Michael Moore recently pontificated that under Obamacare Americans would have to wait for certain non life-threatening procedures such as a knee replacement. In his mind a “patriotic American” would be happy to do so. If one takes a critical look at socialized healthcare it would be obvious that it doesn’t work. In the UK, the healthcare system is so strapped for money that it is considering outsourcing the management of it to a German company. It is criminal that we would alter our medical system to emulate one that is obviously broken. Despite the pronouncements of healthcare equality we are rapidly moving towards a two tier system that is separate and unequal – those who have the means to do so will simply opt-out.

It is the insertion of Government into the healthcare system that has put us in the position we are in. Cronyism has given corporate interests such as big Pharma, medical insurance companies and hospitals the power to systematically remove competition, control prices and lead to the too big to fail phenomenon that has left doctors and patients on the outside looking in while those who know ‘what is best for us’ continue to gut what was once the best medical system in the world.  The medical insurance industry is an example of a supporter that helped lobby for the passage of Obamacare that has been a big winner.

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A middle school in Smyrna, Georgia included in an assignment material that essentially shows 7th grade children that Islamic polygamy is a perfectly legitimate concept and that there is nothing wrong with the strict dress codes used to oppress Muslim women the world over.

The material was presented to the 7th graders at Campbell Middle School as part of a discussion of the school’s dress codes, apparently meant to use the ideas of Islamic culture for women’s clothing as some sort of example to compare how the school regulates clothing for its students in Georgia.

The concepts were presented in the lesson as a letter from a fictional 20-year-old Muslim woman named “Ahlima.” In this letter “Ahlima” tells readers that she wouldn’t mind if her husband took a second wife and also extolled the virtues of the burkha. She claims that American women are “horribly immodest” in the way they dress.

As to polygamy, the fictional Ahlima says, “I understand that some Westerners condemn our practice of polygamy, but I also know they are wrong.”

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Sometimes it is difficult to see the forest through the trees. Such seems to be the case of the media’s reporting on the matter of the union appointees at President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board and their prosecution of Boeing. This latest example of the media being blinded is the alleged ‘smoking gun‘ that was reported on Friday. However, if the media were to actually look at the timeline in the Boeing  drama against the ’smoking gun,’ it appears they’re being duped by just another well-orchestrated smoke screen to cover the Machinists own potentially unlawful retaliatory actions against the Boeing employees in South Carolina.

On Friday, various media outlets echoed the union story line that there has been a smoking gun somewhere buried deep in the far recesses of some corporate filing cabinet in Boeing headquarters.

According to the union’s story line, the smoking gun is the content of slides on several PowerPoint presentations (view here) given to executives, beginning in April of 2009. The plot, according to the Machinists, are revealed by the ‘Project Gemini’—Boeing’s slides weighing the pros and cons of opening a second assembly line outside of Puget Sound. These slides, according to the union, ’prove’ Boeing’s intent was to ‘punish’ Machinists union members.

The union even goes so far as to state on its website:

“The Project Gemini documents prove what we’ve suspected all along – that Boeing moved to Charleston to punish our members for exercising their union rights,” said Connie Kelliher, a spokeswoman for District 751.

While ‘Project Gemini’ clearly shows that the company was interested in a second source of production in South Carolina because of “lower labor costs” and its “current hostage situation,” the problem with the union’s (and NLRB’s) entire evil corporate conspiracy theory is in the actual time line of events.

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I occasionally broker commercial loans between finance companies and small businesses.  It gives me a lot of pride when I bring together an American entrepreneur who is ready to risk all his assets on his own business, with a finance company that sees a way to help that businessman and make a profit himself.

For the past month, I’ve been working with a financier to bring funding to 30 entrepreneurs, eager and ready to start up their businesses.  Yesterday I had the most dis-spiriting conversation of my professional career with my financier, whom I’ll call “Joe”.

Joe has a credit line with a Gigantic American Bank.  The Federal Reserve has slapped the Bank, and all other banks big and small, with new regulations regarding how they loan their money, who they loan it to, and issued a mountain of compliance rules.  The Bank cannot rely on their internal compliance auditors any longer, either.  They must use independent auditors.

