Shorter SCUTUS

Apparently,the federal government is not a state, but it identifies as one.

In this Caitlyn Jenner / Rachael Dolezal world, why not?

If laws can mean anything, regardless of what they say in writing, why have written laws at all?
Beats me.  

It's Sunday in America

"I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed [by the revolution he financed] on Monday."

          Saul Alinsky

Here's the good news as we pass the baton from 2014 to 2015:  The stock market is at record highs.  GDP finally grew at a healthy rate of five percent in the third quarter of 2014.  Cheap labor is flooding across our borders.  Oil is historically cheap.  Unemployment has reached normal levels.  Quantitative Easing has eased (but has not been reversed).  The US dollar is on a tear.  Tax revenues are at all-time highs. Interest rates remain at all-time lows.  Corporate profits are at record highs.  Banks are flush with cash and profits.  High-end real estate is fetching record prices.  In short: good times for Alinsky's "millionaires".  

If there's one thing Barack Obama has proven in his time on the national stage it's that, more than anything else, he is a committed disciple of Saul Alinsky's.  It is precisely this steadfast adherence to Alinsky tactics which explains Barack Obama's ability to both implement his agenda and confound his detractors at every turn.   No quote of Alinsky's explains as much as the one above when it comes to where we are today.

Why did the private insurance industry support Obamacare,  even though Obama and the Democrats had publicly proclaimed that their ultimate goal was a "single-payer" system, which would eventually eliminate the private insurance industry altogether?  Why does the Republican establishment support Obama's executive amnesty, even though the majority flooding our borders will absolutely vote Democrat amounting to the demographic end of the Republican party?  Why won't Republicans defund Obamacare even though they know there are better free-market based solutions for the health of all Americans, and that big government entitlements like Obamacare will always inure to the benefit of Democrats?  Why do big corporations and big banks give far more money to Democrats and Obama despite their support for radical violent movements like Occupy Wall Street that seek their demise?  Why does Hollywood, which relies on the first amendment,  almost unanimously support Barack Obama with its vast wealth and personal attention when he actually jailed the maker of a YouTube video he didn't agree with, and effectively denounced the first amendment in a speech at the UN?        

One need look no further than the above Alinsky quote.  Indeed, it is Sunday in America.

Happy New Year!  

Must see Grubergate video compilation...

This is really hitting home for me since I just received notice of a 20% premium increase and some mandatory changes to the plan I liked, but can no longer keep.  Period.




(Thanks to AmericanCommitment for compiling this, and hat tip to those spreading it around like HotAir.com,  John Ekdahl of Ace of Spades HQ, etc.)  

You can't spell Democrat without the letters COMRADE

Behold as Jonathan Gruber, one of the key architects of Obamacare, explains the deceptions at the heart of the Affordable Care Act - deceptions which were necessary to overcome "the stupidity of the American voter".

This is not the first time Democrats have deceived the American people in order to pursue a major redistribution of wealth.  The last time something like this happened was in the 1990s when Democrats under Bill Clinton began something called the Affordable Housing Initiative (there's that word "affordable" again).  Deception was the key to the whole thing as mortgage credit was made available to those who could not afford mortgages, while the default risk was deceptively redistributed to taxpayers via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FDIC, US Treasury, private banks, and other tentacles of the federal government.  The scheme eventually blew-up in 2008 and nearly took the global banking system down with it.  Oops.

Nevermind, the deceptions worked.  To this day if you ask the average voter what collapsed the financial system in 2008 they will dutifully recite that it was "greedy bankers, deregulation, and George W Bush".

One thing Democrats have learned from their comrades is the power of propaganda.  
     

Ben Stein Hits the Mark

Access of Evil

Re: FCC to Monitor Newsrooms

Is there a more dangerous word in the statist’s lexicon than “access”?  OK, maybe you could make a case for “fairness” or “right”, but I’d wager that lurking not far from either of those words would be a plethora of accesses too. 

The subprime boom that crashed financial markets in 2008 was built on a mountain of access.  Access to affordable housing, access to affordable mortgages, access to credit, access to the McMansion of your dreams, etc.  In short, access to stuff you could not possibly afford.  Ergo, access to other people’s stuff. 

Obamacare is built on a mountain of access too:  access to healthcare, access to affordable insurance, access to top hospitals, access to contraception, and on and on.  This is working out so well that now it is providing - access to unemployment lines, access to a lame website, access to a doctor shortage, access to higher premiums, access to higher deductibles, access to higher copays, access to fewer drugs, etc. 

