Monday, October 12, 2009

A Call To Action From 1950: We Must Fight Socialized Medicine!


Realistico writes:

Attached is an ad taken out by the American Medical Association in the Ladies' Home Journal of November 1, 1950. Its subject? Compulsory, socialized medicine...


Our beloved Congress appears to have forgotten, once again, who actually runs this country.


Larwyn's Linx: Tea Partiers Turn on GOP Leadership

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

Top Twenty Things Obama Doesn't Say: AT
From the archives: ACORN corruption runs deep: BigGov (MonCrief)
Government Care and the Dole Family: AT

Today's Death Panel News: GWP
Far Left Hispanic Activitists Mull Census Boycott: Times
2010: Where will we be in a year?: SIGIS

Breast Panel: Steyn
NYC: Muslims Protest Profiling After Jihad Plot: Atlas
Reid in trouble in Nevada: GWP

Political Tulipomania: LegalIns
Teaching Monsters: AT
And You Still Thought Columbus Discovered America?: Riehl

Economy

The Biggest Shovel is Obama's: AT
Job Killers for Health Reform: LegalIns
Unions, Lenin, and the American Way (Part II): PJM (Atbashian)

Party of Greed: Langbert
The Key to Economic Recovery: Beauty Schools: Virtuous
More Granholm Lunacy in Michigan: BlogProf

Media

White House to CNN: We're Punishing Fox News: GWP
Structural Issues: Crittenden
Obama administration counters Fox: Aces

Dear Harvey: Please Get Over Yourself: Big Hollywood
John McCain, president of the beltway Sunday shows: Surber
And the Award for Bestest New Blog of the Week Goes to...: American Digest

Tea Partiers Turn on GOP Leadership: Politico
Why does the Left hate Glenn Beck?: Aces

Climate & Energy

The 2010 to Yuma: PJM
Organizers Cut Microphone as Filmmaker Presses Al Gore Over ‘Errors’: Breitbart
Al Gore Proves Himself Wrong: Surber

Climate Myths and National Security: AT (Viscount Monckton of Brenchley)
Drilling here, drilling now, drilling better: Odysseus

World

Liberal Fawning For World Acceptance Is Pathetic: Strata-Sphere
Walk The Talk: Kesler
Speaking of Nobel Prizes: You Won't Believe This: Rubin

Peace, brother. But what about Chicago?: AT (Shiver)
First: Want to Win: Crittenden
Military, Intel Sources: Obama's Lying About Risks of Afghanistan Stategery: Ace

Was Al Qaeda-Linked Scientist Planing Nuclear Attack Against Britain?: NewEd
Voting Present on Afghanistan: Patterico

Sci-Tech

Wizards create magic spell to produce eternal energy: Moe Lane
Top 10 Halo 3 Epic Fails: Clipta

Cornucopia

Daily Scoreboard: Surber
Puddy: The Gift: American Digest
Dial 'M' for Maternity: IowaHawk

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Online Disaster at the New York Times


It's not just the newsprint side of The New York Times that is hemorrhaging readers. The online side of the business has experienced a catastrophic, double-digit drop in readership on a year-over-year basis.

July 2009 vs. July 2008:

1 NYTimes.com -- 14,277,000 -- (-27%)
4 New York Daily News Online Edition -- 9,131,000 -- 112%
5 Wall Street Journal Online -- 8,341,000 -- (-4%)
6 New York Post -- 6,535,000 -- 32%
12 NJ.com -- 2,926,000 -- 41%
20 The Washington Times -- 1,803,000 -- 56%

August 2009 vs. August 2008:

1 NYTimes.com -- 17,183,000 -- (-13%)
3 Wall Street Journal Online -- 10,867,000 -- 42%
6 New York Daily News Online Edition -- 8,573,000 -- 90%
8 New York Post -- 4,843,000 -- 46%
12 NJ.com -- 2,894,000 -- 71%
18 The Washington Times -- 2,082,000 -- 76%

For comparison purposes, I've included other New York area periodicals in the list as well as The Washington Times.

It would appear that the residents of the northeast have had enough with the Times' longstanding selective reporting policy ("All the news fit to print, so long as it is negative for conservatism or positive for socialism").

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of propagandists.


