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Gibson: ‘Ron Paul is a friend of mine’

ŠįlěƝţ ŁøvȜř Wednesday, August 17, 2011
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Gibson: 'Ron Paul is a friend of mine'
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 3:27 pm by Jimmy Vielkind, Capitol bureau in Chris Gibson, General, NY-20

Rep. Chris Gibson had some kind words for Rep. Ron Paul, his fellow Republican (from Texas) and an oft-ignored presidential candidate.

Gibson, R-Kinderhook, brought up Paul as he outlined a plan to cut back on military commitments overseas and restructure our national security infrastructure to save money. He met this morning with the Times Union Editorial Board.

Here's what he said:
"As I look right now, at all the presidential candidates, I don't feel we have anyone who articulates what needs to be said on these matters ­ bureaucratic reform of the national security establishment. You get a glimmer of it here and there. I'll tell ya: Ron Paul is a friend of mine. We sit together often. I find him very friendly and funny. I agree with him on some things he says. I think we should audit the Fed, you know, I think he's got something to say as far as that $1.6 trillion that we owe to the Fed, we owe to ourselves, not obligated to anything. I think he's got some good ideas, so I enjoy my relationship with him."
"On this whole debt ceiling thing, he's the only one I thought was virtuous ­ even though I was utterly in disagreement with him ­ he was virtuous because he said that we default, and we should go into bankruptcy and come out of it stronger. I didn't go to Washington to do that, let me be clear. If that's it, I'm not the guy to do that. If you've got a plane and two engines are down, have a soft landing, fix the plane and get back up again. I didn't come to crash the plane. But I will give you this: Ron Paul's at least virtuous in that he'll explain his vote. Where does that go? I communicate to my constituents."
"Ron Paul at least makes an argument. I disagree with it. But Michele Bachmann ­ has she explained her no vote? But I want to bring that up because Ron Paul is a guy who has enunciations as far as a more modest foreign policy. There are some things that he says that I think fit within what I'm talking about, but I haven't seen a full blossoming of that in terms of how it would relate to the full reform, and then how we, as a country, then move forward."
"I haven't seen anybody else tackling that. Have I missed it?"

http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/78234/gibson-ron-paul-is-a-friend-of-mine/

FULLY AUTOMATIC AA-12 ASSAULT SHOTGUN not being used by US Military

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There is an email making the rounds entitled "AA-12 RUSSIAN SHOTGUN" claiming that this extraordinary, recoil-less weapon is Russian. It's not. It is an American product. if you have not seen the video, you should.  Nena

 



Lead Pursuit is a restricted mailing list.



THE FULLY AUTOMATIC AA-12 ASSAULT SHOTGUN 

 

 

TTAG has reported on the U.S. military's ongoing inability to provide its troops with winning weapons in The War on Terror. Needless to say, our research into this sad not to say unconscionable state of affairs brought us to Outdoor Life's Zombie Gun Contest. Seriously. A commentator in that thread reminded us of the AA-12 automatic shotgun. The last we heard, the U.S. Marines were testing the world's most lethal firearm. It's been twelve years since Maxwell Atchisson created the Atchisson Assault Shotgun. So we called the gun's manufacturer, Military Police Services, Inc., down in Piney Flats, Tennessee. The man behind the machine is not a happy camper. "I'm not saying the gun would end the war in Afghanistan," Jerry Baber told TTAG. "But it's a game changer. And it's production ready." So . . . "There's no U.S. interest in the gun at all. No sales. I've got people interested from abroad, but the U.S. military is blind to the AA-12′s obvious advantages. They're brain dead."

 

 

 


 


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Reason-able?

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Reason-able?
Posted by Karen Kwiatkowski on August 17, 2011 10:00 AM

There have been so many little things at Reason that make me wonder, since the days where some of their writers advocated war and nation-building in Iraq. But this takes the cake. I don't subscribe to the magazine, so I can't cancel the subscription, but here's my letter to the editor:

"Katherine Mangu-Ward's repeated assurances on Fox News that "Ron Paul not going to win" are strange and emotional. Her suggestion that she somehow is part of the inner circle and Ron Paul's own head, and can confidently say "...and Ron Paul knows he's not going to win," and is planning accordingly are even more outlandish, and fall into the realm of fantasy.

I have been following the campaigns of all the candidates. I haven't seen any of the candidates talk about what they are going to do beyond this: 1) Obama is going to do what he has been doing (which in no way was what he said he would do during his first presidential campaign); and 2) the other Republican candidates (except Paul) are all saying they will NOT do whatever it is that Obama's been doing, but since what he's been doing is exactly what the GOP supported under George W. Bush, it is not clear that they are being truthful in their vague campaign promises.

I'm just trying to reason this out

-- Paul actually does things like vote "No" on spending increases, war, debt ceiling hikes, etc. He actually votes "Yes" on liberty and autonomy of people and of states, relative the federal government. He openly says what he believes, he votes consistently in Congress relative to what he says. That sounds a plan for being President to me. Being a reasonable person, watching all of the candidates posture, I would expect President Paul to veto unnecessary spending, to end the wars and bring troops home, to honor the Constitution in all of his actions, to reduce overseas spending and aid, and enhance the practical security of the people from the state, though the bully pulpit and through policy, those unalienable rights described in the first ten amendments. That is indeed a solid plan for being President. Perhaps the Reason senior editor was talking about the menus for the dinners he would host, or the color of the drapes he would choose for the Presidential bedroom.

