Why They Wont Learn About Guns

                            


This random act of media honesty has likely cropped up because the willful ignorance of the gun-control crowd is getting awfully hard to ignore, and Jake Tapper is one of the best of a bad lot.

Nevertheless, the gun-controllers betray their desire to ban all, or most guns with these all too frequent gaffes. If you want to eliminate all versions of something, why bother to learn the details? It's all the same to you.

Prohibitionists didn't make a distinction between all the varieties of beer, wine or spirits. They wanted to ban all alcohol, and said so. The gun-banners are forced to make these distinctions because the Bill of Rights and public opinion doesn't allow for such honesty. The trashing of the Second Amendment has to be done incrementally, and it's hard to learn things you don't want to know. 

Obama's 'Gangster Politics'

Wall Street Journal:

President Obama has officially kicked off his 2012 re-election campaign, and don't Republicans know it. The president is expected any day now to sign an executive order that routs 70 years of efforts to get politics out of official federal business.

Under the order, all companies (and their officers) would be required to list their political donations as a condition to bidding for government contracts. Companies can bid and lose out for the sin of donating to Republicans. Or they can protect their livelihoods by halting donations to the GOP altogether—which is the White House's real aim. Think of it as "not-pay to play."

Whatever you call it, the order amounts to the White House brazenly directing the power of government against its political opponents...

Some call it Chicago politics or banana republic stuff a la Chavez or Evo Morales. But it's simply the way those who deign to rule rather than govern always operate. The left can't win on an open and level playing field, so they silence and punish the opposition. This type of behavior differs from a Castro or Stalin only by degree and it's not to hard to imagine what Obama and the left would do without what's left of our Constitution.

Obama’s Bank Tax – The Victim is YOU!

This isn't news to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics, which is why most Americans don't get it:

"As ABC News reports, the CBO wrote a letter yesterday to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in which it highlighted that the American people will bear the true brunt of the President’s proposal. From the CBO’s letter:

[T]he ultimate cost of a tax or fee is not necessarily borne by the entity that writes the check to the government.

The cost of the proposed fee would ultimately be borne to varying degrees by an institution’s customers, employees, and investors.

Customers would probably absorb some of the cost in the form of higher borrowing rates and other charges, although competition from financial institutions not subject to the fee would limit the extent to which the cost could be passed to borrowers. Employees might bear some of the cost by accepting some reduction in their compensation, including income from bonuses, if they did not have better employment opportunities available to them. Investors could bear some of the cost in the form of lower prices of their stock if the fee reduced the institution’s future profits.

Obama promised not to raise taxes on anyone not guilty of the sin of earning more than $250,000. But what all too many don't realize is that any tax on anyone is ultimately a tax on everyone.

Fannie to U.S.: We need another $15.3 billion

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Battered by the housing crisis, mortgage finance company Fannie Mae said Friday that it needs another $15.3 billion in bailout money from the federal government.

Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500), which is controlled by the government, reported a fourth-quarter loss of $16.3 billion, including $1.2 billion in dividend payments to the Treasury Department. This is down from $25.2 billion a year earlier and $19.8 billion in the third quarter.

Dividends? Since when does a company distribute profits when it loses money? It does when the Federal government owns it and wants to show phony returns on a losing investment. Then it turns around and gives Fannie more borrowed taxpayer money to alleviate losses partially caused by the dividend payments themselves.

Would this be a crime if a private company did this. Why, yes. Yes it would. This is like having a Ponzi scheme with one investor who has agreed to rip off himself.

Defining What You "Need"

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." -- Karl Marx, 1875

"It's a tax on insurance companies that offer Cadillac, or quite frankly, Rolls Royce policies that in essence people don't need." -- Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, 2-25-10

The day after Pres. Obama carped about people calling him a socialist, he sent his top spokesman out to describe a plan to tax health insurance policies that provide benefits more generous than what people "need."...MORE

And that's exactly what socialism, or statism if you prefer, does. Obama is either ignorant of what those terms mean or he thinks we are. Since he's been marinating in collectivist philosophy his entire life, my guess is it's the latter.

When they say your insurance policy covers more than what you "need", what they really mean is that your ability to buy that policy is unfair to those who can't. Therefore, you must be forced to relinquish some of your property to the state in order to satisfy the never ending needs of others and atone for the economic crime of being successful.

