Is Obama Going to Play Nice?

According to the popular press, the country has now come together to transform the nation, including the Republicans. The evidence, they say is that the Republicans and Democrats will sit together at the president's State of the Union address. Presumably, the Republicans will also stand to applaud with the Democrats. Although there was never any strict practice, the two parties usually sit on opposite sides of the isle and the opposition party usually keeps it's seat during the frequent standing ovations. In point of fact, this is merely another public relations ploy of the Democrats and the Party sponsored press. It will be informative to see which Republicans keep their seats after some of the more provocative statements that are sure to come from Barack Obama. In other words, we will see which Republicans are not sell-outs and which ones are.

Much of the recent discussion regarding a more 'civil discourse,' is pre-election positioning by the Democrats. As usual, they claim to be moderate as an election approaches. Unfortunately, the left, the Democrats, and certainly BHO never change their plans and policies. When they are ideologically radically liberal and far left, they rarely if ever change, especially while in power. What we are hearing is a public relations, propaganda campaign for two purposes. First, to get more moderate, independent votes. Second, to intimidate the Republicans so that they will become more moderate or even moderately leftist. Republicans, especially those who claim conservatism, have to learn to ignore the press. We have our own press now and need not depend upon the discredited 'lame-stream' press. (See the New York Times' recent attack of Glen Beck. Their article is not only uncivil, it is based upon entirely untrue premises. Glen Beck has consistently and conscientiously discredited the left only by playing their own words. His long clips of the likes of Harry Ried, Nancy Pelosi, Frances Fox Piven*, George Soros, and Barack Obama himself are not played out of context. His presentations are carefully analysed and fairly presented, unlike the 'news' stories on MSNBC and The New York Times. The Democrats, even Colin Powell, have the audacity to accuse talk radio and Fox News of doing precisely what they themselves do constantly as a conscious policy -- chickenshit.

*Piven, who wrote, "The ultimate objective of this strategy—to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income—will be questioned by some. Because the ideal of individual social and economic mobility has deep roots, even activists seem reluctant to call for national programs to eliminate poverty by the outright redistribution of income." See Wikipedia, Coward and Piven, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy

(Note: In case you don't know, Frances Fox Piven and George Soros are two of Glen Beck's favorite radical progressive leftists, after Commissar Cass Sunstien and Communist Van Jones.)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,591374,00.html

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29967/

Conservatives Loaded for Bear

That is, they are well stocked with hi-caliber ammo and they are fighting back. Their arrow points are sharpened and their quivers are full. They are keeping their powder dry. Conservative storm troopers are hitting the ground running, only stopping to reload or fix bayonets. Yes, that describes the conservative backlash against the liberal accusations that they are inciting violence. The Conservatives are figuratively counterattacking in force, the real conservatives that is. Some Republicans in Congress are apparently already fearful of the leftist media onslaught of misrepresentations following the attempted assassination of an Arizona congresswoman.

The way that the conservative talk show host are fighting back is by presenting the truth and exposing the liberal so called journalists for the party propagandists that they have become. The conservatives are well armed with audio clips of the most vile remarks and reprehensible threats imaginable coming from the leftist radio and TV media figures, such as Keith Oberman, Bill Mar, Joy Bajar, Ed Schultz, and Chris Matthews. (Some of these may not be journalist; I realy don't know who they are but their language was certainly vile. They may be senators from Minnesota for all I know.) They also have clips of liberal politicians openly wishing violence to befall conservatives. Barack Obama is one of those politicians. (e.g. BHO's comment regarding a supporter who will "tear-up Sean Hanity." Metephorically, with argumentation he meant, just as other have spoken metephorically about politics for centuries.)

The liberals are making a big thing over some hunting and shooting metaphors of Sarah Palin with respect to Democrat candidates in the last election. Her metaphorical cross hairs were no more conducive to violence that the Democratic National Committees bulls-eyes on conservatives. On the other hand, liberals are also seen on video decapitating President Bush in effigy. On audio, they are wishing on him, vice president Cheney, and Secretary of Defense von Rumsfeld, all forms of unspeakable horrors.

The conservatives who are on the counterattack are Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Lew Dobbs, Lars Larson, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, and many more who I haven't heard yet. Essentially, what is happening is the liberals in congress are being aided and abetted by these dishonest journalist in their attempt to sensor their opponents, that is us, the people. The conservative media, the target of this propaganda are quite effectively fighting back with no other weapon but the truth. Glenn Beck will be joining the fray as well as soon as he gets on the Full Armour of the Lord.


