Joel's Rant

With all the coverage of the budget deficit and the debt ceiling it was easy to miss the report that came this week from the Commerce Department that indicated the nation’s growth in the last quarter was 1.3%. To put that into some perspective, it takes quarterly growth of at least 3% just to keep up with the population of new workers coming of age and seeking employment. Essentially, 3% growth means being just even, treading water, just keeping up. It’s, for all practical purposes, no actual growth at all. It’s what an economy does when it’s standing in place, not moving forward or back. You get the idea.

If only our nation had 3% growth, what a lovely thing that would be. Instead we had 1.3% growth in the last quarter. But that’s not the worst news that was reported, news that no one really saw or cared about given the debt ceiling crisis and all that. No, the worst news was that the reported 1.9% growth of the previous quarter was actually incorrect. It turns out the actual real growth figure was 0.4% growth.

Now here’s the deal. The nation’s economy is dead in the water. We’re actually listing to the left. All this Obama and liberal and Democrat talk about an economic recovery, a recovery that’s underway but just not fast enough, and any other talk from Geithner or Schumer or Reid and the others about recovery is utter bullcrap. Not only is it a complete lie to say we’re in a recovery, but the ease with which these people lie reveals something very dark and sinister and troubling. It’s serial, it’s psychopathic. It just is.

If you believe those guys, or their media sycophants, you’re living on another planet. There’s no recovery at all. In fact, there may actually be a real live depression going on. Job growth is dead. Home buying is dead. Consumer spending is dead. With fully 25 million people either unemployed, or under-employed, what we have here is your classic stagnation, with stagflation not far behind.

This brings us to the debt ceiling and the farce that’s playing out for the entire world to see. It would be funny to watch if it weren’t so serious and the stakes so high. We have the Republicans on one side, furiously trying to put plan after plan, proposal after proposal on the record, hoping to get the Democrats to allow a vote up or down and then use that debate to formulate a policy every side can live with. My own opinion is that the Republicans should stop negotiating and let the August 2nd deadline come and see what happens, but that’s beside the point.

Since April, the House Republicans have actually passed, and made official and transparent, the Ryan budget, the Cut, Cap & Balance proposal, and the Boehner plan. The Democrats have not even offered a budget, let alone passed one, as required by law, in almost 3 years!

On the other side we have the freaks of the left. You can’t describe them in any other way because to do so would lend them a sense of seriousness of which they do not deserve. They are not serious people, they are destroyers. For the past 7 months they have offered exactly nothing. They have not offered a plan or a policy. There is nothing specific on paper, there’s nothing written down for others to examine, they have provided no documentation. They just talk……and talk and talk.

Obama’s the best talker, a talker in the mold of Castro or Chavez, droning on and on, blaming everyone else, using his now almost daily national audience to stoke, the way a third-world dictator would, hate and loathing of the Republicans. Or if not Republicans one day, it’s hating the rich, the oil companies, insurance companies, or jet owners the next day. It’s about hating the “millionaires & billionaires” (who are actually more likely to be a teacher and fireman married to each other and earning about $250,000 a year). It’s about hating the people on Wall Street. It’s about hating business or corporations. It’s about hating CEO’s or drug companies. But it’s always about hate.

Obama and his minions are very hateful people.

And so they offer nothing. Even after all the discussions and negotiations about spending cuts Jack Lew, Obama’s director of the budget, admitted that the Democrats had actually agreed to only $2 billion in discretionary spending cuts. That’s $2 billion; or 1/20th of 1% of the expected budget deficit for 1 year.
But even that wasn’t written down anywhere.

And the Senate Democrats then refused to even debate the bills the House sent over for a vote. Not only did they not vote, 51 of them agreed not to even hear the specifics of the bill, to not even listen to what was proposed. The Democrats essentially put their hands over their mouths, eyes and ears and would not even admit that there was something physical sitting directly in front of them. They’re the ones proclaiming a calamity in the American economy if something isn’t done to raise the debt ceiling and they refuse to vote on or even discuss the Republican’s offer of a resolution. And literally no sooner do they refuse the Republican’s outright, but have the unmitigated chutzpah to appear before a national audience just moments later to say the Republicans are negotiating in bad faith. You can’t make this stuff up.