I suspect that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, among others, would also be accused by Reason Magazine for "not having a plan to be President." But my real problem is that Reason seems to have gone fuzzy-headed, or perhaps is planning to change its name to "Candyland: The Thinktank That Requires no Reading or Counting Skills."

Ron Paul Wins National Press Club "Poll"

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Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Ron Paul Wins National Press Club "Poll"
Posted by Robert Wenzel at 11:25 PM

They may not talk about him on national television, but the National Press Club sure must know who the people want to hear. This is better than a straw poll.

In the core of Wahington D.C., Ron Paul has every luncheon speaker scheduled by the National Press Club beat. Even speakers like Gary Johnson (who speaks this Friday) and Rudy Giuliani (who speaks in September) are not sold out. The only NPC luncheon sell out is for Ron Paul's speech that doesn't take place until October!

Upcoming Events

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/08/ron-paul-wins-national-press-club-poll.html

Streams of Confusion from Stephen Rattner

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Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Streams of Confusion from Stephen Rattner
Posted by Robert Wenzel at 6:53 AM

Democratic operative Stephen Rattner is out with a very confused Op-Ed charging that Republican presidential candidates are far, far too extreme. If that were only true.

He writes:
Take the agreement to avert a disastrous default by cutting at least $2.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul all opposed it. Only Jon M. Huntsman Jr. (whose poll numbers ­ perhaps not coincidentally ­ are in the single digits) supported it.

Rattner, of course, does not mention that the $2.1 trillion cut in spending is not a real cut, but a cut only in "baseline" budget increases that will lead, conservatively, to a $7 trillion increase in the deficit over the next 10 years.

This is how he, like most in Washington, would like to frame the debate. It is dishonest talk about what the deficit really is. Indeed, Romney is not likely to demand much more than this supposed $2.1 trillion "cut".

Rattner then tells us:
Not to be outdone, Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Paul ventured still further, insisting that they would never vote to raise the debt ceiling. That may sound good on the Iowa campaign trail, but it would easily tip the economy into an unending downward spiral.

Bachmann seems to be just mimicking Ron Paul's views, with a warmonger twist, but what is wrong with not raising the debt ceiling? If revenues decline for individuals or businesses, cutting back is exactly what is done. Increasing the debt ceiling leads to either crowding out of private sector borrowing or Fed buying of the debt, which is ultimately price inflationary. These, apparently, are the two options that Rattner prefers rather than not raising the debt ceiling.

For him, crowding out of private sector borrowing or Fed money printing are never considered as part of the increase in the debt ceiling equation. To him a debt ceiling increase is magic money, without consequences, or ignored consequences.

Rattner then goes on to specifically attack Ron Paul:
Mr. Paul, who finished second in the Iowa straw poll on Saturday, has for decades sought to abolish the Federal Reserve, arguing that it is corrupt and unconstitutional. Eliminating our central bank is a crazy idea that would plunge the country back into an oscillating 19th-century world of panics and busts.

Is Rattner serious? Does he not realize that oscillating panics and busts are what we have under the Federal Reserve? Did he forget that he was named by President Obama the "auto czar" to "rescue" the auto industry during the most recent economic bust? How can guys like Rattner, in the face of the current economic turmoil, suggest that the boom-bust cycle is a thing of the pre-Fed era?

In fact, government involvement in money printing has been at the core of the pre-Fed and current Fed boom-bust cycles. It's only when the view that money printing, and the distorting effects it has on an economy are understood, that the boom-bust cycles caused by money printing will end.

Rattner's support of an economic structure based on increasing debt, on manipulative money printing that only devalues the dollar, and creates boom-bust cycles, sounds extreme to me.

The one point where Rattner does make some sense is in his views about the current Republican candidates and how they would rule if they were elected President, but there is new confusion by Rattner's not explicitly removing Ron Paul from the comment:
Perhaps these Republican aspirants are simply pandering to antigovernment sentiment and, if elected, would govern more sensibly. Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned on eliminating "unnecessary functions of government" and then vastly expanded federal spending to fight the Depression. Bill Clinton did the reverse, pledging tax cuts in response to the 1990-1 recession but governing as a fiscal moderate.

This is likely true of all the candidates except for Ron Paul. It is dishonest for Rattner to lump Dr. Paul in with the other candidates who will change their views to win just one more vote. Ron Paul has held consistent views for decades. If he is elected, his Presidency would very much reflect those views.

A Ron Paul Administration would be very different from any other Republican Administration. It would, indeed, be an administration that would move toward cutting government spending dramatically, ending the Fed and all the other government programs and agencies that stifle economic growth and liberty.

For Rattner, to lump Ron Paul in with these other candidates is nonsense, only to be exceeded by the nonsense he rattles about in favor of an ever growing government that will somehow be financed by ever more borrowing, until the globe is totally saturated by Treasury debt. And then what?

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/08/rattner-republican-presidential.html

a good take on socialism

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMqNL7sIhGs&feature=related

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Some thoughts.

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The talking heads on all sides are now telling us what we want to hear
in the upcoming elections and pointing out and denigrating those that
do not comply with their appointed political guidelines. (Perry
comment on the traitorous actions of Bernanke)

What a crock !

What I want to hear is a candidate that has principals that has at
least a modicum of honesty and will help return the US to a smaller,
constitutionally compliant smaller Government; One that recognizes the
true Sovereignty of the several states.