For the fine invective oratory of Mark Levin, go to audio rewind for 1/11/11:

http://www.marklevinshow.com/sectional.asp?id=32930#

Regarding the proposition that conservative radio talk shows and Fox television said anything that led to the shooting by the deranged individual in Arizona, I have only the remark of Frederick Bastiat:

"This is the way an opinion gains acceptance in France [and in the modern USA]. Fifty ignoramuses repeat in chorus some absurd libel that has been thought up by an even bigger ignoramus; and, if only it happens to coincide to some slight degree with prevailing attitudes and passions, it becomes a self-evident truth."

Unlikely Saviors of Capitalism and the Nation

Tonight Washington State Senatorial candidates Pattie Murray (D) and Dino Rossi (R) debated. Mr. Rossi has a record in the Washington State Legislature of cost cutting to balance the budget. Senator Murray has a voting record in the US Senate making her the most liberal member of that body. She is running away from that record to a certain extent while also reminding voters of government money that she brought to the state. Dino reminded us of the practice in congress that our representatives use to get support for spending in their state. They vote for projects in other states in exchange. Dino Rossi is no RINO (Republican in Name only), but neither is he a Tea Partier. He seemed to be lack-luster in his early TV spots denouncing the Obama policies. He seems to be only half-heartedly against Cap-and-Trade, if he is against it at all. Nevertheless, his vote will be 90% conservative as apposed to Murray's 99% in favor of BHO and Majority Leader Harry Reid's agenda. Several other House and Senate races involve similar match ups. The Republicans and the nation need to win a majority of those races.

The conservative view is that economic difficulties stem from government intervention in the economy. Rossi gives this view lip service. Senator Murray does not seem to even understand the concept. Our current national economic problems were caused not only by decades of government actions but specifically by laws requiring banks to loan to bad credit risks. Because Freddy and Fanny were buying most of these loans from the banks, the banks were not too worried. The government was implicitly promising a bail-out if needed, and it was needed. All kinds of other bail-outs and government 'stimulus' spending followed. Those government actions are what is causing the current economic slow-down. It will turn into economic collapse unless we change course immediately.

BHO and his allies in congress have taken over the domestic auto industry, except for Ford Motor Company. They have taken over the biggest insurance company directly, and through the health care law, have taken over all of the health insurance industry. They have directly taken over many banks and investment companies and through the Wall Street 'Reform' bill, have effectively taken over all of the rest of that industry. In the Health Care bill there were provisions to take over more aspects of the economy, student loans, for instance. The laws granting bail-outs to state teachers and other government employees, have taken more control from the states over these employees. Many, many, laws and obscure provisions hidden in the massive Wall Street and Health Care monstrosities, set up new government agencies to control the people even more. Now, with Cap-and-Trade, they plan on controlling energy production, use, and distribution. Those industries are already highly regulated. To help them gain and keep control over the people, they want even more control over the Internet and talk radio. Since they already have control of the mainstream TV and print media, they will gain virtual complete say over what we, the people, are told to believe.

These massive government actions, most of which are for political not economic purposed, will not help the economy. In fact they are causing many problems that continue to get worse. As stated here and elsewhere, prices must lower and bankrupt concerns must be liquidated for markets to return to normal functioning. That is not happening. Government is creating money and debt at breakneck speed to shore-up housing prices, wages, and many industries (such as banking). This is postponing the inevitable and making the inevitable worse. Even if Republicans were to gain control in congress, there would likely be a long uphill climb.

Regarding Senate races, after the debacle of Reid's performance in his debate with Sharon Angle today, his chances of retaining his seat declined dramatically.

Two Person Poll

I have been speaking to people about the upcoming election. My brother seemed typical of many who have switch allegiance from Obama and his Democrats. As usual, it didn't take any encouragement for him to let me know that he didn't like certain economic developments. He said he had supported Obama only because of the alternative. He seemed to think that McCain was lack-luster with no personal appeal (I don't recall the exact word he used). He didn't have anything good to say about unions, especially government unions. This was surprising because, besides having his Alaskan fishing business in the Summer, he often has had a union job. Even union workers understand the distinction between unions that negotiate with management and those that negotiate with politicians. The biggest difference is that the politicians are not paying the workers' with their own money but with ours.

Another fellow with whom I communicated, was of another opinion regarding Obama and his administration. He was surprisingly insulting to me personally regarding my intelligence, sanity, and morality for things he read on this blog. He especially found fault with anyone who would speak badly of such a decent guy as our president. He said something about him not being a tyrant and nothing at all like Stalin. I do not recall how or if I have said BHO was like Stalin but the comparison does fit in a myriad of ways.