So what does all this mean? I don’t believe the Republicans are necessarily noble people. They clearly are politicians and have their own stuff. But they’re not anti-American. They don’t hate America. They don’t hate the people they are supposed to represent.

The Democrats, on the other hand, want to create an additional $10 trillion in budget deficits over the next 10 years to add to the $14 trillion in public debt already on the books. They have no problem raising taxes on those still lucky enough to be employed and will increase those taxes by 5% or 50%, they really don’t care. They don’t care that the nation’s accrued debt, by 2020, will be over $25 trillion. They don’t care that debt levels of that magnitude cannot be sustained. They don’t care that the civil society might collapse, that civil unrest could break out the way it has in Greece. They really don’t care.
They don’t care that the economy is dead. They lie about it to convince you otherwise, but the facts tell the truth. And ObamaCare has not even hit the streets yet.

The Democrats are the party of Fast & Furious. Like the reprehensible scandal that bemoans that name, people like Obama and Pelosi and Wasserman-Schultz and others don’t think things through; they have no interest in the consequences; they’re not concerned about how they impact on people’s lives. They refuse to take any blame, they refuse to be reflective of their actions, they refuse to be transparent, they refuse to take any responsibility.

When you take a moment and look at our country and the political class that is navigating our ship of state you realize something really scary. This present debate isn’t at all about America’s economy, or our debt or debt ceiling or any of that. This is about America and the kind of country we are and the kind of country we will become. This is about the future of America for us and our children.

This is an existential battle between two different and opposite ideologies. One ideology is good, even brilliant, if otherwise managed clumsily and often weakly. The other is evil and will bring down our once great society and culture, bringing menace and misery to everyone but the political class that adores it.
I hate to say it, but the Democrats hate America and they hate Americans. They hate all of us. Their actions prove it.

And that’s all there is to it.

Some weeks ago Barack Obama visited the border in Texas and gave a speech about how his administration has done everything possible, everything the Republicans demanded, to close the border and reduce the number of illegal’s streaming into our country.  In fact, he said the border is safer now than ever before.  Of course, everything Obama said was a factual and documented lie.  But a long time friend of mine of almost 50 years, a liberal from NYC, told me the reports of Barack Obama lying were just “crack pot politics”.

I mean, everything BHO said was a lie.  He said the wall was virtually completed; instead there are over 1900 miles of border and only 350 miles of fence has been built, and only about half of that was built to the correct standards.  Not even close.  BHO claimed 31% more drugs and 64% more guns were seized then before, yet the number of people crossing the border is down 40%.  Hmmm, very interesting; seizures of drugs and guns go up, yet seizures of people go down. Up or down, it matters not. Whatever the numbers, Obama vindicates himself.

He tells us that the country is creating more jobs, when it’s not. He tells us he has either “saved or created” 2 million jobs since he’s been president, but will not provide the data or formula by which those numbers were derived.  He tells us that the country is bouncing back economically or that ObamaCare is good for the citizens, when it’s not.  Everything he says is an actual lie.  But to the liberal, drawing attention to those lies is just crack pot politics.

Obama and his record should be the basis for what the 2012 presidential election is about, and the Democrats will do everything they can to not talk about the present, to not talk about the Obama record.  The truth is that the GOP nominee, no matter who that is, should have a field day beating the person who is essentially the dumbest and least capable of all the candidates running in 2012, Barack Hussein Obama.

So before we forget about the present, let’s review where we presently stand after just 2 ½ years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

