Stuart Smalley - Didn't Take Long

It certainly did not take very long for Senator Al Franken to make an ass of himself. In all that is wrong with Washington, Franken's display of ignorant disrespect to a long standing member of the United States Senate has perfectly fit in to the story of the decline of Washington Politics. If this does not motivate Americans that Real Change across the board is needed, I do not know what will.

However, I am surprised that it took so long for Franken to show his true colors of idiocy that is his personality. He certainly needs to some home training and thank God he is not a Libertarian.

Dr. Davis' December Letter to Editor

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. For many, possibly for most, my hope is that they will be merrier and happier than the last two.

I’d like to challenge everyone who reads this to think about what they might do to make the holidays, both religious and secular, happier for all Americans and for people everywhere.

I believe that this country remains the best hope for much of the world. Founders from Washington and Jefferson to Franklin and Adams felt that the only hope for the republic they created lay in a citizenry well educated and informed, virtuous and fair-minded. As our democracy has been extended to more and more of the population, this does not change.

For more than a hundred years we Americans have, in varying degrees, tried to push our ideas of government on much of the rest of the world. In doing so, we have begun to lose much of what our form of government has to offer both ourselves and the rest of the world.

At this time when people seek peace and make New-Year’s resolutions, I challenge you to do all you can to make yourself that educated, informed, fair-minded and virtuous citizen and voter. None of us are perfect, but as we enter another election year, let us try again to become an example of freedom and justice for the world, not a world-policeman or an empire.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Davis, D.D.S.

Libertarian candidate for Congress

www.davis4congress.com

Chris Bush Analyzes The Governor's Race

Originally Posted on the MD-Lib Discussion Board by Doug McNeil

Note: Chris Bush is a well-known Maryland blogger who writes extensively
about utility regulation and other political issues. He's a progressive who
favors re-regulation to reverse the recent electricity rate increases, which
(as he correctly notes) is not a position that we agree with. But he likes
us anyway, and he's happy that we're running.

I'm pleased to see that the word about our campaign is starting to get
out, even at this early stage, and that it's generating considerable interest
on the left. But I think it's premature to conclude that Ehrlich is
finished and that we might throw the election to O'Malley.

The following is excerpted from his "Electricity Crisis 12-11-09."

