Monday, December 30, 2013

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: GOP ESTABLISHMENT REMAINED NEUTRAL ON 'DUCK DYNASTY' CONTROVERSY

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: GOP ESTABLISHMENT REMAINED NEUTRAL ON 'DUCK DYNASTY' CONTROVERSY

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Sen.Ted Cruz (R-TX) emphatically defended Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson from the moment he was suspended by A&E for supposedly anti-gay remarks. The suspension provoked a relentless outpouring of support online, which pressured A&E to reinstate Robertson on Friday.
Palin, Jindal, and Cruz's support was in contrast to the silence of the Republican establishment, its leadership, and the Republican National Committee. Palin took to Twitter on December 18.
by TONY LEE  28 Dec 2013

Apt comparison

Apt comparison

What two political creatures are like the images of Edmund Burke:  “half a dozen grasshoppers making the field chink with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent?”  Liberals nibbling away at our freedoms vs. conservatives responsibly marking time?

WHY THE PRESS CAN’T PUT A HAPPY SPIN ON OBAMACARE

WHY THE PRESS CAN’T PUT A HAPPY SPIN ON OBAMACARE: “You can only cherry-pick where there are some cherries.”The tech surge couldn't save Obamacare. Now we have the schmaltz surge.

President Obama’s tattered reputation — he is well on his way to winning the prize for the least competent and most destructive president in the history of the republic. No, Barack Obama is yesterday’s news, and unless and until he is impeached and removed from office he will be pretty much forgotten by purveyors of all the Newspeak fit to print.
ROGER KIMBALL

Sunday, December 29, 2013

President Obama’s tattered reputation

President Obama’s tattered reputation — he is well on his way to winning the prize for the least competent and most destructive president in the history of the republic. No, Barack Obama is yesterday’s news, and unless and until he is impeached and removed from office he will be pretty much forgotten by purveyors of all the Newspeak fit to print.
ROGER KIMBALL

“Save Us from Strategists,”

“Save Us from Strategists,”
“There is no easier way for a politician to get applause than to say ‘What we need is a proper strategy…’, followed by the words ‘for the countryside/energy policy/exchange rates’, or whatever.  Nobody, it seems, is ever against strategies and plans.
Except me.  Strategies, to me, embody the fallacy that the world can always be directed from above.  Two hundred years of disastrously committing this error, from the mercantilists of the 18th century, via Lenin’s five-year plans and Mao’s murderous Great Leaps Forward, all the way to the Maastricht Treaty have entirely failed, it seems, to drive home the lesson that democratic, bottom-up, market-led solutions are better for more people than dirigiste attempts to guess the future.”
Matt Ridley’s 1994 essay

Saturday, December 28, 2013

"Of Jane Fonda and Pope Francis,"

A Teachable Moment For the Market System
There is an opportunity for a teaching moment about the virtues of the market, but more important is questioning misrepresentation.

In his Dec. 17 Global View "Of Jane Fonda and Pope Francis," Bret Stephens criticizes the pontiff's statement about a "naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system." Now, the flaws in the anti-market view can be overlooked from those whose concern is leading their flock. What is impermissible is misrepresentation of those who justify the market. They do not trust in the goodness of those wielding power, but along with Adam Smith acknowledge their concern for self-interest. Nor do they view the current system (of crony capitalism) as correct, but denounce its over-regulation. The support for the market is instead based on the value of choice over coercion, spontaneous order, the improvement of the human spirit by reward for merit, as well as the historic and modern results.

So there is an opportunity for a teaching moment about the virtues of the market, but more important is questioning misrepresentation, whether by professional economists or religionists.
Dec. 27, 2013 3:04 p.m. ET

Friday, December 27, 2013

Justified by decree

Justified by decree
    To grab power and repress the people, governments need to just decree something legal or illegal. Today a New York judge just abjures the 4th amendment by condoning spying on citizens here in America. Yesterday many governments around the world just arrested people for “abusing democratic freedom,  “undermining national unity,” or “offensive behavior.” Of course, each offending country was NOT democratic, was  AGAINST national unity and was persecuting THEIR versions of offensive behavior.
    So nothing’s new going into another happy new year!

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Post Christmas Sermon

Short Christmas sermon

     A Muslim in Uganda converted to Christianity.  In 2011,  Christmas night, he was attacked with acid by a person declaring “Allahu Akbar.”  Blind now in one eye, scarred and in severe pain, he said:  “When I became a Christian, I was set free from legalism, fear, and hatred.  My message today is one of Christ’s love and forgiveness, and I will continue to preach it.”
     Persecution and martyrdom continue apace.  Happy will be the New Year, 2014, for some Christians  - only in God’s Heavenly Kingdom.  

WHAT IF WE OFFERED SOCIALISM AND NOBODY SIGNED UP?

WHAT IF WE OFFERED SOCIALISM AND NOBODY SIGNED UP? Despite well-functioning state exchange, New Mexico has enrolled . . . just 291 people. “The NM HIX did everything right to sell Obamacare. The people are not buying.”

OBAMA SAID: AVERAGE FAMILY WILL SAVE OVER $2,500 PER YEAR!
Facts say: (New Mexico)Our carriers' prices are accurate and easily comparable, again unlike the FFM (federally facilitated market). Our increase in insurance premium costs is generally less than 10% higher than pre-Obama, in marked contrast to our one-over neighbor Nevada, where insurance prices have skyrocketed 179%.

Only in Orwellian ‘Newspeak’ definitions do INCREASES become SAVINGS but then both Orwell & Obama begin with the letter ‘O’.

Cost for signing up 291 people- 50million dollars!
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/12/my_christmas_gift_to_the_obamas.html#ixzz2oaoUUMLw

Monday, December 23, 2013

HEH: What Didn’t the President Know And When Didn’t He Know It?

HEH: What Didn’t the President Know And When Didn’t He Know It?

Well, he was on vacation:
The 86 cumulative vacation days that Obama took in his first four years in office worked out to an average of 21.5 days per year. - See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/obama-took-more-vacation-average-private-sector-workers-20-yrs-job-0#sthash.GjodZ6gz.dpuf

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Good thing none of the applies to the Obama administration

Good thing none of the applies to the Obama administration

Origins of the Common Law:

    The doctrine of the supremacy of law implies that all agencies of government must act upon established principles; even the highest bodies and officials are not permitted to act upon arbitrary will or caprice.  The supremacy of law means that all the acts of government agencies are subject to examination in the courts, which are compelled in their turn to follow established procedures, “due process,” and to reach decisions guided not by whim but by generally accepted principles and sound reason

Saturday, December 21, 2013

“gangster government.”

