The Emporer's New Budget

Obama’s new budget proposal calls for annual federal government spending to increase by $192 billion in 2012 and $928 billion by 2017.

The budget documents show federal spending of $3,603 billion for 2011 growing to $3,795 billion in 2012 and $4,531 billion in 2017.

“Today (February 13), President Obama sent Congress a $3.8 trillion budget request for Fiscal Year 2013 that includes a $1.9 trillion tax increase on American families and small businesses, $47 trillion in government spending over the next decade and another year of trillion dollar-plus deficits. Four years ago, candidate Obama promised to cut the deficit in half during his first term.

"President Obama failed to keep this promise, instead adding trillions to our federal deficit in the three years since he took office. If this budget is any indicator, he has no intention of changing course and will continue with his same failed policies that have dug our nation deeper into debt.

"After a failed stimulus, record unemployment, and a sluggish economic recovery, the American people need real solutions to get our economy back on track."

Doc Hastings (R - WA)

Perils of big government corruption

Tell me again how the financial meltdown was all Bush's fault.... There are so many Democrats in it.

We all know about how Barney Frank used his Congressional influence to squelch the Bush administration's attempts to investigate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

More Democratic roaches are scurrying out of the dirty money pile.

According to CNNMoney reports that as William Dudley helped orchestrate the Wall Street bailouts, he owned more than $100,000 stock in AIG and General Electric, two firms that received most government assistance. Despite the apparent conflict of interest, Dudley is presently president of the New York Federal Reserve. The Democrats know how to reward their own -- when they violate public trust.

According to the Washington Post, Dudley also worked for Jon Corzine (D) (the still un-indicted CEO of MF Global, in the disappearance of $1.2 billion of customer funds), while he and Corzine were at Goldman, Sachs & Company.

Also according to the Post article, Dudley contributed to several “Democratic” candidates, “including the presidential campaigns of Al Gore, John Edwards and John Kerry, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (while Corzine was DSCC Chairman), and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT).”

Authoritarians

I received a thoughtful message recently -- The person asked why I describe the Washington State Senators as authoritarian. The person challenged me on the grounds that since the Senators were elected, he thought they couldn't be authoritarian.

This goes to the root of America's present political illness. Too many people believe that since we have elections, government will be responsive and we will be free. This is a self-deception. There is no guarantee of freedom, except to vigorously limit the power and realm of government.

Authoritarianism requires the individuals to submit to authority – specifically, individuals are required to submit to the social organization built by those in power. In a democracy, “those in power” is determined by a majority, even if the majority is only 51%.

You may find yourself in the majority -- so what? Do you think just being in the majority gives you the right to regulate the minority? It is precisely authoritarian to make everyone conform.

The clash is between freedom and authoritarianism. Authoritarianism requires force to compel obedience. The more decision latitude the leaders desire, the more often force will be applied. A more free society will not force conformity as often. Freedom and democracy are not the same.

What's at stake is personal freedom -- your right to choose where you can go, where you can stay, what you can do with your life. For a society to be free, the people have to decide to let each other be free. People have to trust each other. Automatic hate and distrust cannot be.

If majority is to rule, then it must do so with respect for the rights of the minority. A free society is a better society.

The Unthinkable Is Coming

The Obama Administration is promulgating regulation for commodities traders in the USA. The USA is the worldwide center of trade for commodities. The commodity doesn't have to originate here or land here; Brazilian coffee destined for Singapore is traded in the USA. Every trade generates tax for the US treasury.

Nevertheless, the Obama Administration will insist on the right to interfere with such trading, to the point of shutting down trades which have nothing to do with the US market. Can you think of a more effective way to piss off foreign traders and send them to more trade friendly country?