• The number of people on Food Stamps has increased by 40% to the highest number of beneficiaries in the nation’s history. 
• The price of gasoline has increased by 75% to the highest in the nation’s history.
• The 33% of average home equity loss in the last 2 years is higher than that of the 31% suffered during the Great Depression.  Home prices are now at 2002 levels, wiping out 10 years of increased equity and personal wealth.  In fact, home foreclosures, recently at record levels, continue at very high and unacceptable rates.
• Two nationally recognized credit agencies are about to downgrade America’s bond rating to below triple-A  because of a $14 trillion debt that the Obama administration has done everything it can to avoid dealing with in an honest and responsible fashion and has taken absolutely no action to address other than to require higher taxes on the so-called rich.  By the way, even if taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” (who are really people grossing just $250,000 and are not millionaires or billionaires at all) are eventually taxed at the “Clinton tax levels” the additional revenue generated would amount to only $80 billion.  With a budget deficit this coming year alone of an expected $1.65 trillion, you can see the issue of taxing the “rich” to get out of our budget disaster is a complete red-herring, a canard, a lie, bullcrap.  You get the idea.
• Manufacturing in America has slacked off to its lowest level since September 2009, no matter what Obama recently said about the 2 government auto companies, which could only be showing progress due to GM and Chrysler both being relieved of their tax burdens to the tune of $47 billion and $7 billion respectively.  Only a government and union owned company could possibly get a deal like that.
• By a 3 to 2 vote (the 3 being Obama appointed union lawyers and hacks) the National Labor Relations Board is attempting to stop the Boeing Corporation from opening a manufacturing plant in South Carolina because that state is a “right to work” state.  Boeing’s only other alternative would be to take those 1,000 jobs overseas.
• The official unemployment rate is presently 9.1% and the GAO now reports that, using present government economic policies, it is likely to remain at that “European level” until at least the year 2020.  And that doesn’t even factor in the “under-employment” rate, including folks either working only part-time but want to work more or who have simply dropped out of the labor market altogether, which is closer to 20%, a number last seen during the Great Depression.
• Over 51% of the working age population pays no federal personal income tax, depending rather on the largesse provided by the remaining 49%, of which the top 1% pays 40% of the taxes and the top 10% pay over 70% of all federal personal income taxes.
• Because of the instability in the American economy, China no longer wants to buy our debt.  They figure holding $1 trillion is clearly as high as they want to go.  In fact, they’re trying to off-load some of the debt they hold.  Instead, the biggest buyer of American debt, which is required to fuel the operation of our government to the tune of 40 cents for every dollar spent, is the Federal Reserve.  Through their “quantitative easing” policies they have bought over 70% of all US debt, which effectively means they are simply printing fiat money, backed by nothing, to flood the economy.  The approximate $1 trillion recently printed through QE1 and QE2 is apparently not even enough since talk of a QE3, to print additional hundreds of billions, is already underway in the halls of the Treasury and Federal Reserve.  What are the repercussions of a government printing paper money to borrow from itself?  Remember Weimar Germany?  How about present day Zimbabwe?
• The Obama EPA has imposed such strong anti-coal policy that 5 coal-fired power plants in the Midwest have decided to shut down rather than make needless modifications that would cost literally billions to effectuate.  Interesting that the lifeblood of a technological society is cheap and abundant energy, which America has much of, yet the Obama administration is doing everything it can to halt production, force prices higher and make stockpiles scarce, even to the point of lending money we borrowed from China to Brazil and Columbia for them to develop their own energy resources instead of us developing ours.  Using exactly what kind of demented calculus do you use to believe that policy is good for America?

And there’s so much more.  And that doesn’t even include the destruction of liberty and subversion of the Constitution that we know of as ObamaCare.  And that doesn’t even include a foreign policy from Mars.

But isn’t there any good news?  BHO must have done something good, no?

Well, the limousine industry in America is doing well since the number of such government vehicles has effectively increased 100% since Obama has been president.  Now that says a lot, doesn’t it?

Oh, and if you’re a politically well connected crony-capitalist company or someone with friends high in the Democrat Party (for example, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid) or a public employee union, you could get a waiver from ObamaCare that will shield you from the costs and risks that the rest of the population may have to endure.  Of the over 1300 ObamaCare waivers already granted, over half the effected workers belong to public employee or other favored union even though less than 12% of the population are union members.  If that doesn’t show the corruption that will ensue if this law is either not repealed or defeated in the courts, nothing will.

This is what happens when you take the best society and culture in the world and attempt to replace it with something else, as Obama said, to “fundamentally change America.”  You know, “fundamentally change America” into something different, foreign and alien.  But why would you want to “fundamentally” change something that you love, anyway?  The answer is you don’t. 

You only “fundamentally” change something you hate.  That’s why you “fundamentally” want to change it.  That says a lot about Barack Obama, no?  And isn’t attempting to fundamentally change America into something else really the definition of “crack pot politics”?

And that’s all there is to it.

