Showing posts with label Reid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reid. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

They're not even trying to fake it

It's an ancient game -- and one that always ends in misery. By that I mean the way the 'progressive left' incites warfare between arbitrary groups of people. It's what they specialize in. They divide people based upon income, race, religion, creed and gender -- pitting one group against the other for petty partisan gain.

Last week it was Al Sharpton and the NAACP accusing the Tea Party conservatives of racism (never mind the roughly two dozen national conservative candidates of color). This week it's outright agitprop by a group called 'American Progress'. Hint: they're un-American and anti-progress.

Here, the deficit is portrayed as the fault of the rich. Never mind the $840 billion 'Stimulus' bill that simply propped up bloated state governments. Forget about the half-a-trillion Omnibus Spending Bill that ratcheted up government hiring at an unprecedented rate. And don't you even mention socialized medicine, because it hasn't kicked in yet. Therefore: it's all the fault of the evil rich--the top 2%.

Who are the evil '2%' -- the Bourgeoisie? Is it the police officer who is married to a flower-shop owner in San Diego, who together make over $200,000 in combined gross income? Or is it the 60-year old machine-shop owner in Tulsa who spent his entire life building a business that grosses slightly over $250,000? Are they the evil 'rich'?

For comparison purposes, consider this poster from the Soviet Union, circa 1950.

Uhm...

• The 'fat-cat' rich living in the lap of luxury? Check

• The down-trodden 'middle class' counting their pennies? Check

• The all-knowing, all-seeing government -- hidden from view, but certain to be far more efficient than the free market? Check and mate.

Gee, can anyone tell me how the Soviet Union turned out?

These leftist Democrats are so freaking stupid it makes me nauseous. History, facts, logic and reason make no difference to them. They blindly believe in and follow an ideology -- an ideology that has failed in every time and place it's been tried. But they believe in it with a religious fervor that can only be compared to that of a cult.

Yes: our current leaders are cultists.

It's November or never.


Tuesday, September 07, 2010

David Rosenberg: Top 10 Signs We're in a Depression... Now

Henry Blodget describes some of economist David Rosenberg's concerns, from which I selected the ten worst indicators. If I didn't know better, I'd think the economy was racist.

10. Industrial production is still down 7.2% from the peak

9. Employment is still down 5.5% from the peak

8. Retail sales are still down 4.5% from the peak

7. Exports are still down 9.2% from the peak

6. Manufacturing orders are still down 22.1% from the peak

5. Manufacturing shipments are still down 12.5% from the peak

4. Housing starts are still down 63.5% from the peak

3. Existing home sales are still down 41.2% from the peak

2. New home sales are still down 68.9% from the peak

1. Non-residential construction is still down 35.7% from the peak

Say, you know what would really help the economy? Iran getting a hold of nukes!


Monday, September 06, 2010

With 100% of the felon and deceased voting blocs in hand, SEIU wants amnesty for illegal aliens to add 8 million new Democrats to the rolls

A Labor Day reminder from NewsBusters: earlier this year, an SEIU executive stated that amnesty for illegal immigrants would 8 million new Democrat voters to the base.

If there are some old time, traditional JFK Democrats out there, they must be feeling a little overwhelmed. They are joined by the Democrat Socialists of America, ACORN, the SEIU, La Raza, CPUSA (Communist Party USA), the New Black Panthers, and various front groups funded by one-world globalists like George Soros.

There are no moderate Democrats any more. The party has ceased operating as a legitimate and lawful entity, because virtually every segment of its constituency is devoted, using one means or another, to the eradication of the United States Constitution.

And I dare anyone to challenge me on that.


Related: Study Confirms: Felons, Illegal Aliens (aka Undocumented Democrats) and Zombies elected Al Franken to U.S. Senate.

What will hyperinflation mean for us when it arrives in the United States? We look to Chile under the Allende government for answers.

The piper must be paid. Unchecked printing of money and record-setting deficit spending can't continue. In fact, they represent a bubble of sorts, not unlike the housing bubble or the tech boom.

The Democrat-led government's rapacious cycle of tax, borrow and spend will end, come hell or high water, in the not-too-distant future. And how will this inevitable crash begin? What will happen when the value of the dollar plummets to zero, as it must as surely as gravity pulls a thrown baseball back to Earth?

