Obama Supports Birthers

Birther, the name for those who question the legitimacy of BHO's presidency under the constitutional American birth requirement, have gained more fuel. The newly elected governor of Hawaii reopened the controversy by vowing to release what ever documentation he can under Hawaiian law. Left wing pundit, Chris Matthews, of the tingling leg fame, has also called on the president to release his birth certificate. A recent poll found that only 58% of the respondents were convinced that BHO was born in the United States and therefore eligible to be president. The president has produced what is essentially an affidavit from Hawaii stating that the certificate is on file. Although this is not the best evidence that he claims is available, he says it is adequate to meet constitutional requirements. This is considered a 'short form' Hawaiian certificate. The left leaning press, have not press him, until now.

In the view of Chickenshit New World, the debate has been ended by the president himself. In the recent election he accused the US Chamber of Commerce of illegally accepting foreign campaign contributions. He reasoned that this was something the people deserved to know and therefore he would not drop his accusations until they produced their records to the contrary. His left leaning media sycophants accepted and reiterated this logic. Therefore it appears that the president supports the birther claims until he produces his birth certificate or other definitive proof to the contrary.

See the Washington Post article from the election campaign:

'President Obama, speaking at a rally in Philadelphia, said "the American people deserve to know who is trying to sway their elections" and raised the possibility that foreigners could be funding his opponents.
"You don't know," Obama said at the rally for Senate candidate Joe Sestak and other Democrats. "It could be the oil industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don't know because they don't have to disclose."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/10/AR2010101004009.html?wprss=rss_politics

National Socialism: Genghis Groans Again

In the first segment of his 12/3/10 program, Mark Levin addresses the issues of taxation currently before our congress. In fact, Mark delineates the conservative position in the age old debate between economic freedom and government economic control. Recordings of Biden and other Democrats represent the opposing views. Mark pulls no punches with his refutation of the Democrat, that is statist, view.

"We are witnessing the collapse of the welfare state ... They have led us to the precipice and they continue..." -- Mark Levin

This program is available for free for the next month at Mark Levin Show Audio Rewinds. Mark is refining his presentation. This is one of his best shows. http://www.marklevinshow.com/sectional.asp?id=32930#

It seems to me that the public spoke in the last election. They do not want any more big government interference, we have had more that we can take. Obama and his far left wacko commissars have been exposed for what they are and we do not want any more. What we do not know is what to call them. It used to be liberals, but that is confusing; they sound like communists, but they say they aren't; they act like socialists, but the media tells us the definition does not fit. Glenn Beck points out how "state capitalism," which is a currently used term, is really the same thing as national socialism. Listening to the Ed Schultz show callers, one can get an education regarding our current national socialists. They call in sounding like thugs and he encourages them. I call them statist progressives: they propose control by a totalitarian state as the best means of improving our lot (so they say, I think it's their own lot they want to improve). If we are still around, it will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

Will Republicans stick to their guns?

Republicans should agree to meet the Democrats half way to freedom, not half way to tyranny,(to paraphrase Mark Levin). As Ayn Rand explained, how can you compromise with someone who wants you to take poison? Should you agree to take only half the poison? You would still be dead. Bad economic policies are like poison. For example conservatives legislators should not agree to even a watered down form of cap-and-trade,such as government regulations to reduce 'carbon' emissions. (At least until they prove their man made global warming theory, which they never will, or they would have by now.)

Conservative Republicans agree that the federal government needs to drastically reduce spending and reduce its bureaucracy. However congress keeps passing more massively intrusive and expensive legislation. Sometimes, as with the food control bill, we hardly get a peep out of Republicans. In increasingly large numbers, they vote with the Democrats. What is going on?

Currently there is discussion regarding extension of current income tax rates. We seem to have three options: keep the current rates, increase rates for all brackets (which will happen automatically if they do nothing), or increase rate only for higher brackets. There is no option to actually reduce any one's rates. The Democrats themselves want to maintain current rates for lower brackets; not for economic but for political reasons, i.e. to buy votes. The Democrats say they want Republican input and support and that they are willing to compromise. However, the only compromise that they seem to be offering is option three above, that is raise tax rates on higher income brackets (over $250,000). Again for political reasons, to advance 'class' warfare propaganda. In a compromise deal they would get the higher rates that they want but they offer nothing in return. Where is the compromise there?

If Republicans agree to any higher rates on anyone, they should insist upon cuts in spending and reduction in bureaucracy. The taxes would still be economic poison, but spending cuts would to some extent counteract the economic damage of higher taxation.

Just today, there appears to be some movement for such a deal. Next week the president and Democrats in congress may agree to a keep the current rates for all wage earners in return for Republican agreement to extend unemployment benefits from two years to three. (Initially, before other extensions, the limit was half a year.) Extending these payments is bad economic policy because unemployment benefits create unemployment.

One other factor makes this potentially a bad deal. If the higher tax rates for all go into effect because of congressional inaction, the increase can be reversed by the new Republican congress next year. The Democratic Senate and the president would be under political pressure to agree. Therefore, The Republicans should not compromise now unless it is a good deal for the economy. For example, unemployment benefits for only an additional six months and at amounts reduced by about 30% would be one possibility.

The tea party has been leading the way toward freedom and away from the 'liberal', statist progressive agenda (which is becoming more and more to resemble the national socialist agendas of days past.) To remedy economic problems now as always, we need to focus on the philosophy of free enterprise. Economist Frederich Bastiat suggested the true path nearly 200 years ago to deal with the collapsed French economy: We have tried everything else, why not try freedom.

