This week, the Restore America’s Voice Foundation delivered 1.6 million petitions from Americans demanding the repeal of Obamacare to Congress. The Heritage Foundation attended the press conference and spoke to some legislators afterwards about the problems with Obamacare, the progress of the repeal effort, and the sorts of conservative solutions they would like to see introduced.

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“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me.… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful—that’s what matters to me.”

R.I.P Steve Jobs. He was the patron saint of entrepreneurs. Newton once reflected that if his vision extended farther than others’ it was because he stood upon the shoulders of giants. One of the giants has left this iWorld a much more interesting place.

Others will write volumes on this incredible man’s achievements.  I do not possess the eloquence to encapsulate so amazing a life nor his impact on the way we live today and will in the future.  All I can say from a personal standpoint is that Steve Jobs, through Apple and Pixar, represented to me what possibilities exist in this great country when brilliance, vision, chutzpah and a whole lot of confidence in one’s own assessment of what the public desires combine into one formidable force.  (Oh, and as the Occupy Wall Street mob might want to remember as they tweet on their Apple, Inc. iPhones and iBooks, Jobs’ start-up also demonstrates how vital unfettered investment capital from the private sector is to finance said vision—in this case, $250,000 in1977 dollars from Mike Markkula, whom I imagine today would be classified by these same protestors as an “evil millionaire”.)

As the days pass the pantheon of memories of Mr. Jobs’ legacy will also include, rightfully, some failures as well as his many undeniable successes.  Eli Lehrer at the Heartland Institute points out a few: The Apple III was bug-infested.  The Lisa was prohibitively expensive.  The Apple G4 Cube sold poorly and he never made a mark in the applications software arena.

Still, as any creative person knows, and certainly those in business will tell you,  the road to ultimate success is often paved by initial failures, so long as they are viewed for what they are: a treasure trove of valuable lessons.

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Over the last three weeks, as the world has watched the spectacle of the Zuccotti Park protesters in lower Manhattan, some have been inspired and, in many cases, repulsed at the protesters occupying the park. Since the protests have now garnered the backing from the professional protesters from the AFL-CIO’s 56 unions and the SEIU, as well as implicit and explicit support from the Obama Administration and Democrats, there is more relevance to examining not just what the protesters are protesting but what they are promoting.

Meet “the Collaborators” [aka Baklava [sic] Boy and his friend. It was a chance encounter (the taking of this picture and the subsequent conversation) on Day One of #OccupyWallSt that gave some insight into the minds of the Neo-Communists protesting across the country.

Since most observers know that the #OccupyWallSt protesters are protesting capitalism and free-markets (generally), as well as banks and “corporatism” (specifically), other than a general destruction of America’s economic system, there has been a lot of questions as to what protesters’ end goals are.

As the #OccupyWallSt protests have been designed and populated by a hybrid of hard-core Marxists, from the leftist unions, to socialists and actual Communists, there have the stated goals ranging from the seizure of workplaces, schools and the “de-privatization of everything,” to the AFL-CIO’s more “moderate” goal of a worldwide tax on financial transactions. Then, there is also the unofficial proposed list of demands that has drawn a good deal of ridicule.

Despite all of this, however, it was ‘The Collaborators” who gave insight as to how the Neo-Coms plan to reorganize society—and that is through the system they call “collaboratism.” (more…)

Many are focused on the Supreme Court’s take-up of the question of the constitutionality of the individual mandate clause in Obamacare as the means to stop President Obama’s signature legislation. However, some of the law has already been funded and put into place, and, until the High Court rules- and if it rules that the individual mandate is unconstitutional- there are already clear plans to change healthcare in this country as we know it.

The fact that our doctors are all walking around from one examining room to another with laptops, rather than “charts,” lets us know that regulations for those in the healthcare field have already been in place for awhile, and that all that personal health information about us, that is being collected electronically, will likely be finding its way to the federal government soon.

Bill McCollum, former Attorney General of Florida, who led the multi-state lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare, wrote an editorial in Politico, in which he urges Congress to pass a bill, brought forward by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), which would essentially “freeze” the implementation of the law in its tracks, a critical move since Obamacare’s costs, including economic, quality of care, and personal privacy aspects, are catastrophic to the nation. Knowing that, even if Congress passed a “freeze,” the president would not sign it, Attorney General McCollum recommends that the new Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or “supercommittee,” take it up as a realistic, and relatively expedient, way to cut the deficit.