Gonzalo Lira's family lived through a similar economic meltdown in the early 1970's, precipitated by the election of Salvador Allende in Chile. His election was a fluke, as two opposing parties split the centrist and right-wing blocs, leaving Allende with slightly more than a third of the electorate.

He became the first "democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in the Americas" and he aggressively moved to implement "reforms", which were intended to "put Chile on the road to Socialism".

Companies were nationalized, land was confiscated, and mines were taken over by the government, all in the name of wealth redistribution. Ostensibly these industries and properties were now owned by "the workers". In reality, of course, Allende's friends and supporters were placed in powerful oversight roles within the government and in the companies themselves.

Allende saw himself as a 'Supreme Leader' -- a South American Lenin, if you will -- and he acted with dictatorial control over every aspect of the economy. Possibly his most important directives were those that implemented wage and price controls. These populist efforts were designed to curry favor with the workers in two ways:

• The price of basic goods and services were frozen

• Workers' wages were increased by decree

For a brief period of time the population enjoyed the bonanza. Citizens had more money and prices were held artificially low. Of course, like all central planning exercises, the effort ended in disaster.

Soon retailers and warehouses had been emptied of goods as the consumer base used its new-found wealth to go on a massive shopping spree. Once stores had been emptied, Allende immediately blamed right-wing, anti-Marxist "hoarders" for the failures of his policies.

The economic meltdown was also hastened by the demise of most private sector companies. After all, Allende had forced them to raise wages while constricting their ability to properly price their wares. As companies declared bankruptcy, Allende's government quickly nationalized them "in the name of the people."

If the companies continued to operate at a loss, which most did, the government supported them by printing money to make up the shortfall.

And this is how Chile's hyperinflation began. There was no shortage of cash, but it quickly became worthless, because goods and services had disappeared.

Allende was soon forced to implement rationing. As expected, his party loyalists controlled how ration cards were issued, and these cards determined who could buy consumer goods and food stables. Those deemed unfriendly to Allende did not find ration cards forthcoming, especially if they were vocal in opposing the Marxist government.

As it always does, a free market -- in the form of a black market -- quickly constructed itself to address the inequities. But the shadow markets were more finicky about the currency they accepted: Sólo dólares ("Dollars only").

It was at this point that hyperinflation truly began.

It manifested itself in the form of a "collapse in asset prices"; in other words, deflation hit assets while hyperinflation took place for the absolutely necessary items in life.

The reason was simple: basic necessities like food were increasingly unaffordable. Stock prices, cars, second homes, and other "nice to have" items were immediately sacrificed in order to address the most critical needs.

And so it was in 1972 through 1973 that the Chilean stock market collapsed, the housing market tanked and the price of used automobiles plummeted. Citizens had to cash out of their assets to survive and some simply bought their way out of the country altogether.

A military coup soon toppled Allende and his Marxist government. With it, free market reforms and a new currency regime were implemented. After years of excruciating Marxist failures, Chile slowly began to heal itself.

But the lessons remain for us, here in America, as we watch our own Cloward-Piven government tiptoe to the edge of the Allende experiment.


Is Ours 'The Weakest Generation'?

"...These [health care] negotiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the decisions that are being made...” (Barack Obama, 1/20/2008)

...[I want] to repeal some of these tax breaks for these oil companies. But I want to do more than that. I also want to go after their windfall profits, take a segment of those profits..." (Barack Obama, 3/3/2008)

"...Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket..." (Barack Obama, 11/1/2008)

"...“I really do believe President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had..." (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), 1/4/2009)

"...We will launch a sweeping effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars..." (Barack Obama, 1/28/2009)

"...Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards..." (Attorney General Eric Holder, 2/18/2009)

"...We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem)..." (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, 3/5/2009)

"...Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration..." (Department of Homeland Security report to Janet Napolitano, 4/12/2009)

"...in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way..." (Time Magazine, 7/2/2009)

"...right now drug companies are fighting so that they can keep essentially their patents on their brand-name drugs a lot longer... every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got." (Barack Obama, 8/11/2009)

"...When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”..." (CNS News, 8/23/2009)

"...the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York..." (Washington Post, 2/11/2010)

"...But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what is in it..." (Nancy Pelosi, 3/9/2010)

"...[President] Obama and his health secretary staged a two-pronged attack Monday in a stern letter to health insurance chief executives and a speech in which the president castigated insurance companies 22 times...." (Washington Post, 3/9/2010)