The Bank, in order to remain in compliance, must shove all these same regulations and compliance rules onto whomever they loan money to, including Joe, who also must engage an independent compliance auditor.  Joe must shove all these same regulations and compliance rules onto whomever he loans money to, including these entrepreneurs, who also must engage an independent compliance auditor.

The cost of all these regulations and compliance audits, at the entrepreneur level alone, is $30,000.   It costs a heck of a lot more as you move up the chain.

The entrepreneurs cannot afford this.

As a result, the entrepreneurs’ dreams of starting their own businesses die on the vine.  They now must go back into the depressed job market to (not) find a job.

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Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a country famous for its apples. In fact, it produced nothing but apples and so was called Appleonia. The people ate many apples in many different ways: raw apples, baked apples, apple pies, apple fritters, and candied apples, to name just a few. They found lots of different ways to use their apples, even as fuel.

But Appleonians didn’t consume all of their apples. They saved lots and lots of apples for their seeds so they could enlarge their orchards and grow more and more. For hundreds of years, the Appleonians consumed lots of apples and made their orchards bigger and bigger. Everyone in Appleonia worked in the apple business and prospered.

It turned out though that not every place in Appleonia was perfect for growing apples. Some areas were filled with worms that just loved apples. Little by little, the worms began to infest the orchards. No one noticed until one day a young boy opened a barrel and, taking a big bite out of an apple, bit right into a worm. Undeterred, he picked up another, with the same result, and another and another. At last he found an apple that was as good inside as it was outside.

But word spread quickly that there were worms in the apples and that the worms seemed to be spreading from orchard to orchard. People quit harvesting in the infested areas and, even worse, they could no longer guarantee the high quality of their apples as they had in the past. For the first time, they produced fewer apples, and many people were put out of work.

The Appleonian government grew very worried and, after brief consultation with academic experts, came up with an idea. To put people back to work and restore faith in the apples, the government hired lots of people to polish all the rotten apples. Of course, this didn’t really work: the polished apples may have looked better on the outside, but they were still rotten on the inside. Things didn’t get any better. People were still out of work, and the quality of the apples was still hit and miss. Government officials came up with another plan. They hired another bunch of people to spray a thin layer of wax on the rotten apples. Again, their remedy was superficial: the bad apples may have looked gorgeous, but they were still rotten on the inside, and hence worthless.

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In a shocking upset, Herman Cain won the Florida Straw Poll yesterday. Perry came in second, Romney third and Bachmann…last.

There has been much discussion on Capitol Hill this week surrounding legislation that could provide temporary relief to energy providers across the country. The TRAIN Act – or Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011 – would mandate interagency economic analyses of EPA rules and delays two rules on power plant emissions.

I, for one, am thrilled the EPA’s economic “train wreck” could soon come to a screeching halt. The Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), in particular, would have negative effects across our economy: the country’s energy reliability would be weakened, monthly utility bills would increase, and power plants would be forced to close their doors; sending thousands of hard-working Americans to the unemployment line. Thanks to an amendment drafted by US Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), the TRAIN Act would ensure a minimum three-year delay of CSAPR.

EPA chief Lisa Jackson recently suggested the agency should “regulate sensibly – in a manner that does not create undue burdens and that carefully considers both the benefits and the costs.” Such a statement is surprising considering the EPA, by their own admission, has not taken jobs or the economy into account when drafting new regulations. Nor have they provided sufficient opportunities for experts to assess the implications of these burdensome regulations.

Unfortunately, Texas is already suffering the consequences of the EPA’s shortsightedness. Luminant Generation Co., a Dallas-based power-plant operator, announced earlier this month that it will be forced to cut 500 jobs and shut down two units at one of its coal-fired power plants if they are forced to comply with the EPA’s unrealistic regulations.

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During Thursday’s House Education & Workforce hearing, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) described the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) actions as creating a hostile environment for business. Wilson claimed that the pro-Big Labor Obama NLRB created an unintended consequence for Big Labor.