Today we learned about a new threat from the “access of evil”.  The FCC is planning on placing monitors in TV, radio, and print newsrooms to insure that their audiences have “Access to Critical Information”.  Gee, this sounds an awful lot like what the East German Stasi and the Soviet KGB did.  I wonder which broadcasters and networks will be found lacking in providing this "critical information" access?  Would this not be a great way to provide access to a monopoly state-controlled media?    

From the first page of the FCC plan:  “the purpose of this Study of Critical Information Needs (CINs) is to provide a comprehensive analysis of access/barriers to CINs in diverse American communities.”  If this sounds a bit too Orwellian and unbelievable, here is the link to the actual document (assuming they haven’t taken it down yet).        

The word “access” appears 21 times in the document. 

(Update: Apparently the daughter of Democrat Congressman James Clyburn is a key player in all this.)

How the GLITCH stole HealthCare!

ObamaCare Meme - This Says It All

Half The Country Has Seceded From The Constitution

What is going on in America today?  Political polarization is at crisis levels.  The Republican Party is at war with itself.  Democrats are waking up to their own internal war.  Third party spoilers are showing up more often.  Has anything like this ever happened before? 

We always assume that the times we live in are unique.  Yet at the same time we know that history repeats itself.  These two ideas are not contradictory.  We are repeating history, but in a new way.

There are two ways to define the United States:  one is physical and one is conceptual.  Physically The United States is defined by its borders.  Conceptually The United States is defined by its constitution and founding ideas.

In 1860 seven southern states seceded from The United States triggering the Civil War (1861 – 1865).   That secession threatened the physical definition of The United States. 

Today I would argue half the country has similarly seceded, only this time it is conceptual.  They have seceded from the constitution and our founding ideas.

Political polarization and secession went hand in hand in 1860.  The Democrat Party had split into Northern and Southern factions.  A new party emerged called the Constitutional Union Party.  Republicans were geographically confined to the North.

None of this happened overnight.  The issues causing the polarization had been simmering since before the nation was born.  It took secession, and the realization of what that meant, for it to reach crisis status. 

Similarly, the ideological polarization over the constitution and our founding ideas has been heating up for a long time.  We have had an open repudiation of constitutionally limited government certainly since The Progressive Era (1890 – 1920).  That repudiation has been simmering for over a hundred years and has often been bipartisan.

Charges of unconstitutional behavior and intent are ubiquitous in American politics.  But Barack Obama represents something new.  He is not shy about his disdain for our constitution and founding ideas.  Nor is he shy about his preferences which contradict those ideas.

Barack Obama is the first president I’m aware of to openly announce a “fundamental transformation” of the United States.  The secession was announced!  And twice it won at the polls!

Now thanks to ObamaCare, the people are getting a first-hand glimpse of the reality of what that secession means to them.

There is an old analogy about boiling a frog:  Put a frog in boiling water and it will immediately jump out.  Put the same frog in cold water, slowly bring it to a boil, and the frog will surely die.

The question is, are we slowly boiling, or are we finally feeling it enough to jump?  

Here is a link to The Constitution of The United States.  You don’t need to be a legal scholar to read and understand the intent of this concise, relatively simple document.  It does however take a legal scholar to hide the secession!

(This could have been the preamble to my piece - “The Coming Civil War – Who, What, Where, When, and Why” which is available here.)

Urgent Request from Kcarab Amabo, Nigerian Prince

URGENT REQUEST!!!

Dear Friend, my name is Kcarab Amabo and I am esteemed Nigerian Prince.  Recently I have benefited from financial windfall from something called QEIII and am in position to transfer large sum of money into you account!  I cannot do this alone however and need help.  You see, opposition forces in my country make it extreme difficult to give money direct to you so I will need to channel funds through health insurance and bank accounts. 

In order for me to share this windfall with you I need you to assign your health plan over to me along with all bank accounts, medical records, tax records, phone records, emails, etc.  This is very safe!  You will reap piles of money doing this and get free medicine.  Moreover, if you like your health plan you can keep it.  Period.  If you like your doctor you can keep her.  Period.  This is no-lose proposition!  All you have to do is fill in forms and get rich! 

I have arranged at great expense a interweb for you convenience.  Just go to www.healthcare.gov and enter all information.  We will do the rest from there!

