UK Daily Mail:
Life prolonging cancer drugs to be banned because they cost too much

CNSNews.com - Border Violence Boosting Demand for Armor-Plated Vehicles

San Antonio (AP) - The drug violence in Mexico has gotten so bad that booming numbers of Mexican and American professionals are having their cars fitted with armor plates, bulletproof glass and James Bond-style gadgets such as electrified door handles and push-button smokescreens.

Civilians Ran a Greater Risk of Being Killed in Juarez Last Year than in Baghdad
(CNSNews.com) - Civilians ran a greater risk of being killed in the border city of Juarez, Mexico, last year than in Baghdad, Iraq. The per capita rate of civilian killings in the Mexican border city in 2008 was nearly three-and-a-half times as great as the per capita rate of civilian killings in the Iraqi province of Baghdad, CNSNews.com has determined, based on State Department statistics and data supplied by an Iraqi civilian-casualty database recommended by the Department of Defense.

Walter E. Williams:
Sweden's Government Health Care

Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). That's until its poor delivery of health care services became known. A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, "Delay, Denial and Dilution," written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the NHS health care services are just about the worst in the developed world. The head of the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care. Twelve percent of specialists surveyed admitted refusing kidney dialysis to patients suffering from kidney failure because of limits on cash. Waiting lists for medical treatment have become so long that there are now "waiting lists" for the waiting list.

Karl Marx couldn't have said it better:

"President Obama's new budget is, well, audacious -- not just because it includes several big, audacious initiatives (universally affordable health care, and a cap-and-trade system for coping with global warming, for starters) but also because it represents the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than 40 years. ... It's about time a presidential budget unequivocally redistributed income from the very rich to the middle class and poor. ... Fairness is at stake but so is the economy as a whole. This Mini Depression is partly the result of a widening gap between what Americans can afford to buy and what Americans, when fully employed, can produce. And that gap is in no small measure due to the widening gap in incomes, since the rich don't devote nearly as large a portion of their incomes to buying things as middle and lower-income people. The rich, after all, already have most of what they want." --former labor secretary Robert Reich

Jay Leno quotes:

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is offering a pledge of $900 million to the Palestinians in Gaza. Let's hope they don't spend it all on rocks this time."

***********

"Apparently we ran out of banks here to bail out, so now we're bailing out the West Bank."

"The economic crisis, as it did for Franklin D. Roosevelt, will serve as a stepping stone to a radical shift in the relationship between the people and their government. It will bind Americans to their government in ways not experienced since the New Deal. This tectonic shift, if successful, will be equal to the forces of public authority set in motion by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The Obama presidency is going to be a radical presidency."

--Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger

"[President Obama] is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds. That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all -- either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy's long-run potential to grow."

--economist Larry Kudlow

Regulatory Commissars: Talking nationalization

"Fascism is an economic model in which the state dictates the utilization of privately held assets to achieve public policy goals. Taking a page from Benito Mussolini's playbook, congressional Democrats have intimated that they think nationalizing some banks -- temporarily, of course -- is the way to fix the current "crisis." While the Obama administration is downplaying such talk, their acquisition this week of as much as 36 percent of Citigroup says otherwise. Their stated goal is to stabilize the banking system via an influx of capital. They say Citigroup and other banks are "too big to fail" -- a phrase that entered the regulatory lexicon in the 1980s following the failure of Penn Square Bank in Oklahoma City.

But are banks really in such bad shape? After a Monday meeting of the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Reserve, these five regulatory agencies said, "Currently, the major banking institutions have capital in excess of the amounts required to be considered well-capitalized." So why all the government intervention?

We are already seeing the consequences of Fascism Lite in our economy. Reporters, pundits and politicians are aggressively questioning and criticizing corporate expenditures for aircraft, bonuses and even marketing decisions. These issues are normally for shareholders to decide, but with the influx of capital that is flowing from the public purse, the taxpayers have in a way become shareholders. However, given the grave financial condition of the newspaper industry, and the historic inefficiency of the federal government, seeking business advice from either politicians or the media is a bit like asking a pacifist to draw up a battle plan.

Finally, the administration pronounced this week that the financial industry needs additional regulation to bar future crises. Our current financial morass traces its origins to the regulatory process enmeshed with a flawed social policy that elevated outcomes over opportunity. What followed is a natural consequence of the doctrine "too big to fail."