“gangster government.”


IT’S CRONYISM ALL THE WAY DOWN: Michael Barone: Government takes General Motors loss to protect UAW cronies.

    Remember how the Obama re-election campaign kept crowing that “General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead”? Well, Osama is still dead, and the government is now selling the last of its GM stock — at a loss to taxpayers of $10 billion. Who has gained? Bloomberg’s James Sherk has the answer: GM’s UAW-represented employees.

    Sherk points out that the government agreed to — actually, it engineered — terms quite different from those of ordinary bankruptcies. UAW members, unlike employees of bankrupt airlines, took essentially no haircut, and there was even $1 billion for UAW employees of Delphi, to whom GM had no legal obligation. (Delphi was spun off from GM several years before).

    But, hey, the UAW kicked in heavily to the Obama campaign and to Democratic campaigns generally, and so they got paid off, in an episode of what I called “gangster government.” Or in the style of Chicago politics.

That’s who they are, that’s what they

ObamaCare is a debacle, wrapped in a catastrophe, shrouded in a disaster.

ObamaCare is a debacle, wrapped in a catastrophe, shrouded in a disaster.

from James Taranto’s December 17th Wall Street Journal column, “(Almost) Everyone Loses“:
    In short, what ObamaCare means to the uninsured who were not uninsurable is higher prices for a product they already were disinclined to buy, along with a punitive tax on not buying it. That seems more like a mugging than a benefit.

NEW YORK TIMES: NEW HEALTH LAW FRUSTRATES MANY IN THE MIDDLE CLASS: “’That’s an insane amount of money,’ she said of their new premium. ‘How are you supposed to pay that?’”

Plus: “Experts consider health insurance unaffordable once it exceeds 10 percent of annual income. By that measure, a 50-year-old making $50,000 a year, or just above the qualifying limit for assistance, would find the cheapest available plan to be unaffordable in more than 170 counties around the country, ranging from Anchorage to Jackson, Miss.”
3

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Who’s afraid of the big, bad ‘nanny men

Who’s afraid of the big, bad ‘nanny men of law enforcement,’ those over-paid do-gooders of government regulations and liberty deprivations hell-bent on breaking down each and every aspect of our free will?  I AM.  Always don’t, never do. Never hopeful, always pessimistic. How have we Americans let ourselves be landed on this politically correct but intimidating situation. 

Obamacare ‘Damage’ to Come.

PEELING THE ONION OF FAIL: Medical Experts Tell Congress about the Obamacare ‘Damage’ to Come. “One neurologist said that in return for ordering necessary scans, ‘CMS and insurance companies are going to post negative grades in my name.’”

PEELING THE ONION OF FAIL (CONT’D): ObamaCare May Devastate the Real Estate and Travel Industries. “Americans are among the most mobile people on earth, but ObamaCare may soon start freezing them in place. Millions are losing their health insurance policies and being forced onto the ObamaCare exchanges, where most plans only provide local medical coverage.”

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Social Workers to Have Veto Power Over Decision to Homeschool

Social Workers to Have Veto Power Over Decision to Homeschool

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Ohio Lawmakers Want Social Workers to Have Veto Power Over Decision to Homeschool: Parents would have to submit to background checks and interrogations. I dunno, the way things are going it’s the decision to put your kids in public school that should arouse suspicions of parental incompetence.

If a bill introduced by four Democrats in the Ohio Senate last week becomes law, it would be the most radical homeschooling law in the country, stripping parents of their constitutionally-guaranteed right to direct the education of their children and requiring interrogations by social workers before homeschooling is permitted. Homeschool Legal Defense Association’s Michael Donnelly said SB 248 is “breathtakingly onerous in its scope” and called it the “worst-ever” homeschool law that has been proposed.

Obamacare Escapes the Chains of Law.

MICKEY KAUS: Obamacare Escapes the Chains of Law.
HHS has pretty clearly escaped the rule of law and entered a world of corporatist haggling, where political leaders and a few big industry types sit around the table and work everything out. True, they have a mutual interest in doing so–Obama needs Obamacare to work, insurers are counting on it working well enough to make them money. The interests aren’t symmetrical though—at some point, long before Obamans give up on Obamacare, insurance companies could decide to cut their losses, bail, and go make money somewhere else. That gives HHS a motive to make sure they get enough money to keep them in the game: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it up to you later.’ This is a policy best announced at a small table in a noisy restaurant, not in the semi-judicial proceedings required for formal rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act.
It’s likely to end badly. I expect the Cruz Administration will vigorously pursue any lawbreakers.

Monday, December 16, 2013

How do I learn doublespeak?

How do I learn doublespeak?  Apparently you are no one if you cannot put words together that sound good but contain no meaning. The treasurer of  Chillicothe says he’s in the “1st line of officership.”  Whatever that means.  I’ve been ‘on’ this phenomenon of meaningless doublespeak for quite some time. Rush Limbaugh sees no current speaker who can clearly enunciate the principles of conservatism.  Of course, no liberal statement ever clearly enunciates a thought. Doublespeak with apparent ease makes you somebody.  Can I call myself a loser without feeling bullied by myself? 

MORE BAD OBAMACARE POLL NEWS FOR THE DEMOCRATS

MORE BAD OBAMACARE POLL NEWS FOR THE DEMOCRATS: AP-GfK poll: Health law seen as eroding coverage.

 1.   Americans who already have health insurance are blaming President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul for their rising premiums and deductibles, and overall 3 in 4 say the rollout of coverage for the uninsured has gone poorly.

    An Associated Press-GfK poll finds that health care remains politically charged going into next year’s congressional elections. Keeping the refurbished HealthCare.gov website running smoothly is just one of Obama’s challenges, maybe not the biggest.

    The poll found a striking level of unease about the law among people who have health insurance and aren’t looking for any more government help. Those are the 85 percent of Americans who the White House says don’t have to be worried about the president’s historic push to expand coverage for the uninsured.

    In the survey, nearly half of those with job-based or other private coverage say their policies will be changing next year — mostly for the worse. Nearly 4 in 5 (77 percent) blame the changes on the Affordable Care Act. . . . Disapproval of Obama’s handling of health care topped 60 percent in the poll.