Whom Despots Fear


“Greece would not have fallen had it obeyed Polybius in everything, and when Greece did meet disaster, its only help came from him” Pausanias, 8.37.2, Inscription on the Temple of Despoina near Arakesion.


In Book VI of his Histories, the ancient Greek historian Polybius described three basic forms of government, each categorized by the number of those in power. He listed monarchy (rule by the one); aristocracy (rule by the few); and democracy (rule by the many). Polybius described, over time, how each type of government would gradually decline into their various corrupted forms of tyranny, oligarchy and mob rule, respectively.

Polybius believed that Republican Rome had designed a new form of government that could help check this inevitable decline. Rome combined all three forms of government -- monarchy (its elected executives, called consuls); aristocracy (the Senate); and democracy (the popular assemblies). In this mixed form of goverment, each branch would check the corrupting ambitions and power of the others.

Plato, Aristotle and Cicero all praised the construction of a "mixed constitution" and the requirement of a separation of powers within government.

The French nobleman and legal expert Charles-Louis de Secondat, the Baron de Montesquieu, studied the rise and fall of the Roman Republic. He believed that a properly designed government, in order to prevent tyranny, would require three branches of government. He wrote, "If it is to provide its citizens with the greatest possible liberty, a government must have certain features. First, since 'constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it … it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power' . This is achieved through the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of government... [to prevent any one] from acting tyrannically."

The British philosopher John Locke was also keenly interested in a design for government that would prevent it from descending into tyranny. In the late 17th century, Locke argued that monarchs had no "divine right" to rule; instead, he asserted that the source of power lay in the people. Furthermore, he stated that humans were born into this world with certain natural and "inalienable" rights including to "life, liberty and property". Locke believed that government could not grant these rights because they were God-given; therefore, no government could take them away or withhold them from the people.

Thomas Jefferson used Locke's concepts as central tenets when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. He proclaimed the government's duty to protect the sacred attributes of the individual: "...to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form..."

"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

As well, America's Founding Fathers repeatedly cited Baron de Montesquieu's seminal Spirit of the Laws and its emphasis on checks and balances within government. As James Madison wrote, "the oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu."

We conservatives are originalists: If the Constitution's meaning is not interpreted as the framers intended, if it can be altered at will, then what protects any law from arbitrary interpretation, from the capricious whims of the ill-intentioned?

If the Constitution is "living and breathing", an amorphous guidebook of suggestions that may freely be interpreted based upon current events, trends, whims or biases, what then are the limits on government? And if the Constitution doesn't mean what it says, what protects the individuals from the encroachment of government intrusion into every aspect of individuals' lives?

The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution strictly limits the power of the Federal Government. It states, The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. In the Founders' view, state and local governments were free to experiment -- to serve as "laboratories" in the words of Justice Louis Brandeis -- in areas prohibited to the federal government. In the 1980's, for example, Oregon's successful welfare reform efforts became the models for subsequent actions by other states and even the federal government.

When the federal government ignores and breeches the Tenth Amendment, it represents an illegal diminution of representative government at the state and local levels.

The once-powerful states, which created the federal government by ratifying the Constitution, have become -- in the words of Mark Levin -- "administrative appendages of the federal government." The states are subject to ever-increasing federal regulation, strangled by dictates from agencies old and new, and held hostage through billions in federal tax dollars. Levin asks, "Does anyone believe that the states would have originally ratified the Constitution had they known this would be their fate?"

The path the modern federal government is on today was accurately described by Stuart Chase in 1942. He wrote that the agenda of the Fabian Socialists -- who had launched a counter-revolution against America's founding -- was to create an authoritarian, centralized government. The agenda of the Fabian Socialists include:

• Strong, centralized government
• Government-controlled banking, credit and securities exchange (TARP, etc.)
• Government control over employment (the "Employee Free Choice Act" to speed unionization of the workplace)
• Unemployment insurance, old age pensions (lengthy unemployment benefits, Social Security)
• Universal medical care, food and housing programs (socialized medicine, food stamps, HUD)
• Access to unlimited government borrowing (massive deficits)
• A managed monetary system (an opaque Federal Reserve)
• Government control over foreign trade (China tire tariffs)
• Government control over natural energy sources, transportation and agricultural production (drilling prohibitions, Cap-and-Trade)
• Government regulation of labor (the Wagner Act, monopolistic power of trade unions)
• Heavy progressive taxation.