Mr Obama's zeal to stick his nose in places it doesn't belong move will cost the US government Billions in taxes.

~~~~~~~~
By Andy Hecht, Editor, Commodity Trend Alert

Say what you will about the miserable U.S. dollar. No matter how it has declined over the last three decades, the world still considers the U.S. dollar the best reserve currency (for now).

That means central bankers continue to hold dollars in their reserves. It also means the dollar is considered the world’s most convertible currency.

As the most convertible currency, the dollar has the privilege of being the pricing mechanism for most commodities. It also makes the U.S. the unofficial hub of the global commodity markets.

It’s why we have the five biggest commodity future exchanges right here. We have the NYMEX that trades energy. The CBOT and CME trade grains and livestock. The NYBOT trades soft commodities. And the COMEX trades precious metals and copper.

All five future exchanges trade commodities in billions, if not trillions, of U.S. dollars every year. And, these exchanges make money and pay taxes to the U.S. government. It’s a pretty good system for the U.S. government.

Unfortunately, this is all about to change...

Right now, I’m seeing some disturbing new developments in Washington that could ensure global commodity traders will take their business elsewhere, far beyond the U.S. shores.

When that happens, it’s very possible the U.S. could lose one of its biggest assets - the fact that commodities are priced in our own devalued dollars.

It’s all thanks to some new market regulations that most investors will never hear about...
Washington Goes on a Regulation Spree

It’s no secret the U.S. is losing face in the global community. It’s partially due to our currency. The U.S. dollar has lost 42% of its value since 1985.

As nations lose respect for the U.S., our government has tried to blame their shortcomings on the market and speculators. Also, in recent years, Washington has been reacting to a number of scandals and the financial meltdown in 2008.

Washington’s brilliant response to all this: go on a regulation spree!

Now it’s worth noting that the U.S. government has never once been proactive in setting market regulation. It’s always been a knee-jerk response to some market event.

For example, the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 separated commercial and investment banking thanks to the Great Depression (then repealed it in 1999).

The Sarbanes Oxley Act, passed in 2002, set new standards, rules and regulations for publicly traded companies. Congress passed this Act because the world had just endured corporate scandals like Enron, Tyco and WorldCom.

The meltdown of the housing market, the subprime crisis and a massive governmental bailout of the financial community in 2008 resulted in the mother of all regulatory legislation.

It’s called the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Even the name is long, but not as long as the legislation itself.

It’s a 2,300 page document that outlines the rules and regulations of the so-called “free markets.” For the commodity markets, it’s given the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) regulatory powers like never before.

It’s these new regulatory powers that will chase commodity traders away from the U.S. and away from the U.S. dollar.
Say Good-bye to Traders,
and Commodities Priced in Dollars

The policymakers in Washington seem to forget that the commodity markets are global. Commodities may trade in the U.S., but they are often produced and consumed far outside U.S. borders.

For instance, West Africa and Brazil produce cocoa. Russia, South Africa, Canada and Australia all produce gold. Chile produces copper. The Middle East, South America, Asia and Africa all produce oil. The U.S. may produce grains - but so do Australia, Canada and Ukraine.

The entire world consumes these staples. Traders all over the world can get their hands on them outside the U.S. if they have to.

That’s exactly what they will do if our policymakers keep trying to police our free markets.

Mark my words. If our U.S. policymakers want to create onerous regulation like the Dodd-Frank Act, traders will go elsewhere for their commodities.

Any attempt to make the commodity market less than the free market it is, will have dangerous and wide ranging implications.

One of the most devastating is the dollar could lose its privilege of being the pricing mechanism for commodity markets.
The U.S. Winds Up a Big Loser

The U.S. is actually daring the commodity world to move the trading of important commodities away from its shores.

Once that happens, it will be a fast transition to pricing and transacting these commodities in different currencies and locations beyond the U.S. and the dollar.

New free market commodity exchanges will open in jurisdictions that are friendlier to business and support free market capitalism.

I expect that the commodity markets will gravitate away from the U.S. markets in years to come. Free markets operate optimally when governments supervise but do not impose rules to stop business activity.

Taking Wall Street

In the park

Demonstrators from Occupy Seattle lined the Westlake Mall. They were sunning themselves, having a nice time...and frightening some people. The signs they held said things like “Down With Capitalism” “End Corporate Greed” and “Tax the Rich.”

They crowd seemed to be mostly young, smart and far left. Mostly they wanted an exciting way to spend the afternoon, Some wanted gainful employment. They blamed companies for not hiring them, although that is a bad attitude to take to a job.

But the “occupiers” raise a valuable question; Why aren't American companies hiring? The per-fabricated answers about rich corporate greed are surreal. The actual cause is this administration has sucked the life out of the private sector with their massive spending spree.

Every dollar the government spent came from the private sector and therefore was not available to make private loans to private companies. Companies need cash for liquidity, buying raw materials, and hiring. They have to borrow money for those reasons, same as anybody. Money for loans was available overseas, so that's where the jobs went.

The only way to start job creation in the US is to cut federal spending. Proof of this is the fact that the Republicans resisted giving Mr Obama his massive federal $447 billion debt-laden “Jobs” package. Despite this employment is up last month anyway. By working to reduce federal spending and federal debt, the Republicans managed to create jobs. Its not magic, it good economics.

Governments are great wasters. Who else engages in war? Everything a government does is at somebody else expense, there is no felt need to conserve resource. Government waste, in money or human lives, goes on.

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Corporate Greed?

Greed is a human motivation. Maybe the complaint is all humans are greedy. Being made up of humans, corporations have no more than their share of greed. But as to why corporations are not hiring many people, we should consider their motivation is to make money, just the same as their employees. Weirdly, it is corporate greed which puts people to work.

But the corporations don't hire... enough. Why?

First, there is a monster tax coming on employees. “Free” health care has to be paid for. Mr Obama and his Leftist cohorts in Congress added taxes so employers would pay around $4500 more, per employee, per year. An up-front cost of $4500 per hire gives corporations some pause.

The self-employed face the same taxes. So many workers who thought they dodged the tax increases face a nasty surprise.

The second difficulty has already been touched upon. Credit and loans have been hard to get due to the credit crunch. To add to the misery, the administration made extra rules to make it harder for lenders to collect. What cash was available, the government sopped up. Thus every company has a cash crunch going on. Many face the decision to lay off people or not make the payroll.

But what about record profits? Companies have had to become internally supporting; they can't get loans anymore. Less-critical jobs were cut in order to build up a supply of cash required to make tax payments. Some manufacturing jobs were cut and sent overseas usually because of regulations, usually via the EPA, which reduced productivity. Worker productivity had to increase in order for the company merely to survive.

Profitability had to increase for two reasons, companies have to internally fund what they used to be able to get from banks. Companies must carry more cash than before. Secondly, much of that apparent surplus is going to go away as soon as all of Mr Obama's new taxes kick in. High unemployment is a result of new taxation, not profitability.