The collective “gulp” you just heard came from the Democratic Caucus. . . . And remember, ObamaCare isn’t even popular with the uninsured.

2.  TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: ObamaCare: Connecticut’s Epic Fail. “More than 2,400 Connecticut customers who bought health plans on Access Health CT were given incorrect information about their insurance plans, in one case underestimating the maximum out-of-pocket by at least $4,000.”

3.  GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE: Public Confidence in Britain’s NHS At Record Low. “Three damning reports last night laid bare the crisis in NHS hospitals, maternity units and GP surgeries. One investigation revealed that a quarter of new mothers were abandoned by their midwives during labour, with some left to give birth on the floor or in corridors. The second found that mistakes deemed so serious they should never happen are being made in hospitals five times a week. And the third survey said thousands of patients have all but given up trying to secure appointments with their family doctor.”

Sunday, December 15, 2013

DOES GOVERNMENT KNOW WHAT YOU REALLY ‘WANT & NEED”

DOES GOVERNMENT KNOW WHAT YOU REALLY ‘WANT & NEED”

    Differences between the moral-intellectual elite and the masses are crucial, especially to modern conflicts of vision over the degree of surrogate decision-making, whether by politicians, judges, or various agencies and commissions.  Both visions try to make the locus of discretion coincide with the locus of knowledge, but they conceive of knowledge in such radically different terms as to lead to opposite conclusions as to where discretion should be vested.  To those with the unconstrained vision, who see knowledge and reason as concentrated in those who have advanced furthest toward the ultimate potential of man, surrogate decision-making – economic “planning,” judicial activism, etc. – is essential.  These surrogate decision-makers must attempt both to influence beforehand and to revise afterward the decisions made by those less accomplished in intellectual or moral terms.  But to those with the constrained vision, each individual’s knowledge is so grossly inadequate, compared to the knowledge mobilized systematically through economic markets, traditional values, and other social processes, that surrogate decision-makers … should severely limit themselves to drawing up rules defining the boundaries of others’ discretion, not second-guess the decisions actually made within those boundaries.  In the constrained vision, the loci of discretion should be as widely scattered as possible, the inevitable errors resulting being accepted as a trade-off, no solution being possible.

Thomas Sowell’s 1987 book, A Conflict of Vision, page 229

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Al Gore Predicted the North Pole Will Be Ice Free

#NARRATIVEFAIL: Five Years Ago Today: Al Gore Predicted the North Pole Will Be Ice Free in 5 Years. “Today Cairo had its first snowfall in 100 years.”

TEA PARTY FAVORABILITY TOPS REPUBLICAN PARTY

PRESS RELEASE

We the People Convention
4682 State Route 43
Kent, OH  44240
 
Contact: Tom Zawistowski, President
330-592-1848 Cell

 
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Saturday, December 14, 2013
TEA PARTY FAVORABILITY TOPS REPUBLICAN PARTY
AKRON, OH - On December 11, 2013 the Gallop organization releasing a poll indicating that TEA Party “Favorability” is currently at 30% with 58% of Republicans saying that they have a favorable opinion of the movement.  By contrast, an October 9, 2013 Gallop poll showed that Republican Party "Favorability" was at 28%.

Tom Zawistowski, President of the We the People Convention, said “Despite literally three consecutive months of the media, unfairly and intentionally, beating up on the TEA Party every single day, our support among the American people is holding.  The American people are learning that perhaps the only place in America they can turn for the truth about our government is the TEA Party.  The TEA was right and is right about Obamacare, was right about the IRS Targeting, is right about Benghazi, is right about Fast and Furious, and is right about the Debt Ceiling. The only reason TEA Party “Favorability” is not over 50% is the fact that we do not have the resources to tell our side of the story to the vast majority of Americans and the main stream media rarely gives us the opportunity.”
 
Zawistowski concluded by saying "The media, with the urging of the Washington establishment from both parties, continues to push the fictional story line that the TEA Party shut down the government during the Continuing Resolution fight, when the President did, and that fighting the CR was a mistake.  The American people have figured out the truth.  Ted Cruz and the House TEA Party Republicans were right about Obamacare being a disaster and right to try and stop 5 million fellow Americans from losing their health insurance while the Washington establishment just let it happen. That is the reason why the media attacks are not doing as much damage to the TEA Party as they would like. The people see that the TEA Party movement is the only one defending the average American from losing their health insurance and having their health care destroyed by the forced government take over of the medical industry."

This Is Not A Monarchy Watch: panicky HHS just making up Laws

MOE LANE: This Is Not A Monarchy Watch: panicky HHS just making up new #obamacare ‘laws’ on the spot. “To the best of my knowledge, they don’t have this authority. Which leads me to my question: What makes the government officials implementing this policy think that they are immune from prosecution for any laws that they break while following the administration’s orders? – And don’t say that they don’t have to worry about that. After February 2017, Barack Obama won’t be able to fix a parking ticket.”

HAVE WE REACHED PEAK SCHADENFREUDE YET? “Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it.”

Tom Maguire emails: “ObamaCare is a riddle wrapped inside a joke wrapped inside a laughtrack.”

UPDATE: Okay, this quote was too good not to bring in: “Ms. Meinwald, the lawyer, said she was a lifelong Democrat who still supported better health care for all, but had she known what was in store for her, she would have voted for Mitt Romney. It is an uncomfortable position for many members of the creative classes to be in.”

Friday, December 13, 2013

Where, exactly, do they get the authority for all these exemptions, waivers, and extensions?


Where, exactly, do they get the authority for all these exemptions, waivers, and extensions?

PEELING THE ONION OF FAIL (CONT’D): Report: Less Than 15 Percent of Obamacare ‘Enrollees’ Are Actually Covered.

    Obamacare administrators are counting people who’ve browsed the website and placed a plan in their virtual shopping cart — but who never finished the process by checking out — as “enrolled.” That’s a bogus metric. It’s even more bogus when you recall the last point in bold. People are not covered unless and until they’ve made their first premium payment.

It’s Potemkin enrollees all the way down.
10
PEELING THE ONION OF FAIL: HHS extends another ObamaCare deadline.

    The Obama administration on Thursday pushed back the deadline for consumers to make their first payment for coverage under the healthcare law.

    Rather than a deadline of Dec. 23, insurers will be required to accept premium payments through Dec. 31 for people who are seeking coverage that starts on Jan. 1.

