James Lewis: Obama Becomes O'mobba

Articles: Obama Becomes O'mobba

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/obama_becomes_omobba.html

 

Obama Becomes O'mobba

James Lewis, American Thinker.com

In another historic first, President Obama's backers are actively whipping up mobs.  Not just the Occupoopers of Wall Street, but also Twitter mobs, Facebook mobs, and flash mobs.

Every active conservative should spend some time on social media sites to see liberals whipping each other into a frenzy.  Know your enemy -- and if you don't like the word "enemy" (I don't), consider what Saul Alinsky calls you. You may not consider yourself their enemy, but that's how they think about you.  Ignore it at your peril.

The Obama campaign loves to boast about its use of  Facebook and Twitter to push The One over the top last time.  With Facebook claiming 700 million members, the potential for political mayhem is huge.

This is David Axelrod's specialty of astroturfing.  Obama has become O'mobba: he is the first president in history to give his official public blessing to "idealistic" anti-capitalist mobs.

There is no doubt that these organized "spontaneous" mobs will be used in the election campaign.  Be prepared to face nasty, vicious lowbrow mobs with iPhones and iPads. 

The poopers last week dumped a tub full of their diapers' products in a Chase ATM vestibule in Lower Manhattan.  They have finally discovered their bottom line.

They are now talking about the revolutionary necessity for violence.  An Occumobster from Austin, TX recently wrote to USA Today promising to "take up  ... guns and storm Wall Street and our nation's capitals."  Don't doubt that this is a deliberate, purposeful campaign, designed to frighten and dehumanize normal people (like Tea Party members) in order to keep the radical left in power.

That USA Today letter comes from Richlatte, a fitting moniker for a rich, latte-drinking thirty-something kid who has decided to wage war on productive Americans.  We have millions of spoiled-rotten offspring of the rich, young and old, and they will be bringing hard muscle to bear on Obama's election campaign.  After all, Bill Ayers is the son of a millionaire.  The Wall Street Occupy kids were not able to utter a single coherent word to explain their "idealistic" campaign; nobody had scripted them.  "What are we here for?  I dunno!  Somebody tweeted at me on my iPad.  Police brutality!  Eff the Pigs!"  It was Radical Chic turned into Radical Sick.

In fact, Occupoopers are the first Obama mobs, set up by billionaire-funded outfits like The Ruckus Society.

"Spontaneous demonstrations" is what communist agitators used to whip up attacks against their scapegoats, from Moscow to London.  They were the storm troopers of the left, and they still are.

The discredited old "communist agitator" has now been laundered into the noble "community organizer."  The first  communist agitator was Karl Marx, a child of Prussian wealth.  David Axelrod made his PR millions by organizing phony grassroots campaigns.  The coming year will see astroturfed flash mobs harassing decent and honorable Americans for their political beliefs. 

Take a good look at the Ruckus Society website, because you will see them again, smashing windows and fighting cops wherever media cameras gather.  These are the kids of the powerful starting their own political careers, the way John Kerry did during Vietnam by accusing his Navy Swift Boat buddies of committing war crimes. 

It's the career path for leftist demagogues from Hitler to Lenin.  Germany's biggest Green politician, Joschka Fischer, started out in 1968 as a black-clad anarchist fighting cops in the streets of Frankfurt, where one cop was killed.  It's a career path for these people.  This stuff goes back to the mob demagogues of Greece and Rome, as described by Plato and staged by Shakespeare.

Technology changes, but human nature stays the same.  Which is why the U.S. Constitution is not "out of date."  The Constitution is designed precisely to deal with mobs and their  demagogues.  Obama is not new.  He is old, old, old.  The Founders knew about scores of Obamas, from Napoleon to Oliver Cromwell, all the way back to the Caesars.  The world has always been bubbling over with Obamas and their cults.

Bill Ayers was the son of a millionaire; Penny Pritzker and her Stalinist brother come from billionaire stock; Schwartz Györgyi, aka George Soros, is one of the richest billionaires in the world, and he loves to stir up revolutionary fervor among the brain-dead suckers of the left.  These are the wealthiest and most politically connected people playing phony Marxist revolution.  Soros is not against the rich; he is himself the richest of the rich, agitating against his biggest competitors, the other rich, the ones who are trying to become as rich as he is.

These people are big Obama donors, making billions of dollars from Obama's whacky "energy" schemes -- from Solyndra to the electric car, the green economy, the Chicago Climate Exchange, windmill farms to stop nonexistent global warming, and the campaign against U.S. oil-drilling.  The Saudis are the biggest beneficiaries of Obama's sabotage of domestic oil, which keeps the oil monopoly in the hands of OPEC.  Al Gore, who hates oil and coal, is the bloated heir to an Occidental Petroleum stock.  Re-electing Obama will keep their Crony Capitalist gravy train chugging along.  The Wall Street sucker mobs are their obedient tool.

It's telling that the Occupy mobs started pooping all over Wall Street at the very time the NYSE was going online.  They were protesting brick and mortar, precisely when the stock exchanges were moving into the cloud.  They could have been picketing Amazon.com.  This was pure agitprop symbolism.  Without eager media applause, these kids would be pooping at Mom's on the Upper West Side.

Crony capitalists use coercive socialism to keep down their rivals, using the power of government and the controlled media.  In Hitler's time, it was called "syndicalism," the alliance of the really rich with rabble-rousing demagogues.  Europe today comes very close to syndicalism.  There's nothing "progressive" about it.