Conservatives' Plan Summarized

This blog is about current events. We have not had the time or energy to post many comments of late. Although there has been some improvement, our conclusion is still: chickenshit behavior by the Democrats (aka statist progressives) and ditto for the appeasing Republicans. The nation has recently said that it is chiefly made up of common sense conservatives and that is the improvement that gives us hope.


The debate prior to the election, a few weeks ago, and all of it's aftermath may be causing many people to be more that a little bit confused. There is so much to say regarding this election, which resulted in a change of the majority party in the House of Representatives from the Democrats to the Republicans. Control of many state governorships and legislatures also changed to the Republicans. The primary reason that the Senate did not also turn to the Republicans is that only a third of its seats are up for election every two years. To many people who gain their understanding of current events from the television, it may seem that nothing has changed.

A lot has changed. Radio commentator, Mark Levin, has been clearly and emphatically explaining the changing situation. Though not a political leader, he seems to have the clearest vision of what the Republican and conservative response should be. He speaks of hope and change that is not merely a return to the pre-Obama situation. He and many others will be attempting to re-establish the rule of law under our constitution. There is much to be done and it can start now.

Conservative Plan: For a conservative view of recent events along with conservative aspirations for near and long term change, listen to Mark Levin's Audio Rewind of the show aired last Friday, November 26:

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

(This audio will only be on Mark Levin's site for a few weeks, so listen to it now, and save it. If you don't, well listen to his new audios as they become avail -- free on his site. Or listen to him on the radio. Unfortunately, the radio station in Western Washington that carried him recently dropped all political talk shows. I do not know why.)

For historical background and in depth information see the Ludvig von Mises Institutes's website and the amusing and edifying YouTubes of Atlas Shrugs, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand. (Which are all being revitalized in the Tea Party, by the way.)

Inflation

http://www.ketknbc.com/news/deficit-reduction-by-the-numbers

A 10 pfennig stamp paid the the first class domestic letter rate in Germany from 1902 to 1916 (equivalent to 2.4 cents US). July 31, 1914, he day before war was declared against Russia, Germany went off the gold standard. Of the 164 billion marks Germany spent in that war, some 93 was borrowed, 29 paid through short term borrowing (repaid by taxation), and 42 billion was printed. In 1916 the first class postal rate increased to 15 pf and to 20 pf in 1919. Six months later it went to 40, then to 60 in 1921. This was when Germany started to see the effects of inflation.

Germany not only had war debts but also billions in war reparations under the treaty of Versailles, which ended the war. They kept printing money. At the start of 1922, a letter cost 2 marks (100 pfennig to the mark). By the end of the year it was 50 marks. This was hyperinflation kicking in. On August 1, 1923, it was 1,000 m. Three weeks later it was 20,000, which only lasted nine days. Then it was 75,000. The printing presses were busy printing money, so the post office had to start surcharging, i.e. printing new values on existing stamps. The postage rate continued to rise sharply and in early October it was 250,000. This continued through the middle of November when the postage rate topped 100 billion marks (the German word for billion is milliarde).

Of course all of the other horrors of inflation were occurring at this time. The price of everything rose on a daily basis. Savings vanished. It did not end until measures were taken by the German government. They stopped the printing presses and made severe cutbacks in government spending. They laid off or cut the wages of thousands of government employees. Disability and veterans' benefits were ended. A moratorium was declared on payment of government debt and taxes were drastically increased. A new currency was issued, supposedly based upon the total resources of land and industrial production of the country. This was of course a fiction, since the new currency could not actually be redeemed for anything at all, just as before. The measures worked only because the people saw no other option, they needed it to work.

The postage rates of the United States have climbed in a way similar to the earlier days of the German inflation. Today, the Deficit Reduction Committee referred to in the above link proposed some austerity measures that are mild compared to Germany's. These will probably not be adopted for political reasons. Any action taken will probably be too watered down to make much difference. Even the proposed measures only result in long term deficit reduction of 4 trillion dollars when the debt is 14 trillion. Social security and Medicare benefits will be paid with borrowed or printed money. The proposed measures would at least be a good start. (Unfortunately, they raise taxes excessively and to not sufficiently reduce government employment or wages.)

The above photo of the German stamps illustrate what happened. To a great extent, the last stamp was the culmination of the story. (By the way, after I scanned the stamps, I see that (at least) one of the stamps, other than the Hitler one, does not really belong because it came after the war. Can you identify it?)

The source for this post is, "Scott's Monthly Stamp Journal." June 1982, Vol. 63, No. 6, by Richard MacFarlane. (This article lists 18 sources, including Michel's Specialized German Stamp Catalog, where he got the postal rates).

Another source of information about the German inflation is "The Bubble that Broke the World." -- that book explains a lot of how it happened, what countries tried to do, and what the results were.

Atlas Shrugs

I do not know how I overlook the blog "atlasshrugs.com." The radio is usually my only source of information, along with the newspaper a little. There isn't enough time in the day for more. However, I see that the above blog has commentary and current news stories. No need to look elsewhere. Pamala, as Atlas Shrugs, also has many fabulous, entertaining You Tubes. She is an unmovable Sarah Palin supporter and a Fearless Protectrix of the State of Israel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWlh8US1WRw

atlas shrugs at a NYC teaparty

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/

election endorsements

Election Predictions 2010

Election Predictions:

11 Republican new seats in the Senate, including a win for Dino Rossi in Washington.

70 seat Republican pick-up in the House.