Individual mandates are not conservative
With the top contenders for the GOP nomination fighting over who’s a conservative, I thought it might be appropriate to talk about the individual mandate, a provision in Obamacare and Romneycare mandating that individuals purchase a minimum level of health-care coverage or pay a stiff fine.
Republican candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have both argued at one time or another that individual mandates within health-care reform reflect conservatism. They have both suggested that individual mandates bring about personal responsibility, but I’m at a loss for how government-dictated policy brings that about. Romney still defends this approach, Gingrich has since backed off of it.
Frankly, it seems that “technocrat,” rather than “conservative,” might be a good label for both candidates, because it seems that each of them are competing to be the best manager of efficient government rather than a leader in reversing the outrageous growth of the federal government and its deficits. In fact, their approach to government seems pretty similar to what the so-called “conservatives” advocate for in many Western European nations.
Conservatism is basic in its philosophical basis: achieving the proper balance between liberty and government. There is no logical way one can connect individual mandates within health-care reform to principles of conservatism. However, both Gingrich and Romney have tried to do just that. Compelling a citizen to purchase health insurance under the penalty of law is certainly not personal responsibility, and it is definitely not conservatism in action. Only activist judges with contempt for the founders’ vision of the Constitution could consider such a law constitutional.
With so few health insurance companies in the market today because of extreme regulatory burden (welcomed by these same corporations to prevent competition), the only winners via the individual mandate favored by Romney, and formerly by Gingrich, will be the multi-billion dollar health-care providers. Not surprisingly, these conglomerates donate lavishly to candidates from both parties and spend millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers at all levels.
Typical Crony Capitalism. And you can thank the Ruling Class for that.
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Obama’s Flagrant Disrespect for the Rule of Law
As a Senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama decried the use of presidential signing statements, but as with so much other rhetoric originating from Obama concerning “hope and change,” he has decided to keep things the same. Yesterday the Washington Times laid out candidly President Obama’s latest efforts to circumvent the Constitution and his own campaign promises:
When the president of the United States signs a bill into law, it’s expected that he will abide by it. That’s not the case with President Obama, who has a sudden interest in novel legalistic interpretations getting him off the hook from laws he doesn’t like.
On Friday, the president signed the $1 trillion omnibus spending bill, which funds the government for the remaining nine months of the fiscal year. Afterward, he released a statement saying he won’t abide by the law because the Justice Department had advised that certain provisions are “subject to well-founded constitutional objections.”
The mainstream media tells us that Barack Obama is some kind of expert on Constitutional Law, but it looks like he has some reading comprehension issues because the Constitution is clear as to how the president may act when presented with a bill from Congress: he may approve and sign, veto, or ignore.
There is no option to both approve and ignore, as he intends to do. But his flagrant disrespect for the law should come as no surprise to us given his past refusal to enforce and defend statutes he disagrees with. The only surprise should be that he hasn’t been impeached yet.
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Obama: Pride before the fall?
It’s no secret that President Obama has an inflated view of himself. This becomes crystal clear when the President, as he routinely does, blames everybody but himself for the nation’s problems. A leader who does not acknowledge his or her own mistakes is clearly suffering from an overdose of hubris. Because President Obama apparently can’t help but display his arrogance, it came as no surprise to many when he declared himself to be the fourth greatest president in the history of the United States in a recent CBS interview (an interview that many will understandably confuse with a game of slow-pitch softball).
For a fleeting moment, I thought Obama may have finally come around to reality and was trying to say that he should be considered the fourth worst president. But instead — and in typical Obama arrogance — the President put his administration at the top stating, “I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president.” And then, after a brief pause, he begrudgingly permitted “the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln.” See the video clip by clicking HERE.
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Democrats are either lying or looney
Last week, Nancy Pelosi repeated the bizarre claim that an extension of unemployment benefits would create an uptick in employment. This was not the first time we heard this insane logic. We posted about President Obama’s similar claim on December 11 in which he also declared that an extension of unemployment benefits would result in job creation – more job creation than the proposed Keystone pipeline project!
Apparently Pelosi and Obama have no idea as to what the definition of “unemployment” is. The head of the Democratic National Committee, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, also chipped in when she said that unemployment did not increase under President Obama. Well, we know that is not true.
My main concern is whether or not President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and other leading Democrats actually believe what they say when it comes to the economy. If not, they’re lying again to the American public. On the other hand, if they really do believe what they’re saying, then it must be safe to assume that they are simply not living in reality. Either way, their statements on the economy reflect a severe disconnect with what is happening in the beltway (their universe) and what is really going on in the country.