~~~~~~~~
Tax the rich

There is a persistent sour attitude toward wealthy people that makes no sense. In a free market, a successful person can be copied and all the copycats get richer. There must be a nasty twist on schadenfreude which makes people complain about the wealthy. Anyhow....

I examined Forbes listing of the 400 richest Americans, then checked their political affiliation (Its easy to do. Forbes provides the links.). The top 4 were solid Democrats, then the list becomes a mix. Overall, its fair to say that “the rich” in America do not devote themselves to one party or another.

Which means neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are likely to start taxing people just because they are rich. Members of each party realize there is not enough money in the rich to cure the national debt problem, so instead they curry favor with the wealthy. The Democrats talk about taxing the rich more than the Republicans, which suggest the wealthy Democrats suffer from battered spouse syndrome.

A Case of Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy is a nervous system disorder in which the person will suddenly go to sleep. A victim may be walking along the side walk and collapse in sleep.

Ms Cheryl Perich has narcolepsy. She also had a teaching position at Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School. In June of 2004, Ms Perich left her position during her diagnosis. In February of 2005 she wanted the teaching position back, but the school had filled it. Note the dates, June is the end of the school year and February is well after the start of the school year.

Ms Perich sued.

The church refused to rehire her, stating her position had been filled.

The church's position is the matter is protected by the First Amendment's free exercise of religion doctrine. A derivative doctrine, called the ministerial doctrine, explains the right of church autonomy in choice of staff thus: The courts are forbidden to determine cases “involving the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministerial employees.”

The Supreme Court heard the case Wednesday.

The Obama administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is taking Perich side. The EEOC implicitly stated the freedom of religion does not apply. What is at issue, they say, is Ms Perich's First Amendment right to freely associate.

"What?" the Supreme Court Justices said in unison.

The Obama Administration questions who should decide religious matters, the church or the government. Implicit the Administration view is the notion only government can decide whether government should be deciding.

The Obama Administration position, if accepted by the court, would practically eliminate freedom of religion in the United States. If the government wins, a church could be forced into hiring anyone for any position. A church could no longer "discriminate" between a believer and a circus sex act for an vacant pastor position.