    In a conference call with reporters, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius said insurers have the latitude to accept premiums even beyond Dec. 31, and that the administration was “strongly encouraging” them to retroactively cover consumers that submit late payments.

    It’s the latest in a string of unilateral delays the administration has implemented to buy time after the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov.

    In addition to the one-week extension for premium payments, the administration on Thursday formalized its announcement that consumers have until Dec. 23, instead of Dec. 15, to sign-up for healthcare coverage that goes into affect Jan. 1.

Where, exactly, do they get the authority for all these exemptions, waivers, and extensions?

Thursday, December 12, 2013

OBAMACARE BLUNDERS ON!

OBAMACARE BLUNDERS ON!
PEELING THE ONION OF FAIL: Oregon signs up just 44 people for Obamacare despite spending $300 million. So, roughly $7 million per signup.

PEELING THE ONION OF FAIL (CONT’D): Hacker Says ObamaCare Website Security Still Not Fixed.

Another layer: Vote of Confidence: Hill Staffers Warned Not to Rely on Info From ObamaCare Exchange.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

COMPARE & CONTRAST

COMPARE & CONTRAST
In the last 30 days,  a private company has signed up 200,000 tourists to travel to Mars beginning in 2018. BUT in over 60 days ObamaCare has signed less than 200,000 citizens.
1.  Inspiration Mars Foundation (IMF) intends to send volunteer tourists to Mars and bring them home.
      ObamaCare is sucking unwilling citizens into the black hole of ObamaCare and promises               they will never comeback.  WHICH IS THE AMERICAN WAY & SPIRIT?
2.  IMF intends to be ready to send voluntary tourists by 2018. ObamaCare claims it will       involuntarily force millions of citizens to sign up by January 1, 2014.  WHO DO YOU TRUST?
3.  IMF flight to Mars will cost each tourist in excess of $20 million; no subsidy. ObamaCare             will save the average family $2,500 a year.  WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?

Oh, for a cigarette

Oh, for a cigarette

   “There are soldiers who would rather go without something to eat and drink if only they have something to smoke... A hundred cigarettes in a church in which hundreds of wounded are lying, purify the air and lesson the horrible stenches.  He cries out, and it is a cry for tobacco.“
   Yes, in 1859 after the huge blood bath battle of Solferino, a humanitarian, Henri Durant, cried for help writing these words after observing the carnage and first-hand administering to the wounded.
   Today, a free man or woman cannot even hope to smoke an E-cigarette in peace. Good God! God might still be good, but what has happened to civilized man?

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Planning for Freedom

Ludwig von Mises‘s 1951 essay “Profit and Loss,” as reprinted in the 1980 reissue of Mises’s 1952 collection, Planning for Freedom :
There is no reason why capitalists and entrepreneurs should be ashamed of earning profits.  It is silly that some people try to defend American capitalism by declaring: “The record of American business is good; profits are not too high.”  The function of entrepreneurs is to make profits; high profits are the proof that they have well performed their task of removing maladjustments of production.
Of course, as a rule capitalists and entrepreneurs are not saints excelling in the virtue of self-denial.  But neither are their critics saintly.  And with all the regard due to the sublime self-effacement of saints, we cannot help stating the fact that the world would be in a rather desolate condition if it were peopled exclusively by men not interested in the pursuit of material well-being.
   

Are we or are we not going down the drain?

Are we or are we not going down the drain?  In 1950, some people thought that the abandonment of church allegiance had deprived the children of an occasionally effective teacher of decent behavior.  In 1950, other analysts thought that mass production enforced mediocrity on the market for intellectual wares. Some optimists thought that the essence of the Great American Discovery was that if you bring advantages to a great lot of previously underprivileged people, they will rise to their opportunities and become responsible citizens. Other experts said the U.S. demonstrated that our system works best by combining the genuine advantages of governmental responsibility with private initiative avoiding the disadvantages of each AND when  governmental intervention is limited and private industry and private associations have a great degree of  freedom.   How are we doing in 2013? Are we going down the drain yet or going into 2014 have we already hit bottom?  

Monday, December 09, 2013

Obama & Falsehoods

And so how very ironic that so much of “Progressive” ideology today is hostile to bourgeois dignity and liberty.  How very dangerous that that ideology focuses upon interventions by Great Leaders, plans from the top, and taxation as keys to progress.  How sad that “Progressives” concentrate – because of a combination of envy, childishness, and economic ignorance – on “redistribution” rather than upon institutions and markets and innovation and liberty that alone are able to ensure widespread and increasing prosperity for everyone.
   
But for the President of the United States to say that “there’s no solid evident that a higher minimum wage costs jobs” is an outright falsehood.
No surprise, of course.  Obama is a successful politician.  For a successful politician to be unwilling to lie would be akin to a successful prostitute being unwilling to undress in the presence of paying clients.  Such unwillingness is inconceivable, for each activity is a key requirement of each of these respective jobs.
    Don Boudreaux

1996 essay (“Competition and Cooperation”) by the late, great Hugh Macaulay and Don Boudreaux
.” If needs are the basis upon which goods are allocated, it will pay each person to produce not goods but “needs.”  It will pay people to move toward poverty, for only then will one’s needs be maximized.  Moreover, if others do not readily recognize these “needs,” it will pay those in “need” to exert efforts emphasizing the genuineness of their “needs.”
(If you think this passage describes no reality, pay attention to the typical excuses government schools and teachers’ unions offer for more funding.)

1979) of Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty (original emphasis):
Man has not developed in freedom.  The member of the little band to which he had to stick in order to survive was anything but free.  Freedom is an artifact of civilization that released man from the trammels of the small group, the momentary moods of which even the leader had to obey.  Freedom was made possible by the gradual evolution of the discipline of civilization which is at the same time the discipline of freedom.

High Error Rate Dogs Health SiteA
The federal government said about one in four electronic transactions sent from the HealthCare.gov website to insurance companies in October and November could contain errors, raising concerns that some consumers who think they had picked a plan won't be enrolled by Jan. 1.  WALL STREET JOURNAL 12/7/2013

Do we need to re-distribute wealth or encourage wealth?