What else will the government tax that they decide is more than you need? Your house, food, computer, clothes...your Cadillac? And as the government gets bigger and the individual smaller, the "needs" of everyone gets defined downward as incentives shrivel and the economy stagnates.

A Dishonest and Immoral Housing Policy

The AP offers some factual analysis of Obama's speech, including his lame response to the millions of Americans angry that are paying for the bad decisions of their neighbors:

OBAMA: "We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values."

THE FACTS: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so.

Defending the program Tuesday at a Senate hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said it's important to save those who made bad calls, for the greater good. He likened it to calling the fire department to put out a blaze caused by someone smoking in bed.

"I think the smart way to deal with a situation like that is to put out the fire, save him from his own consequences of his own action but then, going forward, enact penalties and set tougher rules about smoking in bed."

Similarly, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month it's not likely aid will be denied to all homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford.

"I think it's just simply impractical to try to do a forensic analysis of each and every one of these delinquent loans," Sheila Bair told National Public Radio.

END EXCERPT

It's not just impractical, but impossible to determine the circumstances underlying these loans with any degree of certainty. Bernanke's false analogy is typical socialist rhetoric and is misleading at best. This isn't an accident, like smoking in bed. Most of these loans were deliberate attempts to make money through debt the borrowers either knew or should have known they couldn't afford.

The way a free economy should deal with that is to allow those folks to experience the consequences, honest mistake or not. What you don't do is reward that behavior by handing the bill to everyone else.

Had these folks made money from their recklessness as many did during the bubble, would they have shared their gains with the rest of us? Of course not. So once again, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we have private profit backed by public risk.

The argument that this scheme will stabilize neighborhoods is nonsense and will actually prolong the problem. Many of these borrowers will never be able to pay any loan and will just default again. Additionally, the price drops from foreclosures provide opportunities to buyers now sitting on the sidelines, which will allow the market to work itself out if the fools who got us into this mess in the first place would just leave it alone. That's happening right now in many neighborhoods.

No one can morally justify forcing 92% of homeowners into bailing out the excessive risk taking or just plain foolishness of the other 8%.

And what of the 32% or so of Americans that rent their homes? A lot of them probably had the good sense not to buy homes with risky debt. And this is how we reward them? They have every right to feel screwed.

How about all the folks that have already lost their homes? Are we going to give them a Mulligan and return their homes?

Policies that reward the irresponsible and punish the responsible are never justified, no matter what the short term pain may be. Over the long term, we are encouraging bad behavior and discouraging the good.

Filed: real estate, mortgage, obama

Iowa Trooper Suspended For Obama E-Mail

OMAHA, Neb. -- An Iowa State trooper who was investigated after it was shown that he forwarded an e-mail showing mug shots of people wearing Obama t-shirts has been suspended for 30 days.
Sgt. Rodney Hicok was at home and off-duty when he forwarded the e-mails, said an official with the Iowa Department of Public Safety Bureau and Professional Standards.

'Doom' talk scored as 'not presidential'

Joseph Curl At The Washington Times describes the economic panic Obama and congressional Democrats are fomenting in order to garner support for their power grab stimulus bill:

"Mr. Obama has gone much further than that. Just Friday, Mr. Obama said a report that 600,000 jobs were lost in January meant "it's getting worse, not getting better. ... Although we had a terrible year with respect to jobs last year, the problem is accelerating, not decelerating." Last week he said, "A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."

But he isn't the only Democrat ramping up the rhetoric while talking down the economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said last month that our economy "is dark, darker, darkest." Rep. David R. Obey of Wisconsin said, "This economy is in mortal danger of absolute collapse." And Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said of the economic-stimulus bill, "If we don't pass this thing, it's Armageddon."

So much for Hopenchange and moving away from the politics of fear. This type of rhetoric is a favorite of demagogues and sleazy salesman when they want to sell a bag of crap. They get in your face with anxiety inducing hysteria in order to get you to buy without opening the bag and giving it the smell test.

Republicans have done the country a service by slowing down the process and giving the public a chance to examine this stinky mess. They are and increasingly don't like what they see. You can see that as Obama becomes more unhinged (and unpresidential) by the day.

This is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy however, as this rhetoric has a paralyzing effect on consumers and businesses. Fear and uncertainty will stop an economy dead in its tracks every time.

The economy is now being damaged deliberately by Democrats in order to enhance there own power. No one should be surprised since they got real people killed when they undermined the war effort and rooted for our failure. When you can do that for political purposes, nothing is off limits.