Expanded government control of private assets, production dictated to achieve political objectives, operations dictated by non-shareholders, conditions designed to produce failure and increased reliance upon public funding... welcome to Fascism. This is going to leave a mark."

Source: Patriot Post

Obama victory party owes Chicago $1.74 million

"Team Obama has yet to pay its $1.74 million tab to Chicago for the election victory celebration in Grant Park. The Democratic National Committee is "still looking at various costs and bills" but would not elaborate. On its own, the cash-strapped city never would have been able to pay for the party, which included $1 million for police protection and another $140,000 on communications and logistics. The Obama campaign, which closed out the election season with the highest fundraising take of any presidential campaign in American history, could pay for the party out of petty cash. In fact, it could also single-handedly close Chicago's $50 million budget gap. So what's the holdup? After all, with 78 years of continuous and virtuous Democrat rule, why should any organization want to take a close look at the city's books?"

Source: Patriot Post

"Democratic leaders in Washington, they place their hope in the federal government. We place our hope in you, the American people. In the end, it comes down to an honest and fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government. We oppose the national Democratic view that says the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government. We believe the way to strengthen our country is to restrain spending in Washington, to empower individuals and small businesses to grow our economy and create jobs."

--Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal

Ken Blackwell : The Anti-Reagan

Barack Obama allegedly intends to be a transformational president like Ronald Reagan. But now President Obama is raising taxes on businesses and retirees, socializing the largest sectors of America’s economy, and decimating state sovereignty and creativity. This is the polar opposite of what President Reagan did in the 1980s, and reveals Barack Obama as the Anti-Reagan. [more]

Thomas Sowell : Is Talk Cheap?

They say talk is cheap. But in fact it can be devastatingly expensive. Among the generation of Germans who were enthralled by Hitler's eloquence, millions paid with their lives and their children's lives for empowering this demagogue to lead them to ruin and infamy.

Germany before Hitler was one of the more tolerant nations in Europe. That was what attracted so many Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe-- tragically, to their doom. [more]

DEMAGOGUES RISING

GLOBAL CRISIS UNLEASHES EVIL
By Ralph Peters
New York Post

ECONOMIC hope produced the American Revolution. Economic hopelessness delivered the French Revolution. Demagogues, not democrats, will hallmark the worsening economic crisis.

The potential for political turmoil is vast. Among the populated continents, only Australia has a chance of avoiding serious violence. We in the West stand at the brink of a terrible global struggle. Our response has been to fight among ourselves.

The order that diplomats adore is crumbling.

Here in North America, Mexico battles a savage narco-insurgency within a...

Obama the Revolutionary

If President Obama achieves his agenda, his successor will not be president of the same nation Obama inherited. Like Madame Defarge in Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”, Obama is a revolutionary, slowly knitting together his plans to change America into something it has never been, to overthrow our economic system and weaken our defenses.

Monsieur Obama envisions a new America: a European welfare state, its government....

Five More States Invoke the 10th - HUMAN EVENTS

Last week, HUMAN EVENTS reported that eleven states, Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, had all “all introduced bills and resolutions” declaring their sovereignty over Obama’s actions in light of the 10th Amendment.

These actions are in response to the Obama administration’s faux-“stimulus” legislation which directly assaults the rights of states to....

New Censorship Strategy Emerges - HUMAN EVENTS

by Rowan Scarborough

Obama administration strategy for diluting the power of conservative talk radio is becoming clearer: talk down the "fairness doctrine," a lightning-rod term sure to mobilize the Right, and talk up the prospect of more minority ownership of radio stations.

The latter will achieve the Left's ultimate goal of shifting licenses away from networks who air conservative talk and toward minority owners who will broadcast liberal programing.  [MORE]

FRIENDS OF OBAMA

Bernadette Dohrn, Bill Ayers and the bomb that killed a cop

A select group of former law enforcement officials will on March 12 come to Washington to press for an expanded probe of Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, and their alleged roles in the 1970 bombing murder of a San Francisco policeman. Ayers and Dohrn, now university professors, were members of a communist terrorist gang called the Weather Underground during the 1960s and 1970s whose aim was to support communist regimes and anti-American movements around the world and destroy the United States. The group received terrorist training in Communist Cuba and was advised by Soviet and Cuban intelligence agents.

U.S. alerts Americans after rise in attacks on Western tourists in Egypt

CAIRO — The United States has warned Americans to be vigilant following a wave of attacks on Westerners in Egypt.

