Dec 26 2009

Christopher Dodd — Corruption without embarassment

Category: Congress,corruption,Democrat,government — harmonicminer @ 9:26 am

Once again, we have Chris Dodd trying to cement his place with the voters by bringing home the bacon.

A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night.

The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut.

The provision is included in a 383-page series of changes to the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., outlined Saturday. Scattered throughout are numerous items sought by individual lawmakers, many of them directing money explicitly to programs or projects in their home states.

The one sought by Dodd provides $100 million for “a health care facility that provides research, inpatient tertiary care, or outpatient clinical services.” It must be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States “that contains a State’s sole public academic medical and dental school.”

This health care bill is so laden with sweetheart deals and outright corruption in the form of direct vote buying that it may set a new high for sheer quantity and brazenness.

I’m sure that Connecticut needs a new hospital worse than anywhere else in the USA.

Aug 16 2009

President Obama, meet Rev. J. Wright

Category: church,Democrat,government,Republican,theology — harmonicminer @ 9:11 am

No, no, no, I meant the OTHER Rev. J. Wright, Rev. Joe Wright, who prayed this prayer to open a session of the Kansas legislature in 1996. Wrongly attributed in a circulating email to Billy Graham, this appears to have been borrowed from a 1995 Kentucky Prayer Breakfast, where it was prayed by Bob Russell.

Heavenly Father,
We come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance.
We know your Word says, “Woe to those who call evil good,” but that’s exactly what we’ve done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.
We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism.
We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us O God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas, and who have been ordained by you, to govern this great state.
Grant them your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will.
I ask it in the name of your son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

It would, of course, be lovely to hope that such a prayer might ever have been prayed Rev. Jeremiah Wright, not just Rev. Joe Wright.

What’s sad is that this is not a partisan prayer.  Some of the items in it might easily be applied to the Right as well as the Left.  But in it’s Kansas legislature appearance, it was Democrats who got up and walked out.

Alas.

Aug 09 2009

On Dissent

Category: Democrat,freedom,Obama — amuzikman @ 12:00 pm

Here is the now-infamous quote from President Obama on the subject of proposed nationalized health care and and those who oppose it:

But I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.

Compare his statement with the following quotes on the subject of protest and dissent. All but one of the persons cited below are Democrats. The last quote is from a significant and influential German Nazi. I threw it in there as a nod to Nancy Pelosi, who seems to be fascinated with all things Nazi these days. I will leave it up to you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions. In the mean time, if you haven’t already done so, be sure to report this blog to flag@whitehouse.gov. There is definitely something “fishy” about this posting!

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

Martin Luther King Jr.

We do not move forward by curtailing people’s liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

Harry S. Truman

I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.

Hillary Clinton

We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…

Bill Clinton

Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive.

John F. Kennedy

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

Edward R. Murrow

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

Hubert H. Humphrey

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Theodore Roosevelt

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels

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Jul 21 2009

“Defending” Social Security, and predicting nationalized health care

Category: Congress,Democrat,government,healthcare,socialism — harmonicminer @ 9:05 am

There is an email in circulation that basically gives a moderately inaccurate history of social security in the USA, and makes some statements that are technically incorrect, but still fairly portrays (with a few errors) the broad sweep of changes in the system since it begin in the 1930s under FDR.  It is an example of well-meant and over-the-top reporting that would have done better to be scrupulously accurate.  Scrupulous accuracy would have revealed the situation as bad enough without the errors in the report.

Snopes attempts to debunk the email with a lot of explanation and clarification here.  What’s sadly funny is this:  the Snopes people seem to believe that their explanation somehow makes it all better, when what they end up admitting is nearly as bad as what is alleged in the original email.  Especially risible is Snopes’ attempt to de-link the Democrat party from increases in SSA taxes, increases in SSA benefits/spending, and congressional misappropriation for other purposes than originally intended, by using smokescreens like “borrowing from the social security ‘trust fund’,” etc.  Sure, a few Republicans erred here and there.  But it was overwhelmingly Democrats who pushed the spiraling ponzi scheme.

An example:  FDR did not “promise,” as alleged in the email, that the tax to fund SSA would only be 1% forever.  What he did, in the time-honored, incrementalist tradition of leftist-liberals everywhere, is create a system where the initial tax would be relatively light, and would increase slowly, over several years, so that most people who even understood what was going on at the time thought the tax would only be 1% for the forseeable future.  (How many people in mainstream USA at the time carefully reviewed legislation in detail, with all planned future changes, before forming an opinion of it?)   It is now a total of 15%, half directly out of your check, half “paid by the employer,” but in fact part of the employer’s cost of having you as an employee, by federal law.  It is going to go up, and the income ceiling that will be taxed is going to go up.