"...once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely 'deem' that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway..." (Wall Street Journal, 3/16/2010)

"...I don't care about the Constitution when it comes to this [health care bill]..." (Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL), 4/2/2010)

"...The president's top counterterrorism adviser on Wednesday called jihad a "legitimate tenet of Islam," arguing that the term "jihadists" should not be used to describe America's enemies... The comment comes after Brennan, in a February speech in which he described his respect for the tolerance and devotion of Middle Eastern nations, referred to Jerusalem... by its Arabic name, Al-Quds..." (Fox News, 5/27/2010)

"...As solicitor general of the United States, Elena Kagan argued in front of the Supreme Court that the federal government had the constitutional authority to ban certain political pamphlets. She also strongly implied that some political books, if they were partisan enough, could also be censored..." (Reason Magazine, 6/29/2010)

"...The financial regulation bill that President Obama will sign into law on Wednesday is supposed to clean up Wall Street. But an obscure passage buried deep in the 2,300-page legislation... could have a broad impact [on] electronics companies..." (Washington Post, 7/2/2010)

"...The federal government filed a lawsuit Tuesday aimed at blocking a controversial Arizona law that requires local police and sheriffs to question and arrest anyone whom they suspect is in the country illegally..." (Politico, 7/7/2010)

"...Less than two months after the US Department of Justice sued Arizona over the state’s controversial immigration law, it has filed another lawsuit targeting immigration practices by Arizona authorities... the [DOJ] says Phoenix-area Maricopa Community Colleges (MCC) discriminated against almost 250 noncitizen job applicants by requiring them to fill out more documents than the law requires to prove their eligibility to work...." (Christian Science Monitor, 8/31/2010)
You don't have to ride on a treacherous, unlit cow path from the north-side of Boston to Lexington as the King's Regulars attempt a surprise attack on the Sons of Liberty.

You don't have to board a frigate, sail for weeks across the Atlantic and then sack a city in Tripoli to rescue your imprisoned countrymen.

You don't have to kill a British soldier in a desperate, hand-to-hand struggle after leaping out of a boat on the beach at York during the War of 1812.

You don't have to hold the line against Pickett's desperate charge at Gettysburg as thousands of wounded men shriek bloody murder around you.

You don't have to resist a vicious attack by the Hun with fixed bayonets at Belleau Wood.

You don't have to survive a terrifying duck-boat run onto Omaha Beach as men around you are being chopped to bits by fortified Nazi gun emplacements.

You don't have to liberate the Nazi Death Camps, capping months of brutal fighting and desperate marching through the dirt roads of Europe.

You don't have to withstand a surprise attack by the Chinese 'People's Volunteer Army', fighting to hold the line in 35°-below-zero temperatures for days on end near the Chosin Reservoir.

You don't have to defend the city of Huế from a surprise attack by Viet Cong and PAVN regulars, fighting block-to-block as the entire country is set afire by the Tet Offensive.

You don't have to race across the desert, waiting for a chemical attack or a Scud missile to hit, baking in 130° temperatures, so that you can expel Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard from Kuwait.

You don't have to patrol a patch of hard-scrabble earth in Aghanistan or Iraq, waiting for the inevitable IED by the side of the road -- or signs that you've rolled right into an ambush by heavily-armed 'insurgents' equipped with Iranian RPGs.

You don't have to do any of those things. You just have to vote in November. You just have to take the time to rally your neighbors, your family members and your co-workers to vote for candidates who believe in the Constitution. You must marshal voters who will reject the out-of-control, free-spending government that has brought our country to the edge of bankruptcy.

Because if the Constitution doesn't mean anything, if all of the founders' sacrifices went for naught, if all of those American heroes who fought and bled and died for the flag mean nothing, if all your parents and grandparents gave you doesn't amount to a hill of beans, well, then our generation will be forever known as the weak-willed group that let the American dream slip from our fingers.

And we will be known forever as the generation that allowed American exceptionalism to be stolen from us by a radical leftist from San Francisco, a crooked, power-hungry weasel of a man from Nevada, and an Alinsky-trained community organizer who rose to the presidency without qualifications or even so much as a background check by the media.

You don't have to bleed for your country. All you have to do is rally our forces to vote in November. That is what we can do and that is what we must do to preserve this Republic for future generations.