Capitalists like Steve Jobs are the real revolutionaries.  Demagogues hop on the gravy train to squeeze capitalist inventions for their own benefit.  Today they will use Google to abolish your privacy and brainwash your children.  If Obama gets re-elected, you can kiss web privacy and free speech goodbye.

Obama's radical friends in Hyde Park are millionaires.  Michelle Obama's biggest campaign is against poor kids who eat too many McDonald's hamburgers.  Think about that.  For the first time in history, "the poor" are the people who eat too much.  When the Obamas talk about "the poor," the only individuals they can think of are the ones who can't afford arrugula.  Damn that capitalism!

Communists are never workers or peasants; they are always café intellectuals who spend their lives feeling envious and enraged, ready to terrorize productive people to fuel their rise to power.

The Obamas could have used the American presidency to do something about true misery and poverty, hunger, violence, African slavery, and genocide.  They haven't taken even a single step to solve the disaster of inner-city education.  It isn't trendy enough.  It won't help Obama's career.  He needs black rage to run again.  If you're a Democrat, you're not supposed to talk about women and children living in slavery in Muslim households around the world, under threat of "honor killing" if they try to escape.  By empowering the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran's mullahcracy, Obama is imprisoning millions of women.  The Arab Spring is the sound of millions of jail cell doors being slammed on hundreds of millions of women, children, and yes, men who want to live free.  As for the plight of blacks domestically, it is now worse than before Obama's election.

Those facts should be obvious to a child of six, but it's those funny prisms the left wear over their eyes that make it impossible to see straight.

Here is how the first big "anti-colonialist," VI Lenin, ran his mobs:

 Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. ...

        1. Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known landlords, rich men, bloodsuckers.

        2. Publish their names.

        3. Seize all their grain from them.

        4. Designate hostages in accordance with yesterday's telegram.

        Do it in such a fashion that for hundreds of kilometres around the people might see, tremble, know, shout: "they are strangling, and will strangle to death, the bloodsucking kulaks".

    Telegraph receipt and implementation.

    Yours, Lenin.

    Find some truly hard people.

Mob manipulation is always the same.

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GERMANY: ‘Freedom Instead of Islam’ anti-Islam cartoon competition

New post on Bare Naked Islam GERMANY: 'Freedom Instead of Islam' anti-Islam cartoon competition by barenakedislam Under the motto "Freedom instead of Islam," the German anti-Islam PRO-NRW political movement has launched a competition to find new and creative anti-Islam cartoons and artworks. (5...4...3...2...1...Let the deadly Muslim riots begin!) Islam vs Europe  There are prizes of 200 euros for the winner, and 150 and 100 euros for the second and third-place entries respectively. The artworks - which can be cartoons, collages, films, installations - will be exhibited outside controversial mosques and Salafist Islamic centres on a courageous 25-mosque tour which the movement is planning to undertake.  The action is a sign that the values of freedom must be actively represented and defended ... There can be no areas where artistic freedom and the freedom to express opinions does not apply. The attempts at politically correct regulation of democratic criticism of Islam are not worthy of a free, constitutional state and only show that we have already gone some way towards totalitarian Islamism. Jörg Uckermann, Chairmain of PRO-NRW is a former burgomeister (district mayor) who once represented the mainstream conservative CDU/CSU party grouping (Merkel's party) in Germany. NRW means North-Rhine Westphalia, a heavily Muslim-colonised region of Germany.  Says Uckermann, "We must not accept that under the protection of religious freedom areas are established that may not be criticised. As a totalitarian ideology characterised by a narrow, political worldview, Islam itself tolerates no criticism. We have seen what the effects of a religiously-themed cartoon are. There was massive resistance to it. In these cases, the freedom of press and religion was loudly emphasised. But now we are seeing that state institutions which are actually obligated to show religious neutrality are also sanctioning criticism of Islam. Political groups or media are being criminalised. High-profile activists like Michael Mannheimer, who warn of the islamisation of Europe, are being prosecuted as criminals. Thus the free, democratic constitutional order incorporates the intolerant standards of Islam. We need loud protests to be raised up against this. With the media and cartoon competition, PRO NRW wants to send a message. Citizens, who who are committed to maintaining the rights of freedom and who criticise an anti-freedom religious community now need to raise their voices." Entries can be sent in by email to: info@pro-nrw.netYou have to give them credit for an extraordinarily bold initiative. Let's see whether this gives rise to more theatricalised outrage a la Mohammed cartoons. barenakedislam | March 28, 2012 at 8:06 pm | Categories: Islamization of the West | URL: http://wp.me/p276zM-Gs6 Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://barenakedislam.com/2012/03/28/germany-freedom-instead-of-islam-anti-islam-cartoon-competition/

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The Strange Presidency of Warren G. Harding

"Some might scratch their heads at the notion that less government creates more jobs, but that is exactly what happened under Harding. By the year Harding died unemployment had plummeted from 11.7 percent to 2.4 percent. Entrepreneurs were responding to Harding's refreshing idea that they should get more and the taxman less­radios, air conditioners, zippers, talking movies, and even sliced bread became popular during the 1920s. Coolidge continued Harding's policies, and the United States increased its industrial dominance throughout the world."

Our Economic Past
The Strange Presidency of Warren G. Harding
Burton W. Folsom Jr.
April 2012 • Volume: 62 • Issue: 3 •

Who is the worst president in U.S. history? The answer is Warren G. Harding if you believe most presidential polls. For example, in the prestigious Arthur Schlesinger poll, conducted in 1948, 1962, and 1996, the participating historians ranked Harding each time as the worst U.S. president ever.