The case is Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (10-553). A decision is expected by June.

~~~~~~~~
There is more to this -- there always is. Here are two views: One from the Big Government side Slate From other from the religious side Jewish World Review

Seattle rain gardens go bad

When the Obama Administration started handing out wads of cash to local governments (the "Stimulus"), Big Government Seattle hot-footed it to find ways to spend the money.

Seattle is the rain city. The city spent our debt on an unproven idea called "rain gardens." A rain garden is a catch basin built on a city street with shrubs planted in it. In order to work, a rain garden must have good drainage or else water simply swamps up and the garden rot.

Guess what.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported:

A year after subjecting a Seattle neighborhood to ugly swamps in a rain garden experiment gone awry, the city has proposed removing 10 of the gardens as part of a $500,000 fix.

The city filed notice of the proposal this week, which is part of strategy to fix its failed trial in curbing stormwater in Ballard. Seattle Public Utilities had installed about 50 rain gardens in the neighborhood last year, in hopes they would soak up stormwater runoff and prevent it from flooding sewers.

But instead of getting pretty, water-loving shrubs and grasses in front of their homes, residents got stark, muddy pools that failed to drain. The pools presented drowning risks for kids, breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and slopes that made it hard to find level footing when getting out of a car.

Officials acknowleged the failure earlier this year, saying they had cut corners in soil testing in order to fast-track the Ballard project and get $1.4 million in federal stimulus funds.

The total cost of the total fiasco - $2.1 million. Peanuts in comparison to most government waste, but still -- that's two millionaires worth of waste.

Nobody can waste resources like big government can waste resources.

American Indepedence = Demanding Intrusion by Big Government!

This excerpt is from Frank J. Fleming's The Real Story of America’s Founding. Political satire is the best satire -- It only offends those who ought to be offended.

Back before the Unites States was an independent nation, people lived in horrific conditions under British rule. The British weren’t providing very good free health care (wait time for a poor person to get an MRI was over 200 years), they were refusing to increase taxes on the rich, and they had very few laws dictating what colonists were allowed to eat, causing many to become obese on the high-fructose maize syrup the Indians taught them to make.

So the colonists kept demanding that the British give them big government to regulate their lives and provide for their basic needs while confiscating all their wealth. “We’re stupid,” they’d cry out to the British. “Please rule us and make us do what you think is best!” But the British kept refusing, saying, “No, you guys are doing okay by yourselves. We want you to have the freedom to run your own lives.”

It was this laissez-faire attitude that led to the Boston Massacre, in which five people died of heart attacks in Boston from eating fatty foods a proper government would never have let them eat in the first place. Finally the colonists had enough of not being bossed around and decided if the British weren’t going to provide them the all-encompassing government they wanted, they had to make it themselves.

They started by throwing tea into the Boston Harbor since they determined it had too much caffeine and people shouldn’t have been allowed to drink it. Then they formed militias to collect more taxes from the colonists to spend on welfare and government works projects. The British tried to strike back by ending regulations and giving tax rebates, but the colonists were now ready to fight to make sure some large entity would tell them what to do. And many were rallied to the cause by Patrick Henry’s cry of “Give me a large government telling me what I can and can’t do while spending most of my money, or give me death!”

Some leftists will make the classic Big Government error when they see this post. They'll be confused by social restrictions which are imposed on self, with political restrictions which are imposed on [nearly] everyone by someone else.

For example, if you didn’t like the odd stringency of the Puritans, you could drop that religion. Its much harder to drop all your property, not to mention your religion and friends etc, and move to another country.

Thanks to Bob1 in Seattle.

Government by Bolsheviks

A list o' facts:

1. Unions support Obama. According to Rasmussen Reports, the public employee [bureaucrats] unions are among his strongest supporters. Small wonder since Obama has handed them a million new federal jobs, fattening union coffers with workers dues.

2. A bureaucrat has no choice about union membership. If his job description calls for union membership, the worker must pay dues, even if he does not want to join.

3. There are or recently have been government bureaucrat unions involved in imbroglio in Wisconsin, Tennessee, and less well known in Washington State.

3. Government bureaucrats get their pay from taxpayers. The taxpayers also have no choice in the matter.

4. Government bureaucrat unions represent a small portion of American workers.

Now for a bit of history -

"Bolsheviks were a small minority in Russia during the chaotic period following the fall of the Czar. Yet they managed to plunge a great country into a nightmare that lasted nearly a century by pushing harder than anyone else. Similar people are pushing just as hard here — and thanks to arguably criminal mismanagement of the economy, similar chaos is on the horizon."
- Van Helsing

It’s Happening in America Too

It was the “tweet” heard ‘round the world.

It’s a sign of the times when people online declare war on oppressors of freedom. And as we’ve all learned from watching events in Egypt over the last three weeks, a call to arms in cyberspace is no less effective than in a town square.

The end result is the same - an embattled dictator gave up power after stubborn refusals to leave a position he’s held for three decades.

Some say President Mubarak would still be in charge if not for the power of social networking. Sites like Facebook and Twitter served as critical tools for protesters seeking to topple the long-time ruler.

Mubarak knew this...and in a typically dictatorial move, the now-ousted president ordered the Internet shuttered and mobile phone services switched off.

It’s the kind of move one would expect of an oppressor - hardly the world’s poster child for freedom and democracy.

Could it happen in America?
It’s already happening...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week admonished Mubarak’s government for imposing an Internet blackout, calling it a baseless attempt to limit free speech during a time of social upheaval.

But President Obama is pressing for a similar law that would give him the power to use an Internet “kill switch?” It would allow the president to block access to the web if an Egypt-style revolt or other unrest occurred in the U.S.

This power-grab is only one example of the U.S. government’s latest incursions on our civil liberties.

Democratic power brokers including the Obama White House and Senators Feinstein and Leahy teamed up with Republican leaders in Congress to extend three provisions in the Bush-era PATRIOT Act that give the government sweeping surveillance powers.

Nothing like “bipartisan cooperation” in Washington, eh?
Obama Wants to Read Your Email

Not to be outdone, Obama’s Department of Justice wants a new law, too.

This one would require Internet companies to retain data and records of user activity online. In doing so, the Obama administration is supporting measures advocated by the Bush administration that pose a grave threat to free speech and freedom of the Internet. The sweeping legislation would cover cell phone service, Internet records, and email.

If this legislation is passed, it would jeopardize the privacy of millions of Americans who use the Internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes, “A legal obligation to log users’ Internet use... would dangerously expand the government’s ability to surveil its citizens, damage privacy, and chill freedom of expression.”

Once again, congressional Republicans are more than happy to cooperate in passing such a law - anything to go after those awful terrorists... even if it shreds the U.S. Constitution.
Laptops Galore

Although they can cite no legal basis for their high-handed actions, the Department of Homeland Security claims that its agents have the right to look though the contents of an international traveler's electronic devices, including laptops, cameras and cell phones.

If only the injustice stopped there - agents can also keep the devices or copy the contents in order to continue searching them once the traveler has been allowed to enter the U.S., regardless of whether the traveler is suspected of any wrongdoing.