-- Doug McNeil

End of the Road for Ehrlich: Libertarians Running Candidate for Governor

~ Bobby was Already Behind in the Polls to O'Malley- Even though MOM
Himself in Trouble Electorally
~ w/ a Libertarian Candidate Running for Governor, Too, Ehrlich will NOT
Win for Sure
~ the Libertarian Party has Nominated Susan Gaztanaga for Governor in 2010
~ The Libertarians Certainly Will Peel Off Ehrlich Votes- the LAST Thing
that Bobby Needs
~ the Tea Party Activists May Also Turn to the Libertarians as Well-or
Possibly the Constitution Party- as the GOP has Become so Corrupt in Maryland
~ AND, Recent Polling by Rasmussen- as Referenced on WBAL 1090 AM's C4
Show on Wed., Dec. 9, 2009, During the 1:37pm Segment- Indicate that MORE
Folks Would Back the Tea Party, if It Were on the Ballot, than the Republican
Party
~ In Maryland, the Libertarian Party or Constitution Party (which Does NOT
Yet Have a Guv Nominee) Will be the Platform to Manifest Those Tea Party
Sentiments
~ While Susan Gaztanaga is Anti-Regulation in General- NOT Good News for
BGE Customers- She's Also HONEST and Would NOT be a Lackey for Constellation
Energy Like O'Malley AND Ehrlich
~ Also, Susan's Husband Lorenzo- Who's Running for Congress in the 2nd
Congressional District Against Dutch Ruppersberger (Chris Bush Supported
Gaztanaga for the Same Contest in 2008)- SUPPORTS Decentralized, Cheap Energy
for Households, the Kind that Comes from Solar
~ Assuming that Susan is of Like View, At Least There'd be a Governor
Trying to Help with Individual Homeowner's Electricity Bills Via Solar
~ However, Solar is NOT a Viable Alternative Currently- ONLY when
Ultra-Thin Film Solar Foil Becomes Available Will this Change- UNless there are Tax
Credits and Renewable Energy Credits: More in a Future EC on Gaztanaga's
View on Solar and Renewable Energy
~ As a Result, the GOP Should Run a PRO-Regulation Candidate for Governor,
Like EJ Pipkin- Who, UNlike Ehrlich, does NOT Have Baggage and Thus COULD
Beat O'Malley: if Not, there's NO REASON Why Phant Voters Should NOT Cast
Their Ballots for the Libertarian Candidate Instead, Again, as Polls Show
Ehrlich LOSING to MOM
~ Many Tea Party Activists in Maryland are ALSO Anti-BGE, so Pipkin's
Position Will Have more Resonance for Them (Although Tea Baggers Tend to be
More Right-Wing than Pipkin on Other Issues)
~ On the Other Hand, Voting for Robert Ehrlich Will be Throwing AWAY One's
Vote Should the Bobster's Arrogance Tempt Him into Running Again
~ Chris Bush Calls on the Green Party to Run a PRO-REGULATION Candidate
for Governor as Well, to Pressure O'Malley on the Left
~ This Writer is NOT in Favor of Splitting the Republican Base to Give
O'Malley a Re-Election
~ Indeed, for You Progressives Out There, Let's Get Behind a Green
Candidate to Pull Votes from O'Malley, Which Will Encourage Anti-GOP Conservatives
to Vote Libertarian
~ Some of Those Independent Righties Might Not Vote Libertarian- Assuming
Pipkin is the Nominee w/ a Real Chance to Win- if they Think O'Malley Will
Benefit, But if They See Progressives Gaining Ground on the Left, They'll
Feel More Comfortable Breaking w/ Ehrlich and/or Pipkin, and Sending the
GOP a Message
~ Picture This: a 4 Party Contest for Governor in 2010: Dem, Repub,
Libertarian, Green
~ the Political Environment Only IMPROVES if the Two Party Duopoly is
Broken Up!!!!
~ (NOTE: more on the "Tea Bagger" controversy, including a recent segment
on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC on 12-04-09, as well as an email from
the caller to WBAL 1090 AM who started it all, James Madigan)-cb
~ (NOTE 2: yours truly does NOT speak FOR, nor speak on behalf, of ANY
other group, individual- including Sen. Pipkin or Susan Gaztanaga)-cb
~ (Source: independentpoliticalreport.com; airamerica.com link; "EC
12-03-09" email attachment)
~ Analysis by Chris Bush

For feds, more get 6-figure salaries

USA Today has published an article pointing to the incredible increase of Federal Employees that have Salaries over $100,000 and $150,000 per year, before bonuses and benefits. This has happened during the current recession's first 18 months.

This was recommended under President Bush and is being continued under President Obama. In a time when we should be cutting government spending and reducing it's overall size, we are witnessing an unprecedented period of expansion. This has occurred under the watch of both Republicans and Democrats.

We have a federal government model that is offering services that are outside the scope of it's responsibility. Government has become to invasive, to large, bloated, redundant, and an incredible burden on the back of taxpayers. The debt that has been mounted in the name of the American Taxpayer is criminal and even worse, elected officials are in no hurry to eliminate it.

The other major issue is when State and Local governments follow the failed model of the Federal Government. Every level of government is threatened when these typed of flawed policies are implemented. Taxpayers get stuck with the burden of debt at every level.

The first thing to understand with our current Government Fiscal situations is that we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Looking at the ridiculous amount of pork that is wasted on a daily basis is a good place to start cutting. Implementing the holy philosophy of "No Sacred Cows" is very important.

Then we need to begin streamlining, consolidating, and eliminating programs, departments, and wasteful services. The IRS is good place to start.

We Need China's What?

Sam Adams on a Sunday Afternoon

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can."