Rep. Wilson said that the NLRB’s actions have turned the 28 force-unionism states into “Roach Motels” that will trap employers with the help of the NLRB, and prevent them from ever leaving or expanding outside these states’ borders.

Wilson said that the NLRB actions translate into only one option for employers if they are going to locate in the United States, and that is to build and locate in at least one of the 22 Right To Work states.

Wilson emphatically said, “In fact, you must locate in a Right to Work state.”

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Gun owners often remark that they carry a gun because a policeman is too heavy. This is cute, but it makes the point. In this country, the citizen is supreme authority, and when a citizen is armed, the law is present. It is on our authority that we delegate to law enforcement powers we wish them to have in order to do the jobs we ask of them. In doing this, however, we have never surrendered the totality of our supreme authority as the Sovereign. It is this which is recognized by forty-eight states who affirm the armed citizen within their borders, and who respect the rights of visitors from other states to be armed.

When I write about guns on campus, or other venues of armed citizen, I point out that the citizen has not only the right to armed self-defense, but also the legal authority to act in the absence of police. I compare this to Citizen CPR in the absence of Paramedics.

This comes from many sources, from public policy and public interest to just powers to general codified law and most of all from the idea that the citizens in this country are in fact the Sovereign. The second amendment in this country is the lethal force which backs our authority as the Sovereign. As the Sovereign, citizens cannot be subject to any gun control laws which attempt to regulate our being armed with lethal force. Our states predate the federal government and the feds are a creation of the states. As such, gun laws are a challenge to our sovereign authority as supreme. Little by little, our sovereignty is not only being blamed as hostile attitude and anti-government, but attitudes against guns and sovereignty are instigated as part of a larger movement to transfer sovereignty from the citizen to the State. I assure you, such a transfer is possible. Gun control is essential to losing our sovereignty over our government servants and our freedoms of movement. As such, there can be no such thing as so-called sensible gun laws.

All gun control is illegal because it challenges our authority and plumbs the depths of the careless tolerance of the electorate. In time of violence, more gun control is politically made to sound reasonable. In this country, there is no legal standing with which to challenge or infringe on the second amendment. It would be the same as claiming standing to own another human being somehow. Even a little is illegal.

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In a good sign for blogger free speech, a lawsuit against a high profile conservative blog in Illinois has just been tossed out. A political contributor brought the lawsuit over a story about property tax reassessments and political contributions. This is a victory for free political speech as well as a victory for the status of blogs in the world of “journalism.”

I’ve been aware of this story for some time but the folks at Illinois Review, the blog in question, asked me to sort of keep it all quiet. There were all sorts of legal questions being thrown about and since the folks that run the blog don’t have deep pockets and the whole thing was being born at their own expense, they wanted to be sure this whole mess didn’t escalate and hurt them too bad financially.

The lawsuit meant to silence the blog was a convoluted one, to be sure. Illinois Review had posted a story that revealed that former Ill. State Rep. Paul Froehlich (R, Schaumburg) had sought campaign contributions from property owners who had won property tax relief claims that the Representative had assisted in getting settled. But after the story went live, due to the notoriety the county assessors office reversed those tax relief decisions.

One of the property owners mentioned in the original story was Satkar Hospitality. Illinois Review reported the facts of the case, noted that Satkar got a favorable property tax reassessment, and speculated that Satkar made “in-kind contributions” to Rep. Froehlich.

For his part Rep. Froehlich claimed that there was no quid pro quo and said he’d known the folks at Satkar “before they even opened their hotel and long before they contributed to my campaign.”

Satkar sued the Illinois Review for defamation — naming Fox News and others as coconspirators.

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Until the most recent GOP debate took place, I was starting to think that perhaps Gov. Sarah Palin had waited too long to get into the race (if, in fact, she is getting in). Everything seemed to be solidifying around a match-up between Gov. Perry and Gov. McRomney, and it appeared that everyone else was simply fighting for their place on the periphery.

But a strange thing happened on the way to deciding who the Republican nominee is going to be, and that strange thing was Perry’s inexplicable refusal to recant his support for a Texas tuition waiver for illegal aliens. No matter how you slice it, his ongoing defense of giving nearly $100,000 (over four years) to pay for an illegal alien to go to college is an albatross around his neck that’s so big even McRomney can see it.