There’s a famous laboratory test that psychologists use to measure things like “fairness” and “altruism” called “The Ultimatum Game.”  There are 2 people that are anonymous to each other.  One person, person A, is given $20.  Person A is told that she must offer Person B a portion of that money.  If Person B accepts the offer they both get to keep the money they have been given.  If Person B rejects the offer, they both go home penniless.

According to the world of economics, if Person A offers $1 to Person B, Person B should accept the offer.  Even though Person A gets to keep $19, at least Person B gets something out of the deal.  If Person B rejects Person A’s offer of only $1, both Persons A and B get nothing.

To me, this is how those on the political left view the Bush tax cut policies of 2001 and 2003, which are presently set to expire on January 1, 2011, thereby instituting the largest single tax increase in American history.  As long as they perceive, incorrectly I might add, that someone is getting more of a tax cut then they are, they don’t want anyone to get the tax cut.  It’s as simple as that.

I have liberal friends tell me all the time that they can’t wait for those tax cuts to expire because they only favored the “rich” or only provided tax cuts to “millionaires.”  They also want “rich” people to finally pay their “fair share” of income taxes.  Never, of course, does anyone provide any data to back up those claims nor do any of them want to actually know the truth.  That would include state-run media people as well.

Don’t you hate that, when the truth gets in the way of making your point?

In fact, the truth is quite the opposite.  But first let’s stipulate a few facts.

1. Poor people do not create jobs.  Unfortunately, that’s a fact.  People without the financial means to hire workers, who expect to be paid for their efforts, are not going to create jobs.  They’re not going to create industries or businesses or provide any of the instrumentalities an economy requires in order to be prosperous.  Generally speaking, only “rich” people can do that and having those people available to provide that kind of support is necessary in a free-market, capitalist society.  Again, that’s a fact.
2. In 2008, the last year in which complete IRS data is so far available, the top 1% of taxpayers paid 40.4% of all the income taxes collected that year.  In fact, under George W. Bush (GWB), the tax liability of this top group grew faster than their share of the income.  Now, I don’t happen to be rich, and I’m certainly not feeling sorry for anyone who is rich, but what part of 40.4% is not a “fair share?”  If 40.4% of the taxes being paid, by only 1% of the payers mind you, is not absolutely amazingly fair, can we at least stipulate it comes very close to being fair?  By the way, the top 5% of taxpayers paid 60% of the income taxes and the top 10% paid 75% of the nation’s income taxes.  Oh, and the bottom 50% paid only 3% of the taxes and 47% of the nation paid zero income taxes.  So much for the argument that so-called rich people are not already paying their fair share.
3. Despite the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the same amount of money was deposited in the U.S Treasury as there was before the cuts.  That’s a fact.  The conventional wisdom that receipts to the Treasury suffered because of the tax cuts is completely bogus.  The average Treasury collection from federal personal income taxes averaged 18% of GDP from 1953 through 2006.  The Bush Treasury averaged that same 18% from 2001 through 2006.  Even with the cuts, the same amount of tax money was collected. 

However, there were 2 differences from the averages of the past.  First, 6 million new jobs were created during the GWB years, from 2001 through the end of 2006.  That’s a fact, as inconvenient as that is for some to grasp.   Second, while Treasury revenues remained the same even after the tax cuts, spending increased to historical heights, at least historical before Barack Obama. 

An interesting factoid regarding that level of spending is that never one time, not once, not one single time, not for even one moment, did the Democrats in Congress during the GWB years offer a lower budget, filibuster for decreasing spending, or in any way, shape or form recommend cutting spending in any program except for one….the Defense Department.  In fact, the only response to any of the budgets submitted by GWB was that he wasn’t spending enough.  Every GWB budget eventually ended up being raised because of Democrats’ higher spending requirements.  That’s a fact.  And every single higher spending requirement was fully endorsed and approved by…….Barack Obama.  Go figure!

The facts I’ve indicated above are not meant to absolve the GWB presidency of mistakes they made, because they made many.  Every president makes mistakes.  Even the hero of the political left, FDR, took a recession in 1930 and created a Great Depression that did not officially end until 1947.  FDR’s economic policies and his social engineering initiatives were a complete and utter disaster, and breached the fire walls of the Constitution, thereby creating the mechanism of big government that extends into every facet of our life and society that we experience today.  But he was an excellent, politically conservative, and America loving, wartime president.