I hope you younger folks enjoy paying for my benefits.  Serves you right for voting for Democrats, in a spasm of hopey-changey good feeling.  We’ll see how good you feel when you’re paying for my 30 year vacation after retirement.

Read the Snopes article, and see if you don’t find Snopes’ defense to be nearly as damning as the email was in the first place.

And here is another take on the issue.  And another.

Exit question:  does any person who knows anything about the history of entitlement programs believe that when a national health care system for everyone is created, it will cost as little as proponents claim at its founding?

Only people with their eyes screwed tightly shut, and earplugs snugly in place.

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Jul 08 2009

The arbitrariness of anti-trust law

Category: capitalism,Democrat,economy,government,Obama — harmonicminer @ 8:59 am

In a takedown of the Obama adminstration’s apparent attempt to use its legal howitzer, anti-trust chief Christine Varley, to prevent the airline industry from doing mergers that would save it, keep it out of bankruptcy, preserve jobs, and allow it to continue to provide service for consumers, Holman Jenkins asks the question, Does Obama Want to Own the Airlines? While describing the Justice Department’s move to block mergers that would save troubled corporations, in the guise of protecting the public from evil monopolies, he makes this trenchant comment:

Even now, she has turned her attention from airlines to the mobile-phone business on the theory that any industry that hasn’t collapsed into government receivership must be doing something wrong.

It’s all worth reading.

And for background in the sorry history of anti-trust law, you might want to read this.  Just remember a simple principle: whenever the government gets involved, prices go up, supply goes down, and the only winners are the bureaucrats and successful lobbyists who wangle exceptions for their companies…  all the while pretending that they’re protecting the free market and competition.

For now, let’s just say this.  If you’re too successful and capture a larger share of the market than your competitors, look out; the feds are coming for you.  If you’re struggling, and need to merge with some of your competitors in order to stay in business, create economies of scale that allow more efficient operation, and provide a service or product that the public will buy at a price you can sell it, look out.  The feds are coming for you, too.

Basically, it’s simple.  The feds would rather own you than see you succeed.

Clear?

They have the only monopoly that matters, and they intend to keep it.

Apr 09 2009

Random & Sporadic Thoughts

Category: appeasement,capitalism,constitution,Democrat,freedom,government,illegal alien,Iran,liberty,Obama,politics,Republican,right,socialism,taxes — amuzikman @ 10:15 am

Obama is proceeding with “immigration reform” (spelled a-m-n-e-s-t-y) in spite of the fact the American people clearly and unequivocally voiced their opposition to this the last time it was proposed.  Why?  Because amnesty and citizenship for illegals qualifies them for union membership.  And an increase in union membership is an increase in Democrat voters.  Obama has made no effort to disguise this as his motivation.

Obama is radically pro-abortion.  He is in favor of the killing of unborn infants with no restrictions, paid for with a government check.  He is also in favor of killing children born alive as a result of a botched abortion.  He is in favor of forcing doctors to perform abortions even if those doctors have a moral objection.

Does anyone remember Obama’s soft-spoken, relaxed and seemingly innocuous little comment to Joe the plumber?  “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody”.  We now see that what he meant was a wholesale destruction of capitalism and a premeditated effort to replace it with socialism.

Obama is robbing our future generations of any hope of prosperity by an orgy of federal spending unheard of in our country.

Obama is reaching into the board rooms of private companies and firing employees.  He has crossed a line between public and private sectors that is unprecedented.

Obama has just completed an international trip with the message of appeasement to our enemies.  When, in the course of human history, has appeasement ever worked?

Iran is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power.  Is there ANYONE who thinks this is a good thing?

The laundry list of Obama appointees who were revealed to have unpaid taxes is shameful.  Is there ANY private citizen who could get away with this wanton disregard for tax laws by simply saying “Oops, I’m sorry”?

The Republican Party is currently populated with political eunichs.  Where is the voice of opposition?

Obama wants to socialize medicine.  If this happens it will complete his coup d’état and America as we know it will be gone forever.