The embassy said Westerners in Cairo have been targeted by unidentified Islamic attackers. The assaults began on Feb. 22 when a bomb exploded near a group of Westerners in a Cairo market frequented by tourists.

Kuwait on high alert after intelligence warns of plot against airlines

Kuwait on high alert after intelligence warns of plot against airlines
ABU DHABI — Kuwait has been ordered on high alert after threats of an Al Qaida attack on passenger aircraft, officials said.

The officials said the Interior Ministry has declared high state of alert in wake of warnings from the intelligence community of an Al Qaida strike.

Report: Obama intel pick was part of 'Iran lobby'

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's appointment as head of a U.S. intelligence council has been identified by the Center for Security Policy as a member of the 'Iran lobby'.

Iran: Israel a 'Cancer,' Holocaust a 'Big Lie'

Iran's leader said on Wednesday that President Barack Obama is pursuing the same "wrong path" as his predecessor George W. Bush in supporting Israel and described the Jewish state as a "cancerous tumor."

New York Times:
Ex-Leaders of Countrywide Profit From Bad Loans
Buying up delinquent home mortgages

Senate Ignores McCain, Keeps Thousands of Earmarks

Washington (AP) - The Senate voted overwhelmingly to preserve thousands of earmarks in a $410-billion spending bill on Tuesday, brushing aside Sen. John McCain's claim that President Barack Obama and Congress are merely conducting business as usual in a time of economic hardship.

Black is white, up is down, and Obamas' record setting budget that deepens national debt by trillions, is "fiscally responsible"

Geithner Hails Obama's 'Remarkably Fiscally Responsible' Budget That Deepens Debt by Trillions of Dollars

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner hailed what he called a "remarkably fiscally responsible" budget that will add almost $4 trillion to the national debt over the next four years. [More]

Obama's Stealth Plan

One of he first things you do, and this is a very important part, is you name a bill the opposite of what is in the bill and to mask it's real intention. So in this case, the 'Employee Free Choice Act' really means the employee loses his or her right to vote for or against unionizing in secrecy. Can we say i-n-t-i-m-i-d-a-t-i-o-n?

This is a power grab and undemocratic.


President Tells Unions Organizing Act Will Pass - WSJ.com

MIAMI -- President Barack Obama told AFL-CIO union leaders Tuesday in a videotaped address that the controversial Employee Free Choice Act will pass, signaling his full backing for legislation that makes union organizing easier.

"We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act," President Obama told more than 100 top labor officials in a closed-door meeting at the labor federation's winter gathering in Miami, according to people at the meeting.

The bill would make it easier for unions to recruit workers because it would let them join unions simply by signing cards rather than through secret-ballot elections in which companies can campaign against the union. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations have been campaigning against the legislation.  [Read more]

COMING NEXT YEAR: OBAMA'S INFLATION

By DICK MORRIS


In the last five months, according to the Federal Reserve Board, the money supply in the United States has increased by 271 percent. It has almost tripled.

Have car sales tripled? Home purchases? Consumer spending? Corporate investment? Not only have they not tripled, they have all declined more sharply than they have since at least the recession of 1981-82, and perhaps since the Great Depression.

So where is the money? If it isn't being spent, where is it?

It is being parked, squirreled away. Consumers are using it to pay down their credit card balances, pay off their mortgages, reduce their student loans, make the payments on the car sitting in their driveway -- not the one in the dealer's lot. Businesspeople are buying T-bills, investing the money and saving it. They aren't spending, either. [Read more]

The High Price of Climate Lies
By Alan Caruba

Thanks to the ardent efforts of countless environmental organizations, global warming had been totally integrated into the thinking of those inside the Beltway so that millions of taxpayer dollars, then and now as part of the stimulus package have been spent to prove what the actual science demonstrates is bogus.

Republican Congressman Calls for End to Taxpayer-Funded Bailouts
(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) is calling on Congress to stop passing massive, multi-billion-dollar bailouts for private industry. "Imagine putting a dollar in a Coke machine and nothing comes out," he said. "How long would you continue to repeat that process?”

Here Lies a New Administration - Again and Again

Media ignore the excesses of Pinocchio politics.
By Dan Gainor
The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow
Business & Media Institute

In the 2004 movie “Garden State,” Natalie Portman plays Sam, a character who just can’t stop lying. “I don't even know why I do it. It's like ... it's like a tick, I mean sometimes I hear myself say something and then I think, Wow, that wasn't even remotely true,” she explains to the lucky soon-to-be-boyfriend Zach Braff.