Perry is good man, and in my opinion, has been one of the greatest governors to ever hold the office in Texas. But all that gets overshadowed when his response to criticism about using taxpayer monies to pay tuition for illegals is: “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than that they’ve been brought there, through no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.”

First, somebody on Perry’s team needs to understand that illegals who go to college aren’t “children” – they’re 18 years old or older (that’s why they’re going into college instead of pre-K).

Secondly, even if they were children, on a matter of principle the whole idea is wrong (and it’s definitely not indicative of conservatism).

Think about it this way: What if someone breaks into my house and their kid tags along because it’s too hot for the kid to wait in the car. The argument could then be made that the kid ended up in my house “through no fault of [his] own.” Now, does the fact that the kid had no choice obligate me to provide him with a cool drink and a snack while my house is pillaged by his father?

No, no, no.

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There is a great discontent emanating from the Democrat and Progressive base regarding President Obama’s performance, a demographic he desperately needs if he is to succeed in his bid for re-election. Many in the traditional Republican circles, especially the so-called Republican strategists, argue that Republicans could run a teleprompter-reading “animatron” and win in 2012.

This is a foolish and dangerous position to espouse but one that should come as no surprise. Republicans, since their first days as a party, have honed the skill of shooting themselves in the foot to perfection. If Conservatives and Republicans don’t wake-up, evolve in their media tactics, get ahead of the message, frame their opponents and mandate the argument before the Progressives do, we could very well find Barack Obama taking the Oath of Office in 2013.

Steve Chapman, no stranger to the Chicago Progressive crowd, wrote in The Chicago Tribune:

“The vultures are starting to circle. Former White House spokesman Bill Burton said that unless Obama can rally the Democratic base, which is disillusioned with him, ‘it’s going to be impossible for the president to win.’ Democratic consultant James Carville had one word of advice for Obama: ‘Panic.’

“But there is good news for the president. I checked the Constitution, and he is under no compulsion to run for re-election. He can scrap the campaign, bag the fundraising calls and never watch another Republican debate as long as he’s willing to vacate the premises by Jan. 20, 2013.

“That might be the sensible thing to do….”

Chapman continues by submitting his choice to replace Mr. Obama for the Democrat nominee in 2012:

“The ideal candidate would be a figure of stature and ability who can’t be blamed for the economy. That person should not be a member of Congress, since it has an even lower approval rating than the president’s.

“It would also help to be conspicuously associated with prosperity. Given Obama’s reputation for being too quick to compromise, a reputation for toughness would be an asset.

“As it happens, there is someone at hand who fits this description: Hillary Clinton.”

Hillary Clinton.

Truth be told, there has been a softening among the moderate Conservatives and Republicans where Mrs. Clinton is concerned. Some feel sorry for her, and for myriad obvious personal and professional reasons. Others believe that she would have been a better choice for the nation as president than Barack Obama. Regardless of their reasons, the fact remains that there is a contingent on the Right side of the aisle who have forgotten that Mrs. Clinton is, herself, a Progressive, and by her own admission.

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For a party and a man that hold deep reservations towards capitalism, Democrats certainly jump at the chance to ride it – like all those corporate fat cats in their private jets! – when it suits their needs. Ah, but you see the argument isn’t over capitalism. That’s just bread tossed out for the masses. American socialists – those that are in the know, the elites – understand capitalism is the undisputed system of economics. Our infrastructure right down to the laws that govern commerce is capitalistic. There is no changing that. But how and where revenue is generated and then redistributed is where American socialism comes in. Here we are again, though. Socialism is rigid and nearly absolute in its means. This is the point where the road bends. The adaptation that has been on full display by the Obama administration is crony-capitalism, and corporatism. It’s not necessarily Socialism in the strictest terms.