Remember, the sooner you act the sooner you can be on beach sipping pina coladas with hot models! 

Go to interweb now and don’t forget bank account #s with pin #s!

Yours truly, Kcarab Amabo, Nigerian Prince

PS:  Do not believe any misinformation about this offer!  There are those out there who do not want you to get rich or get free medicine!  Ignore them!

ObamaCare - We've Seen This Movie Before (hint: remember the financial crisis?)

If you want to know how ObamaCare is going to play out, you need look no further than the financial crisis of 2008.  Without beating around the bush, here's why:

Redistribution

ObamaCare (officially the ACA or Affordable Care Act) is little more than an elaborate redistribution scheme.  As Americans are now realizing, the idea is to force everyone into a highly regulated government controlled insurance system which subsidizes slightly more Americans than it penalizes.  By doing so, the subsidized voters will ensure electoral majorities from now on for The Democrat Party, the party of federal redistribution.

This is exactly what led to the financial crisis of 2008.  There actually was an equivalent redistribution scheme which was loosely called "The Affordable Housing Initiative" (herein the AHI).  AHI was not a single act but rather a constellation of policies pursued by President Bill Clinton and his administration.  Thanks to the policies and regulations which made up the AHI we got Subprime Mortgages, Liar Loans, Alt A Loans, Near Zero Interest Rates, Zero Down Payments, Securitized Mortgages, runaway Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac risk, and all the other elements which caused the housing bubble and the subsequent collapse under a different president in 2008.

What makes these two redistribution schemes so unique is that they represent a new wrinkle in the strategy of the redistributors.  The old model, like the New Deal and Great Society, was for the government to redistribute directly.  Taxes were raised, paid directly to the government, and then redistributed.  The AHI and the ACA take a different indirect route.  Rather than go through the government, these redistribution schemes are largely off the books of the federal government.  Through mandates, regulation, and a vast bureaucracy, private entities and pseudo-private entities are simply coerced into doing the dirty work for the government.

With indirect redistribution, politicians are able to say, "hey, I didn't raise your taxes!"  Then when it all goes bad they can say, "hey, it wasn't me, it was those greedy banks and insurance companies!"  In the case of the AHI, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who was a senator in 2008, have completely escaped all blame for the financial collapse they were instrumental in causing.  On healthcare, Barack Obama may not be quite so lucky only because healthcare is not a leveraged transaction.  Absent leverage there is no lag time between stupid policies and disastrous outcomes.

Centralized

One of the reasons the AHI led to such a profound US and near global meltdown was the degree of centralization in mortgages and finance.  The AHI centralized and gutted the requirements necessary to obtain a mortgage.  The federal government essentially controlled the rating agencies that gave the mortgage backed securities AAA ratings.  The entire mortgage industry was essentially controlled by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA, HUD, and Ginnie Mae, all government entities.  Federal tax policy encouraged mortgage debt and speculation in housing.  Federal Reserve policy kept interest rates artificially low fueling the housing bubble.  Globally, the Basel II bank regulations gave extra weighting to mortgages when computing bank reserve requirements.  In other words, we put all our eggs in centralized baskets.  (Today, nearly 100% of all mortgages written end-up being owned by the federal government.  We have learned nothing.)
  

Centralization is the mantra of the ACA as well.  The healthcare system of the entire nation is now under the control of the central planner bureaucrats and politicians.  States and individuals are no longer able to seek their own solutions.  Outside of the narrow confines of what constitutes an acceptable plan, there is no choice.  Reimbursement rates are now dictated by one bureaucratic entity.  The same goes for treatments, devices, drugs, testing, etc.  Medicine was always considered an art because the science can never be fully complete.  Now it is impossible to approach medicine as an art - it would be like mandating that all musicians play from one sheet of music!

Unresponsive

When markets run into trouble they have adaptive mechanisms to self correct.  Market transactions are taking place countless times every second and that information is constantly being fed to and reacted on by actors in those markets.  Price, supply, demand, quality, etc are all being constantly adjusted in response to these market signals.    But that all breaks down in centralized bureaucratic systems.  It took years for the government to modify its disastrous food pyramid, long after it was common knowledge that the advice was dangerous.  The latest one is no better.  This is exactly what happened with the AHI and what will also happen with the ACA.  The pace of innovation in medicine has always been one of the bright spots in our history.  Expect that to end.  Future medicine in the US will now be as cutting-edge as the United States Post Office.