But the conventional wisdom that the economy under GWB was a disaster is bullcrap. 

I don’t believe GWB ever nationalized an industry, business, company or corporation.  He also recognized potential economic disaster and tried twice to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but was repulsed by the Democrats in Congress (unlike the filibuster proof Congress enjoyed by Barack Obama, GWB has to cater to Democrats’ to get any legislation passed).  With unemployment around 5%, with home values doubled, with low inflation, with a record high stock market, with over 6 million new jobs created through 2006, the GWB economy was something that should be envied today given our current state of distress and danger to the health of the very Republic itself.  Let’s also try to remember that in addition to the recent financial crisis wrought, in large part, by government regulation like the Community Reinvestment Act and the criminality of government agencies like the aforementioned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that the Congress was taken over by Democrats in January 2007, a Congress which included, as one of its most vocal and strident members, one Barack Obama.

So, what are those GWB tax cuts that favor only the rich?

In the chart below you’ll see the tax years 2002 and 2003.  The tax year 2003 shows the rates with the GWB tax cuts, the rates we presently pay. If the tax cuts are allowed to expire by Barack Obama, the tax rates in 2011 will revert essentially to those shown below in tax year 2002.  Got it?

You might want to pay particular attention to how earnings from $46,700 to $56,800, the proverbial middle of the “middle class”, will have their marginal tax rate raised from 15% (2003 chart) to 27% (2002 chart), a rate increase of 12%.  That doesn’t sound too bad, right?  Actually someone paying 15%, and having their tax rate raised to 27%, has just suffered an 80% increase in their income tax!

So it turns out that GWB tax cuts actually helped middle class tax payers the most, with the biggest reductions going to those that needed it the most.  In fact, the GWB tax cuts were targeted to the middle class.  Those are the facts.  Any of that other rhetoric is bullcrap.

Tax Year 2002                                                 Tax Year 2003
 
up to $12,000 10%                              up to $14,000 10%
$12,000 – $46,700 15%                       $14,000 – $56,800 15%
$46,700 – $112,850 27%                     $56,800 – $114,650 25%
$112,850 – $171,950 30%                   $114,650 – $174,700 28%
$171,950 – $307,050 35%                   $174,700 – $311,950 33%
over $307,050 38.6%                          over $311,950 35%

But wait, that’s not all that’s going to change when the GWB rates expire on January 1^st.  In addition to the higher tax rates above, this is what’s going to also change so strap yourself in for the bumpy, and painful, ride:

The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income.  The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child.  The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level.  The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.  For you liberals, pretty good, no?

This year, there is no death tax.  For those dying on or after January 1, 2011, there is a 55% top death tax rate on estates over $1 million.  Actually, $1 million’s not that much.  A person leaving behind two homes, or one home on Long Island, and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

The capital gains tax will rise from 15% this year to 20% in 2011, a 33% increase.  The dividends tax will rise from 15% this year to 39.6% in 2011, a 164% increase.  These rates will rise another 3.8% in 2013.  These are the kinds of taxes that affect people with retirement savings, pensions, and others who might want to sell assets and take a profit.  That means it includes most people, including you liberals, in the middle class.  (And don’t forget the VAT tax that’s coming as well as the often discussed “wealth tax” on yearly assets owned.)

Here’s a real good one.  You liberals will really like this too.  Congresses failure to index the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million in 2011.  These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. 

And there are all sorts of higher business taxes that will guarantee higher unemployment and more failed businesses.  The recently passed financial overhaul bill, often referred to as Dodd-Frank, has virtually guaranteed that small banks and small financial organizations will go out of business leaving fewer options for consumers seeking loans and mortgages, thereby tightening credit even more than it is right now.

Oh, and don’t forget the first ObamaCare taxes go into effect on January 1^st as well.

Here’s the important thing for my friends on the political left to remember.  The rich can pay taxes.  They’ll either always be able to pay taxes or they can fashion their income so they appear to have no income.  The truly rich can do that.  That’s the beauty in being truly rich.  Got it?