In light of the fact that there will still be some time before the Supreme Court will hear the case against Obamacare, the joint committee must consider the multitude of evidence that now exists about the costs of this program. According to Attorney General McCollum, in just 2012-2013 alone, for example, Obamacare owns $50 billion in tax increases, including $20 billion in payroll tax hikes on small businesses. The law institutes 159 new federal programs, costing $19 billion, and the controversial Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which will have never-before-seen power- no Congress needed- to make cuts to Medicare.

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If you follow me on Twitter, you know I spent a chunk of the weekend reading through the minutes of meetings from the #OccupyWallSt protests. While the time spent shifting through the mind-numbingly inane discussions among these twits is time I’ll never get back, I did learn a few interesting things. Among these is the fact that the protesters are obsessed with process. Actually, obsessed doesn’t really capture it. They are singularly focused and consumed by discussions of “how” they are going to go about doing things. They are so concerned that any one person may feel ‘left out’ or that any other person may exercise too much “control”, that they spend countless time discussing and debating “how” they are going to conduct meetings; often during the meetings themselves.

Which goes a long way to understanding how the situation in the video above happened. Rep. John Lewis, a veteran of real protests to win real freedoms and rights, asked to be able to address the young, overwhelmingly white, protesters in Atlanta, during one of their “General Assemblies.” So far, so typical. Anytime a group of people gathers for a political event, politicians of all stripes will often want to speak to the crowd. And, invariably, accommodations are generally made to let this happen. After all, an elected officials adds a certain amount of ‘legitimacy’ to the meeting.

Instead, some of the protesters objected to Rep. Lewis speaking. Partly because it wasn’t yet “time” for speeches, but also because letting him speak at that time would suggest he was “above” or “more important” than anyone else there. (The second obsession of these protesters.) That the whole farce played out WHILE Rep. John Lewis was standing there is delicious. The awkwardness is palatable.

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From The Los Angeles Times:

Torres Marrufo, also known as “the Jaguar,” has been identified by U.S. authorities as the enforcer for Sinaloa cartel chieftain Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman. The Fast and Furious weapons were found at one of Torres Marrufo’s homes April 30 when Mexican police inspected the property. It was unoccupied but “showed signs of recent activity,” they said.

The basement had been converted into a gym with a wall covered with built-in mirrors. Behind the mirrors they found a hidden room with the Fast and Furious weapons and dozens more, including an antiaircraft machine gun, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher.

“We have seized the most important cache of weapons in the history of Ciudad Juarez,” Chihuahua state Gov. Cesar Duarte said at the time, though he did not know that many of the weapons came from the U.S. and Fast and Furious.

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From The New York Times:

But at least one organization with an exceptionally good track record says another recession may already be here. That is the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a private forecasting firm based in Manhattan. It was founded by Geoffrey H. Moore, an economist who helped originate the practice of using leading indicators to predict business cycles. Mr. Moore died in 2000, but the team he trained is still at work.

Relying on a series of proprietary indexes, the institute correctly predicted the beginning and the end of the last recession. Over the last 15 years, it has gotten all of its recession calls right, while issuing no false alarms.

That’s why it’s worth paying attention to its current forecast. It’s chilling: as bad as the economy has been, it’s about to get worse.

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From the Associated Press:

But the absence of a simple, common goal frustrated some.

“The problem with their street theater is that it discredits the whole thing. It doesn’t seem serious,” said writer Chris Gay, 53. “They have got the attention, but now what? Once you have people’s attention, you need some proposals.”

Scathing criticism was leveled Friday by none other than Liberia’s peace campaigner Leymah Gbowee, shortly after she was named joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

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So the hippies are still hunkered down by Wall Street. Like their hero Bill Ayers (aka, President Obama’s terrorist buddy), they are admitted anti-capitalists who want more government-sponsored wealth redistribution, education recognized as a human right, and cradle-to-grave healthcare at no cost to the one receiving the healthcare.

That’s right, regardless of the claims to “Occupy Wall Street” in order to protest alleged financial wrong-doing (which is just leftist jargon for “shame on you for making a profit”), the real impetus because the gathering of these dirty hippies is union-sponsored socialism.