Many citizens of this great country are simply left speechless by this apparently unstoppable. radical, ultra-liberal assault on America.  So many of us feel a combination of powerlessness and outrage in the face of what is happening.  Many are asking, “What can I do to stop this madness?”  Not all of us have a public forum from which to vent our frustrations.  Not all of us are eloquent of speech or skilled in writing.  But we all have family and friends.  We all live lives that are made up of relationships.  This is where the battle must be fought – one friend, one family, one realtionship at a time.  Those of us who do believe America is essentially good – that it was founded and made great on a firm foundation of Judeo-Christian beliefs, that it is a place where people can be free, that perserverance and hard work will be rewarded and that anyone can acheive the American dream – must share our convictions and persuade our family and friends that it is an America worth fighting for.  For outrage is not enough, feeling helpless and powerless is no excuse, and inaction is not an option.

Yeah, I know it’s starting to sound like there should be a choir humming “My Country Tis Of Thee” in the background.  I don’t care. It is a battle worth fighting…but we had better start now.

Feb 05 2009

The “stimulus” again

Category: Congress,Democrat,economy — harmonicminer @ 10:09 am

Today the Senate defeated, on a party line vote, a proposal by John McCain and some others to modify the “stimulus” plan.   Since more than half of the “stimulus” spending is planned for more than two years from now, by which time a recovery of the economy is likely even if very little is done, and since much of that spending is on pet projects and interest groups that Democrats had wanted to spend money on for quite some time, but couldn’t quite find the excuse, the Republican proposal was simply this:

If two quarters of consecutive growth in the economy are experienced after the “stimulus” plan is passed, then further spending plans in the “stimulus” bill would be cancelled, as being obviously no longer “necessary”.    Specifically, this would apply to all plans to spend money more than two years in the future, obviously too late to be a “stimulus” for us now, anyway.

The proposal was defeated 54-42, with two Democrats joining all the Republicans voting for it, and only Democrats voting against it.

That’s because they’re determined to take this chance to do spending they’ve wanted to do all along, and are just burying tons of it in this giant, steaming piece of half-boiled pork of a “stimulus bill”, without regard for whether it wil actually stimulate the economy in any sustainable way, or not.

Of course, what produces sustainable stimulation is anything that encourages businesses to expand, and to spend money themselves on equipment/supplies (which creates/maintains employment for the providers of those) and to directly hire people themselves.

Spending tons of money on tons of entitlements, giveaways, etc., doesn’t stimulate the local small business (where 2/3 of US jobs are) to hire another person, or buy more equipment, or expand a store, or advertise more, or whatever.  What stimulates business is tax cuts, changes in tax rules that allow them to totally expense equipment purchases (instead of having to depreciate over 5 or 7 years), relaxations in the rules surrounding hiring new employees (some states have regulated small business into outer space, and there are lots of federal rules, too), maybe a flat three month tax holiday, maybe some direct tax credit for hiring new employees, etc.

But the Democrats, too many of them hostile to business for ideological reasons, I guess, aren’t interested in any of those things.  They want to reward their interest groups, pure and simple.

As before:  I told you so.

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Jan 10 2009

Old News Now: Or Is It? The FOX in charge of the henhouse

Category: Congress,Democrat,economy — harmonicminer @ 10:25 pm
These are the people who are going to fix our economic mess now?

HT: AzusaPacificAlumni.com

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Dec 19 2008

Robbing the poor and giving it to the rich

Category: Bush,Democrat,economy — harmonicminer @ 12:53 am

This is what comes of compassionate conservatism, I guess.

US President George W. Bush said in an interview Tuesday he was forced to sacrifice free market principles to save the economy from “collapse.”

“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system,” Bush told CNN television, saying he had made the decision “to make sure the economy doesn’t collapse.”

Bush’s comments reflect an extraordinary departure from his longtime advocacy for an unfettered free market, as his administration has orchestrated unprecedented government intervention in the face of a dire financial crisis.

“I am sorry we’re having to do it,” Bush said.

But Bush said government action was necessary to ease the effects of the crisis, offering perhaps his most dire assessment yet of the country’s economy.

One wonders if President Bush has read any of these books. They feature a super-secret, quite small organization of assassins and controllers who do illegal things to “save the Constitution,” and for whom no official record exists, the authorization being passed from president to president by word of mouth.

Of course, this entire book series is satire.  But President Bush and his interventions, with Democrat connivance, are for real…  if you can keep a straight face.  But as far as I can see, the only people laughing all the way to the bank ARE the banks, who have taken the federal bailout funds and are just sitting on them, instead of loaning them, behavior which seems beyond the control of the federal reverse-Robin Hoods who gave it to them.

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