That’s not the same for the rest of us.  That’s not the same for people like you.  Even if you confiscate every dime of every rich person there won’t be enough.  That won’t nearly be enough because there are not nearly enough rich people.   

But the people on the left don’t care.  It’s the Ultimatum Game for them.

But at least you now know the truth.

And that’s all there is to it.

Unless you’ve been living on another planet you know the case of Congressman Joe Barton (R, TX) and how he supposedly is an apologist for BP and how he’s being portrayed, along with every other politician in the Republican Party, as caring only about BP and its ability to function as a corporation and to hell with the people in the Gulf whose lives can very well be ruined by this accident.

By now everyone has heard the audio or seen the video of Joe Barton saying this:

“Now I’m going to speak totally for myself. I’m not speaking for the Republican Party, I’m not speaking for anyone in the House of Representatives but myself – I’m ashamed at what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown – in this case a $20 billion shakedown. The attorney general of the United States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people, participated in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund. That’s unprecedented in our nation’s history, has no legal standing and which sets, I think, a terrible precedent for the future”.

“There is no question that BP owns this lease. There is no question that BP made decisions that objective people think compromised safety. There is no question that BP is liable for the damages. But we have a due process system where we go through hearings, and in some cases court cases and litigation and determine what those damages are and when those damages should be paid. So, I’m only speaking for myself – I’m not speaking for anybody else – but I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or corporation that does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”

What most people did not hear, and what Democrats and the state-run mainstream media are loath to discuss or report is what was deleted from Joe Barton’s full comment, what was in between the 2 paragraphs above:

“If I called you into my office, and I the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Stupak, with me, who was legitimately conducting an oversight investigation on your company and said if you put so many millions of dollars in a project in my congressional district, I could go to jail, and should go to jail.”

What Joe Barton was saying, and what is true and correct, is that what the Obama regime did to BP is seriously against the law.  If the Congressman did it, it would be a crime punishable with jail time.  When the President does the same thing, the media calls it a sweet victory for the people.  How can that be?  Something is very wrong, no?

And here is the problem, a problem which too many people are more than willing to ignore.  We are a nation of laws.  We are a nation of rules and due process.  We have a Constitution that sets out the blueprint of how the government is supposed to operate, what they are allowed to do and under what circumstances they are allowed to do it. 

What Obama and his regime are doing here is once again ignoring the Constitution, and because of the way they and their minions in the media are spinning it, most Americans are delighted that the President is again ignoring the Constitution. 

 Joe Barton is very specific in saying that in cases of corporate or individual malfeasance actions are necessarily brought against the wrongdoers but, and here is the really important part, those actions take place in court, or in some cases in congressional hearings, and there is litigation, and lawsuits, and responsibility is categorized and those responsible are called to account in a public forum.  And in the case where the wrongdoer is required to put money in an escrow the law demands who the money is spent on, whom and under what circumstances the money is spent, and that those believing they have been unfairly treated are provided recourse and on and on. 

And what if the money ends up being spent incorrectly, or used by politicians to promote their own nefarious agendas, the American people have redress for that as well.  That’s what would be spelled out in court or after a judicial judgment, not with some blatant shakedown behind closed doors, where absolutely no details are known.

And that’s what Joe Barton was saying.  That’s why what the President is doing is wrong and even worse, it’s setting a precedent that future presidents can ignore the laws of the land and set terms on their own, with no oversight, or hearings, or discussion and without any accountability except for his own and on his own terms.  And that, my friends, is tyranny.

And there’s more and much worse and here it is.  Where does the President get the power to “shakedown” BP?  Where in the Constitution is the President allowed to call BP to the Oval Office and “negotiate” with them, with some unknown and non-public pressure, and get them to “agree” to terms that no one knows what they are, if they’re even legal, and to whom and under what conditions money will be paid.  As it happens, no one knows what the deal with BP includes and the Obama regime will essentially be figuring it all out as they move forward.  Why am I not surprised?

And no one will ask the President for accountability.  Actually, if you have the temerity to even ask a question, the state-run mainstream media and the Democrats and Marxists will call you a hatemonger, or a racist, or a homophobe or whatever.  The state-run mainstream media definitely won’t ask any questions.  The Congress won’t ask, and in fact they have forfeited their constitutional duty to set these terms themselves.  They have instead abrogated their responsibility entirely.  And that, my friends, is tyranny.