And President Obama is encouraging it.

That’s right, our sitting president is cheering the hippies on as they shut down traffic, drag their tarps from corner to corner, defecate who knows where, and dance in the streets with signs about the supposed wonders of socialism.

Not so ironically, the president’s already low poll numbers have fallen even further with these fine, upstanding citizens occupying our streets. (I guess they’re citizens, but to honest, the way Soros and Obama work, who knows?)

For example, the Gallup poll released on Friday, October 7, showed his approval rating at a miserable 38% and the disapproval numbers at an overwhelming 58%.  (I could be wrong, but I think even Jimmy Carter laughed at those numbers.)

Nevertheless, on the same day that the Gallup poll was released, President Obama stood behind a podium at the White House and told Americans: “I think [Occupy Wall Street] expresses the frustrations that the American people feel. …People are frustrated and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.”

Note to President Obama: It’s not working.

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#OccupyWallSt came to DC this weekend, forcing a shutting down of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum. #notwinning.

I had lost touch with my friend and businessman Domingo Bernardo many years ago, and he finally turned up on Facebook.  Domingo’s story is an incredible one:

My father “earned” his way out of Cuba by working essentially as a slave on the sugar cane fields for 2 years, where more than 25% of the people died within a year from malaria, as a punishment for asking for an exit visa.  We went back to Spain with the clothes on our backs (I was a toddler).  When Franco died, many Spaniards (my whole family is from Spain, my parents were in Cuba for only a few years), figured Socialism would come in, so many (like us) left, running from socialism to a country where we knew no one, had no jobs, and didn’t understand the culture or the language.  Socialism always does that — creates an incentive for the bright, the educated, the entrepreneurs and the wealthy to leave, leaving the country with what?  So we came to the U.S.

I learned English at 14, worked hard to get out of the ghetto, got into Cornell with a special language waiver, managed to get a Cornell engineering degree, then joined the Navy. Part of the reason I served was that I felt like I owed the country something for taking us in. I got hurt in Bosnia,came home, worked hard to establish a business, and now I’ve left my country, because I can’t take the Socialist slant anymore, and I am so tired of the regulations that make it almost impossible to do business in the U.S.  When I closed my home theatre installation business, I was not an engineer; I was a paper-filler-outer.  I have ZERO incentive to start my business in the USA between the taxes and the regulations.  The last straw was this summer; there are now over 6,000 lamps I can no longer use in jobs.  If I do, there is a fine of $5000 PER LAMP all for some hoax called Global Warming.  By the way, the new “better” lamps are from 4x to 10x costlier, and the “environment-killing” lamps are being used in every other non-EU country.

You need to understand Domingo as I did.  We were on the same dorm floor freshman year.  All he did was study.  He busted his ass, and every other day he talked about how grateful he was to the U.S.  He always intended to join the Navy, despite us (at the time, foolish liberals) trying to talk him out of it.  For this man to do all he has done, then leave of his own free will?  Wow. (more…)

From The New York Times:

Mike Keane, who owns O’Hara’s Restaurant and Pub, said that the theft of soap and toilet paper had soared and that one protester had used the bathroom but had failed to properly use the toilet. Both Ms. Tzortzatos, owner of the Panini and Company Cafe, and Mr. Keane said the protesters rarely bought anything, yet hurled curses when they were told that only paying customers could use their bathrooms.

Steve Zamfotis, manager of another nearby store, Steve’s Pizza, said: “They are pests. They go to the bathroom and don’t even buy a cup of coffee.”

Mr. Zamfotis closed his bathroom after it repeatedly flooded from protesters’ bathing there.

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“The Department of Energy made these decisions based on their best judgment.” – President Barack Obama speaking on Solyndra scandal, Oct. 6, 2011

New e-mails show that Energy Department bureaucrats were warned that their $535 million loan restructuring plan to aid a collapsing solar firm called Solyndra could violate federal law and should be cleared through the Department of Justice.  According to DOE officials, the advice was ignored and instead, “career lawyers in the loan program based on a careful analysis of the statute” determined the legality of the deal.