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Obama doesn’t measure up to either Roosevelt
During President Obama’s speech in Osawatomie this week, he drew direct parallels between his administration’s policies and Teddy Roosevelt’s. This, of course, is not the first time he’s attempted to bail out his failed policies by claiming their connection to an earlier, more popular president. The same approach was used early on in his administration with comparison of his economic stimulus to FDR’s New Deal.
Recent apologists for Obama’s big spending continue to use this comparison. They attempt to justify the injection of trillions of new federal dollars into our economy, claiming that exorbitant spending will eventually bring results as it did for FDR. They also claim support from the theories of John Maynard Keynes, a British economist who advocated government intervention and spending to avoid economic downturns.
In all fairness to Obama, such Keynesian views are not new to U.S. policymakers. Since the time of Franklin Roosevelt, the U.S. has increasingly adopted Keynesianism over the traditional free-market capitalism that carried us from the nation’s founding through the 1920s.
Although both Obama’s out-of-control spending and Roosevelt’s New Deal find support from this Keynesian approach, all is not the same between them. In fact, the differences are so significant that one cannot reasonably refer to the Obama stimulus plan, like Time magazine once did, as the “New New Deal.”
Read the rest of this article by Joe Miller HERE at WND.com
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Convictions, political machines & vote fraud: corrupting the U.S. system
In late November, Obama friend and fundraiser Tony Rezko was sentenced to ten years in prison for political corruption schemes that netted him millions of dollars. And this week, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to fourteen years for his eighteen felony political corruption charges. But Rezko and Blagojevich have far more in common than just hard federal time: they are both part of the Chicago Democratic political machine that has been instrumental in the pervasive corruption of not only the Windy City, but also the State of Illinois. This machine deserves special attention because of its obvious connections to the current President of the United States, Barack Obama.
First, a brief history lesson. Since the rise of the political party early in our nation’s history, the political machines have been a challenge to the integrity of the American system of government. These corrupt machines, no stranger to either party, groom and buy political agents to do their dirty work. The modern Ruling Class reeks from their corrupt influence, as was in apparent in my 2010 Alaskan race.
History has also shown that there are essentially two types of politicians who operate in the vicinity of this political machine: the insider and the outsider.
The outsider is easy to spot because of his or her political scars, visible as a result of fights with the political machine. The outsider earns many enemies because he has decided to challenge the influence of the machine over the political process, striking at the heart of the machine’s corruption game.
During the primaries — and increasingly general elections — you will frequently see the outsider candidate’s own party elite be the outsider’s biggest enemy because it is they who stand to lose the most. Just as Al Capone didn’t like being the bane of Elliot Ness’ existence, political machines don’t like being the target of an honest candidate.
The insiders are also easy to identify because, after making their deals with the political machine, they come away smelling like roses with no substantial political enemies. Sordid allegations of drug use, sexual misconduct, bribery, or any other personal or public misconduct will rarely grace the page of the main stream media. Campaign funds will flow freely. Most political leaders will endorse. In short, the easy life of back slapping crony capitalists, smoke-filled rooms, and campaign slush funds will dominate the insider’s political life.
The insider politician has no quarrel with the machine because the machine paves the path to higher office. In exchange for the politician’s influence and vote, the machine’s agents not only guarantee the office, they also supply the addictive rewards of office: insider trading, promises of future employment, and royalty treatment that our Ruling Class is so used to. Tony Rezko’s and Jack Abramoff’s are everywhere.
One product of the political machine has made it to the top. In 2008, the mainstream media very effectively built a brick wall around this insider’s past. It seemed he had won the support of the media based simply on his campaign slogan of “hope and change.” Little was said about this insider’s intimate relationship to the Chicago political machine. But regardless of the media cover-up, the President of the United States is obviously the product of that machine.
With the recent Rezko and Blagojevich cases, the modern Chicago machine’s corruption cannot be reasonably contested. And now another product of that machine, insider Rahm Emanuel, is Chicago’s mayor.
What a mess. If we want to change the direction of our country, we must first recognize that our political system suffers from significant corruption. Whether it’s the political machine, vote fraud, or a complicit media, the Ruling Class must rely on corrupt tactics to level the playing field against every-day Americans. Once we’ve identified the agents of this corruption, We the People must then target them for defeat. Never reelect incumbents who are part of the machine. Get engaged, be a poll watcher, run for office yourself. And never stop fighting.
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The Incredible Transforming Barack Obama
President Obama has been channeling ex-presidents more than usual lately. According to the mainstream media, Teddy Roosevelt – the subject of Obama’s populist speech in Kansas yesterday – is just the most recent president that Obama has morphed into. This follows Obama’s first months in office when he was widely portrayed as the next Franklin Roosevelt. After that, he was even briefly compared to Ronald Reagan. However, rather than these three past presidents, recent polling now suggests that Americans are having difficulty distinguishing Obama from Jimmy Carter.