Let's start with the Federal watering down of the States and what made
them so special.
Each was founded by different segments of society with different
manners, morals and ideals. They gathered in clumps like that and
immigrated to specific areas of the nation in order to live freely in
a like minded community with its own laws geared to those ideals. The
idea of the Federal government and those that find one state was/is
somehow different, better or worse than another was and is to kill
those differences.

Now that is really tough, Rhode Island is all about business and Iowa
is all about corn; not only are there differences but for each to do
what it does best there must be differences in all aspects of life and
accepted practices. The Feds and those elected seem to think that this
is just not so.

The founders knew it had to be so.

To point this out and name the names that think otherwise is no longer
considered good politics. It is considered to be anti-American as if
there is a single definition as to what an American is….there is not.
In all the history of the USA the ONLY time that the states seem to
agree on everything is when a single threat from outside affects them
all. This was true until the US decided to enter into foreign wars on
a regular basis. Now that which once made the USA strong and a beacon
to the world is considered unpatriotic and un-American.

What we will soon have is "one law, one nation, one force" that will
preclude any state Sovereignty. What we will have is a lack of
competition between the states for commerce and ideas; what we will
have is just another homogeneous country that loses its edge as it
slips into a socialistic quagmire.

What we are doing is losing that very identity that made the USA the
great and desired example it once was.

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Federal Gas Tax Expires On September 30th

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NMA Blog: Federal Gas Tax Expires On September 30th

Federal Gas Tax Expires On September 30th

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 09:32 AM PDT


By James Baxter, NMA President

It won't be long and the grandstanding will start up in earnest. Nothing focuses the political mind like the potential loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue.

Come the end of September, and with it the expiration of the 18.4 cent fuel tax, we will be thoroughly warned that the end is nigh if the federal gas tax goes the way of the dodo bird.

The "Chamber" types will decry the collapsing infrastructure. The "greens" will demand the replacement of highways with bicycle trails. Municipalities will plead for more millions in subsidies to support their transit systems (that average one passenger per vehicle mile travelled), and we'll get a good dose of "bridge to nowhere" stories.

The one tenuous thread of agreement is that none of the principal political entities will suggest that the gas tax be increased. The Republican and the Democrat Members of Congress, and the President will all join hands to give a fat thumbs down to raising the gas tax.

Maybe we should just put these political actors out of their misery and let the tax expire. Armageddon? I don't think so. Some angst, a bit of disruption, a lot of hand wringing about the economy, probably. But let's look at the bright side.

First, all 50 states could add 18.4 cents to their fuel taxes and there would be zero change in the tax paid by motorists. Better yet the states could keep 100 percent of the tax and not cycle it through Washington, D.C. where it is currently feeds a significant bureaucracy and is laden with a raft of regulations before it is returned to the states, in a diminished capacity.

Further, if the California Legislature wishes to outlaw circumcision while in a moving vehicle it can do so without dragging the other 49 states down the same path via a Lautenberg sponsored federal mandate.

Other than a little disruption and an upward blip in the unemployment rate in Virginia and Maryland where's the downside?

The US DOT Secretary won't be able to hold "listening sessions" where he harangues about cell phone usage and promotes "livable communities?" The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration won't have money to support large scale speed traps, seat belt roadblocks, or surveillance cameras on every street light? And, federal highway funds won't be available to fund ticket camera programs? I'm willing to suffer these consequences.

How about you?

Are You A NMA Member? If not, read about the benefits and then join!



Federal Gas Tax Expires On September 30th

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Statist Fear over Ron Paul

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Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Statist Fear over Ron Paul
by Jacob G. Hornberger

What's amazing is that the mainstream media doesn't even appear embarrassed at the way they've been treating Ron Paul. I suppose they think that since they've treated libertarians with such disdain for so long, no one will notice that they're doing it some more to Ron Paul.

Not this time, MSM! As you no doubt know, people are noticing, especially on the Internet!

The best critique of the MSM's treatment of Paul came from social critic and comedian Jon Stewart, who absolutely skewered the MSM on his television show. What better way to expose these people than by ridicule? Stewart's critique has gone viral on the Internet. If you haven't seen it, here's the link. You will absolutely die laughing.

As I have repeatedly pointed out for the past several months, the MSM is in a quandary with respect to Ron Paul, especially if he continues to do well. They've got two choices, which I am confident are being debated in editorial rooms and among reporters in mainstream newspapers and television networks all across America.

One choice is to go on the attack against libertarianism. But the reporters and editorial writers know that that strategy bears a big risk -- that it will cause people to explore libertarianism and think to themselves, "Wow! I'm a libertarian too. I'm joining the libertarian cause."

The other option is to simply ignore Paul and his campaign, but that too bears a risk -- that it will make the editorial writers and reporters look like idiots.

Why not simply treat Paul like any other candidate?

Because most MSM reporters and television commentators are statists, meaning that they love socialism, interventionism, and imperialism.

As statists, they love the welfare-state programs, the regulatory programs, and the warfare-state programs.

They adore the federal government and look upon it as their savior, their provider, and their protector.

They cannot imagine life without the welfare state and they're convinced that without the warfare state, America would be conquered by the terrorists, Muslims, illegal aliens, drug dealers, communists, and other boogeymen.

They love the drug war and firmly believe that the federal government should incarcerate people who ingest drugs without permission.

They love the invasions, occupations, bombings, torture, drone attacks, war on terrorism, Patriot Act, airport fondling, kidnappings, torture, and assassinations.