Documents obtained by the ACLU in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for records related to the DHS policy reveal that more than 6,600 travelers, nearly half of whom are American citizens, were subjected to electronic device searches at the border between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010.

No law authorizes this power nor is there any judicial or congressional body overseeing or regulating what DHS is doing. And the citizens to whom this is done have no recourse - not even to have their property returned to them.


FBI Run Amok

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently reviewed nearly 2,500 pages of documents released by the FBI as a result of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The EFF revealed what I would call alarming trends in the Bureau’s intelligence investigation practices - FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than previously assumed.

The FBI’s flagrant legal violations included submitting false or inaccurate declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain federal grand jury subpoenas and accessing password protected documents without a warrant. In at least one fifth of the cases, specific violations of the U.S. Constitution were cited.


Very Long Distance

Perhaps you recall the major uproar over President George W. Bush’s use of massive telephone and wire tap surveillance after the 9-11 terror.

Well, surprise, dear reader. With little notice, Obama’s Department of Justice now asserts that the FBI can obtain telephone your international call records without any formal legal process or court oversight.

The DoJ’s legal position is flawed and creates a potential loophole that could lead to a repeat of FBI abuses that should’ve stopped with a law that was passed in 2006.

The telephone record controversy is leftover from the Bush administration's war on terror. A hypocritical President Obama is continuing many of those same tactics, which he formerly said he opposed.

One year ago, the Inspector General's Office issued a lengthy report detailing that the FBI, for the years 2003-2005, had used "National Security Letters" (NSLs) to gather information on thousands of Americans in violation of the law. Under the PATRIOT Act, NSLs permit the FBI and other federal agencies to obtain all sorts of invasive information from telecoms, Internet and email providers - even health care providers - without any warrants or oversight of any kind.

And if you think this power is being aimed solely at suspected terrorists, think again. No wonder that some Swiss and other offshore banks refuse to discuss by telephone their accounts with Americans.


Freedom of Speech

The so-called Shield bill, introduced in response to the WikiLeaks disclosures, would amend the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a crime for any person knowingly and willfully to disseminate classified information “concerning the human intelligence activities of the United States.”

This proposed law is constitutional as applied to government employees who unlawfully leak material to people who are unauthorized to receive it. But it violates the First Amendment to punish anyone who circulates the information after it has been leaked. At the very least, the act should be expressly limited to situations in which the spread of the classified information poses a clear and imminent danger to the nation.


A Plague on Both Houses

And by that I mean both political parties and both houses of the U.S. Congress - both of which seem to have lost their understanding of American history and an appreciation for the genius of our constitutional system.

Be assured that the Sovereign Society in this time of great troubles will continue to give you not only a truthful account of the threats we face - but also specific, legal ways and means to protect yourself, your family and your wealth.


By Bob Bauman JD, Legal Counsel, The Sovereign Society

Obama's insincerity, and murder in Arizona

Phil Boehmke originally posted this on The American Thinker

Rush Limbaugh has often said "I thank God for my enemies" and the future former president just could not refrain from proving the King of Talk Radio correct. On Good Friday's edition of the "Early Show" on CBS (an administration approved venue) Mr. Obama took time out of his busy schedule for an exclusive one on one interview with Harry Smith (an administration approved TV personality).

Smith asked the president if he was "aware of the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves and that people have made part of their daily conversation about you." Obama replied, "When you've listened to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck it's pretty apparent." The rancor is "troublesome," he said...

[...]

Walking with Smith on the grounds of the White House, the president said that he is "concerned about a political climate in which the other side is demonized" and that "everybody has a responsibility, Democrats or Republicans, to tone down some of this rhetoric."

[...]

"I do think that there is a tone and tenor that needs to change, where we can disagree without being disagreeable or making wild accusations about the other side."

Much as it pains me, I am forced to agree with Mr. Obama. There really is "a tone and tenor that needs to change." It is extremely "troublesome" to hear statements like "if they bring a knife to the fight-we bring a gun," "I want you to go out and get in their face," "the Cambridge Police acted Stupidly," or "Don't you think we're not keeping score, brother." Isn't it just a tad disagreeable to have a website such as flag@whitehouse.gov used as a "snitch line" to report political dissent? Yes, it is very "troublesome" when the president sounds like a Chicago politician or an SEIU thug (not that there is a difference).

To be fair, Mr. Obama is not entirely to blame for all of the vitriol, the "vast right wing conspiracy" that populates the talk radio airwaves (and Fox News) has played a major role as well. Instead of sticking to the MSM script and the party line, those annoying right wingers keep digging up embarrassing facts and (worse yet) sound bites which make the future former president and his comrades look like...what they really are.

Regarding Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, their genuine love for America and tireless work to expose the enemies of freedom will not go unpunished. In singling them out Mr. Obama has forced them to deal with the consequences of his vociferous disapproval, which based upon past experience means that they will be saddled with even higher ratings!

Phil Boehmke
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We need to be reminded to what depth this Administration and the "Democratic" Party is willing to sink.

The Left has already started rolling in the fresh blood in Arizona, turning the loss of innocent life into political gain.

They have cowed the Republican controlled House into dropping health care repeal for now.

The Left-most elements of the party are demanding suspension of the right of free speech and registration of all firearms.

As long as the hypnotized droids of the Party controlled press worship at the altar of Big Government, we're going to get more of this.

Still, we must repeal government controlled health care. We must defend the right to free speech and firearms ownership. Its going to be a long haul.

Gun Control

Since taking office two years ago, Obama has bypassed Congress and has taken government control of almost every aspect of our lives. Mr Obama is the victimizer. We are the victims.

Now to Eradicate the Second Amendment.

Citing the invasion of violence on the border, the ATF issued an "emergency order" requiring any store that sells more than two self-loading firearms within a five-day period to report the names, addresses and serial numbers of those transactions if the firearms are greater than .22-caliber, semi-automatic, with the ability to accept a detachable magazine.

If it's so important, why didn't Obama allow Congress to vote on it?

Congress wouldn't touch it. If it's all in the name of border security, as Mr Obama insists, why does it apply to every state and not just border states?

This regulation is expected to take effect Wednesday, January 5th.

Mr Obama is attempting to regulate a fundamental, individual right guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. But there is no surprise. He's done nothing but "regulate" us to death since he's been in office.

"To death" ... unfortunately, an accurate choice of words.

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Email your Congress people and tell them what to do about this latest invasion from Mr Obama.

Keep your powder dry.

Inflexibility Is Built In

The outmoded thinking of the "Democrats" is to regulate what works until it doesn't work anymore.

Chevron announced the discovery of a giant oil reserve in the Gulf of Mexico in September 2006. The Jack Field is estimated to hold as much as 15 billion barrels of oil. That would increase American proven reserves 50%.

The Obama administration banned further drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. No political move would be more effective to squelch the nascent economic recovery in the US. In response, oil started to nudge upward. Some experts predict $110 per barrel by next summer. That suggests gasoline at about $4.25 per gallon.