Should we trust the judgment of these historians? No, we should not. Actually, Harding was often a successful president, and his actions helped trigger a decade of prosperity for America.

Harding was a newspaper editor from Marion, Ohio, who was elected U.S. senator in 1914. He won the Republican presidential nomination in 1920 and went on to a landslide victory over the James Cox-Franklin Roosevelt Democratic ticket in November. His biggest issue was the economy, which was suffering from World War I and its aftermath. The soldiers came home in 1918 and 1919 and faced an 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1920.

Some politicians recommended that Harding enact a kind of stimulus package and put soldiers to work building roads for the rapidly growing numbers of cars being driven. Harding rejected that approach for a two-fold strategy of cutting federal spending and cutting tax rates. Before his death in 1923, Harding's program was showing signs of success. From 1920 to 1923 the federal budget was cut in half from $6.4 billion to $3.1 billion. The top tax rate was sliced during these years from 73 percent to 56 percent, and, when Harding died in 1923, his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, cut that rate further to 25 percent.

Some might scratch their heads at the notion that less government creates more jobs, but that is exactly what happened under Harding. By the year Harding died unemployment had plummeted from 11.7 percent to 2.4 percent. Entrepreneurs were responding to Harding's refreshing idea that they should get more and the taxman less­radios, air conditioners, zippers, talking movies, and even sliced bread became popular during the 1920s. Coolidge continued Harding's policies, and the United States increased its industrial dominance throughout the world.

Most historians have a worldview that more government is good, and therefore Harding's move to more free enterprise was actually a backward step for the nation. In Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s coauthored textbook, The National Experience, he makes this point. "Foremost among Harding's advisers," Schlesinger wrote, "was Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. . . . The only business principle he considered relevant to government was economy. With small regard for the services that only government could furnish the nation, Mellon worked unceasingly to reduce federal expenditures. . . ." Thus Harding's was a failed presidency.

Historians also make a second criticism­that Harding's administration was corrupt. Robert K. Murray, who has written two books on Harding, begins The Politics of Normalcy by noting "[t]he Harding administration . . . [was] riddled with government scandals."

That second criticism has merit. Character in a president is important. As George Washington insisted, "[M]orality is a necessary spring of popular government." Integrity among leaders is vital to a free society. Harding's two major scandals­at the Veterans' Bureau and in the Department of Interior­both reflect poorly on his choice of administrators and on his supervision of their actions.

Let's look at these scandals in more detail. The first thing we see is that they were triggered not by greed on Wall Street, or by corruption in the private sector, but by the growth of the federal government.

The Veterans' Bureau, for example, was created in 1921 as a perk for wounded soldiers. During the war politicians chose not to pay soldiers the full value of their service, which might have included insurance policies. Instead Congress chose to give free medical care to wounded soldiers through a Veterans' Bureau. Doing that masked the costs of war by spreading them (and pension costs) out over the entire twentieth century.

In market situations entrepreneurs who build a hospital, or a chain of hospitals, have to be competitive in price and service. They try to buy land, construction materials, and hospital supplies cheaply to compete with existing hospitals. Any builder who fails to do that loses money and risks going bankrupt. But when government provides a service, these same incentives for economy are often absent.

Harding appointed Charles Forbes, a political friend with experience in construction, as the first head of the Veterans' Bureau. Forbes was in charge of building and supplying dozens of new hospitals for veterans in major cities throughout the country. With government picking up the tab Forbes accepted high noncompetitive bids from two construction companies, which kicked back to Forbes some of their profits from building the hospitals. Forbes also made money by personally buying cheap land in different cities and then selling that land at jacked-up prices as sites for the new hospitals. He made further profits through a middleman by buying and selling supplies­sheets, towels, and gauze, for example­for the new hospitals. Neither Congress nor Harding gave much scrutiny to Forbes because they had not funded the Veterans' Bureau from their own money, but rather from the taxpayers' money.

When Forbes's chicanery came to light Harding fired him, and Forbes spent two years in prison­but not before hundreds of millions of dollars had been added to the national debt. Even if Congress had simply given medical cards to veterans for use at existing hospitals, the costs would have dropped sharply.

Harding's second scandal, the Teapot Dome affair, also occurred because the federal government inserted itself in economic matters usually left to free markets. Land in the Midwest, for example, was sold or given to farmers by various federal land acts. In the West, however, Congress decided to keep under federal control valuable oil land in Elk Hills, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming, rather than sell it to oil companies at auction. Albert Fall, Harding's secretary of the interior, decided to lease some of the federal oil land in noncompetitive bids to Edward Doheny (at Elk Hills) and Harry Sinclair (at Teapot Dome).

Congress decided to investigate these strange leases and discovered that a suddenly rich Albert Fall had received a $100,000 "loan" from Edward Doheny and "an undetermined number of Liberty bonds from Sinclair." At trial Fall did not provide illumination; instead he testified, "I decline . . . to answer any questions on the ground[s] that it may tend to incriminate me." As a result Fall went to jail for a year and was slapped with a $100,000 fine.

How then should we assess Harding's presidency­which launched an economic boom but which also saw two major scandals? We can say Harding was successful when he slashed the role of government through cuts in federal spending and in tax rates. And we can say he failed when he expanded the role of government by creating a Veterans' Bureau and by maintaining federal control of western oil lands. Harding is an underrated president because he is being ranked by those who overrate the capabilities of the federal government.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/the-strange-presidency-of-warren-g-harding/

When the Senate Was Great, and It Conspired against the People

When the Senate Was Great, and It Conspired against the People
Posted by David Boaz

Politico has a gushing story about The Last Great Senate, a book by a veteran Democratic congressional aide, Ira Shapiro, about "a golden era of modern American political history ­ a period where giants in both parties worked together to produce sweeping legislative achievements."