Total disposable income of all Americans between 1929 and 1950 rose 74%.  And it’s been rising every since.  Yet Americans are supposed to still be in poverty?  In 1904,  poverty was defined as a condition in which people “though using their best efforts, are failing to obtain sufficient necessaries for maintaining physical efficiency.”  Does this mean not hungry and/or starving? Yet today’s qualifications for welfare and/or SNAP cards in no way resembles that earlier definition.  Poor Richard ( Benjamin Franklin)  in his Almanac advised industry and frugality as the “way to wealth.”  He felt poor people are poor because they are victims of their own laziness, stupidity or profligacy.
Do we need to re-distribute wealth or encourage wealth?  As early as 1883 a Yale teacher warned against yearning for equality which would simply rob A to give to B.  This Mr. Sumner said the aim should be to “increase, multiply, and extend the chances” for individuals to acquire wealth. “Such is the work of civilization.”
All I conclude is that America (with its focus on rich vs. poor and the income gap) is as uncivilized as ever in 2013. Shame on us. We even glam onto words of a Pope to justify re-distribution and a welfare society. Double the shame.  

Sunday, December 08, 2013

WHEN REAL LIFE IS BEYOND PARODY

WHEN REAL LIFE IS BEYOND PARODY: Man Doesn’t Know How Parents Ever Going To Pay Off Massive Student Loan Debt. I mean, this just reads like a news story. “Recent Wesleyan University graduate Zach Wallace confided to reporters Thursday that he has no clue how his parents are supposed to earn enough money to settle his $40,000 in student loan debt. ‘My God, they’ll be lucky if they’re able to pay this off while they’re still in their 70s,’ said the 23-year-old film studies major and unpaid intern, noting the minimum monthly payments his father and mother will need to make just to keep their heads above water.”
SEE, A YOUNG PERSON CAN HAVE SYMPATHY FOR THE DEBT HE SADDLED ON HIS PARENTS - JUST AS LONG AS HE DOESN’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

Saturday, December 07, 2013

Obama was one of the ‘outraged’ about targeting before he wasn’t

Obama was one of the ‘outraged’ about targeting before he wasn’t
Orwell called it “doublespeak”

The president’s sudden reversal of tone over the IRS audit scandal.
When the IRS scandal first reached the public eye, President Obama expressed anger and outrage at the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

THIS WAS THEN: “If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that’s outrageous. And there’s no place for it,” Obama said in May.

“Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it,” Obama added days later when he announced the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, due to the controversy, days later.

THIS IS NOW:  Thursday night however, Obama was more frustrated with the people who expressed outrage at the targeting during an interview with MSNBC host Chris Matthews. (Related: ‘Suddenly Everybody’s Outraged’ Obama dismisses IRS targeting of conservatives, which he called ‘outrageous’ in May)

“If, on the other hand, you’ve got an office in Cincinnati, in the IRS office that — I think, for bureaucratic reasons, is trying to streamline what is a difficult law to interpret about whether a nonprofit is actually a political organization deserves a tax exempt agency. And they’ve got a list, and suddenly everybody’s outraged,” Obama said, going on to express dismay that even “so-called progressives” were “outraged at the possibility” of targeting.

All reports show Cincinnati IRS bureaucrats got their orders from IRS Washington and actually from political appointee who met almost daily with Obama.  What chutzpah, what contempt Obama has for the intelligence of the American people.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/06/aclj-obama-was-one-of-the-outraged-about-targeting-before-he-wasnt/#ixzz2moIVM4gT

Friday, December 06, 2013

WE PAY TO SEND STUDENTS TO BE FED LIES AT UNIVERSITY!

WE PAY TO SEND STUDENTS TO BE FED LIES AT UNIVERSITY!
 “Tea Partiers are not educated and accomplished “
University of Washington sends email to alumni equating the tea party with the KKK

A public university sent an email to alumni highlighting the esteemed research of one of its professors — research that notes many similarities between the old Ku Klux Klan and its modern-day equivalent, the tea party.

The University of Washington’s email to alumni asked the question four separate times: “Is The Tea Party like the Ku Klux Klan?” Christopher Parker, a UW political science professor, argues in a new book that there are major similarities. The book is titled “Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in Contemporary America.”

“In this commentary from Professor Christopher Parker he argues that recent research shows racism is a strong indicator of Tea Party support,” said the email, which plugs Parker’s book.

Parker provided very specific examples in the commentary, according to Campus Reform.

“Consider the Tea Party,” wrote Parker. “Similar to the Klan, white, middle- class, middle-aged, Protestant men dominate the Tea Party’s ranks.”

In a statement to Campus Reform, Parker clarified that there are also distinct differences between the Tea Party and the KKK — namely, the latter’s penchant for violence. Still, the comparison is valid, he said.

“Can we not say that the Tea Party is heavily involved in politics?” he wrote. “Further, can we not also say that many Tea Partiers are not educated and accomplished? Finally, can we not also say that the Tea Party has an intolerant element? The answer to all three is yes. So, to answer your question, I recognize why some on the right are alarmed at the comparison, but they need to bear in mind that the comparison is VERY specific to the Klan of the 1920s: another national right-wing political movement, one with an educated, accomplished element that also has its share of intolerant people. In sum, the Tea Party need not be a similarly violent or bigoted movement in order for it to be compared to the KKK, especially given the different historical context.”

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but released a statement acknowledging the controversial nature of Parker’s work
12:42 AM 12/06/2013
 Robby Soave
Reporter
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/06/university-sends-email-to-alumni-equating-the-tea-party-with-the-kkk/#ixzz2miHGpRqF

Red Cloud

                         Red Cloud

As the tale goes ( from a new book on Red Cloud),  Red Cloud in conversation with a bitter U.S. officer tried to explain the mystical hold that the Paba Sapa  had on his people by saying: “My ancestors’ bones lie in the Black Hills.”

“Horseshit,” the officer replied.  “Your people have been there no more than a couple of generations.  They come from Minnesota, and you were born in Nebraska.  You took that land from the Crows, and do you know why you took that land from the Crows?  Because you could. And do you know why we will take that land from you?  Because we can.”

Before you jump to any conclusion or conviction, read about ponder the savage behavior and uncivilized culture of the American Indian tribes that inhabited America before and during our early years of settlement.  Adhere to history and reality.  Don’t stop until you can’t stop from retching from repulsion and disgust until you  reach the terrifying, ultimate conclusion that “Yes, we can and did,” says it all.

Thursday, December 05, 2013

IF OBAMA HATES INCOME INEQUALITY SO MUCH

IF OBAMA HATES INCOME INEQUALITY SO MUCH, he should start with the difference between Washington, DC and the rest of the country.
YET INEQUALITY HAS VASTLY INCREASED DURING HIS TIME IN OFFICE, AS A DIRECT RESULT OF HIS POLICIES: Obama: ‘Profoundly unequal’ economy a ‘fundamental threat.’ And even this news report kind of gets at that
JONATHAN TURLEY: Obama Has “Become The Very Danger The Constitution Was Designed To Avoid.”