But they care about you. I know because that's what they tell me.

Fisking Obama

Barack Obama has written an Op-Ed for the Washington Post in order to gin up the public's anxiety and grease the skids for his $1 trillion taxpayer funded power grab and payback to his leftist base.

But since he's presumably making his best case for the crap sandwich called "stimulus" he wants us to eat, lets look at his argument:

"By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression."

No it's not. I guess you were so wrapped up in yourself during the Carter years of the 70's, that you forget the double-digit unemployment and inflation along with 20%+ interest rates. Truth be told - you're lying and you know it.

"And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse. "

In a word: Bullshit. There have been dozens of recessions in the history of this country and on average they have lasted between 10 and 11 months - without the gargantuan and unprecedented spending you propose. As a matter of fact, the Great Depression was not only the longest (10+ years) prior to this one, but involved the most government spending, taxation and meddling in private markets - until now. Your irresponsible package is bigger than that and WWI, WWII, The Korean and Vietnam wars, The Marshall Plan and Louisiana Purchase combined in current dollars.

Most of the shortest recessions involved little or no government action. What really prolongs recessions is the paralyzing uncertainty that comes with wondering what hare-brained schemes economic illiterates like you will come up with next.

"That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come."

Create or save 3 million jobs? Not only is that a bunch of crystal ball GIGO nonsense, it's a deliberately unprovable number. How exactly do you quantify jobs saved or even attribute jobs created to government spending anyway?

"This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent."

Has it ever occurred to you that those three industries are not only the most screwed up but are beset with the most government interference? Does that mean something, anything to you?

"In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems ..."

Who said tax cuts will solve all of our problems? No one, that's who. But tax cuts and less heavy-handed government policies have shown to be a major catalyst of economic growth. That's provable fact, not theory. See: Ireland, Eastern Europe, Calvin Coolidge, JFK, Ronald Reagan and G.W. Bush.

It's also provable fact that what you propose is failed theory. Central planning by arrogant braniacs who've never made a payroll in their lives has produced sclerotic economies, prolonged recessions and destroyed liberty. See: Europe, 1990's Japan, 1930's and 1970's U.S., The USSR etc, etc.

And please stop repeating the absolute garbage that tax cuts got us into this mess. They got us out of the last recession. What got us into this mess was a corrupt government using the financial system for political purposes by forcing lenders to loan trillions to people were completely unqualified and undeserving. And then we the taxpayers were put on the hook as co-signers of the mess you and cohorts (ACORN, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd et al) created.

The U.S. Government set the ball rolling for the collapse of the world's financial system. Period. And you want us to trust the same morons to fix it. You must think we're all as stupid as the people who voted for you.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change.

Yeah, we know you reject the free markets and individual liberty that have made America the greatest economic engine in world history. They are a threat to your power and your Utopian socialist fantasies. News Flash: Only some of the American people voted for your "change". 50 million of voters rejected your Anti-American philosophy in favor of a guy a lot of his supporters never really liked to begin with. That should tell you something.

In short, you don't have the mandate you think you do; despite the press clippings from your sycophants in the media. Their knee pads are starting to wear thin as is your "I won, screw you" arrogance. Keep up the stubborn and hysterical grandstanding for your socialist/fascist/corporatist policies if you like. But remember that you and your party own it now.

Obama Backs Off Smoot-Hawley II

Times Online: The European Union warned the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting a planned “Buy American” policy, intensifying fears of a trade war. ...“I agree that we can’t send a protectionist message,” he said in an interview with Fox TV. “I want to see what kind of language we can work on this issue. I think it would be a mistake, though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we’re just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade.”

The mere fact that Democrats are even considering this proves that the crapulus bill is about payback to unions and other Dem constituencies, not about reviving the economy. Anyone who's even mildly observant of economic history knows the disastrous effects of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the Depression and how they made a bad situation much worse.

No country ever went broke from free trade. Plenty have from protectionist policies that set off trade wars. Obama seems more interested in becoming FDR 2.0 and expanding government power than with doing things that actually work.

Obama Worried About Re-Election

"President Barack Obama acknowledged Monday that the fate of his re-election four years from now likely rests on the success of the proposed $825 billion stimulus package. “A year from now, I think people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress. But there’s still going to be some pain out there,” Obama predicted during an interview on NBC’s “Today Show.” “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

That's right. And your strategy won't work because it never has. Republicans should just step back and let Obama and the Dems hold this bomb alone. This so-called stimulus is just a leftist power grab that will only stimulate the bank accounts of Democrat supporters and prolong a recession that would work itself out if government would just leave it alone.