Besides passing expansive, expensive laws, the other great thing about the Senate back in the golden days of the 60s and 70s was how senators from both parties worked together ­ to get reelected and to secretly do the opposite of what they were telling their constituents. For instance:

In the book, he recalls a night in 1963 when a stunned Sen. Birch Bayh, an Indiana Democrat in his first year in office, found himself aboard the presidential yacht Sequoia listening to Senate GOP Leader Everett Dirksen talk to him for an hour about how to get re-elected.

And my favorite part:

Shapiro tells how in 1979, Eagleton was chairman of the District of Columbia subcommittee and therefore a key player in deciding whether the newly-created Washington-area Metro system would receive the needed federal funds to expand.

"His staff advised him that it would be politically disastrous to find the money for the Washington, D.C., Metro at a time when federal funds for bus service in St. Louis and Kansas City were being slashed," Shapiro writes. "Eagleton was torn, agreeing with their political judgment, but knowing how much the full Metro system would mean to the Washington region."

Eagleton sought a meeting with Maryland Sen. Mac Mathias, a moderate Republican and the ranking member of the D.C. subcommittee with an intense interest in the capital region's new subway. Both senators had been elected in 1968 and had worked together on D.C. home rule.

At the meeting in Eagleton's office, the Democrat informed his GOP colleague he would oppose the Metro funding.

"Then it's dead," Mathias replied.

"'No Mac,' Eagleton said hastily, 'We've got a plan.'"

As Shapiro recounts, Eagleton said he'd lend his staff director to Mathias and Paul Sarbanes, the other Maryland senator, and enlist Michigan freshman Carl Levin to manage the bill. For public consumption, Eagleton subsequently criticized Metro as a "gold-plated subway system" and even gave his home state Republican Senate colleague John Danforth a heads-up so that their votes were aligned. But with Eagleton's behind-the-scenes support, the others senators on the committee passed the legislation and found the money for Metro.

And the poor dumb schmucks in Missouri were none the wiser.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/when-the-senate-was-great-and-it-conspired-against-the-people/

Why the Court Will Strike Down Obamacare

Why the Court Will Strike Down Obamacare
Posted by James Ostrowski on March 28, 2012 06:49 PM

I have a cynical view of constitutional litigation. The Supreme Court acts in its own self-interest in two ways. First, by sanctioning continual government growth. That's what those who install the judges want. Second, by maintaining a sense of legitimacy that gives that sanction credibility with the public. To sum up 200 years of cases--basically government growth wins unless sanctioning it would threaten the regime itself. Thus, free speech is generally upheld as its denial is a clear signal for revolution. Procedural due process is generally upheld because its denial would threaten the regime as well by refuting its central premise--government as providing impartial resolution of disputes. The third area where limited government tends to win out involves cases where the language is so clear that ignoring it would be a clear message to the public that the Court is a joke. Hence, the decision upholding the right to bear arms (with major qualifications of course). The commerce clause is nearly that clear as well. Doing nothing is not commerce. The Court knows that it risks its reputation and hence its ability to sanction government growth generally if it upholds this law. That's why I believe the Court will strike the law down--its own self-interest is on the line.

Guess who else looks like Obama's son?

 

http://www.11alive.com/news/article/235177/166/Suspect-arrested-in-Miss-State-Univ-students-slaying

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Dedicated to the Pied Piper of Islamo- Pandering political correctness – Mullah Barack Hussein Obama

New post on Bare Naked Islam Dedicated to the Pied Piper of Islamo- Pandering political correctness – Mullah Barack Hussein Obama by barenakedislam "After receiving threats from CAIR and other terror-linked Muslim Brotherhood front groups, the Obama Regime (and their loyal soldiers of Allah) have decided to bring all government training materials into rigorous conformity with stealth jihadists hellbent on destroying Western civilization from within." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEWdd4Js1Dk Celebrate Jihad Awareness month at: www.answeringmuslims.com barenakedislam | March 28, 2012 at 4:00 pm | Categories: ISLAMOBAMA | URL: http://wp.me/p276zM-Grk Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://barenakedislam.com/2012/03/28/dedicated-to-the-pied-piper-of-islamo-pandering-political-correctness-mullah-barack-hussein-obama/

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We Are No Longer A Nation of Laws; We Are a Nation of Lefturd Lawyers and Judges