Saturday, September 04, 2010

Zero Hedge: Pelosi, Obama and Reid have helped erase or destroy... 11.2 million jobs since the recession began

Tyler Durden does the number-crunching the legacy media won't do and describes the true economic toll of the Pelosi-Obama-Reid triumvirate.

One of the most peculiar observations of this depression started in December 2007 is that while the total US population has increased by 6.8 million from 303.3 million to just over 310 million in July 2010, over the same 32 month period, the civilian labor force has declined from 153.9 million to 153.6 million...

This makes zero sense, as all those aging into working age, or immigrating into the US need to find some job or some other paid activity (either legally or illegally). But let's assume that due to discouragement with economic conditions people simply refuse to look for jobs... [based upon our calculations] the cumulative differential between the labor force as reported, and as calculated has hit an all time record of 3.7 million: this is a number that has to be added to the 7.6 million directly tabulated unemployed to get a sense of just how many jobs have been lost assuming a reversion to the mean for the US economy...

Chart 1: we demonstrate the cumulative change in the population of the US, the cumulative change in the as reported and the as calculated labor force, and the difference between the two (thick black line).

In other words, after eliminating the statistical voodoo of the BEA and the Census Bureau, the US has lost just over 11.2 million jobs since the start of the recession.

Chart 2: Cumulative job losses since December 2007, based on Establishment Survey estimates and adjusted for Labor Force "Catch Up"

'Saved or created' my left cheek.


Friday, September 03, 2010

Consumer Metrics Institute: Economy Is Like Michael Moore Bungee-Jumping Off the Golden Gate Bridge Without the Bungee Cord Part

So, the ConsumerIndexes people emailed me earlier today asking for help. They were like: "Dude, what do we do? The economy is melting down!"

So I was like, "Dudes. I'm just a blogger. Show me the charts."

So after checking out this disastrous chart, I said, like, dudes: This is crazy.

The economy is in freefall.

And they were like, yeah, we know. So I was like, maybe we should elect some people who know what they're doing in November.

And they were like, yo, that's some righteous G-2 you're layin' down.

So I closed the chat window. And posted this. To lay down some G-2 to my peeps.


Incredible: after weeks of careful analysis, using stuff like charts and graphs, I just spotted evidence of the Summer o' Recovery™!

Calculated Risk always has some of the best graphs around. Its latest charts, focused on unemployment trends, offered ample opportunity for study by yours truly. First, the raw graphs:

The red line represents the percent of the civilian workforce that has been unemployed for half-a-year or more.

This chart represents the percent of jobs lost since peak employment was reached. The dashed line is supposed to compensate for Bureau of Census "make-work" jobs.

Now, let's examine these charts using an electron microscope.

Check it out: I tagged the Summer o' Recovery! They're celebrating in the tent cities!

Now, let's review the change in employment from peak employment. This should be rising and... oh. Hmmm. Oops.

My bad.


Thursday, September 02, 2010

The Genius of Mark Levin: The Time Is Now

On 6 January 2009, I transcribed -- pretty much as I heard it -- the first half hour or so of Mark Levin's radio broadcast. I didn't realize it at the time, but it represented one of the finest chapters of his soon-to-be bestselling book, Liberty and Tyranny.

The Left is using this economic crisis to destroy the firewalls in the Constitution, to further crush the free market.

These are the plans that they devised decades ago.

The free market is the most transformative of economic systems. It fosters innovation and invention.

It produces new industries, products and services and improves upon existing ones.

Millions of individuals freely engaged in an infinite variety of actions each day, it is impossible to even conceive all of the benefits that occur in our economy at any given time.

The free market creates more wealth and more opportunites for more people than any other economic model. This is exactly why the Left -- be they socialists, or Marxists, or left-leaning Democrats -- attack it relentlessly.

That's why they lie, describing the free market as the cause of the current financial crisis. But it was in fact they, through onerous and arbitrary regulation and out-of-control governmental appendages like Fannie Mae, who twisted and distorted the free market.

The free market promotes self worth, self-sufficiency, shared values, and honest dealings. That doesn't mean to say there aren't crooks: they exist in every endeavor (especially government). But when you consider the trillions of transactions that make up the free market, the number of crooks is relatively tiny.

The free market enhances the individual, the family and the community. And it discriminates against no race, religion or gender.

