Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Here is an article by an English writer who apparently doesn't believe in AGW.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Obama is no more responsible for the oil well explosion in deep water in the Gulf than Bush was responsible for Katrina. There are some differences in the aftermath of each situation. In the case of Katrina the problem lay with the incompetent Mayor of New Orleans and the incompetent governor of Louisiana. They ignored Bush's suggestions to evacuate prior to the storm arriving, and could do nothing after the levee failure. Bush finally violated Federal Law and ordered in the military to save 50,000 people from the water. IN the case of the oil well explosion, Louisiana has a competent governor, but the Federal government has actually prevented them from taking action to prevent the oil from washing up on the shore. For example, government sank the platform, breaking the pipe causing the oil to be released at the bottom of the sea rather than near the surface where it could have been burned. Here is a discussion.

Monday, May 17, 2010

When I was a boy in East Texas the sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited. For a long time this condition was maintained by an alliance of Baptists and bootleggers. The bootleggers provided funding to the Baptist preachers to use in encouraging people to vote against allowing the sale of alcoholic beverages. We now have a similar situation with regard to climate control, as described in this article.

The Obama Administration has apparently apologized to Red China for the Arizona's treatment of illegal aliens from Mexico. Given China's procedure for handling illegal aliens I'm sure they got a big chuckle out of the situation. Foreign leaders are beginning to recognize that Obama is a joke. We can expect that foreign countries will be pushing us around more and more as they realize there are no consequences from that action.

During Hearings on the appointment of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, there are some questions I think she should be asked:

Her boss, President Obama, has expressed concern that the Constitution of the United States does not address income redistribution. Does she share his concern? Does she think the Court should remedy this alleged shortcoming?

Does she think the United States is a Republic or a Democracy?

I have heard a Hispanic Democrat Congressman, in a speech to Congress, assert that all people in the world have a Constitutional right to come to the United States. Does she agree with that Congressman?

Her boss, President Obama, has frequently said that he wants Judges that favor the poor and disadvantaged. This seems to be in opposition to the idea that there is rule of law, and that Justice is blind. Does she agree with President Obama?

She seems to have some issues with the First Amendment, freedom of speech. Does she agree with her boss, President Obama, that corporations should not be able to spend money on political campaigns? Does she still think, as she once wrote, that the government has the right to ban speech it deems “harmful?” Does she realize that her boss, President Obama, regards criticism of him as “harmful” speech and would like to restrict such criticism?

She seems to have some issues with the second amendment which states unambiguously that citizens have the right to own and bear arms. She needs to explain what rights she thinks people have with regard to arms.

Does she think that foreign laws should be considered in interpreting the Constitution of the United States?

Does she think non-state actors at war with the United States should be treated as criminals or as enemy combatants?

Does she think that all people have a Constitutional right to healthcare? Does she think that the government should be able to force citizens to provide that healthcare?

In the past she has expressed admiration for socialism. Does she believe in individual’s rights to own property? President Obama has appropriated private property without due process. Does she approve of that?

Does she think it is more important for government to provide liberty for citizens (the founding principle of the United States) or to ensure equality of outcome for citizens?

Does she think that the Constitution should be modified by Judicial fiat rather than by Amendment?

Today the Ft Worth Star-Telegram had a story about the government's desire to annuitize individual 401(k)'s. The government thinks that there is too much risk for individuals to have their retirement money in the market. They think it would be better for the government to annuitize the funds so that the individual would have a guaranteed stream of income during retirement. Apparently the government would guarantee the annuity, since most annuities are run by insurance firms that have money invested in markets. The government seems to not recognize that there is more risk than just a falling stock market. There is also a risk of inflation. Given the enormous extent of deficit spending by the government, inflation is a significant risk. Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have long wanted to get their hands on the 401(k) and IRA money. They could use that money to pay current bills just the way they have with Social Security funding. They would also like to annuitize the 401(k) and IRA funds so older people would not have so much wealth that is transferred to heir on death. Democrats have long argued that it is fundamentally unfair that some people leave money to their children. Hilliary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi have both commented that it is fundamentally unfair that some people can leave money to their children. Annuitizing 401(k)'s and IRA's would at least stop that practice among the vast middle class, which is the group they are concerned about. They don't care what their really rich supporters do.