~~~~~~~~

Food "Safety" bill passed the Senate and then derailed for illegally creating new taxes. Which is fine. The Food Safety bill would dramatically expand the power of the Food and Drug Administration in a massive regulatory overreach.

Seriously, why regulate what is not a problem? Why create a problem out of thin air? The evidence is clear the "Democratic" Party was playing a word game to steal our civil rights.

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The Federal Communications Commission, under "Democratic" Party control, has deemed the internet their plaything. There is no federal statute to back up the claim. Nonetheless, the FCC illegally "enacted" a series of regulations to restrict innovation and development of new technologies in the internet. Specifically targeted is the service technique called "prioritizing" (The FCC uses this term).

There is spreading realization that the new internet regulations will be used to enforce a "Fairness Doctrine" style censorship on internet content. The Fairness Doctrine was used to promote endless repetition of the Leftist views in broadcast media until it was revoked in the 1980s.

The net result is innovation and new thinking are dead on the internet. The dead are so much easier to control the Democrats could not resist. Free speech on the internet is at risk. FaultlineUSA also discusses this.

The Democratic Party is clearly looking for push back. To sign an internet petition go to Grassfire's online petition.

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The "Democratic" Party is the lawyer party. Very few Democrats who get elected have real world experience. Most of them are either lawyers or über-rich. Their fantasies run rampant. The rules they concoct have little to do with reality, but we really get to live under those rules.

America is on her away to becoming an irrelevancy in the modern world. All because the Obama Administration Democrats could not restrain themselves. They decided to live out pipe dreams of "making a difference." They threw out the lessons of history because the past showed there was no future in their fantasy. Force is substituted for understanding and we lose.

Emergency Firearms Registration

Ho Ho Ho Here they come to backdoor register your guns! Do you still think Mr Obama will not try to seize your firearms?
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The ATF has proposed to require gun dealers to provide directly to the ATF the names, addresses, and serial numbers for every purchase of two or more semi auto, mag fed rifles within a five day period!! They are trying to force this in by January 5th, without any approval from Congress, calling it a needed "emergency" regulation. This is backdoor registration of guns and gun owners.

Here is a quote from the notice by the National Shooting Sports Foundation ( NSSF ) regarding this burdensome and illegal move:

"The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is moving to require federally licensed firearms retailers to report multiple sales of modern sporting rifles beginning January 5, 2011. Specifically, the ATF requirement calls for firearms retailers to report multiple sales, or other dispositions, of two or more .22 caliber or larger semi-automatic rifles that are capable of accepting a detachable magazine and are purchased by the same individual within five consecutive business days."