Samuel Adams

Stan Jones

The Rising Tide - Unintended Consequences of the Luxury Tax

Hanging By a Thread: Defending Economic Liberty in Texas

A Message from LP Chairman Bill Redpath

Quote of the Day

“We can only save this great country by limiting politicians to two terms -- one term in office . . . one term in prison.”

Wayne Allyn Root

Artificial Housing Respiration

Government-sponsored housing inflation is locking the next generation out of homeownership.

Tim Cavanaugh

No major newspaper seriously questions the truism that foreclosures destroy neighborhoods. No news network doubts that “troubled borrowers” are overwhelmingly good Americans who have been set back by a job loss or medical emergency. And what kind of anti-American Shylock would claim that you shouldn’t give bad borrowers government-backed loan modifications, cutting their mortgage payments by 20 percent?

The interesting new wrinkle on those old, false arguments is that real estate interventionists no longer pretend they have any real goal other than keeping house prices inflated. Even a year ago, the arguments for rescuing real estate prices were phrased in broad, spillover-style metaphors—“meltdown,” “implosion”—that suggested a concern for the common bystander. Today, the argument is a lot plainer: We need to keep existing homeowners (or home borrowers) from experiencing any further decline in closing prices. When I ask Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) to explain his support for extending exorbitant Federal Housing Administration loan guarantees even while the real estate market continues to cool, he replies, “The economy of Los Angeles would tank if prices fell another 50 percent.” Here’s how Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), in an October interview with The New York Times, justified his support for the agency’s shoddy lending standards: “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the bad loans occurred. It was an effort to keep prices from falling too fast.” Economy.com front man Mark Zandi puts it even more bluntly. The housing market, he says, “is showing improvement only because it is on government life support.”

Life support is expensive. When that troubled borrower gets a 20 percent haircut, his bank has to take a loss, and the bank is compensated for the loss by you, through the $50 billion Home Affordable Modification Program. The Treasury Department has paid more than $100 billion to allow the failed government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to keep on guaranteeing questionable loans. Fannie and Freddie, in turn, have been expanding rather than reducing their loan portfolios—the opposite of what you’re supposed to do when you’ve got an unmanageable debt load. Read More Reason

The Geography of Unemployment

Tom G. Palmer on Realizing Freedom

A Case for Secession – Taxation

by Patrick Samuels

We will begin with the area that was one of the primary motivations for the colonists to declare their independence from Great Britain – Taxes. Suffice it so say that the amount of taxes England sought to impose upon those Americans do not hold a candle to the taxes we already pay our imperial national government today. All governments require taxes to perform their functions and we all grudgingly admit the necessity of paying them. Our government has taken upon itself a myriad of functions it was never designed to perform and has therefore required large amounts of money. It is not the purpose of this section to debate the legitimate functions of government. Instead we will concern ourselves primarily with the morality and justice of taxing particular areas of human endeavor and for general purpose those taxes are utilized.

Thomas Jefferson stated that “government should not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” All governments require money to operate. Obviously, the smaller the government, the less it will require. Consider, however, where the government gets this money. Again, obviously, it taxes its citizens and it is right to do so. Governments are a form of voluntary organization among free people to accomplish ends they are not able to do as individuals. Because these individuals have contracted together in such a fashion, there is the expectation that they will support their creation. However, the people retain the rights they received from their creator under the contract and the government has no right to infringe upon those rights. When it does, we consider it tyrannical. READ THE REST

Quote of the Day, Maybe Year

"Dramatics abounded Monday in Salisbury: Dramatic talk, dramatic allegations, dramatic innuendoes, dramatic declarations. Everything but dramatic action."

Daily Times Editorial Board

Click here to read the entire Editorial

A True Tale of Canadian Health Care: Why some patients need to go to the U.S. for surgery

Social Security Will Go Bust in 2010

by Gary North

For the third time in my life, the Social Security System will go belly-up.