This indeed describes "the road we are traveling"; the direction accelerated by the branches of government controlled by modern Democrats. While it may no longer be called socialism directly, nonetheless socialism it is. The Fabian Socialist counter-revolution began in earnest in the U.S. in 1933 with the imposition of the "Welfare State" and has been steadily progressing since. It confiscates ever more taxes, consolidates ever more power, while bankrupting program after program. And always -- always -- the federal government proclaims its need for more money and more power, promising that if only it can levy one more tax, enforce one more regulation, it will be able to solve all of man's woes.

The Greek historian Thucydides observed that “The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.” And in writing about the calamitous Peloponnesian War that engulfed and ultimately destroyed his society, he added that, "Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought."

History teaches us that the decline of a society and the demise of a government comes with the institutionalization of corruption and a wanton disregard for the written law. Such is our situation today, wherein the states have become puppets of an all-powerful federal government that confiscates more and more private property while exerting increasing control over every aspect of our lives.

If we are to protect our society from despotism and decline, whose counsel should we then cherish? Should we abide by thousands of years of experience and the wisdom of history's greatest philosophers -- Polybius, Plato, Aristotle, Montesquieu, Locke, Jefferson, Adams and Madison among them? Men who understood the nature of a government's despotic decline and sought to construct a system to counter it?

Or should we disregard their guidance and follow instead the Fabian Socialists? Should we heed Cass Sunstein, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama?

The greatest bulwark against tyranny in America has always been the Constitution, which instantiates our carefully designed system of private property, God-given individual liberties and free enterprise.

If we are to protect our society from despotism and Fabian decline, whose counsel should we then cherish? I contend that we must fight the socialist counter-revolution using every political tool possible. We must return our country to the rule of law as defined by our founders and codified in the Constitution. Anything less condemns our descendants to the fate that Thucydides described.



Linked by: Verum Serum. Thanks!

The Perils of Doing Business in Russia


The story of Hermitage Capital is one that deserves significantly more attention than it's thus far received.

Hermitage invested in a variety of Russian companies and, in the process of rooting out corruption in those businesses, made plenty of enemies.

The Russian authorities, in turn, became involved and -- from all appearances -- ripped off their own taxpayers for a quarter of a billion dollars while blaming Hermitage.

It is a bizarre, disturbing story that highlights Russia's corrupt central government, seemingly dominated by mobsters and charlatans.

Companies doing business in Russia -- or planning to -- should thoroughly familiarize themselves with Hermitage's story.


Hat tip: Zero Hedge.

Need President Obama Shoes? Look No Further


Zazzle carries a full line of kicks featuring our beloved President o' the World.



Thanks to the free-market system, there are roughly 150 different styles from which to choose.


Larwyn's Linx: The Truth About the Baucus Bill

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

The Truth About the Baucus Bill, Part I: Examiner
Ship of Fools: Obama's Intimates and Advisers: AT
Yale Chose Sharia over Constitution: Examiner

The Democrats' War on Specialists: Protein Wisdom
U.S. flag modified to include Obama iconography: AYFS
Democrats already making excuses for ObamaCare: Surber

State Department: Classless Louts: AT (Moran)
2010 Census: Still a Boondoggle for the Left: BigGov
Signs beg question: who's really astroturfing?: BMW

Economy

Unions, Lenin and the American Way (Part I): PJM
It's the Economy, Stupid: Gormogons
Government food stamps traded for Viagra, booze, porn: BlogProf

Liberals and Taxes: the Big Question: AT
Pelosi Channels Whoopi: Red Meat

Media

LA Times' Rutten: Hell yes, Obama deserved the Nobel: Patterico
Dan Riehl Rocks the BBC: RSM
A Closer Look At Obama's Odyssey: AT (Cashill)

How This Ex-Liberal Found Fortitude and Her Way Home: MonCrief
They Think You're Stupid: JWF
Nobel tops SNL for Obama joke: Steyn

Climate & Energy

Even the BBC wonders: what happened to global warming?: BBC
ABC Kooks: Al-Qaeda, Taliban Helped By Global Warming: GWP
Record cold kills NL playoff game: Surber

Shale Gas Production Goes Global: Prairie

World

The Peace of the Grave: Doc Zero
So who else was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?: Aces
Argentina's New Law Limits Media: Fausta