Obama is like Stalin in both his methods and his goals. Stalin robbed banks with a six-gun, Obama, with a fountain pen. Both wanted the money to finance the socialist revolution. Both were willing to disregard the law for the sake of socialism. There is Obama's famous statement about the Supreme Court's view of the constitution not being radical enough thus far because the Court has stood in the way of redistribution of wealth. That is, the constitution gets in the way of confiscation of private property. This sound like a good communist to me. From the early days when Obama's name came up as a candidate, his "palling around" with socialists (not to mention terrorists)was pointed out by the alternative media. Of course, the main stream media ridiculed that viewpoint as guilt by association. Appointments of Van Jones and others by Obama are evidence of his approval of self-avoid communists. The recent Washington rally of the democrats and leftist organizations (to counter the earlier Glenn Beck rally) was attended by many communist and socialist groups that voiced their approval of Obama and he returned the favor.

An argument in favor of Obama is that his policies and actions are not nearly as drastic as comrade Stalin's or V. Lenin's. It is true that Stalin killed millions of people (many millions more than Hitler). He killed intellectuals, the rich, business people, rivals, and even small farmer owners. He imprisoned many more in slave labor camps. If complete Communism were adopted here, similar things would probably happen because they have happened wherever communism has been tried. Currently, under Obama, we have only the "soft" tyranny referred to by de Tocqueville.

See the new book about Obama: Crimes Against Liberty for many more examples of Stalinist tactics and aspirations of BHO and his Party.)

More broadly, the less extreme and slower operations of the progressives that have resulted in our present welfare state, are no less to be avoided. Progressives are those who want more and more government control because they say it is for our own ultimate good. Now they are saying that the current vast expansions of government powers are needed to avoid complete economic collapse. However, I have seen no progressive forbearance in good times either. Then they tell us that in the richest country on earth, we certainly can afford a small expenditure to help some particular group. Trouble is that they are usually not small expenditures and thousands upon thousands of those expenditures add up. This has resulted in the Tea Party phenomenon, thank God. They are saying: "We actually never trusted you but were willing to go along to get along, and because we thought we truly were helping. Now we see that it was a sham. You wanted complete control, little by little. You knew your little by little would destroy us eventually and then we would come to you for our rescue. You would then gladly take full-blown socialistic control. We won't go along anymore. We hope it is not too late"

This is what Rudyard Kipling had to say about collectivism over 100 years ago. How true it is. See his poem: The Gods of the Copybook Headings, on this blog. At first I wondered who the gods of the copybook headings were. It is clear that they are the Progressive Statists. Ayn Rand also understood this. Having lived in the Soviet Union during the time of Stalin, she understood that collectivism is path to serfdom and misery. She, as Ludvig von Mises, also understood that the greatest benefactors of humanity are the businessmen, who harness technology to constantly improve our lot. They also are the primary target of the socialists. Only free market capitalism has ever made a significant lasting improvement to the material lot of humanity. (And, as Kipling seems to be saying, to the spiritual lot of mankind also.)

As to attacks upon my insanity, I do feel a certain bit of a manic phase that does not slacken very often. That's because of my hopes for the coming resounding reversal of our socialistic ways.

Washington State Demos Support BHO Agenda (Openly)

The local television campaign ads may not be examples of all that is wrong with American politics, but they are not far from it. Democrat Senator Patty Murry says that Dino Rossi is a pawn of big corporations, especially Wall Street. To prove it, she plays a short clip in which Dino says he would vote to repeal the Wall Street Reform Bill. He should have said he would repeal the Wall Street so-called reform bill. Obviously no one is against reform but he opposes the bill for what is in it, not for its title. The bill is over 2,000 pages of who knows what. Like the other bills passed by the sitting Democrats with the help of a few Rinos, it enacts into law more of the socialistic, state control agenda of the far left.

This blog and many others along with talk radio have explained some of the aims of recent Wall Street take-over attempts by government. The Party's primary purpose is to funnel power and money to the constituent groups of Barack Obama and his leftist associates, and Wall Street is where the power and money is. Mr. Rossi should obviously want it repealed. Unfortunately, his message is, "Our problems did not start yesterday, but I will start fixing them tomorrow." A Tea Party candidate would go to the the heart of the current debate and point out that Democrat Party socialistic policies are what caused our problems. In other states, the Democrat candidates are facing that kind of opposition and respond by disavowing their support of Obama / Pelosi / Ried. Unfortunately, almost all these 'blue dog' Democrats vote with their party when they are back in Washington, DC. In Washington State, the Demo's don't have to distance themselves from their Masters in the other Washington.