COMPARE AND CONTRAST: “Obama has a web site that doesn’t work and drones that kill people. Amazon has a functioning web site and drones that deliver gifts.”

THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE: In New Jersey, 50,000 sign up for online gambling; 741 sign up for ObamaCare.

The cynical exploit the gullible

      The cynical exploit the gullible
Here is a classic example of how the cynical exploit the gullible--by appealing to notions of "value" ungrounded in reality. And on the cost side, consider the case of Erin McDonald, as reported by the Daily Caller:

The Department of Health and Human Services has crowned a YouTube video entitled "Forget About The Price Tag" as the grand prize winner in a contest meant to encourage young people to sign up for Obamacare. . . .
Without a hint of irony, McDonald sings her chorus: "Ain't about the, uh, cha-ching cha-ching. Ain't about the, yeah, bla-bling bla-bling. Affordable Care Act. Don't worry 'bout the price tag."
This is somehow supposed to persuade young, healthy adults to pay inflated premiums so as to subsidize old and sick people's price-controlled policies.

NO TEA PARTY GROUP HAS YET BEEN CONTACTED BY THE FBI

MINOR DETAIL: NO TEA PARTY GROUP HAS YET BEEN CONTACTED BY THE FBI; STRANGE INVESTIGATION.
FBI Hiding Docs In IRS Tea Party Investigation, Pols Say

Law360, New York (December 04, 2013, 1:19 PM ET) -- The chairman of the House oversight committee is mounting pressure on the FBI to turn over documents related to the Internal Revenue Service's heightened scrutiny of conservative groups, telling the bureau Monday that it might forcibly take the documents if it doesn't cooperate.

The FBI currently is investigating the IRS scandal and, in September, committee Chairman Darrell Issa and member Jim Jordan asked FBI Director James Comey to answer some questions about the investigation and brief the committee.
From: LAW360, a Lexix/Nexis company

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

‘It’s sort of touching the way Obama believes in the power of his rhetoric.’

OBAMA: “We’re not going back” to that horrible time when 87% of Americans were happy with their health insurance.
PEGGY NOONAN BEGINNING TO WONDER if Obama’s as smart as he was cracked up to be.
SHOCKER: Despite improvements, Obamacare website would still be a private sector failure.
58
SURVEY SAYS: Dems Are The Out Of Touch Extremists. If they didn’t have the media flying cover for them, they’d be getting 30% of the vote. Which suggests where people ought to be focusing their resources. .
QUESTION: If Obama Ignores The Law, Why Shouldn’t The Rest Of Us? Because he took an oath to faithfully execute the law — and you didn’t, peons!

LAWS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Harry Reid Exempts Staff From ObamaCare.

4
Posted at 8:58 am by Glenn Reynolds  
NATIONAL JOURNAL: ObamaCare’s Credibility Problem.

UPDATE: Krauthammer: ‘It’s sort of touching the way Obama believes in the power of his rhetoric.’

ROGER SIMON: The First Hippie President.
We’re talking about all of it, the whole multi-culti-missing-white-mother-vanished-Kenyan-father-anti-imperialist-America-is-always-the-enemy-and-don’t-you-forget-it-nine-yards. And like most hippie culture as I knew and experienced it, it wasn’t about “peace and love.” Not in the slightest. That was a masquerade —
.........
pace Bill Ayers, the Chicago Seven, the Weathermen, et al. — “by any means necessary.” “Burn, baby, burn” whether you were white or black. As Jonah Goldberg eloquently pointed out in his brilliant book, hippie culture was part and parcel of “liberal fascism.”
.........
Which accounts for a lot of where we are today. Trust a hippie to negotiate with the mullahs and trust a hippie, yet more incredibly if reports are true, to negotiate with Hezbollah.

Of course, most of us grew out of it. Obama, however, was late to the party and, like many latecomers, didn’t quite see it for what it was.

Sure he did. Like many others, he saw it as an opportunity.

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

ObamaCare and the Totalitarian Mindset: All of us work for the government.

PIGGERY-POKERY: “A new Gallup poll finds that those who know the least about Obamacare tend to be the ones who gave Barack Obama both of his terms in the presidency.” Low-information voters.

BROKEN PROMISE: White House: Obama hasn’t yet signed up for Obamacare.

President Obama has yet to make good on the administration’s promises that he would sign up for health insurance on the new government exchanges, the White House acknowledged on Monday.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Obama has not signed up for Obamacare and that he did have a reason for the delay.

A reporter pressed Carney on whether the White House would make it an open-press event if and when Obama does enroll.

“I’ll get back to you,” Carney replied.

Shortly after Obama signed the new health care law in March 2010, a White House official said the president planned to walk the walk and sign up for the insurance exchanges his law created.

“The president will participate in the exchange,” an administration official told USA Today at the time.

Expiration date, hit.

HOW BAD IS IT? SO BAD THAT THIS IS THE POSITIVE SPIN FROM TIME: HealthCare.gov No Longer a Complete Fail. Close enough for government work!

: ObamaCare and the Totalitarian Mindset: All of us work for the government.

“Suppose some inventor hatches an idea for what he thinks would be a great and revolutionary new product. He raises money from investors, sets up office, hires people–and fails spectacularly. The company’s customer service is atrocious, the product is expensive and lousy, and the whole business plan is fundamentally flawed. Who’s to blame?

The news media, of course. After all, journalists could have put out stories touting the virtues of the product and explaining how to navigate the crummy customer-service system, and maybe then the whole business plan would have worked out.

That, at any rate, is the argument Paul Waldman puts forth in an article for the leftist American Prospect. Of course being a good leftist, Waldman is not blaming the media for the failure of a private business. But then neither would any nonleftist. Yet because the enterprise in question is a governmental one–ObamaCare, in case you’ve been away from Earth for the past two months–the argument somehow makes sense to him.

We find it not only wrongheaded but sinister (in every sense of the word). Waldman argues that journalists have a “responsibility” to provide “audiences with practical information that could help them navigate the new system”–and not just that, but to provide such information “repeatedly or people won’t get it.”
JAMES TARANTO
Read the whole thing.