Thus, not surprisingly, the statists within the MSM feel perfectly comfortable with statist mainstream political candidates, whom they always treat with great admiration and respect. After all, since they're statists, such candidates do not challenge at a fundamental level the welfare-warfare state paradigm. They'll call for reforming the welfare-warfare system, but that's okay with the mainstream media because they're not challenging the principles of the system.

Not so with libertarians, however. Libertarians challenge the statist paradigm. We want to dismantle the paradigm. We want to end, not reform, the socialism, interventionism, and imperialism, and the statists know it. We want to restore economic liberty, free markets, free trade, and a constitutionally limited republic to our land.

That's why Paul, as he himself emphasizes, is the only presidential candidate who talks about the importance of individual liberty.

Statists, both in the media and in politics, know that libertarianism is an alternative paradigm to statism. That is, it doesn't purport to reform statism. It is a replacement for it.

That's what the statists are terrified about. That's why they're doing contortions to avoid giving any undue publicity to Paul's campaign. They know that more and more people every week are gravitating toward libertarianism. They know that if the libertarian movement arrives at a critical mass of people, the entire country could quickly shift from socialism, interventionism, and empire to liberty, free markets, and a constitutional republic.

Take a look at this recent article in Science Daily. It's not about libertarianism but it will give you an idea as to why statists are terrified of Ron Paul and the entire libertarian movement. The articles states, "Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society."

Can you see why the statists are so frightened? Can you see why they're increasingly going on the attack against libertarianism? Or can you see why they're doing their best to avoid talking about libertarianism.

They're in a real quandary, these statists. When they attack us, people are drawn to the attack. When they ignore us, they look like idiots.

What to do? After all, at the risk of frightening the statists a bit more, we libertarians just might be a lot closer to that critical mass than anyone thinks. And just to put a bit more fear into the statists, let's not forget how suddenly and quickly the statist Berlin Wall came crashing down.


http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-08-17.asp

Al Gore's Climatological "Meltdown"

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Al Gore's Climatological "Meltdown"
Written by James Heiser   
Friday, 12 August 2011 11:46

In recent years, former Vice President Al Gore has been the object of a great deal of humor -- and ire -- for his extremist views and hypocritical actions when it comes to the environment. But a bizarre rant from the man who was once heartbeats away from becoming President of these United States calls forth a term which Americans want nowhere near the Oval Office: unhinged.

The ideology of manmade global warming has fallen on hard times in recent years due to a series of revelations that have fundamentally undermined the credibility of the "science" and its advocates. Beginning with " Climategate" and "Glaciergate" and continuing through such public spectacles as the implosion of the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, polling data has repeatedly demonstrated that the claims of climate change scientists have fallen on hard times with the public.

The shrinking credibility of the notion of manmade climate change has been met with a measure of relief among critics who have long understood how shaky the "science" was all along. But for the theory's brashest boosters, the effect has been a rapid degeneration in the rhetoric.

Consider the case of Al Gore's recent remarks to the Aspen Institute. The purported two-fold goal of the Aspen institute is "to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues." If that is the case, Gore singlehandedly set back those goals with a profanity-ladened tirade ­ as The Hill reports:

The model they innovated in that effort was transported whole cloth into the climate debate. And some of the exact same people -- by name, I can go down a list of their names -- are involved in this. And so what do they do? They pay pseudo-scientists, to pretend to be scientists, to put out the message: "This climate thing, it's nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn't trap heat. It may be volcanoes." Bulls--t! "It may be sun spots." Bulls--t! "It's not getting warmer." Bulls--t!

And there are about 10 other memes that are out there, and when you go and talk to any audience about climate, you hear them washing back at you. The same crap, over and over and over again ... There is no longer a shared reality on an issue like climate even though the very existence of our civilization is threatened. People have no idea! And yet our ability to actually come to a shared reality that emphasizes the best evidence ... It's no longer acceptable in mixed company, meaning bipartisan company, to use the goddamn word "climate."

One may well ask whether this is what the Aspen Institute has in mind as "values-based leadership" and a "neutral and balanced venue…" A man who has spent a lifetime in politics should have learned more about how one should conduct one's self in public. Profanity-laden tirades ­while one wallows in character defamation of the growing number of scientists who are willing to risk their careers to disagree with the theories that have become the ideological core of the environmental movement ­ ought to be beneath Gore, but apparently it is not. In truth, if it were not for the high office which was once entrusted to him, it would be easier to simply feel pity for Al Gore.

His invocation of the concept of memes -- one popularized by another man given to ideological rants, Richard Dawkins -- is that ideas have a life all their own, and that human minds are little more than conveyors for such memes. Any talk about "memes" is not about truth, but control. So, if what motivates the entire climate debate is only about memes, then the climatological ideology for which Gore is prepared to tear down modern civilization is nothing more than one more parasitical meme, lacking any more objective reality than any other meme.

But the battle over the theory of manmade climate debate is about facts ­ scientific facts, economic facts, and the fact that human reasoning may often be confused by ideological considerations. Gore's ideology is not being defeated by memes, but by facts.

http://thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/8575-al-gores-climatological-qmeltdownq

Massachusetts Health Insurance Costs Outpace Inflation

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Massachusetts Health Insurance Costs Outpace Inflation
"Five years after Gov. Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts' groundbreaking health care legislation, it has met its chief goal of extending insurance coverage to most residents – but with costs rising faster than inflation, lawmakers face the challenge of how to pay for it all." ( Washington Times)

Obamacare preview.