Oil, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear energy exist. The benefits from which are well documented. Even liberals know this. However, through the use of regulations and legislations, Democrats are hell bent on creating an industry out of thin air. A lot depends on that point, too. For example, personal fortunes. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (only to name one. OK Al Gore, too) has invested heavily in green energy. The guarantees on investments are very secure. They come in the form of government subsidies – tax payers’ dollars. As I said, Pelosi is one of many liberal lawmakers who steer legislation to suit their investment needs. Business tycoons like T. Boone Pickens also played his hand in motivating certain legislation. After all, it was Pickens who started the Mesa Power green energy company which dealt exclusively with GE and a company heavily invested in by liberal lawmakers (again Pelosi). That’s a lot of money and connections associated with Democrat law makers and the White House.

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Today, in 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower deployed the 101st Airborne Division to enforced desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas. Perhaps a tad overkill, but certainly understandable. (So let me get this straight…we had to dispatch elite combat troops to ensure that certain people could attend public schools? Just a few decades ago…)

Chuck Heath, Jr., brother of Gov. Sarah Palin, has provided the statement below to Big Government and Big Journalism:

The McGinniss book is filled with one lie after another. The final straw for me was when I learned that he used me as a source for his lies about my sister and brother-in-law’s marriage. He included in his book comments falsely attributed to me by one of his unnamed sources. Neither McGinniss nor Crown/Random House reached out to me to verify, or even comment on, this alleged hearsay from an unnamed source. They just ran with it, and as a consequence, the tabloids picked it up and used it to fuel false rumors about my sister getting a divorce. All of this is a total lie, and I’m sick of seeing my sister, her family, and our extended family being trashed by smear-merchants like Joe McGinniss and his publisher.

NOTE: This video contains graphic images. Viewer discretion is advised.

The autopsy results from the death of Kelly Thomas, a schizophrenic drifter who was allegedy beaten to death by Fullerton, California police will be announced today by Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas. Rackauckas will also announce whether he will file charges against the officers involved in Thomas’ death, following the office’s investigation. The confrontation with police took place at a municipal bus station on July 5, with Thomas dying in the hospital five days later. This press conference comes weeks after the Fullerton police  refused to answer questions about the case.

Regardless of today’s announcements, Thomas’ death  is a case study of how ubiquitous phones with cameras and the Internet are transferring power from the government, police, and the media to the masses. Images and word of the beating spread not because of official communications but by viral cell phone video of the incident and a horrific hospital photo taken by his father of Thomas in a coma.

We already know how influential citizen video can be from the 1991 Rodney King beating in Los Angeles. Now that practically everyone has a camera with them on their cell phone or other device, says Michael German, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, it is increasingly difficult for authorities to dictate the flow of information.

“Technology has changed so much that we now carry cameras and recorders on our very person everywhere we go so it is very easy to immediately pull them up and take a video of whatever is happening,” says German.

That is how the Kelly Thomas video was recorded, but it didn’t find its way to the nightly news right away like the Rodney King beating. Ron Thomas, Kelly Thomas’ father, told Reason.tv that after initial interest, the media stopped covering the story.

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Jeremy Ryan is a habitual loser, or, to borrow a term from state Senator Glen Grothman (R-Wis.), a slob. Ryan is known around Madison, Wisconsin as the “Segway Boy” after his distinct mode of transportation that has made him nearly ubiquitous in the professional protest circuit of the city. Chances are, if you visited the state capitol at all since the protests were at their height this past spring, you’ve seen Ryan riding a Segway around the downtown area, or getting hauled out of the Senate or Assembly galleries after violating gallery rules with his antics.

Why does Jeremy Ryan matter? Because he – as one of the more obnoxious and well-known liberal protestors in Wisconsin – is a stereotypical example of the people who are still protesting. The outraged Wisconsin union members who flooded the state capitol are no longer leading the protests in Madison. In their place a new class of professional progressive protesters has arisen. It is they who are pouring beer on Wisconsin lawmakers and adopting ever more radical means to communicate their message. It is they that Dane County law enforcement is refusing to prosecute despite repeated and flagrant violations of the law.

Ryan’s public record as a protester has been well documented. Many of his protests have landed him citations from the police because he broke various ordinances, rules and laws related to public disturbances and public conduct. According to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article in June, Ryan had received 15 citations and been arrested nine times in conjunction with his protesting. The 15 citations had, as of June, racked up a total of $3,604.50 in fines – not a penny of which Ryan seems to be intent on paying.