Confusing Symptoms and Diseases

You see, a bad website is but a minor symptom.  The disease is unresponsive centralized redistribution.  That disease and it's effects will be catastrophic eventually.    

Ted Cruz Is Awesome! III

Last week Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee were the lowest forms of scum on the planet, and that was just what the GOP establishment was saying about them!  Democrats went even further calling them arsonists, terrorists, and hostage takers among other things.  Why?  Because they wanted to defund or delay Obamacare.

Now a week later there are probably enough Democrats leaning towards delaying Obamacare to pass the senate with a majority!  You can't make this stuff up.  Are these Democrats arsonists, terrorists, and hostage takers?  Is a comedian like Jon Stewart, who is the de-facto news anchor for Democrats under 90,  also an arsonist and a terrorist?  He too has brutally addressed Obamacare pointing out the obvious - it is simply not ready.    

Cruz and Lee were arguing, among other things, that Obamacare (Officially the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act", a name straight out of "Atlas Shrugged"!) had ceased to exist in it's original form.  Yes, it had passed on a party-line vote in 2010 and it survived one Supreme Court challenge in 2012, but Barack Obama has unilaterally rewritten it several times since then.  The legislature is supposed to rewrite laws under our system, not the executive.  Big employers were granted waivers for a year, Congress was given government subsidies in direct opposition to the law, income verification was waived, out-of-pocket caps were waived, and the penalty was rewritten by the SCOTUS as a "tax".   Defund or delay was predicated in part on the premise that the passed law no longer existed.  That, and the self-evident truth that if the law was ready to implement, Obama himself would not have rewritten it several times!  Turns out they were right.

So the good news for Cruz and Lee is that they have been vindicated on that aspect.  The science is settled, as they say.  The bad news comes via others who came before them and similarly challenged the establishment:  recall, Galileo Galilei was put under house arrest for the remainder of his life for asserting that the earth revolved around the sun, in direct opposition to the "establishment" belief that it was the other way around.

It's Just A Glitch!

Pardon me for milking this.

Obama Didn't Build That

Community Organizer Healthcare

If Only This Guy Were A Black Neurosurgeon, People Might Pay Attention!

If you share one video all year with your social network, please make it this one!
And remember this is the same guy who got an #ObamaAudit care of the IRS immediately after he first spoke out publicly!



(You can share this post by using the buttons on the bottom of this page, or by opening the YouTube video and sharing it.)

Tyranny

#IRS #Obamacare #Benghazi #BenghaziCoverup #UnionThugs #DOJSpying #ShutdownTheater #WWIIVets #Redistribution #17Trillion #MuslimBrotherhood #NoNegotiation #YouDidn'tBuildThat #Doublespeak #DroneAssasinations #NewBlackPanthers #HateCrimes #Occupy #1%vs99% #Alinsky #ACORN #NewTone #....

Dr. Ben Carson vs Obama's IRS

Dr. Ben Carson learns what it means to live in a fascist state...

Healthcare Palestinians II

Republicans are split.  Some think Obamacare is a disaster.  Others think Obamacare is a disaster.  Oh wait...  

Of course the split is about what to do.  Some say if Obamacare is a disaster the responsible thing to do is to stop it, or at least go down trying.  Others say, no, no, no, the right thing to do is let it go through, make everyone miserable, kill innovation in the fast moving health sector, make the country even more dependent on Fed money printing, put more people on welfare and subsidies, politicize and socialize 16% of the US economy, install the IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board - aka the "Death Panel"), drag down personal wealth, kill jobs, stall the economy, and don't worry the public will blame it all on Democrats!  In other words, one group is acting out of principle and the other out of crass political gamesmanship.  

But there is a problem with the crass political gamesmanship approach.  It will not work.  There are numerous prominent examples of how these political bank-shots backfire.  I call this the "Healthcare Palestinian" approach.  To wit:

Israel's neighbors have long believed that the best way to destroy Israel is to maintain an army of angry Palestinian refugees on their borders.  Keep them poor, keep them in refugee camps, keep them oppressed, and don’t ever let them assimilate into the vast Arab lands surrounding Israel.  To a frightening extent this diabolical and inhumane scheme has worked to create maximum misery but little else.  The Palestinians in refugee camps are mainly the ones who go around blowing themselves up, not the ones who have assimilated into Israel and the Arab countries.  Everyone knows about the wall keeping hostile Palestinians from flooding into Israel.  Very few are aware that there are similar impediments keeping Palestinians out of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.  Do those countries ever get blamed for forcing Palestinians into refugee camps?  This has been the Democrat strategy when it comes to healthcare.  