The Therapeutic State
The Myth of Health Insurance
"Health Insurance" Is Really a Statist System of Cost-Shifting
Thomas Szasz
May 2003 • Volume: 53 • Issue: 5 •

Forty million Americans are said to have no health insurance. Those who do have health insurance are frustrated by having to pay ever-increasing premiums for steadily diminishing medical services. Conventional wisdom tells us that we are facing a "health insurance crisis."

It is important to recognize that what we call "health insurance" has little to do with health and nothing to do with insurance. We do not face a "health insurance crisis." We face the consequences of a set of economic and social problems rooted in a futile effort to make the distribution of health care­unlike the distribution of virtually every other good and service in our society­egalitarian.

The typical contractor of homeowner's insurance is the homeowner. He buys insurance to protect himself from costly loss caused by events outside his control, such as fire, not to defray the recurring expense of maintaining it. The ideal outcome for both the buyer and the seller of home and automobile insurance is for the policyholder to never make use of his policy.

The typical contractor of health insurance is not the insured person but his employer. Neither party is free to negotiate the terms of the policy. The employee cannot bargain for a lower premium in exchange for a high deductible or for choosing to be not covered for alcoholism or schizophrenia. The employer is not free to decline coverage for state-mandated medical services. In New York State, for example, the Women's Wellness Act mandates group health-insurance plans to cover contraceptives including abortifacients, and the Infertility Coverage Act mandates that they cover infertility treatments, including selective fetal reduction (abortion of multiple fetuses conceived by artificial means).

The economic survival of an insurance company depends in large part on collecting more in premiums than it pays out in claims. To bring about that outcome the insurer employs certain methods, some complicated, some very simple. Although embarrassingly obvious, some of these simple measures need to be mentioned because they are absent from what we mislabel "health insurance." For example, a person cannot buy a policy to protect himself from a loss caused by his own actions, such as burning down his own home. But so-called health insurance protects the individual from the medical consequences of his own actions, for example, injuring himself by smashing his car while drunk. Not surprisingly, all the participants in the complex scheme we call "health insurance" are unhappy with the result.

In the case of genuine insurance, there is a direct relationship between the dollar value of the protection purchased and its cost to the insured. The premium for a life-insurance policy with a face value of $100,000 is less than for a policy for a multiple of that amount. In health insurance no such relationship exists between premium paid and compensation received. Moreover, the health-insurance company, acting on its own behalf, can write a contract with a "cap" on claims, that is, for the maximum amount it will pay the insured, regardless of the health-care cost he incurs. The insured person, who typically does not act on his own behalf but is "provided" insurance as an important part of his job benefit, has no reciprocal options.

The sole rational purpose of true insurance is to protect the insured from an unanticipated economic loss so large as to jeopardize his economic well-being. No one sells or buys insurance to cover the cost of maintaining his property. Home insurance does not pay for plumbing repairs; automobile insurance does not pay for replacing worn-out windshield wipers. Yet people demand precisely this kind of reimbursement from so-called health insurance.


"Health Insurance": The Illusion of Equality

If health insurance is not insurance, what is it? It is a modern version of the illusion that all men are equal­or, when ill, ought to be treated as if they were equal. When religion was the dominant ideology, death was (supposed to be) the great equalizer: once they departed the living, prince and pauper were equal. Today, when medicine is the dominant ideology, health care is (supposed to be) the great equalizer: everyone's life is "infinitely precious" and hence deserves the same protection from disease. Of course, prince and pauper did not receive the same burial services, and rich and poor do not receive the same medical services. But people prefer the illusion of equality to the recognition of inequality.

Actually, the ruled have always longed for "universal health care," and the rulers have always supplied them with a policy that the masses accepted as such a service. In the Middle Ages, universal health care was called Catholicism. In the twentieth century, it was called Communism. In the 21st century, it is called Universal Health Insurance. What we choose to call "health insurance" is, in fact, a system of cost-shifting masquerading as a system of insurance. We treat a public, statist political system of health care as if it were a system of private health insurance purchased for the purpose of obtaining private medical care.

Everyone knows but no one admits that health insurance is not really insurance. In fact, Americans now view their health insurance as an open-ended entitlement for reimbursement for virtually any expense that may be categorized as "health care," such as the cost of birth-control pills or Viagra. The cost of these services is covered on the same basis as the cost of medical catastrophes, such as treatment for the consequences of a brain tumor. Such distorted incentives produce the perverted outcomes with which we are all too familiar.

From a public-health point of view, the state of our health is partly, and often largely, in our own hands and is our own responsibility, even if we have a chronic illness, such as arthritis or diabetes. It is an immoral and impractical endeavor to try to reject that responsibility and place the burden for the consequences on others.


http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-therapeutic-state-the-myth-of-health-insurance/

Wrong Seat

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The Media Is the Enemy

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The Media Is the Enemy
Of peace, liberty, and the truth
by Justin Raimondo, August 17, 2011

Ron Paul is getting more publicity out of not getting publicity in the wake of his virtual tie with Bachmann in the Ames poll than he's gotten to date. Suddenly everyone's noticing the "mainstream" media is trying very hard not to notice the twelve-term Texas congressman and libertarian icon, despite his success in quadrupling his previous Iowa showing and barely being edged out by Bachmann. Jon Stewart's takedown of the Ron Paul media blackout is devastating, and, for the most part, funny. Barring that crack about Paul being "the 'Patient Zero' of the Tea Party" – likening tea partiers to HIV-positives is offensive on so many levels, I don't know where to start – Stewart's critique of the anti-Paul bias in the mainstream media is 100 percent accurate. Roger Simon, writing in Politico, found it "amazing" and "disturbing" that "Paul almost wins the thing and he remains poison."