New post on Doctor Bulldog & Ronin We Are No Longer A Nation of Laws; We Are a Nation of Lefturd Lawyers and Judges by doctorbulldog Erick Erickson does a good job this morning of putting things in perspective concerning the Supreme Court and the Left's madness;  So, I thought I'd share a snippet of it with you all and then link on over to his website so you can read the whole thing: Sinners In the Hands of Anthony Kennedy The left cries foul as the right uses the federal courts to do as the left has done for years. Posted by Erick Erickson - RedState.com Yesterday the left descended into madness. The madness came early in the day. It happened shortly after 10 o'clock in the morning. Justice Anthony Kennedy opened his mouth and uttered his first question on the issue of the individual mandate. He asked, "Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?" The question, the second asked yesterday morning, bothered the left. As the clock approached 11, Kennedy spoke again, sending shockwaves through the legal community. He stated matter of factly, the reason this is concerning, is because it requires the individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of torts our tradition, our law, has been that you don't have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation between you. And there is some severe moral criticisms of that rule, but that's generally the rule. And here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in the very fundamental way. It was the quote heard round the world. It is what the tea party movement, libertarians, conservatives, and so many private citizens have been saying. It was an expression of what every legal scholar on television has pooh-poohed as the troglodyte rhetoric of plebeians not educated enough to understand their own founding compact. That Justice Kennedy expressed something so obvious to so many Americans that so many well educated legal analysts have mocked for two years as an outmoded view of the constitution put forward only by hicks, rubes, and the racist middle class tea partiers not cool enough to defecate on police cars like the Occupy Wall Street hipsters should deeply, deeply trouble every radio station, newspaper, and television news network along with the American people. Just how out of touch are the people the news media relies on as legal experts used to help form both their and their audiences' opinions? More so, is it not abundantly obvious that legal experts let their own partisanship shape their opinions? All of this, however, overshadows a more important issue — how the hell did a constitutional, democratic republic come to depend on the whims of one man in a black robe who nobody ever elected to anything? Two years ago, Jan Crawford of CBS News noted the President, in his State of the Union, deviating from modern precedent in those speeches to lash out at the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Obama, for the first time in modern history, took a direct shot at the Supreme Court in his State of the Union address, when he slammed the justices for their recent campaign finance reform decision. Six of them looked on — including the author of the opinion, key swing vote Anthony Kennedy — while Democrats jumped up to whoop and holler. Shortly thereafter the Democrats, without a single Republican vote, passed Obamacare. That Justice Kennedy yesterday raised a point that has been raised by so many non-lawyers is irrelevant to how the Supreme Court rules. All that is relevant is the President's insult two years ago. Why? [...] CLICK HERE to continue reading this over at RedState.com   doctorbulldog | 28 March, 2012 at 8:25 am | Categories: Abuse of Power, Leftists, Liberals, Media Bias, Obama Sucks, politics, Supreme Court | URL: http://wp.me/p1NPg-7Ec Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/we-are-no-longer-a-nation-of-laws-we-are-a-nation-of-lefturd-lawyers-and-judges/ Thanks for flying with WordPress.com

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Terror-linked CAIR and most Muslim groups are foaming at the mouth over appointment of Dr. Zuhdi Jasser to U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

New post on Bare Naked Islam Terror-linked CAIR and most Muslim groups are foaming at the mouth over appointment of Dr. Zuhdi Jasser to U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom by barenakedislam Zuhdi Jasser, who lauded a controversial New York City police surveillance program that targeted Muslims and helped lead the opposition to an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, has been appointed to the commission, which advises the president, Congress and State Department on religious rights abuses internationally. Zuhdi Jasser speaks during a news conference in front of NYPD police headquarters recently with dozens of activists to demonstrate their support for the NYPD and their surveillance of Muslim groups across the Northeast. WASHINGTON POST  "It would have been better to appoint someone who has some measure of credibility with Muslim Americans," said Ibrahim 'Dougie' Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations and (unindicted co-conspirator in the Holyland terrorism financing case) "He has long been viewed by American Muslims and the colleagues in the civil liberties community as a mere sock puppet for Islam haters and an enabler of Islamophobia." (Jasser is one of only a tiny handful of Muslims in America who are not afraid to tell the truth about Islam) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appointed Jasser and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, appointed Robert P. George, a philosophy professor at Princeton University and top adviser to the U.S. Catholic bishops. Democrats appoint five of the commission's nine members, because they are the party in the White House; the other four are appointed by Republicans. With the Jasser and George appointments, three commission spots remain vacant. Jasser, an activist and cardiologist from Phoenix, addressed the first in a series of hearings last year called by the House Homeland Security Committee to investigate the threat of homegrown terrorism. Jasser's group, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, has called the leadership of most established U.S. Muslim groups "malignant" and accused them of preaching a form of "political Islam." Jasser won praise from conservatives for his willingness to testify about his co-religionists, but gained the ire of Muslims who said he fuels anti-Muslim prejudice. JASSER and a few other brave Muslims at rally to support Ray Kelly and the NYPD's counter-terrorism surveillance of Muslims http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYhge2qpMw4 barenakedislam | March 28, 2012 at 1:30 pm | Categories: Islam in America | URL: http://wp.me/p276zM-Gqx Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://barenakedislam.com/2012/03/28/terror-linked-cair-and-most-muslim-groups-are-foaming-at-the-mouth-over-appointment-of-dr-zuhdi-jasser-to-u-s-commission-on-international-religious-freedom/

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We are a peace-loving people.

"We are a peace-loving people." -- Anthony Gregory



 

that it took a hoodie ...

to shut this guy up is a shame

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Bobby-Rush-Dons-Hoodie-for-Trayvon-Martin-Asked-to-Leave-144646305.html

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Fwd: Cap Off March with Liberty on the Rocks

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Liberty on the Rocks DC
Date: Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Subject: Cap Off March with Liberty on the Rocks
To: majors.bruce@gmail.com


Liberty on the Rocks DC
 

March 28, 2012

Liberty Toastmasters: First Official Meeting

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 | 7:00PM – 8:00PM
Newseum Residences Conference Room
565 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20001

The Liberty Toastmasters Introductory Meeting was a huge success! Now, we are going to have our first official meeting.