And since they're the ones who got us here to begin with, Obama's bigger government "solutions" only add insult to injury.

Gee! No Kidding!

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said in an interview aired on Monday he worried that detainees freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, might resume attacks on the United States."

What was your first clue? I guess what sounds so easy in campaign rhetoric isn't so easy after all.

Jeremiah Wright 2.0

It looks as though B. Hussein Obama has found a new racist lunatic preacher to replace the mentor of twenty years who married him and baptized his children. Joseph Lowery took the opportunity during the inaugural benediction yesterday to insult white Americans in childish rhyme:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.

The New Patriots

MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge


The election of one man to public office has now inspired the celebutard community to finally consider themselves Americans and patriots. The video above of minor Hollywood knuckleheads is a self congratulatory celebration of their discovery of common decency. Andrew Breitbart sums it up well:

This video illustrates that the current celebrity class are not citizens but serfs. They need a leader to put their minds in the right place to do the right thing. They are not heroic individualists seeking to extend America’s promise but conformists who chose to sit out and complain during the tough years in order to ensure their guy got in the next go-around...

...Remember this video: It is a instructive relic of the era of celebrity decadence and boutique anti-Republican activism under President Bush. It is a sickening display that they want fast and easy absolution for having comported themselves like ill-behaved children for eight difficult and war-torn years.

Good luck, President Obama. The rest of you can go to hell.

Obama: America's Adult

CHICAGO – President-elect Barack Obama says the government has been "asleep at the switch" when it comes to overseeing the nation's financial system.He says Americans are "feeling frustrated that there's not a lot of adult supervision."

Asleep at the switch? If only. We're in this mess precisely because of government meddling in the markets. If there was any regulatory failure, it was due to government forcing the markets to accept investments it would otherwise run from. Obama knows this and is just demagoguing the issue with lies to benefit his statist agenda. When he condescendingly calls for "adult supervision", what he's really saying is that he and his army of hall monitors to need bring order to the chaos of freedom. Everything else is secondary.

Obama called for a "shift in ethics" on Wall Street.
He says everyone involved — from CEOs to shareholders to investors — needs to consider not only whether what they're doing will make them money, but also whether it's right, and whether it conforms to "higher standards."

Whose standards might that be and why are they more important than the well being of those whose money is at risk? Obviously Obama means his leftist standards and if you lose your shirt, then tough shit. We're building a utopia don'tcha know.

The Media's Top 10 Worst Economic Myths of 2008

The media has a leftist agenda to be sure. But what makes them truly dangerous is their constant socialist, anti-free enterprise propaganda based on lies and convenient myths. The Business Media Institute has compiled the 10 worst of 2008:

10. Capitalism is dead or dying.
9. Gas at $4-a-gallon, blame the oil companies.
8. Fannie’s failure
7. Barack Obama sends stocks soaring, but not sinking.
6. Alternative energy: All gain, no pain
5. The economy has a fever and the only prescription is more bailouts.
4. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
3. Oil prices will skyrocket to $200 a barrel, gas to $15.
2. Welcome to 1929: Great Depression II
1. America needs a new, New Deal.

Number 1 is the most important now as Obama and his congressional sidekicks get ready to repeat the failed dictatorial and socialist policies of FDR. They are banking that Americans will believe the most enduring economic myth of all - that FDR knew what the hell he was doing. He didn't.

Here it is:

1. America needs a new, New Deal.
Media myth: Time magazine and other media outlets pushed the idea that Obama must be the next FDR, but they are misrepresenting the impact of the New Deal.

Imagine the classic image of FDR sitting in his car grinning, with a cigarette perched from his mouth. Now imagine it had the face and hands of president-elect Barack Obama instead of FDR.

No, it wasn’t a dream – it was the cover of Time magazine on Nov. 24 which made it clear the media had crowned Obama the new FDR and wanted him to institute a new New Deal.

The photo illustration of Obama and FDR came with a headline that declared: “The New New Deal: What Barack Obama can learn from F.D.R. – and what the Democrats need to do.”

But even before Obama was elected, journalists were looking for FDR. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked before the election, “who’s gonna be FDR as opposed to Herbert Hoover?”