To us long-time Paul-watchers, who have witnessed this media blackout in operation for years – and are way beyond being merely "disturbed" by it – there is nothing in the least bit amazing about the media's hostility to Paul. The latest snub is merely a repetition of what has been the Party Line, a line that – like Paul himself – crosses ideological boundaries, and Stewart's takedown – which spliced together footage of both CNN and Fox News anchors, wearing identical smirks, disdainfully dismissing Paul – showed this red media/blue media united front in action.

Claims of media bias come from both sides of the political spectrum: the left has its Chomskyite analysis of the important role played by the media in " manufacturing consent," and the right has been crying – with some justification – " liberal media bias" since time immemorial. Journalists used to not take any of this seriously, because they, after all, are objective observers – or at least they used to be, before the advent of advocacy journalism in the style of Fox News and MSNBC. The cable news industry still hides behind this disinterested façade, but with the changes in the news media itself this pretense is getting harder to defend.

I think Ron himself had the right analysis of how and why the media blackout is so brazen: As he told Simon:

"'They [the media] believe this guy is dangerous to the status quo,' Paul said, 'but that is a reason to be more energized… In his interview with me, Paul stressed his 'peace' message ­ he wants our troops brought home from foreign soil ­ and believes that and his fiscal conservatism will gain him supporters. 'We are trying to reverse 100 years of history, the change from a republic to an empire, the change to tax and spending, who wants to admit that?' Paul said. 'Who wants to admit we don't have to be policeman of the world?'"

Paul is correct to home in on his foreign policy views to explain why the "analysts" and Washington know-it-alls insist he "has no chance of winning the Republican nomination," as the Wall Street Journal averred. The conventional wisdom is, as Aaron Blake put it so succinctly in the Washington Post:

"Despite his strong showing at Ames, Paul is still given virtually no chance to win the Republican nomination as his libertarian-leaning brand of politics and distance from most Republicans on foreign policy matters make it difficult for him to win over mainstream GOPers."

A few lines down, however, and we read:

"Paul's vote total was also three and a half times as large as his showing four years ago and almost 40 percent of the total vote he got in the 2008 Iowa caucuses – where turnout is usually more than 10 times as high as the straw poll. Paul also appears to be benefiting as the most full-throated opponent of U.S. involvement abroad from an increase in anti-war sentiment in the GOP."

Either Paul's anti-interventionist views virtually rule him out as a potential GOP presidential nominee, or else his views benefit him – Blake can't have it both ways. That he's desperately trying to is evidence of some confusion, as well as an ingrained bias. Confusion because journalists are not omniscient: they're just ordinary people, who often don't have the foresight to see new trends developing even as they are occurring – although you'd think that would be the core of a reporter's job, especially one who specializes in politics. The breakdown of the right-left, red-blue, Fox-MSNBC paradigm is an ongoing process, one bound to take unexpected turns – and take many by surprise, up to and including those, like Paul, in the forefront of this trend.

I don't think anyone has been more astonished by his success than Ron Paul. He is clearly thrilled at the sight of thousands of young people cheering him on and chanting "End the Fed!" at campus rallies across the nation. I don't think he expected the outpouring of support that greeted his announcement: in fundraising capabilities alone, he's a top tier candidate no matter what the Beltway pundits say.

The media's refusal to report Paul's growing support, beyond grudging acknowledgement that he's come in from "the fringe," reflects its institutional bias in favor of the right-left red-blue narrative that has, up until now, dominated American politics, and in which so much of the news industry is heavily invested. This narrative doesn't allow for any significant deviations, and certainly not on the presidential level: all must submit to its tyranny, in spite of its archaic and increasingly obstructionist character. What it obstructs is any meaningful challenge to the functioning of the Welfare-Warfare State. If one party is in power, welfare is given more weight than warfare, if the other takes the throne, then welfare is given the axe. In any case, these two aspects of the modern American state are inextricably intertwined, as "defense" spending in the age of empire becomes just another dollop of pork to be ladled out to corporate and political interests – and welfare becomes a way to keep the disgruntled quiescent in wartime.

Think of the media as the Greek chorus to the two "majors," with different media actors cheerleading one party and razzing the other – but never straying outside the bounds of the red-blue narrative, with its rigid definitions and litmus tests. This mindset is encoded in the two-party system, and institutionalized in our ballot access laws, which privilege the two "major" parties – the very same two parties that have led us down the path to endless war and imminent bankruptcy, and are now running away from their dual responsibility for the present crisis.

In this indirect but not insignificant sense, then, the "mainstream" media is an arm of the State, and, indeed, not only acts to police the political discourse, but reports government propaganda as if it were fact. We saw how this worked during the run-up to the Iraq war, when the Bush regime played the New York Times and its "mainstream" colleagues with ease, using the front page of the Times as a veritable bulletin board of government talking points. The Bush administration may have lied us into war, but the supposedly "liberal" media facilitated it in every possible way, acting like stenographers taking dictation rather than journalists out to discover the truth.