Where does the President get the power and authority to take $20 Billion from a private corporation and put one of his own henchmen in charge of doing whatever he wants with it?  Who’s Ken Feinberg and where does he get the power and authority to pay out money to whomever and under what conditions?  He’s unelected and unaccountable yet he’s the one that will set all the rules and cut all the deals.  Why is he judge, jury and executioner all in one? 

There is already talk that Feinberg will allow seafood restaurants in Boston to sue BP because their actions have led to higher seafood prices.  There’s also talk that Feinberg will allow New York State employee pension fund to sue BP because this accident has caused BP’s stock share price to go down.  That kind of acceptance of collateral damage, and we ain’t seen nothin’ yet, my friends, is tyranny.

And what if someone has a complaint, where do they go, who do they talk to?  Does some fisherman have to call Ken Feinberg personally?  No one knows.

And here’s the amazing part that too many people are not thinking about.  The government has squandered every trust fund, every escrow account, every lock box in history, and they have bankrupted every Agency in existence.  Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are already over $60 Trillion in the red, and all the unfunded liabilities the government has amassed through mismanagement and fraud already total over $100 Trillion.  Those are Trillions with a “T”.  And yet too many people have no problem turning all that $20 Billion over to the same government to do with what they like and there are completely no rules to guide them or restrict them.  Does this seem like a nightmare to you, because it should?

And it always comes down to where does the government, the President, get this authority?  It is not in the Constitution.  So where is it?  And why don’t enough people care about that?  What about the 40% of BP’s shareholders who are American citizens and who count on BP dividends for their retirement income or pension income?  Did the President consider them before he decided to shakedown BP for the political grandstanding it provided?  Not likely.

Look how, just last year, the Obama regime shook down the Chrysler secured bond holders and made them settle for pennies on the dollar when he undertook similarly unconstitutional action and nationalized that company.  I don’t know how many laws and contracts were arbitrarily broken by Obama, contracts previously protected by the Constitution, but he didn’t really care as long as his union supporters got control of the company.  That precedent is one of the reasons private investors are not running back into the free market, because Obama has unintentionally set new standards which are that the government can pretty much do whatever it wants at any time, including stealing money from their rightful owners.  Just ask those Chrysler bondholders.  How will other international and foreign investors react to BP’s treatment by the American President?  Will they continue to invest in America; will they continue to create American jobs?  Try and guess.

Or what about the health reform bill for which there is no basis in the Constitution.   Where in the Constitution does it provide for the government to order people to buy a commercial product, with their own money, from some third party that they don’t know and don’t want to know?  What precedent does that set for the future, for your children’s future?

When is the stealing going to stop?  When is the truth going to finally prevail?  When will the tyranny cease?

Earlier this year the Supreme Court struck down the government’s case that private corporations could not support their favorite candidates.  Remember the firestorm and how the Democrats yelled and screamed about the unfairness of that “Citizen’s United” case and even lied to the public about the court allowing foreign companies to support candidates?

Of course the court did nothing at all about foreign companies, as they left that part of the law in place.  It’s still unlawful for a foreign company to provide financial support to an American candidate.  That’s what the video of Samuel Alito, at the State of the Union address, mouthing the words “not true” was all about.  So it’s still unlawful.

But that hasn’t stopped Barack Obama from taking over $1 million in campaign donations from BP, a foreign company, a company that wanted to buy support and protection from the Obama regime.  What Obama and his regime have done by taking that money from foreign owned BP is against the law.  Will he return that money to BP?  Not on your life.

Conservatives know rape when they see it, and they don’t like it.

And that’s all there is to it.

The Obama agenda of carbon price hikes, centralized health care, greater regulation, increased taxes, government takeovers, government-mandated diversity in boardrooms and foreign policy that punishes friends and allies and cheers enemies and terrorists is finally being questioned……and with prejudice.
 
As evidenced in the last several weeks, maybe the growing unpopularity of central planning, as opposed to capitalism and free market principals upon which this country was founded, will dissuade the Obama enthusiasts and democrats from inflicting their Marxist/socialist/liberal experiments on the rest of us. 
 
http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/08/back-to-the-drawing-board