If you attended the intro meeting, Aaron sent out an email to all of you about the details of the next meeting and the appropriate forms. Please bring the Charter Member form and your two checks to officiate your membership.

If you could not attend the introductory meeting and would like to perfect your public speaking skills and have a passion for liberty, please join us for this meeting. Newcomers are always welcome!

Questions, concerns, or need a form? Email Fitzgerald.Aaron@Gmail.com.
________________________________

March Happy Hour

Thursday, March 29, 2012 | 5:30PM – 8:00PM
Arlington Rooftop Bar & Grill
2424 Wilson Ave.
Arlington, VA 22201

We're headed back to Arlington and ending March with our monthly happy hour at Arlington Rooftop Bar & Grill in Courthouse. We'll be on the main floor of this humongous place. RSVP Here

Keep up with Liberty on the Rocks DC
   
 

view email in a browser | unsubscribe majors.bruce@gmail.com | update your subscription profile

We thought you'd like to stay informed about our local events.

Copyright (C) 2012 Liberty on the Rocks All rights reserved.


 

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Fwd: Gary Johnson In The News - On the Move!

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New poll shows Libertarian Johnson at 7 percent

March 26, 2012
Examiner.com
By Mark Wachtler

March 26, 2012. Raleigh. A new poll was released on Thursday showing Gary Johnson still a distant third in general election polling, but holding his ground. The former New Mexico Governor had been in the race for the Republican nomination for President. But after being excluded from GOP party surveys and nationally televised debates, Johnson took his campaign and army of libertarian followers into the Libertarian Party.

Read the December 29 issue of this column, 'Does Johnson Defection Doom the GOP?' for details.

Read More





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Fair Tax would 'reboot' economy, Libertarian leader Johnson says

March 26, 2012
NorwichBulletin.com
By James Mosher

Norwich, Conn. —

Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson's balanced budget plan calls for a 43 percent cut in military spending, but he says the U.S. Navy views submarines, a key Eastern Connecticut industry, as crucial.

"I'm not pandering to you," the former New Mexico governor said during a meeting with The Bulletin's editorial board on Monday. "But the Navy views the submarine force as untouchable."

Read More





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A Day with Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson

March 26, 2012
PNC-Minnesota Bureau
By Cara schulz

Note from the Editor: On Thursday I was able to do something few have the chance to do: spend the entire day with a Presidential candidate.  Two-term Governor of New Mexico and likely Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson came to Minnesota for a fundraiser.  What I learned during our time together reinforced the idea that this candidate means it when he claims to represent all Americans. 


Gary Johnson doesn't pander to religious extremists. He also shrugs off the conventional wisdom that associating with religious minorities, such as Pagans, is a bad idea.  Back in October, he participated in a Pagan Media Town Hall, at the time when mainstream media most loves to write derogatory fluff articles about Pagans and "real" witches.  Johnson was roundly mocked for his participation by the mainstream press. Even after that, he still accepts me, an open Pagan,  as his Minnesota host.

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TLP Quik Hits: Gary Johnson Pursuing Many Of The Same Goals As Ron Paul

March 20, 2012
The Libertarian Patriot
By Chris Walsh

I urge my fellow supporters of Ron Paul to get behind Gary Johnson's candidacy as soon a possible. Remember, it is about the message, not the messenger and Gary Johnson needs your help if we are going to right the ship in the direction of limited government and personal liberty.

It all begins with name recognition and Gov Johnson's 15% strategy.

Read More





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Libertarian presidential candidate endorses Washington marijuana legalization

March 19, 2012
The Seattle Times
By Jonathan Martin

The marijuana legalization initiative headed for the November ballot picked up another high-profile endorsement over the weekend: former New Mexico Republican Gov. Gary Johnson.

Johnson, running for president under the Libertarian Party, called Initiative 502 "fiscally responsible and socially pragmatic" in a statement sent out by the initiative campaign.

"We should regulate and tax it like alcohol and tobacco instead of propping up black market
profiteers," Johnson explained. He also expressed concern about the thousands of marijuana
arrests that occur every year. "We have better uses for our police, courts, and jails."

Read More





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Libertarian Gary Johnson comes to town

March 23, 2012
Minn Post
By Eric Black

Presidential candidate Gary Johnson was in Minneapolis Thursday to raise a little money and explain some miracles.

In case you lost track of him, Johnson started the year running for the Repub nomination, got left out of most of the debates (he claims the networks were unfair to him but declined to say what motivated them), made an impression in the one debate he got into with a joke about how his dog created more "shovel-ready" projects than President Obama has, but has now switched to seeking the Libertarian Party nomination and says he has won every contest on the path to that nomination.

Johnson, 59, was a two-term governor of New Mexico. He ran as a Republican with libertarian leanings (he cut the growth rate of state spending but also advocated decriminalization of marijuana, which is not a normal Republican thing to do). He actually makes a much better Libertarian because his social issue positions are way too far left for today's Repubs and his fiscal ideas are way too far right for Dems. As illustrated by this quote from our conversation:

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Libertarian presidential contender Johnson confirms Norwich, NL stops
Connecticut chairman, congressional candidate Reale traveling with Former-gov
March 23, 2012
Norwich Bulletin .com
By James Mosher


Norwich, Conn. —
Gary Johnson, a leading contender for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination and a former New Mexico governor, has confirmed his schedule of Eastern Connecticut stops next week, according to Dan Reale, a Plainfield resident who is chairman of the Libertarian Party of Connecticut.
Johnson is slated to fly into Bradley International Airport and do a fundraiser in Hartford on Sunday, March 25, Reale said. Johnson will stop at Olde Tymes Restaurant on West Main Street in Norwich at 8:30 a.m. Monday, March 26, to meet voters and have breakfast. Olde Tymes owner Rodney Green wasn't immediately available for comment.