That these same people have a real problem reporting on a growing anti-war, anti-Washington movement fast taking hold in the GOP and in the general population is not at all surprising. That's because the mainstream media is the enemy of all these things, invested as they are in sucking up to power and vaunting their role as court "intellectuals." No one should be either amazed or disturbed that they're downplaying the success of the system's foremost opponent: after all, that's their job.

Our job, here at Antiwar.com, is precisely the opposite. Our job is to expose the schemes and debunk the lies of the War Party and the apologists for Power. Back when the mainstream media were "reporting" Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction," Antiwar.com reported the real facts: that there were no such weapons, as President Bush was forced to finally admit. The media fell for it because they wanted to fall for it: it made their job easier, it made them friends at court, and it gave them something exciting to write about. Doubters were sidelined as cranks, or Saddam sympathizers.

The media is a reliable instrument of government just as surely as if it were an official agency, like the Voice of America: it is owned by corporate entities entirely dependent on the good graces of government officials, and whose natural inclinations are to cozy up to Power rather than challenge it. That's why the new internet-based media is so disturbing to these mandarins, whose opinions are no longer automatically elevated to holy writ.


http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/08/16/the-media-is-the-enemy/

Media admit they're trying to sabotage the Ron Paul campaign

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Media admit they're trying to sabotage the Ron Paul campaign
Published: Monday, August 15, 2011, 8:15 PM     Updated: Monday, August 15, 2011, 8:45 PM
By Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vRuy0m7IjA&feature=player_embedded

The best thing about Ron Paul is how he manages to get both the liberal and the neocon media types to conspire to deep-six his campaign.

Watch the above.

And why didn't the U.S. media report that Michele Bachmann was giving out concert tickets to get votes? (See below)

Actually, Politico did report about the Travis concert. But the rest of the media ignored it in favor of building up Bachmann.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4vJXxIrLLVI

 http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2011/08/listen_to_the_neocon_ditz.html

Ominous parallels between Obama, Roosevelt grow

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Ominous parallels between Obama, Roosevelt grow
By: Walter Williams | Examiner Columnist | 08/15/11 8:05 PM

People are beginning to compare Barack Obama's administration to the failed administration of Jimmy Carter, but a better comparison is to the Roosevelt administration of the 1930s and '40s.

Let's look at it with the help of a publication from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Foundation for Economic Education titled "Great Myths of the Great Depression," by Lawrence Reed.

During the first year of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, he called for increasing federal spending to $10 billion while revenues were only $3 billion.

Between 1933 and 1936, government expenditures rose by more than 83 percent. Federal debt skyrocketed by 73 percent. Roosevelt signed off on legislation that raised the top income tax rate to 79 percent and then later to 90 percent.

Hillsdale College economics historian and professor Burt Folsom -- author of "New Deal or Raw Deal?" -- notes that in 1941, Roosevelt even proposed a 99.5 percent marginal tax rate on all incomes more than $100,000. When a top adviser questioned the idea, Roosevelt replied, "Why not?"

Roosevelt had other ideas for the economy, including the National Recovery Act. Reed says:

"The economic impact of the NRA was immediate and powerful. In the five months leading up to the act's passage, signs of recovery were evident: Factory employment and payrolls had increased by 23 and 35 percent, respectively.

"Then came the NRA, shortening hours of work, raising wages arbitrarily and imposing other new costs on enterprise. In the six months after the law took effect, industrial production dropped 25 percent."

Blacks were especially hard hit by the NRA. Black spokesmen and the black press often referred to the NRA as the "Negro Run Around," Negroes Rarely Allowed," "Negroes Ruined Again," "Negroes Robbed Again," "No Roosevelt Again" and the "Negro Removal Act."

Fortunately, the courts ruled the NRA unconstitutional. As a result, unemployment fell to 14 percent in 1936 and lower by 1937.

Roosevelt had more plans for the economy, namely the National Labor Relations Act, better known as the "Wagner Act." This was a payoff to labor unions, and with these new powers, labor unions went on a militant organizing frenzy that included threats, boycotts, strikes, seizures of plants, widespread violence and other acts that pushed productivity down sharply and unemployment up dramatically.

In 1938, Roosevelt's New Deal produced the nation's first depression within a depression. The stock market crashed again, losing nearly 50 percent of its value between August 1937 and March 1938, and unemployment climbed back to 20 percent.

Columnist Walter Lippmann wrote in March 1938 that "with almost no important exception every measure [Roosevelt] has been interested in for the past five months has been to reduce or discourage the production of wealth."

Roosevelt's agenda was not without its international admirers. The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, repeatedly praised "Roosevelt's adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies," and "the development toward an authoritarian state" based on the "demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest."

Roosevelt himself called Benito Mussolini "admirable" and professed that he was "deeply impressed by what he [had] accomplished."

FDR's very own Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, saw the folly of the New Deal, writing: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

The bottom line is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies turned what would have been a three- or four-year sharp downturn into a 16-year affair.

The 1930s depression was caused by and aggravated by acts of government, and so was the current financial mess that we're in. Do we want to repeat history by listening to those who created the calamity? That's like calling on an arsonist to help put out a fire.

Examiner Columnist Walter E. Williams is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/08/ominous-parallels-between-obama-roosevelt-grow#ixzz1VHsBaU7A

The Gold Window and the Federal Spending Spree

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Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The Gold Window and the Federal Spending Spree
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Given the 40th anniversary of President's Nixon's "closing of the gold window," we shouldn't forget the role that such action had in enabling the federal spending spree that has been going on for decades.