As a professional, full-time protestor Ryan has no income from a job. What little money he does seem able to scrape up through donations apparently goes to pay for medication that he needs to manage several health issues as well as fund his political action committee, Defending Wisconsin PAC. The PAC does not pay Ryan for his work as executive director. GAB documents show that the committee has raised $8,305.90, and had $4,452.08 still in the bank as of its latest report. Perhaps if Ryan collected a one-time salary from his PAC he could be responsible and pay his outstanding fines.

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Just a little over a month ago, we reported that House Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee had called off a hearing on a natural gas boondoggle that would have lined the pockets of T. Boone Pickens and George Soros with taxpayer dollars. We were proud of the GOP for taking a step back and reconsidering a plan that could have been an unqualified disaster as government funds were directed not to programs that would assist in the development of market-friendly alternative fuels, but would have forced demand- and supply-side subsidies for natural gas, creating an unstable and unnatural market.

This week, unfortunately, House Ways and Means leadership has placed these energy subsidies and “tax credits” back on the agenda.

On April 6, 2011, Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK) introduced H.R. 1380, the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions (NAT GAS) Act of 2011.  The bill currently has 184 bipartisan cosponsors, although a number of Members of Congress have removed their names as cosponsors.  Referred primarily to the Ways and Means Committee, H.R. 1380 includes tax credits related to compressed and liquefied natural gas (CNG and LNG), including credits for the fuels themselves, credits for the purchase and production of vehicles powered by CNG and LNG, and credits for refueling property related to CNG and LNG.  Whether such credits represent good energy policy or an intrusion into the free market has been the subject of vigorous debate.

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Tiberi said, “Energy security and comprehensive tax reform are two of the most important priorities we can pursue to create jobs and ensure the long-term strength of the U.S. economy.  As the committee with jurisdiction over energy tax policy, the Ways and Means Committee should examine whether there sometimes can be tension between these priorities, and how this Committee can design tax policies that achieve our energy security goals while also staying true to the principles of simplicity, fairness, and growth that drive the Committee’s tax reform agenda.”

Anyone paying attention to Big Government would know the “tax credits” contained within this act are only tax credits because Congress chooses to define them as such. These tax credits are really heavily disguised taxpayer subsidies, doled out to people who choose to make radical, impulse decisions about which engines they put in their large vehicles without considering the long term effects of their actions. One Washington report explained the bait-and-switch rather nicely:

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A Parable If You Will…

A friend of mine has a sister who has been broke for years.   Ten years ago he could no longer watch her struggle while his own career took off and he began supporting her by supplementing her small income with his own money.  He makes $300,000 a year and gives her $30,000 a year to help her out…roughly 20% of his take-home after all of his taxes (federal, state, local) are taken out of his paycheck.

Now, in those ten years of supporting her, she has not used that money as a foundation to build herself a better more independent life contructed on sound financial footing.  If anything, her situation now is even worse than it was a decade ago because she continues to make bad  decisions again and again.  She married an alcoholic husband (despite warnings from her family this was the case) and she then had a child with that same husband who is now of course estranged, voluntarily putting exponentially more strain on her already stressful life.  As of now, despite my friend having willingly given her all in $300,000 over ten years – money he could have put towards his kid’s college education, paying off his mortgage, or just socked away in the bank for a rainy day – she is no better off because the way she is running her affairs is still a disaster.  She hasn’t learned a thing.

Still, he continues to pay her because he believes it is his moral obligation to give back to those in need, especially as he has done so well in life.  He’s not thrilled about it, but he gets the concept and bucks up.  Plus he genuinely cares for the down-trodden, realizing that a few bad decisions in his own life, a wrong fork in the road taken, and he could have been there with her…still could be even.  He made need help himself someday.  Who knows what the future holds?

Now, the other day she came to him for her annual $30,000.  But this time, because of  new credit card debts accumulated, she asked him for $35,000.  Her logic?  He can afford it and she needs it.
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