Last month, Chairman of the House Energy Committee, Cliff Stearns (R-FL) described the loan restructuring as an “illegal act” as it put private investors ahead of tax payers for any loan pay-outs that might occur.  Those private investors given priority over tax payers included hedge funds connected with major Obama fundraiser George Kaiser.

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From The Hill:

House Republicans released an email Friday evening showing that a senior Treasury Department official in August expressed concern that the Energy Department’s early 2011 restructuring of the solar company Solyndra’s $535 million loan guarantee may have been illegal.

The restructuring put private investors, who were providing another $75 million to the struggling company, first in line for repayment if the company went under. In addition, House Republicans probing Solyndra – which collapsed several weeks ago – say DOE may have violated requirements to consult with Treasury on the revision of the loan agreement.

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s GOP leaders wrote to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Friday seeking documents about Treasury’s communication with the White House, DOE and other agencies on the financing.

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On October 1st, 2011 tea party groups from around the Midwest gathered at the TEACON convention in Schaumburg, Illinois. Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi stated that he became outraged when he heard this event was taking place in his own backyard in the Illinois 8th congressional district. Raja told the Huffington Post that he planned to lead a protest against the event, which featured the likes of Glenn Beck, Andrew Breitbart and presidential candidate Herman Cain.

Once Raja made his appearance at the protest, he denied having planned the protest and claimed that he was deferring to, and joining, the protesters who already showed up outside the convention center. There were approximately eight protesters in total, one of whom we can confirm, in the following video, is a communist. To be fair, when asked if he supported the Communist party, Raja replied that he did not; however, when asked how he felt about joining communists and how his potential constituents might feel about him protesting other Americans alongside communists, he said “I’m okay with protesting the TEACON convention,” and “I think the constituents want us to stand up to the Tea Party.”

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Time, experience, and maturity have led me to conclude that it is better to be in control of your own destiny than to have it dictated to you.  If you control your own destiny, then you reap the rewards of your hard work and of your mistakes.

But what if you are afraid to control your own destiny?  What if you have such low self-confidence that you believe it isn’t worth it to even try, that a Steve Jobs is the exception rather than the rule?

The Creation of The Liberal

Think about the people you know who have low self-esteem.  We’ll call that person The Patient. The Patient does not see value in himself.  He does not consider himself worthy of advancement, of self-transcendence, or self-actualization.  Instead, The Patient believes he is a bad person, undeserving of success, love, wealth, or happiness.  He comes to believe, therefore, that any effort he exerts on his own behalf is doomed to fail because he is such a bad person and does not deserve any success.

But there is this tiny little voice — the ego — that just won’t stand for this self-flagellation.  So the ego projects The Patient’s self-hate onto The Other as a defense mechanism.  They project the self-hate onto the person who is happy, wealthy, successful, and loved.  Now, it is The Other who becomes the object of hate.  “Why should he have everything?  What has he done to deserve all this?  I’m not the bad person, he is.”   As a friend’s Facebook quote said just today, “Haters don’t really hate you, they hate themselves because you are a reflection of what they wish to be.” (more…)

From the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama on Saturday urged the US Senate to pass his jobs bill this week, boosted by a non-partisan group’s report that the plan could cut the deficit and grow much-needed employment figures.

“It is time for those who oppose the jobs act to explain why they are fighting against something that we know will improve the American economy,” Obama said in his weekly Internet and radio address.

The bill, he said, “will provide our economy with the jolt that it really needs right now.”

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One would think that clever people would know how to finesse a shady sleight of hand whenever a political blunder demands a dishonest image be projected for the American public. Yet time and again, Democrats considered exceptional by other Democrats appear to be more gifted in looking foolish than exhibiting the ingenious brainpower they believe sets them apart from the rest of the world.

Take, for instance, way back in the glorious Clinton years, when Hill and Bill were supposedly having a private moment slow-dancing on the beach in St. Thomas.  Coincidentally, the loving interlude took place while Bill was simultaneously preparing for his deposition in the Paula Jones scandal.

In her memoir Living History, the always authentically disingenuous Hillary described the private, honeymoon-like moment and the romantic couple’s surprise when they found out a voyeuristic paparazzo had intruded on their lovers’ passion from afar.

After finding out about being scoped out by a high-powered telephoto lens, Mrs. Clinton revealed that “Bill wasn’t upset. He liked the photo.” (more…)