So what’s going on? The incredible transforming Barack Obama is the product of the same worshipful media that helped elect him in 2008. These media sycophants are quick to see positive comparisons between Obama and past presidents but remain utterly blind to his abject failures. This is why an independent Internet, with its hundreds of news and political sites, is so critical to our nation’s future. “We the People” must have access to full and complete information regarding the Ruling Class and what we can do to return our nation to its foundations.
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President Obama’s Bizarre Support for the Brazilian Economy
Since taking office in 2009, President Obama has accomplished great things for the economy . . . of Brazil, that is. For some bizarre reason, Obama continues to do all he can to help out workers and businesses in South America’s largest nation.
We all remember the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s multi-billion dollar loan proposal to Petrobras – a large Brazilian oil firm – to aid in the development of Brazil’s deep sea oil exploration. And then, in early 2011, President Obama announced a “Strategic Energy Dialogue” with business leaders in Brazil that would, according to the Administration, result in the United States becoming one of the largest consumers of Brazilian energy.
Seeing the American president traveling around the globe, almost begging other nations to ramp up their energy production with billions of US dollars, is not just embarrassing; it’s incomprehensible given the extraordinary, untapped energy reserves available right here at home, especially in my home state of Alaska.
Now the Administration seems to be moving even more US dollars to Brazil. In a little covered story from a few days ago, it was revealed that the Air Force has turned down the bid from American aircraft manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft to produce a light attack armed reconnaissance aircraft. Hawker Beechcraft is based in Kansas and employs around 1,400 workers in 20 states. According to the company, $100 million had been invested over a two year period in working with the Air Force in developing the its AT-6 aircraft.
The winner of the nearly one billion dollar decision to terminate Hawker appears to be the Brazilian aircraft company Embraer and their “Super Tucano” airplane. It’s odd that the Air Force would prefer US pilots to fly in warzones in planes constructed in Brazil by Brazilian workers. Stranger yet, the favored company, Embraer, has recently been placed under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for corruption.
In reaction to this apparently crazy deal, Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey keenly observed that, “If Hawker Beechcraft competed for the contract and lost on price and quality, well, that would be the market at work. However, they’re not being allowed to compete at all for the new purchase, even though they already supply the Air Force and had been allowed to work on the new bid without any notice that they would be excluded, wasting the $100 million, which produced a plane that appears to have met the guidelines for the bid. The decision to exclude Hawker Beechcraft from the competition seems curious at best.”
Perhaps Congress might want to take a closer look as to why the Administration appears to have favored a Brazilian builder for homeland-security needs over a domestic firm even before the final bid decision. If there’s a good reason for the decision, let’s hear it.
In any event, it’s time for We the People to demand an end to the one-way transfer of American wealth to foreign nations. Although internationalists may love the concept of worldwide income equalization, our Founders would have been repulsed by it.
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Joe Miller’s Thanksgiving Message
Today, most Americans will enjoy the holiday with family and friends, briefly pausing to give thanks to God for the blessings He has bestowed upon us. Although we are truly thankful for what we have, most of us take food and other basic necessities for granted. This is no surprise given the fact that few 21st century Americans have gone without such things for long periods of time. We also tend to take our national stability for granted. Other than our heroic veterans, our citizens have never suffered the calamity of warfare. For the most part, Americans have enjoyed unparalleled peace, prosperity and security for the last generation. We live in the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth.
During our Founders’ first Thanksgivings, things were a bit different: the day was a time of serious reflection, in some cases fasting, and thanks for the blessings of harvest that could make the difference between surviving a harsh winter or starvation. Life was, frankly, brutal. The average life span was less than half that of today. Original American settlements had an unbelievably high mortality rate due to disease, starvation, and hostilities.
Out of these extreme sacrifices arose a Republic with bountiful resources, beautiful landscapes, and exceptional people. Despite some anti-US sentiment abroad, Americans are still seen as the most generous, caring people in the world. I think this charity is a consequence of our beginnings where Providence carried us through our most difficult times, ultimately supplying extraordinary blessings.
We should never take any of this for granted. Not only should the lens of Thanksgiving provide us with an opportunity to contemplate our exceptional circumstances vis-à-vis the rest of the world, it should also remind us of the sacrifices made by those who have gone before us. We should be motivated to do everything we can to preserve the foundational values recognized by our Constitution. And we must be truly thankful to God for the present peace, freedom, and stability of our land. Happy Thanksgiving!
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