In a discussion of economic stimulus packages, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos said on Oct. 19 that he thought Obama “would want to do something like what FDR did in 1932.”

Guests and experts also sounded the call. On CNN, Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute at Columbia University called for a revamped New Deal more than once. Sachs was a favorite expert of CNN in October appearing on 10 of the first 23 days of the month.

But what news reporters, anchors and guest didn’t tell viewers is that according to several economists FDR’s New Deal actually prolonged and deepened the Great Depression.

In a 2004 study, two University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) economists found that FDR’s policies lengthened the suffering of the Depression by seven years. The two economists specifically blamed anti-free market measures including the National Industrial Recover Act (NIRA) and later the National Relations Act.

Another free-market economist who has written about FDR’s negative impact on the economy is Robert Higgs. Higgs told the Business & Media Institute that a new, New Deal would be disastrous. “I cannot imagine a worse course of action, short of outright socialization of the entire economy. The measures comprised in a new New Deal will not hasten general economic recovery, but will only bulk up the power of government and transfer income to privileged interest groups at the expense of taxpayers and consumers,” Higgs said.”

The Democrat Culture Of Corruption

From Michelle Malkin:

"Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi can stop clucking now. For the last three years, Democratic leaders cheered GOP ethics woes. Dean accused Republicans of making “their culture of corruption the norm.” Pelosi touted cleanliness as a liberal virtue. But with the eye-popping pay-for-play and bribery case against Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich topping a year of nationwide Democratic scandals, the corruption chickens are coming home to roost..

Democrats and the media can no longer rest on the old rationalization that Blago is an exception to the “we’re cleaner than thou” rule. 2008 was the year of Democratic Reps. William “Cold Cash” Jefferson, Charlie “Sweetheart Deals” Rangel, and former Detroit Mayor Kwame “Text Me” Kilpatrick. It was the year Democratic Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson got caught stuffing bribes from an FBI informant down her shirt. It was the year 12 Democratic leaders and staffers in Pennsylvania’s state Capitol were stung in a massive corruption scandal involving cash, sex and abuse of public office. And it was the year of multimillion-dollar embezzlement scandals at Democratic satellite offices of ACORN and the SEIU.

The Democrats have met the culture of corruption, and it looks like it ain’t just elephants among the jackasses soiling public office."

The Income Inequality Myth

IBD takes on Barack Obama's regurgitations of Socialist Dogma that animate his economic ignorance:

"Speaking to NBC's Tom Brokaw on Sunday, Obama laid out his views: "It turns out," he said, "that our economy grows best when the benefits of the economy are most widely spread. And that has been true historically."

He followed up by saying, in the last 15 years or so, "You've seen a huge shift in terms of resources to the wealthiest and the vast majority of Americans taking home less and less. Their incomes, their wages have flatlined at a time that costs of everything have gone up, and we've actually become a more productive society."

Our new president might want to talk to some of his sterling economic advisers about this, because he got virtually all of it wrong.

Start with the notion that our economy grows "best" when its benefits are most widely spread.

In fact, America's fast-growing economy has always bred differences in income. Some people are smarter, more talented, better educated and trained, or more entrepreneurial. In a free-market society — or relatively free, anyway — they'll do better. But they make the rest of us richer, too. We may envy them, but we're better off...MORE

Governor Arrested Over Obama'a Senate Seat

Corruption in Illinois? Say it ain't so!

"The U.S. District Court complaint, which is excerpted below, alleges that Blagojevich was caught on FBI wiretaps noting that the Senate seat "is a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing." He was also recorded saying that unless "I get something real good," he would appoint himself to the vacancy. "I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I'm saying. And if I don't get what I want and I'm not satisfied with it, then I'll just take the Senate seat myself."

Obama: Don't stock up on guns

From The Chicago Sun Times:

"I believe in common-sense gun safety laws, and I believe in the second amendment," Obama said at a news conference. "Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven't indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word."

Since your campaign was nothing but a series of lies, please excuse me for believing your actions speak louder than your meaningless words:

But National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said it's not Obama's words — but his legislative track record — that has gun-buyers flocking to the stores.

"Prior to his campaign for president, his record as a state legislator and as a U.S. Senator shows he voted for the most stringent forms of gun control, the most Draconian legislation, gun bans, ammunition bans and even an increase in federal excise taxes up to 500 percent for every gun and firearm sold," Arulanandam said.