Better to Pull that Push

BHO says he wants Republicans to join him in guiding the nation in the right direction. With an overwhelming Democrat congress and media support for his socialist/progressive policies, it would be hard for Republicans to push any agenda changes from within a bipartisan coalition. More likely, they would be dragged along for the ride. If they stay independent and set their own course, maybe they can pull some support in the direction they want. This is now happening and the Democrats and BHO don't like it.

Free Maket Healthcare: the Left not Listening Still

Here is a link to an article in Fortune. 45rrrrrrrrrrrr (my cat just typed that)

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/economy/health_care_danger.fortune/index.htm


The article gives a few suggestions for healthcare plans that do not require the nearly complete government involvement that the current Obama / Congress / socialist plans do. Basically, it proposes removing state regulations so we can obtain whatever coverage we want. We will not be limited to the policies and companies that our state insurance commissions allow. That means high deductible, lower cost plans. There would be an assigned risk pool for those with serious medical conditions. This is similar to what we have to insure people with very bad driving records. The rates for those plans would be set at about 150% of a well person of the same age. If a person could not afford insurance for whatever reason, there would be government assistance on a sliding scale. Something like that has been advocated for years by Republicans of free market orientation. it has so far fallen of deaf ears, even of those with big enough ears to hear quite well.

Since a plan like this would require little of the government, we would not be dependent on government bureaucrats for our medical care. (That is to say, we would not have to kiss their ass.) That's why the Party Members are not interested.

Obama Wall Street Prescription: Virtual Ownership

The current economic recession/depression was clearly the result of multifaceted government intervention in and regulation of business. However, BHO is blaming Wall Street, which is always an acceptable scapegoat. Hitler used it, only he called them the Jew bankers. Wall Street of course doesn't seem to have a clue either that they are in a public relations propaganda fight. The bottom line is that BHO will use the concept of 'Wall Street' as an excuse for his next big government coup. Any proposal from the current administration and congress will not be 'consumer protection' as they claim. It will be government control of what is currently private finance. But the country and congress is dumb and numb. We have lost or are on the verge of losing the auto industry, healthcare, mortgage lending, energy, and pretty much all unionized trades (which were mostly gone already) to the control of the all-powerful state. The rest should be easy for the totalitarians.

We are witnessing the fall of capitalism. From there, our rights as a free people will dissolve with hardly a murmur from the serfs. After the first death, there is no other.

Profiles in Courage?

Senator Ben Nelson (Nebraska) is a liar, a fraud, and a hypocrite. He says that he opposes the healthcare bill but will vote for opening the debate. This is the procedural vote that the Democrats and BHO need to get around the 60 vote majority in the US Senate and Senator Nelson knows it. He thinks that he can lie to his constituents who he knows oppose the bill. That's why I refer to them as the Democrat party not the "Democratic Party." There is nothing democratic about them. Mark Levin clearly states this. Does Judge Napolitano? (That is of Brian and Judge talk show fame.) No, I do not think so because he seems to have a large blind spot when it comes to trusting Democrats and taking their statements at face value once in awhile.

Probably no Democrat Senator will oppose the healthcare bill because they are on the take. The fix is in. BHO and the Central Committee of the Party will threaten them and/or promise the world. (Cf. Senator Laundry of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.) They will point out that with their approval already down, they won't be reelected anyhow and they will promise either hundreds of millions for their state or a cushy, prestigious job for themselves. So even if they oppose it and have promised to vote against it they may end of voting for the healthcare bill anyway. It would take real courage to oppose the Central Committee (Axilrod, Emanuel, BHO, etc.).

The Czars v. Commissars

The czar was the autocrat of Russia. He was the highest leader in the land who answered to no one. Therefore, the current usage of the word czar for the political functionaries of the BHO administration, is a misnomer. There is precedent for the figurative use of the term for certain ad hoc administrators. I remember hearing of a baseball czar before there was the drug czar, who was the precursor of our current spat of czars. Now I understand we have 30 or so in charge of different functions of the government.

I propose the use of the more accurately descriptive term, Commissar. The Bolsheviks apparently started using the Russian equivalent of this term that was then used by the USSR. A Commissar was an operative of the Party given responsibility for and oversight of a certain aspect of the government. That sound like a much closer description of the duties of our various czars.

In the communist USSR, the government exercised control over virtually all of society, so the Commissars power must have been vast. Of course, in theory, he answered to the Party through some committee or other. I would imagine, more often that not, a bullet trumped any parliamentary debate regarding his performance in office.

Our Senate has no advise and consent function regarding the current Czars. The Czars are purely organs of the Democrat Party and do its bidding. They apparently answer only to the "central committee" of BHO, comrade Axilrod, comrade Immanuel, and a few unnamed others. They really should be called what they are, the peoples Commissars.