Muslims are building two Mosques near the ruins of the Twin Towers in New York. This is amazing to me. I suppose the US has turned into such a pathetic nation that we allow our enemies to construct monuments to themselves at the site of their greatest victory over us. Somehow I doubt that we would have allowed the Japanese to put up a monument celebrating their victory at Pearl Harbor. (When I visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial most of the people there were Japanese, and they seemed to be proud of what their countryment had done.) I suppose it should be expected that in the age of Obama, America, or at least our leadership, are spineless wimps who let everyone use us as a punching bag.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

As he left Office British Prime Minister Brown said, "I tried to bring about fairness." Fairness is what socialists are always attempt to achieve. And, Brown had considerable success. He destroyed the economy of his country, but, as always happens in socialist societies, he was succeeding in making everyone equally bad off.

I love the stories of changing animal behavior due to ‘climate change.’ I have read that Southern Pine Beetle’s are more active because of Global Warming. This seems odd since the southeastern US has actually cooled over the past 50 years. Now there is a story about more active caterpillars on the Isle of Wight due to ‘climate change.” It happens that the last couple of years have been remarkably cold in Great Britain. This brings up two questions that I haven’t seen the climate hysterics answer: first, how is the information that global warming is happening transmitted to the little critters since they cannot detect it from their local environment? And, why do the little critters become more active given that temperature is supposed to influence their energy level, and the environment they experience is actually getting cooler?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Nanny State is here. Now the government wants to track the Body Mass Index of all children in the country.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Here is more discussion about Obama, the first 'post-modern' president of the US.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

I have frequently opined that if the US were not a welfare state that illegal immigration would not be a problem. Illegal immigration by people exploiting the system provides another base of support for those who promote the welfare state. So, facilitating illegal immigration benefits both groups. Here are comments from someone who sees the situation as I do.

Liberals and Democrats don 't like free speech. One example is Harvard Law School Dean Minow's comments to a student who suggested that a study be made into the possibility that there is a genetic basis for the low average IQ of Africans. Now we have President Obama complaining about freedom of speech. Summary: he likes his spin, doesn't like Fox News.

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Mayor Giuliani of New York refused to take money from Muslims after the 9/11 attacks. My guess is that Mayor Bloomberg will take their money. I wonder if Bloomberg ever heard of the Trojan Horse?

The Obama and the Democrats plan on strangling business enterprises in the US with onerous rules, regulations, and new taxes. They may think they are promoting "social justice," which is another name for socialism, but the end result will be the demise of much private enterprise. The health reform legislation contained a lot of these stealth regulations that have nothing to do with health. (These are the provisions that Nancy Pelosi said the bill had to be passed for us to find out about.) The new requirement is that businesses must issue 1099 forms to everyone that they buy anything from that is valued at more than $600 over the course of a year. Here is an article describing the situation. This should provide employment for more accountants, and drive up the cost of doing business.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Democrats passed the Obamacare legislation so we could find out what is in the new law. It's 2000 pages long, and refers a lot to previous laws and regulations, so they couldn't explain it, didn't have time. Of course part of the reason they couldn't explain it was because a lot of it was going to made up by unelected bureaucrats as they go along. The law was said to be intended to improve healthcare in the US, as well as "bending the cost curve" down. It is difficult to understand how that will work for some provisions of the law. For example. the law puts a tax on medical devices. I am uncertain as to what devices this covers, but apparently it would include things like artificial knees and hips, and pacemakers and stents used to treat heart disease. The tax will increase the cost of these devices, which would appear to mitigate against the goal of reducing the cost of healthcare. Another effect could be a reduction in the use of these devices; this would seem to mitigate against improved healthcare. During debate Obama suggested that old people were getting too much medical care, and that they should just take an aspirin and die. This is obviously the actual intent of the bill, raise the price so people will stop using them. It would have been simpler to just invoke "death panels" to decide who gets care, but Sarah Palin ruined that simple approach and forced Obama to set up a more circuitous path to achieve his objective of spending less money on healthcare of old people.