The truck driver does not know the skin color of the individual who helped create the diesel fuel that powers his vehicle.

The cook does not know the religion of the dairy farmers who delivers milk to his restaurant.

The airline passenger does not know the gender of the factory workers who manufactured a critical component of the aircraft.

Nor do they care. The free market is an intricate system of voluntary economic, social and cultural interaction that are motivated by the desires and needs of the individual and the community.

Private property and the Left's attempts to co-opt it


The key to understanding the free market is private property, which is why the Left does not believe in it.

Private property is the material manifestation of the individual's labor: the material value created from a person's physical and intellectual efforts.

Oppressive taxation and regulation of your private property can become a form of servitude, particularly if such confiscation occurs because of arbitrary and illegitimate decisions on the part of a government bureaucracy. That is: decisions that are not Constitutional.

That is why the Conservative believes the federal government should only raise revenue that the Constitution authorizes and no other.

Otherwise, what are the limits on government power? What are the limits on taxation and regulation of the individual's labor? How do we contain and limit government? How do we draw the lines -- and on what basis?

The Marxist class struggle formulation pits the working class against the wealthy (sound familiar?). It serves as the Left's principal rhetorical argument for the confiscation of private property.

But it is anathema to the free market, for the individual has the power to make for himself anything he or she wants! There is no static class structure layered atop the free market! The free market is mutable, dynamic and vibrant.

And for this reason, we Conservatives believe the free market is a vital bulwark against totalitarianism. And it would appear the Left agrees for it is relentless in its assault on the free market.

The Left's rejection of Constitutional limits on government power is always justified on material grounds. In the name of "economic justice", "equality" and "fairness."

The Left creates an illusion of class struggle through a variety of inventions like the "Progressive" Income Tax. But the bottom 40% of wage earners pay no income tax!

"Economic equality" is unachievable, even in the most brutal and oppressive socialist states.

The mirage of "class struggle"


But it serves the Left's purpose to create a class system: artificially created economic categories. In this way, the Left stirs up class envy. The free market, therefore, is said to be incapable of serving the public interest because it produces "unjust results." This requires further government intervention.

The Left tries to intensify class struggle by routinely redefining categories and levels of wealth: who qualifies as the detested rich? The righteous middle class? The disenfranchised poor?

Thus community organizer and Obama mentor Saul Alinsky explained, "Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America's white middle class. That is where the power is."

Tax cuts for people who don't pay taxes aren't tax cuts. That's welfare. Tax cuts for businesses that can't make money: that's socialism; redistribution of wealth.

This isn't about creating jobs in the private sector. The left hates the private sector. They hate profits. They hate anything that doesn't require government subsidies, that can operate without government involvement. Those entities have to be destroyed.

The modern left is an explicit enemy of the Constitution. The modern left dominates the Democrat Party. And that is why the Democrat Party must be wiped from the political landscape in November. And in every election henceforth.

It is time for action. And you must be an evangelist for the destruction of American socialism in our time.


Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Harry Reid Throughout History

After Harry Reid's egregious 2007 statement concerning the Surge in Iraq ("This war is lost!"), I decided to do a little genealogical research. My question: how had some of Reid's more obscure ancestors behaved during previous military engagements?

Revolutionary War: Jebediah Reid, commenting on Valley Forge: "But, General Washington, this war is lost, I can most assuredly promise you. General Cornwallis will treat us with dignity if we only raise the white flag now. And it's awfully cold out here."

The War of 1812: Jethro Reid, speaking to William Henry Harrison: "Tippecanoe and surrender, too, my dear Governor Harrison!"

Civil War: Benedict Reid at Gettysburg: "Four score and seven years, my a**! This war was lost three frickin' years ago!"

Spanish-American War: Desdemona Reid: "Remember the Maine... after we surrender! ¿Se Habla Español?"

World War I: Nebuchadnezzar Reid comments upon military actions in the Argonne Forest: "Over there! Over there! We are losing badly over there!"

Pearl Harbor: 'Stubby' Reid: "Do you see? Do you see?? How can we possibly fight the Imperial Japanese war machine? This war is over!"

War of the Worlds: Harry Reid, expressing concern over resistance to an alien invasion: "It's pointless to fight these beasts! We must surrender immediately to survive! And I, for one, welcome my new alien overlords!"