So, How Did They Explain It?: Power Line
Look who predicted Obama's Nobel on 9/8: AT (Lifson)
The German Health Insurance Model is Broken: Surber


Accolades Keep Coming In: Castro Praises Obama's Nobel Prize: GWP
More Stonewalling from the Most Transparent Administration in History: Corner
DeMint On Honduras Trip: Our ambassador is the only person I met who thinks there was a 'coup': GWP

Sci-Tech

Sidekick outage casts cloud over Microsoft: CNet
T-Mobile admits your Sidekick data is gone like the wind: BGR

Cornucopia

Miss Omerica: Protein Wisdom
Help President Obama Win the Heisman: Woody
Southpark Mac vs. PC: YouTube

Imagining the Acceptance Speech: AT (IOTW)


Saturday, October 10, 2009

Centralized, Authoritarian Government FAIL


A preview of coming attractions.

To the Congress:

The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 - you have had 234 years to get it right; it is broke.

Social Security was established in 1935 - you have had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.

Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - you have had 71 years to get it right; it is broke.

The “War on Poverty” started in 1964 - you have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor”; it hasn’t worked and our entire country is broke.

Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - you’ve had 44 years to get it right; they are broke.

Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - you have had 39 years to get it right; it is broke.

Trillions of dollars were spent in the massive political payoffs called TARP, the “Stimulus”, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009… none show any signs of working, although the unions appear to have found a new patsy: the American taxpayer.

And finally, to set a new record:

Cash for Clunkers” was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009! It took good dependable cars (that were the best some people could afford) and replaced them with high-priced and less-affordable cars, mostly Japanese. A good percentage of the profits went out of the country. And the American taxpayers take the hit for Congress’ generosity in burning three billion more of our dollars on failed experiments.

So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that “services” you shove down our throats are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government-run health care system?

20% of our entire economy?

With all due respect,

Are you out of your frickin’ minds?



Image: FAILblog.

Rona's New Product Idea



 
Postscript: this is my first documentary, created with the exceptionally cool application at XtraNormal.
 

Louisiana doing the job Obama's Attorney General Holder won't: Subpoenas issued for financial records of 300 ACORN-affiliated groups


Attorney General Eric Holder failed to prosecute the New Black Panthers after they intimidated voters in Philadelphia. He has failed to investigate ACORN, despite ongoing indictments or inquiries in 15 states, obvious criminality related to 400,000 or more fraudulent voter registrations, and its curious consistency in helping underage prostitution rings set up shop.

Now Louisiana's attorney general is doing Holder's job, issuing subpoenas for the financial records of up to 300 ACORN-affiliated organizations. This should answer the question, once and for all, as to whether funds were illegally co-mingled between for-profit and non-profit entities. Given ACORN's fierce resistance against independent audits, it's clear that significant skulduggery has occurred.

The subpoena seeks records held by Whitney Bank and demands they be turned over by Nov. 7.

"This particular one has to do with additional financial records of ACORN, Citizens Corporation and any other umbrella agencies," said Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell. "Our goal is to get to what the course of the funds are and to track down the money."

Caldwell described the scope of the subpoena as "massive" -- conceding it could take some time for the bank to produce those records... Earlier this week, Attorney General Buddy Caldwell... claimed a former ACORN worker embezzled $5 million while working for the group. The new amount is more than a previously reported sum of $1 million... it's unclear if the money was taken from state, federal or private funds.

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis called the new charge "completely false."

The entire ACORN organization is so crooked you can open wine bottles with them. Its decades-long history is rife with plays stolen right from the Alinsky bible. That much is evident from an examination of a rare copy of ACORN's training manual from the early seventies.

As for Holder? Not unexpectedly, he has turned out to be the most partisan Attorney General in decades.

We were promised change and that's precisely what we got.

The over-under on how long it will take for the Obama administration to find a way to punish the state of Louisiana for its pursuit of ACORN? I'm guessing 30 days.


The Women of WTF


Rich sent this one in, via Hawtness (NSFW):







Linked by: Maggie's Farm. Thanks!

Taliban derides Obama's Nobel Prize. I guess the DNC was right.


South Africa's Independent reports that the Taliban were none too pleased with Obama's Nobel award.