The last thing Democrats ever wanted was a true functioning individual market for health insurance.  Instead Democrats have forced most Americans, 95% currently, into rigid, non-portable, bureaucratic insurance plans provided by either the government or their bosses.   The move to a true individual market would have always been an easy one (see "The Healthcare Gecko").  But that's not what Democrats wanted lest they lose control.  We have all been made into healthcare refugees.  Who get's blamed for this?  Greedy insurance companies, employers, and Republicans.  Republicans are standing in the way of your God-given right to free healthcare!  Democrats get zero blame and will continue to get zero blame when Obamacare is found to be the disaster everyone knows a 2700 page unread law will be. 

The same exact thing happened with the financial collapse of 2008.  Ask ten people today what caused the financial collapse and nine will say greedy banks, deregulation, Bush's tax cuts, capitalism; in other words Republicans.  Only one in ten may get it right; the financial collapse was caused by Democrats who pursued redistribution-of-wealth policies in the housing sector.  Home ownership became a God-given right, just as healtcare has become now.  Subprime mortgages, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, no-doc loans, liar loans, zero down payments, easy money, low interest rates, mortgage interest deductions; these are all unanimous Democrat policies.  These are the policies which crashed the financial system.  These are the policies championed by Barack Obama as a community organizer, state senator, US senator, candidate for President and POTUS.  Did he ever get blamed for any of this?  No, nor will he ever.  Will he be blamed when Obamacare collapses?  No, nor will his party.  Democrats are just trying to give you free healthcare after all, which is your right!  

Republicans with the exception of the new breed - Cruz, Lee, Paul, Rubio et al, don't even understand why it is impossible to make a good or service provided by others into a right.  It cannot be done without enslaving the providers of that good or service.  So yeah, let it go into full effect, let it be a disaster, and let the blame all accrue to... Republicans.  Seems like a winning approach to me if you're a Democrat.        

Hey, It’s A Free Country!

“Hey, it’s a free country!”  Remember that expression growing up?  Do people still say that today?  I can’t imagine why. 

“Free country” never meant you could do whatever you wanted without consequence.  It never meant everything could be yours for free.  It meant free from tyranny.  It meant free from arbitrary and capricious rule.  It meant free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.  It meant free to speak your mind, free to trade, and free to associate.  It meant free to do pretty much whatever you wanted, provided you hurt no one else or interfered with their freedoms. 

In short, free country meant that government’s very limited role was to ensure your individual freedom, nothing more and nothing less.  Since 1865 and the thirteenth amendment, that was something we could all be proud of.  It made us unique.  It made us exceptional.  It made us Americans.  It made us great.

But there’s another common expression – “It’s a small world”.  Our free country was always under assault because the idea of a limited government ensuring individual freedom was unique in our small world.  Most governments were designed around collective or autocratic control, not individual freedom.  Eventually those ideas arrived on our shores and began to transform our free country into a “controlled country”. 

I would argue the process is nearly complete.  Consider the following:

·   70% of all private sector gross income is now consumed by government - federal, state, and local.  

·   Nearly 100% of all housing finance is now controlled by the federal government.   

·   Nearly 100% of healthcare is now controlled by the federal government.  

·   Nearly 100% of college financing is now controlled by the federal government.  

·   Nearly 100% of all primary education is controlled by government.   

·   Nearly 100% of all big recent market movements were controlled by the Federal Reserve.
·   Nearly 100% of all banking and finance is controlled by the government 

Look at the above list:  Housing, Healthcare, Education, Finance.  All crisis areas since our slip from free country status to controlled country status.

But controlling money and finance is only part of the story.  Many areas of control are harder to measure.  How do we quantify an IRS that controls political speech through intimidation?  How do we quantify a President who does the same by intimidating radio hosts and TV networks?  How do we quantify a President who controls the implementation of laws at will?  How do we quantify a Supreme Court that similarly controls the rewriting of laws?  How do we quantify a federal government that almost entirely controls the states, eclipsing all pretence of states rights? 

The truth is, the opposite of a free country is not just a controlled country, it is an un-free country.