The first time was in 1977 – well, almost. To head off the bust, Jimmy Carter got Congress to pass a major FICA tax increase – sorry, "contribution" increase – in order to save Social Security. The rate would be hiked in phases from 2% to 6.15% (times two: employee and employer). He promised: "Now this legislation will guarantee that from 1980 to the year 2030, the Social Security funds will be sound." http://tinyurl.com/ybksxs4

Carter's projection was off by a Georgia country mile. In 1983, the SSA program technically went bankrupt. Reagan signed a law that speeded up Carter's rate increases, added Congressional employees to Social Security, and delayed the age of eligibility.

Unless there is another Social Security tax increase in 2010, the system will go into red ink mode and stay there.

The public has not been informed of this, which comes as no surprise. There have been a few scattered stories on the Web, but nothing sustained. The media do not want to admit that the jointly operated Social Security program and Medicare program are going to bankrupt the Federal government if they are not cut back drastically.

They are never cut back. They always expand.

Medicare's Hospital Insurance program has been in red ink mode for two years. The public does not know this, either. To cover the program's insolvency, the government is quietly funding the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund with bailouts from the general fund.

Politically, this creates a problem. When the Treasury taps the general fund, the expenditure appears on the budget – the on-budget budget – as an expenditure. This immediately adds to the deficit, meaning the visible deficit, the one that gets recorded on those wonderful U.S. debt clocks.

When revenues flow into the four Social Security and Medicare trust funds, the money is instantly handed over to the Treasury, which issues non-marketable long-term IOU's to the trust funds. These IOU's are listed as assets by the funds. But, through the wonders of government accounting, they are not listed as liabilities on the government's on-budget budget. They are liabilities only on the off-budget budget, which most Americans are unaware of. This chicanery has been going on ever since the Johnson Administration (Lyndon's, not Andrew's). Read the Rest

Patrick J. Michaels discusses Climategate on CNN

The Gatekeeper

How a little bureaucratic office became the biggest impediment to Barack Obama’s health care plans

Peter Suderman from the January 2010 issue

It was January 2009, and Democrats were triumphant. Their party had won major victories in both the House and the Senate, and Barack Obama, arguably the most economically left-wing president in decades, had just won the White House on a promise to finally achieve what had eluded liberals for so long: universal health care.

As the new era unfolded in Washington, plans for overhauling one-sixth of the economy began to take shape. Health care reforms, Democrats vowed, would extend insurance to every American and be fully paid for without requiring middle-class tax hikes, all while cutting costs significantly enough to save the country from financial catastrophe. To sell these claims the party trotted out one of the most respected number-crunchers in town, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, a former Brookings Institution health care expert obsessed with cost cutting. With 60 votes in the Senate, nothing seemed to stand in the Democrats’ way.

Nothing, that is, except the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan federal agency that until this year was run by none other than Peter Orszag. As drafts of various health care bills began to emerge on Capitol Hill, the CBO, responsible for devising Congress’ official legislative cost estimates (known as “scores”), released a series of reports that demolished key Democratic claims. According to the CBO, both the “tri-committee” bill proposed in the House and the bill proposed in the Senate Finance Committee would cost in excess of $1 trillion over 10 years, might leave tens of millions uninsured, and would not curb rising health care costs. Indeed, both would add substantially to the budget deficit in the long term. As the year progressed, the CBO proved a more effective check against key elements of the Democrats’ domestic agenda than anything concocted by Republican strategists or libertarian wonks. In an October article, The Washington Post concluded that the CBO had “essentially condemned two legislative proposals by slapping them with trillion-dollar price tags.”

Created as an afterthought and initially intended as a low-profile congressional calculation service, the CBO has quietly risen to a place of unique prominence and power in Washington policy debates. Widely cited and almost universally respected, it is treated as judge and referee, resolving disputes about what policies will cost and how they will work.

But the agency’s authority is belied by the highly speculative nature of its work, which requires an endless succession of unverifiable assumptions. These assumptions are frequently treated as definitive, as if on faith. In practice, this means the CBO is not merely an impartial legislative scorekeeper but a keeper of the nation’s budgetary myths, a clan of spreadsheet-wielding priests whose declarations become Washington’s holy writ. READ MORE REASON