Let's go back, first of all, to the first 140 years or so of American history, when the official money of the American people consisted of gold coins and silver coins.

What was the reason that Americans chose precious metals, rather than paper money, as their official money? To protect themselves from government officials who would debase the value of paper money by printing and issuing too much of it to pay for their ever-growing government programs.

The Framers were well-versed in history and, therefore, knew how governments used inflation to plunder and loot the people. Just recently, they had experienced the Continental Congress' over-issuance of the Continental currency. The over-issuance of that paper money gave rise to the phrase, "Not worth a Continental."

Thus, when Americans used the Constitution to call into existence the federal government, it was with the clear understanding that the federal government's powers were limited to making gold and silver coins the official money of the nation. There was no power delegated to the federal government to issue paper money or to make paper money legal tender.

Thus, from 1787 to 1933, gold coins and silver coins were what the American people used as money. That's what was meant by "the gold standard."

At the same time, the federal government was borrowing money, meaning that the government was borrowing gold coins and silver coins. To evidence the debt, the government issued promissory notes, or bills (short-term promissory notes), or bonds (long-term promissory notes).

Whenever a note, bill, or bond came due, the government would pay off the debt in gold or silver. Everyone understood that the notes, bills, and bonds, were not money but instead promises to pay money (i.e., gold and silver). Everyone understood under the Constitution the federal government lacked the power to "emit bills of credit," which meant issuing paper money.

Over time, the government figured out that it could issue more notes, bills, and bonds without concern that everyone would show up at the same time and demand their gold. But federal officials knew that there was a limit to this. As people began sensing that the over-issuance of debt was excessive, they'd start demanding gold as the notes, bills, and bonds became due. If the government couldn't honor all its debts, it would have to default, which obviously would mean big problems trying to borrow money in the future. Thus, the gold standard constrained would-be big spenders in government, which is precisely what the Framers intended. Government couldn't overspend because it couldn't over-borrow and over-inflate. If it tried to over-inflate to cover over-borrowing, it lacked the money (gold) to pay off its debts.

Then, along came Franklin Roosevelt, the original big spender of America's welfare state. What was his solution to the Great Depression that the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, had caused? To transform America's economic system from one based on the principles of economic liberty and free enterprise to one of socialism, regulation, and interventionism.

The socialist part meant the welfare state, which consisted of the federal government's being transformed into a massive welfare provider for the American people. Here were the roots of America's modern-day, big-spending welfare state. Here was the start of the crown jewel of the welfare state, Social Security.

But Roosevelt obviously had a problem. Standing in his way of making the federal government people's welfare provider was the gold standard. Sure, Roosevelt could raise the taxes needed to cover his welfare programs. But he was a big, big spender. He wanted to spend much more than what taxes were bringing in. He wanted to tax and borrow and inflate.

To overcome the problem, FDR did one of the most amazing things in history. He just confiscated everyone's gold and made it illegal to own it. Imagine: what had been the people's official money for more than a century was now illegal to own ­ a felony.

That meant that the federal government could now convert its paper debts into paper money. That is, it could now do what governments all over the world were doing and had been doing for centuries ­ spending, borrowing, and inflating ­ and plundering and looting the people in the process.

But there was still one check on the big spenders. Foreign central banks were still permitted to redeem their U.S. debts for gold. But the spending, borrowing, and inflating continued growing into the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, especially with the growth of warfare-state spending. Thus, as the foreign banks began redeeming their debts for gold, the federal government knew that it could never honor them all.

So, that's why Nixon "closed the gold window." He knew the federal government couldn't pay its debts and so it just defaulted. It refused to honor its contracts with foreign holders of U.S. debt, as it has done back in 1933 when it defaulted on its debt obligations to the citizenry.

Ever since 1971, the year that Nixon closed the gold window, there have been no constraints on Washington's big spenders. Decade after decades, they have spent and borrowed, and the Federal Reserve has inflated and inflated. That's why the dollar has a value of about 5 percent compared to when the Federal Reserve was established in 1913.

Through it all, people have been looted and plundered through the continuous debasement of the currency, with the inflationary burden oftentimes falling most heavily on the poor and middle class.

There is only one solution to this monetary debauchery and, not surprisingly, it is a libertarian one: Abolish the central bank, paper money, and legal-tender laws, and separate money and the state.

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-08-16.asp

Paul, Perry, Romney, Bachman, Media Breakdown Comparison of Candidate Name Mentions

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Paul, Perry, Romney, Bachmann, name mentions compared.
 


Paul, Perry, Romney, Bachman, Media Breakdown Comparison of Candidate Name Mentions
By pacadmin
16 Aug 2011

Below is the station breakdown of Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, and Mitt Romney's name mentions on the mainsteam media. Thanks to TVEyes.

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Paul, Perry, Romney, Bachmann, name mentions compared.
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Ron Paul name mention Station Breakdown from 8/1 to 8/17
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Rick Perry name mention Station Breakdown from 8/1 to 8/17
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Michelle Bachmann name mention Station Breakdown from 8/1 to 8/17 (some data is missing)
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Mitt Romney name mention Station Breakdown from 8/1 to 8/17
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Rick Perry name mention Station Breakdown from 8/1 to 8/17
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Michelle Bachmann name mention Station Breakdown from 8/1 to 8/17 (some data missing)
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Mitt Romney name mention Station Breakdown from 8/1 to 8/17

Political Systems Explained for Dummies

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An interesting vid. regarding Political Systems


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIPDJ1Cc_uw

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