We are encouraging everyone to contact the relevant officials to protest this move. The office that approves regulation changes like this that bypass Congress is the Office of Information and Regulation affairs of the DOJ and they can be reached at 202-395-6466. You can call your Senator and Representative at the US Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. Or see the links page on the left side of this page

The NSSF offers the following points to make when calling"Multiple sales reporting of long guns will actually make it more difficult for licensed retailers to help law enforcement as traffickers modify their illegal schemes to circumvent the reporting requirement. Traffickers will go further underground, hiring more people to buy their firearms. This will make it much harder for retailers to identify and report suspicious behavior to law enforcement."

1. "Long guns are rarely used in crime (Bureau of Justice Statistics)."
2. "Imposing multiple sales-reporting requirements for long guns would further add to the already extensive paperwork and record-keeping requirements burdening America’s retailers – where a single mistake could cost them their license and even land them in jail."
3. "Last year, ATF inspected 2,000 retailers in border states and only two licenses were revoked (0.1%). These revocations were for reasons unknown and could have had nothing to do with illicit trafficking of guns; furthermore, no dealers were charged with any criminal wrongdoing."
4. "According to ATF, the average age of a firearm recovered in the United States is 11 years old. In Mexico it’s more than 14 years old. This demonstrates that criminals are not using new guns bought from retailers in the states."
5. "Congress, when it enacted multiple sales reporting for handguns, could have required multiple sales of long guns – it specifically chose not to."

Read the full notice by the NSSF here.

Read the full ATF document proposing this illegal move here (PDF)

report by J&G Sales

TSA Searches the Attractive

Prior to Thanksgiving, a Transportation Safety Administration agent selected Donna D'Errico for the enhanced security search. For some reason, he thought she needed a full body scan.

"Because you caught my eye, and they didn't," Ms D'Errico said the TSA agent told her. (What a confession!)

Donna D'Errico was one of the beauties of Baywatch and was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for September 1995.

Its easy to snicker at this item. But its clear the TSA invader did the search with a personal puerile interest.

The TSA has become a primary terrorism sponsor in the US. No one can be allowed to get away with this. How about a twenty year prison sentence for this kind of violation of the public trust?

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With thanks to David Moye for a correction.

IRS Micromanagement

Never mind that this will cost more to do than it will collect! Report your income! More Paperwork! More! More!

The recently enacted Small Business Jobs Act contained one provision that may have escaped the notice of taxpayers who own rental property, but will affect them starting in January. Under the provision, owners of property who receive rental income will be required to issue Forms 1099 to service providers for payments of $600 or more during the year.

The act subjects recipients of rental income from real estate to the same information-reporting requirements as taxpayers engaged in a trade or business. Thus, rental income recipients making payments of $600 or more to a service provider in the course of earning rental income are required to provide an information return (typically, Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income) to the IRS and to the service provider. This provision will apply to payments made after Dec. 31, 2010, and will cover, for example, payments made to plumbers, painters or accountants in the course of earning the rental income.

While rental property owners will not actually issue the required 1099s until early 2012, they need to start keeping adequate records of payments starting Jan. 1, 2011, so they will be prepared to issue correct 1099s. They will also need to obtain the name, address and taxpayer identification number of the service provider, using Form W-9 or a similar form.

Temporary Exceptions

The law provides exceptions for individuals who can show that the requirement will create a hardship for them. The IRS is directed to issue regulations on this, but has not done so yet, so there is currently no guidance on what constitutes sufficient hardship to qualify for the exception or how a taxpayer would demonstrate that hardship.

The law also contains an exception for individuals who receive rental income of “not more than a minimal amount.” Again, the IRS is directed to issue regulations to determine what constitutes “not more than a minimal amount” but has not done so yet.

If such guidance is not forthcoming before Jan.1, all individuals who receive rental income should start keeping records of payments to service providers so they are prepared to issue 1099s in 2012.

The law also contains an exception for members of the military or employees of the intelligence community if substantially all their rental income comes from renting their principal residence on a temporary basis.

Information Return Penalties

Taxpayers should also be aware that in addition to creating a new reporting requirement, the act increases the penalties for failure to file a correct information return. The first-tier penalty increases from $15 to $30; the second tier penalty increases from $30 to $60; and the third-tier penalty increases from $50 to $100. For small business filers (with average annual gross receipts under $5 million), the calendar-year maximum increases from $25,000 to $75,000 for the first-tier penalty; from $50,000 to $200,000 for the second-tier penalty; and from $100,000 to $500,000 for the third-tier penalty. The minimum penalty for each failure due to intentional disregard increases from $100 to $250.

The increased penalties apply to information returns required to be filed on or after Jan. 1, 2011.

Expanded 1099 Reporting After 2011

Currently, payments to corporations are excepted from the 1099 information reporting requirements, but starting for payments after Dec. 31, 2011, businesses (including, now, individuals who receive rental income) will be required to file an information return for all payments aggregating $600 or more in a calendar year to a single payee, including corporations (other than a payee that is a tax-exempt corporation). This change was made by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was enacted in March. That act also expanded the information reporting requirements to include gross proceeds paid in consideration for property.

http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Web/20103537.htm

This boring article about insane government micromanagement is brought to you by the intrusive "Democratic" Party and their lunatic desire to run your life.