I watched Charlie Rangel being interviewed about the financial crisis in Greece. He didn't think excessive pay for union members and government workers, which apparently includes most of the people, nor excessive entitlement payments, had anything to do with the situation. Instead, he blamed Goldman Sachs. Apparently they loaned too much money, or sold Greek bonds short, or something. At any rate, Charlie thought the problem was caused by capitalists rather than by politicians who promised more than could be delivered. Somehow, Republicans had caused the problem because they supported Goldman Sachs. That is curious since Goldman Sachs is well known as a supporter of Democrats. Later I saw a female Democrat spinner who seemed to think that the "Bush tax cuts" caused the financial crisis in Europe. It appeared to me that Democrats have an agenda of confuse and obfuscate, and blame everything that ever went wrong on George Bush. When I was a boy they blamed everything on Hoover, and that worked. So, I can see why they would continue that plan, but switching to Bush because a lot of their supporters don't even know who Hoover was.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

I used to keep a sign in my office that said "Bureaucracy is the Enemy." I noticed that some people thought that if we had the right procedures and rules in place, no one would have to think about anything, and that everything would work well. I also noticed that the people who had such great faith in bureaucracy also tended to be politically liberal. Curiously so-called liberals are opposed to individual liberty. Some smart guys like Ludwig von Mises had similar observations to mine.

Monday, May 03, 2010

Mayor Bloomberg speculates that the attempted Time Square car bomber is probably someone who doesn't like the Obama healthcare bill. (No doubt one of the vicious members of the tea party movement.) I heard an announcement on TV that someone named Shazzazz Habaad (sp?) has been arrested on suspicion of being the attempted bomber. Who knew that Pakistani's were that concerned about Obama's healthcare bill. The liberals are sad tonight that this is another example of Muslim terrorism. They crave an example of a WASP terrorist, the kind of people they really hate. Here is another example of a big disappointment for Obama and the liberals.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

I was thinking about illegal immigration and racial discrimination, and it seems to me that since almost all illegal immigrants are Latinos, any law that addressed the problem could be deemed racial discrimination. (On TV I saw Al Sharpton mumble something incoherent about all of the Irish illegal immigrants that the Arizona law wouldn't address, or something. I wonder how many illegal immigrants from Ireland there are; maybe 100? Certainly not enough to be of much concern.) If the nation is unable to deal with the fact that the illegal alien problem involves Latinos, we might as well just open the borders. We could save a lot of money by disbanding the border guards and firing the customs agents.

President Obama doesn't like anti-government rhetoric, and wants people to cut it out. (He didn't seem to mind it three years ago.) I think he just doesn't believe in freedom of speech for those who disagree with him. What else could be the explanation for giving the FTC control over the internet as is contained in the proposed financial reform law. (Wonder what rationale the Democrats have for this since the internet obviously had nothing to do with the financial meltdown.)

President Obama is a prevaricator of the highest order. He demonstrates his skill frequently, as in a recent speech in which he vilifies Representative Boehner. He said that Boehner went to a meeting with Wall Street, and came back opposed to Obama's financial reform plan. He implies that Boehner was "bought off." This is typical lying by Obama. He fails to note that Boehner was opposed to the financial plan before the Wall Street meeting. For those who are knowledgeable, Obama's entire premise is flawed because most Wall Street executives, such as the head of Citi, BoA, J. P Morgan, and Goldman-Sachs favor Obama's financial reform, as well they would be expected to since it favors large firms at the expense of smaller firms, exactly what fascists favor. Obama also ignores the fact that Wall Street gave far more money to Democrats than Republicans in both 2008 and this year. In 2008 Goldman-Sachs gave about $1 million to Obama and about $40 million to Democrats. The MSM are in the tank for Obama, and do not point out Obama's obvious lies which they know about, but the public is unaware of because the MSM does not keep them informed.

President Obama has often been described as the first "post-modern" American President. There are various definitions of post-modernism, but generally it evolved from the failure of communism, and the marriage of socialism and communism with environmentalism. The perversion of science into a political activity is a prominent feature of the movement. Here is some discussion from American Thinker.