ED DRISCOLL: It’s Potemkin Websites All The Way Down.

Fake vs. Real

   Fake vs. Real

Fake language like “strategic land space,” fake guns being illegal and fake cigarettes being banned - what next? Reality is unreal nowadays because nothing is real. It’s impossible to ‘get real.’ Even if e-cigarettes are a real way to help people stop smoking, even if fake guns cannot kill anyone and even if meaningless words continue to be used in reportage and by politicians - God’s still real! Hold on to what might be our last, sure hope!  

CLASS; WHAT HAPPENED ON DEC. 7,1941? - Anyone, anyone?

CLASS; WHAT HAPPENED ON DEC. 7,1941?  - Anyone, anyone?
Even I with my low opinion of Obama’s Common Core curriculum was stunned by this on TOWNHALL.COM today.
December 7th 1941 - “A DATE THAT SHALL LIVE IN INFAMY”- EXCEPT IN NEW “COMMON CORE’ HISTORY BOOKS.
A Textbook That Should Live in Infamy: The Common Core Assaults World War II
Terrence Moore | Dec 02, 2013
FROM: townhall.com
Saturday the 7th of December will mark the seventy-second anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The commemoration of that “date which will live in infamy” brings up memories of more than Pearl Harbor but of the entire American effort in World War II: of the phenomenal production of planes and tanks and munitions by American industry; of millions of young men enlisting (with thousands lying about their age to get into the service); of the men who led the war, then and now seeming larger than life—Churchill and F.D.R., Eisenhower and MacArthur, Monty and Patton; and of the battles themselves in which uncommon valor was a common virtue: Midway, D-Day, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima, to name only a few. Most of us today do not know those events directly but have encountered them in history books. And when we think of World War II, the people who come to mind first are our grandparents: the men and women of the Greatest Generation who are our surest link to the past.

One of the most vital questions for us—grandchildren of the Greatest Generation—is how we will preserve their memory. Ours is the much easier but still important task of making sure that subsequent generations understand the heroism and sacrifice needed to keep America—and indeed the world—safe, prosperous, and free during the grave crisis that was the Second World War. Presumably these lessons not only honor our forebears, who passed on a free and great nation to us, but they also set the example of how we must meet the challenges and crises of our own time. A glance at one of the nation’s leading high-school literature textbooks—Prentice Hall’s The American Experience, which has been aligned to the Common Core—will tell us how we are doing on that front.

The opening page of the slim chapter devoted to World War II called “War Shock” features a photograph of a woman inspecting a large stockpile of thousand-pound bomb castings. The notes in the margins of the Teacher’s Edition set the tone:

In this section, nonfiction prose and a single stark poem etch into a reader’s mind the dehumanizing horror of world war. . . .

The editors of the textbook script the question teachers are supposed to ask students in light of the photograph as well as provide the answer:

Ask: What dominant impression do you take away from this photograph?

Possible response: Students may say that the piled rows of giant munitions give a strong impression of America’s power of mass production and the bombs’ potential for mass destruction.

Translation: Americans made lots of big bombs that killed lots of people.

The principal selection of the chapter is taken from John Hersey’s Hiroshima. It is a description of ordinary men and women in Hiroshima living out their lives the day the bomb was dropped. A couple of lines reveal the spirit of the document:

The Reverend Mr. Tanimoto got up at five o’clock that morning. He was alone in the parsonage, because for some time his wife had been commuting with their year-old baby to spend nights with a friend in Ushida, a suburb to the north.

Further prompts from the margins of the Teacher’s Edition indicate how the selection is to be read and taught:

World War II has been called a popular war in which the issues that spurred the conflict were clearly defined. . . . Nevertheless, technological advances . . . [and the media] brought home the horrors of war in a new way. Although a serious antiwar movement in the United States did not become a reality until the 1960s, these works by Hersey and by Jarrell take their place in the ranks of early antiwar literature.

Have students think about and record in writing their personal feelings about war. Encourage students to list images of war that they recall vividly. [Conveniently, there is a photograph of the devastation in Hiroshima next to this prompt].

Tell students they will revisit their feelings about war after they have read these selections.

The entire section is littered with questions and prompts in this vein and plenty of photos that show the destruction of Hiroshima. In case the students would be inclined to take the American side in this conflict, the editors see to it that teachers will remind the students repeatedly that there are two sides in every war:

Think Aloud: Model the Skill
Say to students:
When I was reading the history textbook, I noticed that the writer included profiles of three war heroes, all of whom fought for the Allies. The writer did not include similar profiles for fighters on the other side. I realize that this choice reflects a political assumption: that readers want to read about only their side’s heroes.

. . . Mr. Tanimoto is on the side of “the enemy.” Explain that to vilify is to make malicious statements about someone. During wartime, it is common to vilify people on the other side, or “the enemy.”

After a dozen pages of Hersey’s Hiroshima (the same number given to Benjamin Franklin in volume one of The American Experience), students encounter the anti-war, anti-heroic poem by Randall Jarell, “The Death of the Ball Turrett Gunner.” The last line in this short poem sums up the sentiment: “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” The textbook editors zero in for the kill:

Take a position: Jarrell based his poem on observations of World War II, a war that has been called “the good war.” Is there such a thing as a “good war”? Explain.

Possible response: [In the Teacher’s Edition] Students may concede that some wars, such as World War II, are more justified than others, but may still feel that “good” is not an appropriate adjective for any war.

So, class, what are your “feelings” about war—and World War II in particular—now that you have read these two depressing selections in “early anti-war literature”?

There is more than a little sophistry taking place here: an alarming superficiality and political bias that pervades all the Common Core textbooks (as I have illustrated in my book The Story-Killers: A Common Sense Case Against the Common Core). There is no reading in this chapter ostensibly devoted to World War II that tells why America entered the war. There is no document on Pearl Harbor or the Rape of Nanking or the atrocities committed against the Jews or the bombing of Britain. The book contains no speech of Winston Churchill or F.D.R. even though the reading of high-caliber “informational texts” is the new priority set by the Common Core, and great rhetoric has always been the province of an English class. There is not a single account of a battle or of American losses or of the liberation of Europe. The editors do not balance Jarrell’s poem with the much more famous war song “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” that ends with the line, “And we’ll all stay free!” The rest of this chapter consists in a poster of a junk rally to gather metals for the making of munitions, a New York Times editorial, and a political cartoon penned by Dr. Seuss (who supported the war). There is not a single document or sentence in the chapter that would make a young reader consider the Axis Powers anything other than “enemies” in quotes. Essentially, all of World War II has been reduced to dropping the bomb and consequently, we are led to believe, America’s inhumanity. In short, the entire presentation of the Second World War is not an exercise in critical thinking; nor will it make students “college and career ready.” This is not teaching. It is programming, pure and simple.