The Election Is Over - What matters Now?

by Billy Atwell, November 08, 2010

The anxiety of the election is over. But an even more desperate anxiety is also weaning—the threat of aggressive liberalism.

How sad it is that it took nearly insurmountable debt, environmental and heathcare policies that would bankrupt us, the threat of taxation that stalemated businesses from replenishing inventory and hiring, and mounting government control that would break the back of American freedom for Americans to realize that we needed to fire some of our elected officials.

People now realize that the issues of the election matter; issues in politics matter and have consequence.

This past election was an opportunity because we realized that it takes an active and interested populace to keep government on track. If the people are not involved, then the government will fill the void of our inactivity.

We saw the consequence of socialist-style economics when we compiled trillions of dollars in debt by bailing out failing business models on Wall Street and hated what happened next. The American Church needs to move quickly and make the case that while the economic issues of this past election matter, there are foundational issues that are much more important. This opportunity should not be overlooked.

“Social issues” are the country’s foundation and always have been. Some of these issues are the sanctity of human life, the dignity of traditional marriage, religious liberty, the Principle of Subsidiarity, prudence, and many others.

When mothers are not accountable for the life of their unborn child, for instance, we should not be surprised when corporate executives do not feel accountable to their investors. After all, shouldn’t we value human life more than money? Our country’s priorities are so twisted that retirement accounts are valued above aborted babies on election campaign platforms.

When life, marriage, religious liberty, prudence, and other Christian virtues are rejected by the political elite, expect the rest of society to crumble under Relativism and Consequentialism.

Life matters, marriage and the family matters, and religious liberty matters too. These types of issues need to be reinforced in the public square, and only the Church has the capacity to do it.

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Billy Atwell blogs at For the Greater Glory

"See me, feel me"

This is disgusting.

TSA airport screening procedures, as ordered by The National Embarrasser, B. Hussein Obama, will go on. "Pre-enhanced pat down" is a provocation to see how much vile, repellent infringement of liberty we will take.

Men, women and children who look especially tasty to perverted TSA officials will be groped with great fondling. Despite the fact the intimacy of the searches are felony violations, they will go on, and on....

Even the Left's redoubtable ACLU, who usually squeals in delight over invasive government, is taking exception to the TSA search pattern.

A reasonable search gives reasonable assurance of safety. Unreasonable searches, like TSA's current model, only give unreasonable invasion of privacy.

There is no justification for this kind of search. The riff that "we have to stop terrorism" has only given us new terrorists -- wearing government uniforms. Terrorism has found a new home in the administration.

We face the prospect of being searched at the airport. Those searches should be targeted against likely offenders. The TSA's sense of fairness is so warped it requires they behave stupidly, arrogantly, invasively, frisking terrified 3 year olds.

The death of liberty always is sold to the public this way. Its for our own good.

Now a Word From George Soros

George Soros ~

I get occasional emails from MoveOn.Org, owned and controlled by George Soros. MoveOn.Org is the main proponent of hyperactive, intrusive government of the "Democratic" Party. From time to time, its important to see what the boneheads are doing.

From a recent MoveOn.Org email:

"The economy is in shambles. People everywhere are struggling to make ends meet. So naturally, Republicans are worried about the richest Americans."

But this is ObamaLand! This is the Workers Paradise! This is the fruit of MoveOn's visions!

MoveOn.org must be hung for even thinking "The economy is in shambles."

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Hilarious! MoveOn.Org cites one of their own victims as saying "We need an economic policy that works for the other 98% of us, not just the top 2%"

That top two percent is the Leftist politicians in the "Democratic" Party. They've been living off the best of the land with their hyper-taxation, deficit spending and criminal government.

The European Market Speaks - Obamanomics Stinks.

The dollar was unable to gain any traction in Europe on Thursday and remained under pressure through much of the day. Underlying sentiment remained extremely negative following the Federal Reserve decision to boost quantitative easing the previous day.

The dollar continued to suffer from a lack of yield support and there were heightened fears over a persistently weaker currency in the medium term as a side-effect of the aggressive Fed action to support the economy.

The US economic data did little to improve sentiment as jobless claims rose to 457,000 in the latest week from 437,000 previously, although the underlying measures were more resilient. The latest payroll data will be watched closely on Friday, although the impact may be less than seen in recent months given that the Fed has already made the quantitative move. A stronger than expected figure could trigger a covering of short positions and there may be some scope for investment inflows which would provide support, but it will be difficult to secure a more durable rebound in dollar confidence.

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We spoke - We'd rather be free

Its a relief the "Democratic Party" lost so much authority in the recent election. They precipitated all this economic damage in their attempt to bring their sour hope and vile change to the country. Fortunately, it looks like their hate-fest has ended.