get the idea that Washington is better-suited for this than our local school boards?
--Increase their control over Americans' private health care decisions.
--Run banks and set salary caps for corporate CEOs -- something that ought to horrify free market adherents everywhere, even those suspicious of excessive corporate salaries.
--Prohibit corporate perks and private-jet trips while sanctioning their own taxpayer-sponsored ones.
--Decide who is worthy of being relieved of irresponsible home-purchasing decisions.
--Discourage charitable giving with their further phasing out of charitable deductions.
--Dole out money to "worthy" municipalities in order to position themselves as micromanaging federal enforcers: "Nobody messes with Joe Biden."
--Replace the free market as the engine of economic growth. You can't watch Obama operate without concluding he truly believes that government, not the private sector, generates wealth in this nation.
--Be the arbiter of income distribution for all citizens.
--Impose paralyzing cap and trade mandates on private corporations based on dubious, disputed, non-consensus-based "science," which amounts to nothing more than another tax on private industry and flies directly in the face of Obama's promises to be friendly to small business.
Almost as alarming as the foregoing, President Obama is engaged in what seems to be a deliberate effort to talk down the economy for the presumed purpose of ensuring our panic mode represses a stock market recovery long enough to fuel his frantic agenda.
Adding insult to injury, at a time when these liberals are growing government in areas never contemplated by our Founders nor authorized by the Constitution, they are eviscerating the defense budget, relaxing our foreign policy toward enemy dictators and, in effect, unilaterally declaring the war on terror over and forcing us to revert to our pre-9/11 mode of treating the war as a law enforcement matter.
If we could afford to let down our guard and sleep during this period, I'd be inclined to do so and ask whether someone would please be so kind as to awaken me when this nightmare is over.
by David Limbaugh
SOURCE
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