“But we did drop the bomb, didn’t we?” Yes, we did. But if we are to make World War II, and Hiroshima in particular, a subject of discussion in an English literature class, then we should at least provide a few facts. The Japanese never showed any sign of surrender until after Nagasaki, the dropping of the second bomb. That meant that an invasion of Japan was the only alternative to the bomb. The Japanese were prepared to defend the mainland with 2.5 million troops and a civilian militia of millions more. American deaths would likely have been in the hundreds of thousands, and Japanese casualties, both military and civilian, could have been more than a million. Furthermore, a small detail that is left out of virtually every high-school textbook is worth considering. American planes dropped three-quarters of a million leaflets urging the people of Hiroshima to evacuate the city. That pamphlet is a document you will never see in a Common Core textbook.

Since the Prentice Hall editors are not above appealing to teenage feelings to make their point, let us give them a taste of their own medicine.

Imagine you are a ten-year-old child living in 1945. You have only distant and passing memories of your father, who enlisted in the Marine Corps as soon as the war broke out. You write him every week, and your mother writes him every day, but his letters come in spurts due to interruptions in communication. Your mother shields you from most of what goes on, but you know he barely escaped with his life at a place called Guadalcanal. Because of his experience and his unit, he will be either in the first or second assault wave on the Japanese mainland. He has an eighty percent chance of being killed. Would you want President Truman to order the dropping of the bomb to keep your father from being killed, as well as saving thousands more American servicemen and even Japanese civilians and soldiers?

This is not fiction. This was a reality faced by hundreds of thousands of American families whose husbands and fathers were deployed in the Pacific theatre. Somehow we have forgotten that reality.

It is really a very simple question. Do we want the memory of our grandparents to be left in the hands of progressive ideologues and armchair utopians who have the advantage of living in a free and prosperous country (for now) due to no expenditure of blood, toil, tears, or sweat of their own? Do we want the children just now entering school and in the years to come—who may have never met their great-grandparents—to be made ashamed of that Greatest Generation, of America, and of our resolution to remain free?

Recommend this article

Sunday, December 01, 2013

BIRDS OF A FEATHER; BELIEVERS IN OBAMA & BELIEVERS IN LENIN

BIRDS OF A FEATHER; BELIEVERS IN OBAMA & BELIEVERS IN LENIN
Just to prove, ‘once a Communist, always a Communist ‘ (believer),  when the writer Nabokov asked a confirmed Lenin supporter to justify the bestial terror that had been sanctioned by Lenin - the torture-house, the blood-bespattered wall - his friend would murmur something about the “Allied Blockade” and never realized. that idealists like himself  would be destroyed by Lenin’s regime as naturally as rabbits are by ferrets and farmers.

Nesbit and his highbrow friends saw in Lenin a kind of sensitive, poetic-minded patron and promoter of the newest trends in advanced art and advanced politics ( which in reality were just meaningless words).

Even after an absence of 17 years, when Nabokov met Nesbit briefly, his friend  was shocked at the purges of the heroes of his youth, BUT still did not reconsider the preconceived notions of his youth and still saw Lenin’s short reign in a glamorous light.  Wow!

Obama’s supporters should have by now seen through the idealism of ‘hope and change.’  

OBAMA MOVES GOAL POSTS - WINS GAME!

OBAMA MOVES GOAL POSTS - WINS GAME!
November 30, 2013
"Administration officials are preparing to announce Sunday that they have met their Saturday deadline for improving HealthCare.gov..."
"... according to government officials, in part by expanding the site’s capacity so that it can handle 50,000 users at once."
But they have yet to meet all their internal goals for repairing the federal health-care site, and it will not become clear how many consumers it can accommodate until more people try to use it.
50,000 users at once... was that the goal set for the deadline?

If you can set the goal at the point of seeing how far you've gotten when the deadline arrives, doesn't that make the whole notion of a deadline pretty much a scam?
Posted by Ann Althouse at 4:30 PM

Which is more dangerous, inequalities of wealth or concentrations of power?
 From Thomas Sowell’s recent syndicated column, “Random Thoughts“
Those who want to “spread the wealth” almost invariably seek to concentrate the power.  It happens too often, and in too many different countries around the world, to be a coincidence.  Which is more dangerous, inequalities of wealth or concentrations of power?

REMINDER: In 2009, President Obama “Joked” About Having The IRS Audit His Enemies.

THIS NEW YORK TIMES PIECE ON THE OBAMACARE DEBACLE — WHICH IS CLEARLY MEANT TO BE SYMPATHETIC — REVEALS AN INEPT AND OUT-OF-TOUCH WHITE HOUSE. Key bit: “The story of how the administration confronted one of the most perilous moments in Mr. Obama’s presidency — drawn from documents and from interviews with dozens of administration officials, lawmakers, insurance executives and tech experts working inside the HealthCare.gov ‘war room’ — reveals an insular White House that did not initially appreciate the magnitude of its self-inflicted wounds, and sought help from trusted insiders as it scrambled to protect Mr. Obama’s image.”

Initially? According to the story it took them a month to start taking the problem seriously.

THE IRS AS OBAMA WEAPON
MARK STEYN ON THOSE SUSPICIOUS IRS AUDITS: Dissent Is The Highest Form Of Tax Bracket.
A couple of weeks back, cancer patient Bill Elliot, in a defiant appearance on Fox News, discussed the cancelation of his insurance and what he intended to do about it. He’s now being audited.

Insurance agent C Steven Tucker, who quaintly insists that the whimsies of the hyper-regulatory bureaucracy do not trump your legal rights, saw the interview and reached out to Mr Elliot to help him. And he’s now being audited.

As the Instapundit likes to remind us, Barack Obama has “joked” publicly about siccing the IRS on his enemies. With all this coincidence about, we should be grateful the President is not (yet) doing prison-rape gags.

Obama’s a putz, and the people at the IRS who are implementing this should have their names, and their boss’s names, and their grandbosses’ names publicized.

REMINDER: In 2009, President Obama “Joked” About Having The IRS Audit His Enemies.