The Taliban on Friday condemned the decision to award this year's Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama, saying he had "not taken a single step towards peace in Afghanistan".

"We have seen no change in his strategy for peace. He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan. He has not taken a single step for peace in Afghanistan or to make this country stable," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.

"We condemn the award of the Noble Peace Prize for Obama," he said by telephone from an undisclosed location... "We condemn the institute's awarding him the peace prize. We condemn this year's peace prize as unjust.

I guess the denizens of the DNC's fever swamp were right for once.


Larwyn's Linx: A.G. Holder, ACORN, and the New Black Panthers

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

Farce Repeats Itself As History: LegalIns
The A.G., ACORN, and the New Black Panthers: Patterico
State AG Subpoenas ACORN Bank Records: WDSU

ACORN official points fingers, avoids blame: Examiner
Flag ban in Oregon: Surber
How ACORN hides behind fake names: STACLU

Watching the Constitution disappear: AT
Twittering the Constitution: WklyStd
DNC: mock Obama's Nobel, side with the terrorists: BlogProf

Post-racial America: Patterico
'Safe Schools Czar' Wrote Forward to Pedophilia Book: GWP
Charter School versus Teachers Union: JWF

Economy

The Dollar-Weighted Stock Market: TigerHawk
CBO: tort reform cuts deficit: Times
Baucus Bill Would Cost More than $2 Trillion: Cato

Byrd earmarks non-existent company: Surber
Jobs? Let them Eat Cake: Punky
Broken Dreams: S,C&A

Health-Care Industry Surprised To Find Out Costs Of ObamaCare: Aces
It's Almost Like They're Trying to Destroy What's Left...: CrazyUnk

Media

The intellectual case for conservatism and freedom: Classic Liberal
Hammer: Liberal Ascendancy Set Us On Course for Decline: GWP
CBS: Is This a "Mission Accomplished" Moment?: Ace

Don't laugh: he won it fair and square: Tobin

Climate & Energy

UN pulls hockey stock from climate report: Watts

World

Obama did not want to “spoil the image of success”: Fausta
Who Came in Second?: Ace
Nobel Appease Prize: Big Dog

‘Mass Slaughter Is a Systemic Problem of the Modern World’: S,C&A
Obama, Afghanistan and the Nobel: AT
French Nuke Engineer Arrested in Al Qaeda Case: Atlas

President Obama, turn down the Nobel Peace Prize: MYODB
We Must Credit Obama for His Accomplishments: Geraghty
'Insha'Allah': Obama Nobel Emboldens Enemy Alliance: AmPower

Crazy Canadians favor using taxpayer funds to bail out struggling newspapers: McClatchy Watch

Sci-Tech

Mixed signals for the jolly set: SondraK
Cyberthieves find workplace networks are easy pickings: USA Today

Cornucopia

Something Wonderful: American Digest
This Just In: Taxman
Candid Camera Gone Horribly Wrong: SondraK

Membership Has Its Privileges: IowaHawk
Breaking News: InstaPundit

Friday, October 09, 2009

Bright side of the health plan...


Dennis writes:

Let me get this straight.  We're going to pass a health care plan that:
  1. Was written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it
  2. Passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it
  3. Signed by a president that also hasn't read it and who smokes
  4. With funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't  pay his taxes
  5. Overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and
  6. Financed by a country that's nearly  already broke
What could possibly go wrong?
 




Linked by: Patterico. Thanks!

A Real Nobel Prize Winner


World War II drew to an abrupt conclusion with the detonation of two nuclear weapons. Had the bombs not gone off, millions on both sides of the conflict would have perished. And the war would have continued for years.

In fact, had the bombs failed to detonate, the Allies were prepared to launch Operation Downfall, the invasion of mainland Japan. And Downfall was itself split into two massive ops: Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. War planners anticipated millions of deaths, due primarily to the religion of militaristic Shintoism promulgated by the Japanese leadership.


Commander A.F. Birch (left), shown numbering the bomb codenamed "Little Boy" unit L-11, before loading it on trailer in Assembly Bldg. #1, prior to it being loaded aboard the B-29 Superfortress bomber "Enola Gay", on the base of the 509th Composite Group at Tinian Island in the Marianas Islands in 1945. Physicist Dr. Norman Ramsey stands at right - he would later go on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989. (U.S. National Archives)