Read More





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Indiana Libertarians set to pick 'Survivor' star

March 23, 2012
Real Clear Politics
By The Associated Press

Libertarian Party members are set to nominate former television reality series star Rupert Boneham as their candidate for Indiana governor.

Libertarian officials say the fan favorite from 2004's "Survivor: All-Stars" is unopposed for the party's nomination and that he'll be formally nominated at its state convention in Indianapolis on Saturday. The tie-dye wearing Boneham won $1 million on the TV show and donated some of it to his Rupert's Kids charity, which provides mentoring and job-training to at-risk youths.

Read More





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Former New Mexico governor campaigning for president as Libertarian

March 23, 2012
The Statehouse File

Gary Johnson talks about his Libertarian presidential bid from The Statehouse File on Vimeo. By Samm Quinn The Statehouse File  FRANKLIN –…

Watch video click here.

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The Politics of Health Care Rationing

The Politics of Health Care Rationing
Chidem Kurdas
March 2012 • Volume: 62 • Issue: 2 •

The Obama administration's remake of the U.S. health care system stands on three legs. One, it makes the purchase of insurance compulsory. Two, it doles out new entitlements via expanded Medicaid, subsidies, and certain coverage requirements.

And three, it promises to control the growth of medical costs. These three parts differ in their implications and prospects. The first leg may give way altogether; the second is partially already in place; the third provides the rationale for centralized allocation of resources in health care.

This summer the Supreme Court is to decide on the constitutionality of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which faces various challenges to its thousands of sections. Moreover the centerpiece challenge to the individual insurance mandate may invalidate other provisions as well. In fact the uncertainties extend well beyond the Supreme Court decision and its consequences. Not only the results of the 2012 presidential election but also congressional and state elections may result in changes to the law or to the way it is applied.

The individual mandate is interlinked with the state insurance purchase exchanges required by the law. If the Supreme Court finds the individual insurance mandate unconstitutional, the exchanges will have fewer customers and higher costs. Conceivably some form of exchange could survive as an insurance market for small businesses. Firms are required to make a contribution toward employee insurance if they have 11 or more employees­this employer mandate could endure even if the individual mandate does not.

By comparison there is greater certainty about the second leg of the restructuring. For instance the requirement that parents' insurance cover young adults until age 26 has already been put in practice and is unlikely to be reversed. That is, health care entitlements are expanding regardless of the Supreme Court decision and election outcomes. It was obvious from the start that this expansion necessitated and yet clashed with the goal of cost containment.

The title of the 2010 law proclaims affordable care as its aim, and commentators such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have cited a Congressional Budget Office prediction that the act will keep down costs and thereby help reduce the federal budget deficit. This claim, not very credible to begin with, looks even dodgier now that we start to see the initial impact of the coverage requirements.


Immediate Cost Increases

Much of the law will not go into effect until 2014. The insurance coverage requirements that have been put in place already, though, have increased its cost. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey shows that family premiums went up by 9 percent from 2010 to 2011, compared to a significantly lower 3 percent increase from 2009 to 2010.

To be sure, Obamacare requirements such as the enrollment of millions of adults in their parents' plans account for a fraction of the recent increase. But this is only the beginning of the law's implementation. Higher premiums inflate business costs and at least in part are passed on to workers. The government attempted to limit the growth of insurance premiums through regulatory measures, such as requiring insurance companies to spend less on administration. But those measures will be exhausted as growing demand pushes up medical costs and hence the price of insurance.

While insurance coverage requirements show up as premium increases for individuals and businesses, the other major new entitlement, wider Medicaid eligibility, puts an added burden on taxpayers. This expansion will require many states to spend significantly more on Medicaid at a time when government finances are precarious. In 2014 general revenue Medicaid expenditures will be 22 percent higher in Illinois, 13.5 percent higher in Texas, and 9 percent higher in Florida, according to estimates by Jagadeesh Gokhale of the Cato Institute. The increases are in addition to already expected increases.

The federal government is supposed to pay the full cost of the Medicaid expansion the first three years but this support may falter given large and persistent federal budget deficits. The states understandably don't want to be left holding the bag for the Affordable Care Act­and so the Supreme Court will hear their challenge to the Medicaid expansion.


Cost Containment and Rationing

Who is to pay is one big question; the other is how much. Liabilities have been created, with some entitlements already effective and others to come. If the cost turns out to be unexpectedly large, American health care will be in worse shape. Without effective cost containment, in time the expense of the entitlements, including insurance coverage requirements, will put a growing burden on insurance buyers and taxpayers. State and federal budgets will be squeezed even more than they already are by Medicaid and Medicare. Hence the third aspect of the new system, cost containment, is key to its viability.

The law entrusts this mission largely to federal bureaucrats. To control the long-term growth of costs, health care use is to be subject to central direction. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has started to define "essential" medical goods and services to be covered by the insurance exchanges run by states. However, recently the administration modified the plan, as we will see below.

To understand the full implication of rationing, consider Britain's National Health Service (NHS), the government system through which most health care is provided in that country. The NHS keeps down costs by limiting access to certain resources such as specialist physicians. Health care is rationed in this sense within the national system. People can go outside the system and purchase what they wish in private transactions, but very few do since they already pay for the NHS via taxes. And of course modern medical technology is expensive. If the NHS does not allow for a test or a visit to a specialist, then most people do without.

The United States is moving in a similar direction by determining what insurance should and should not cover. While outside the exchanges private insurers will presumably be free to diverge from the defined package, to offer less coverage would be to invite legal challenge. Most insurers will likely gravitate to the package, so its effect will go well beyond the exchanges.

Advocates of expanding the government's role in health care, such as Donald Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services through 2011, say private insurance companies ration access already and it is better for the government to do this. Markets in effect ration goods and services by making them available only to those able and willing to pay. What Obamacare facilitates is political rationing.


(Politically) Essential Health Care

Last October the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies produced a report on how to go about defining "essential" health care. The Institute's committee recognized that two competing goals are involved: "to provide health insurance coverage for a wide range of health needs and to make it affordable. If it was not affordable, then many people would not be able to obtain it, even with government help, and this would conflict with the purpose of the Affordable Care Act."

The report uses the metaphor of grocery shopping. The committee recommends starting with "a firm idea of what you can spend and to fill the cart carefully, with only enough food to fit within your budget." Any new item added to the cart has to be within the budget, keeping in mind what small businesses and their employees can afford, as well as medical necessity. Once the cart is as full as the budget allows, adding a new item requires removing an item.

Recall that the relevant shopper here is not you or me. It is mainly HHS that's deciding what to put into the health care cart. However, we'll be paying at the checkout as taxpayers and consumers. Meanwhile the department is expanding to perform additional functions.

The Institute of Medicine puts the veneer of expertise on this health care rationing. You can scream, "Death panel!" but the real eye-opener is how the "essential" package is already being shaped. The law and the administration mandate certain benefits that were not part of a typical insurance plan. These specific requirements are in addition to broad mandated categories like preventive services and hospital care.

Thus HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has decreed that insurers are required to pay for birth control, including contraceptive drugs, devices, and procedures. The administration says this is based on science under the law's mandate for preventive care. A religious institution­say a Catholic charity­can get an exemption, but not if it employs a number of non-Catholics. In that case it has to finance employees' birth control pills even if this violates the organization's religious principles. Catholic groups want greater flexibility in the exemption, but congressional Democrats oppose this.

In other words, coverage is required for some products and services while others are left vulnerable to being removed from the cart. More money for contraception, less money for something else. These are political decisions. Why did politicians prequalify contraception as essential and thus protected while other services have no such status? Women are relatively heavy users of medical services and pay more attention to health care than men do, so politicians can get votes­as well as campaign donations from product suppliers­by appealing to women.

For the makers of contraceptive drugs and devices, the coverage requirement is worth a lot of money because it will encourage people to buy more expensive products rather than use the cheap contraceptives widely available in drugstores. With the insurance coverage requirement, the consumer won't be paying the price.

But this is also part of an ideological package that favors creating special privileges for groups officially regarded as victims. The law gave women's health its own bureaucracy within HHS, headed by a deputy assistant secretary with a brief to establish objectives for issues of concern to women and provide advice, information, coordination, and other assistance to the rest of the bureaucracy. I found no corresponding Office of Men's Health, although in fact men die earlier than women and hence presumably have more urgent need for attention to their health issues. Men's health problems are evidently not a political and ideological winner.

Last December the Obama administration announced it will let each state determine the essential benefits that insurance policies sold on the state exchange will have to cover. This sounds like a major change but in fact the states remain subject to myriad requirements. The categories specified in the law and by HHS have to be covered. In effect the law and the federal government have decided most of what will go into the shopping cart, but for now the states are to be allowed to adjust around the edges.

This presumably defensive move by Obama as the presidential election approaches makes the situation more fluid and uncertain. The states will bear the brunt of complaints if they do not cover a certain benefit. Conversely states risk spiraling costs if they make their mandates generous. The federal government faces less political fallout and can impose further requirements once the election is over. For the administration the politics work out nicely.

Whether at the state or the federal level, the best guess is that ration-proof status will go to services of interest to suppliers or consumers with strong political influence. Health care companies had the second largest average political spending per million dollars of revenue among S&P 500 corporations in 2010, according to a study by the Investor Responsibility Research Center. Only utilities spent more on lobbying by that standard. Health care is becoming a utility, as was pointed out in the run-up to the act.

What's being established is a heavy regulatory overlay that covers almost all aspects of health care -- the law ranges from general mandates to a specific program of nutrition and exercise planning at community health centers. One could describe the Affordable Care Act as a giant reallocation scheme that will channel resources from other uses to medical industries and within health care to favored areas. Suppliers of goods and services want to maximize their share of the new entitlements on the one hand and, on the other, minimize the impact of cost controls on their businesses. All medical providers lobby to channel more goodies their way­everybody is certain his services and products are essential. But some lobby more effectively or with more resources. By all evidence this mode of operation will continue.

What Obamacare will do to medical costs is at best uncertain, with the expanded coverage and Medicaid eligibility pushing up expenditures while cost containment devolves on the less politically protected. That Obamacare has raised the income of lobbyists is clear, the President's protests against them notwithstanding.

Some people prefer political rationing to free markets. Perhaps they honestly believe politicians and bureaucrats make better choices than the numerous players that constitute a competitive market. Or perhaps they themselves are likely to do better under government rationing. But do they really want their medical options dictated by the lobbying success of this or that interest group? Because that is what happens in the political allocation of resources, whatever the pretense of science-based decision-making.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-politics-of-health-care-rationing/