Five years later, Sam would be working for Obama. Why? Because she lies and since she’s cute and charismatic, no one cares.

What a perfect spokeswoman for the Obama administration. They lie with reckless abandon. But Obama flashes his trademark smile and no one notices – especially the media. [Read more]

Media Myth: Networks Stick to Warming Theme Despite Avalanche of Chilling News
It’s cold outside. Just ask residents from Florida to New England and they will tell you it’s been a brutal winter. Despite bone-chilling records for cold and snow, the networks continue to warn about global warming – and ignore scientific claims that the Earth is facing a cool spell.

Note to Mitch McConnell:

It's easier running downhill than up.

Massive Federal Spending May Lead Many Back to GOP, Senate Minority Leader Says

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Republican congressional leaders think runaway federal spending could drive a lot of Americans into the arms of the GOP. "We need to find the people who left the Republican Party,” said McConnell. “There was a good reason they were Republicans, and they need to give us a second look."; [Read full story]

It would be easier to 'drive a lot of Americans into the arms of the GOP' if you hadn't spent the last 8 years under Bush spending like drunken sailors. And, my apologies to drunken sailors.

The U.S. to collapse in 2010

The Associated Press: Russian scholar says US will collapse-- _ next year

MOSCOW (AP) — If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.

Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership. [Read more.]

"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty."

--Thomas Jefferson

The Chaos of Mexico
By David Aikman

You can tell that Americans are finally paying attention to our neighbors south of the border when American college presidents start giving out travel advice to their students. In a sign that things are really getting out of hand, several college presidents have advised their students not to vacation in Mexico during upcoming spring break.

The reason is obvious. Drug-related gang warfare and killings has exploded not just in the towns that straddle the US-Mexico border, but even in vacation spots like Cancun. The police chief of Ciudad Juarez, just across from El Paso, resigned after drug thugs threatened to kill one of his officers every 48 hours unless he quit.

With it that bad in Mexico, it makes you wonder how long it will be until we see similar violence north of the border.

WAGING WAR ON PROSPERITY

New York Post
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

PRESIDENT Lyndon John son's administration was known for his War on Pov erty. President Obama's will become notable for his War on Prosperity.

We're speaking, of course, of Obama's plans to hike income taxes on the most wealthy 2 or 3 percent of the nation. He's not just raising the top rate to 39.6 percent; he's also disallowing about one-third of top earner's deductions, whether for state and local taxes, charitable contributions or mortgage interest. This is an effective hike in their taxes by an average of about 20 percent.

And soon the next shoe will drop - he'll announce that he's keeping yet...

Obama’s 'Cap and Trade' Plan Imposes huge tax

In his February 24 speech, President Obama asked Congress to send him “…legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America.” But by “market-based cap” he means that the government would mandate carbon dioxide emission permits – which are essentially permits to use energy – that companies would then be able to sell among themselves.

His budget assumes a staggering $650 billion in revenue from this scheme. But who picks up the tab? Who ultimately pays the cost of buying these slices of global warming baloney, and why would industry support such a scheme?

The answer is... [read more]

Pitchfork Time

by Patrick J. Buchanan

We are not "headed down the road to socialism." We are there.

Obama Attacks Doctors' Rights of Conscience

by Rep. Trent Franks

Obama may roll back regulations that protect physicians' rights of conscience and leave pro-life OB-GYNs vulnerable.

Exactly Wrong on the Economy

by Newt Gingrich

The Obama budget plan unveiled last week is proof that the goal of the administration is not economic recovery.

Democrats Pull D.C. Voting Rights Act

by Jed Babbin

Fearing NRA ‘scoring’ vote, Dems retreat.

Syria's Clenched Fist

by Robert Maginnis

Syria is building a new chemical weapons factory, hiding evidence of its mushrooming nuclear weapons program.

Do any of the Democrats pay their taxes?

Trade nominee is 4th Obama pick to owe back taxes
BREITBART.COM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Another Obama administration nominee has tax troubles. This time, it's Ron Kirk, the president's choice to be U.S. trade representative.

CHANGE?

Another broken promise. Well what did you expect? Surprisingly, Andrew Taylor of the AP notes how quickly Obama has backtracked on his campaign pledge to fight pork barreling.

Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won't be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House.

The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights: Big Government, not Big Media, Threatens Free Speech

Self-appointed consumer watchdogs--including Obama’s recent pick for FCC chair, Julius Genachowski--have long complained about media consolidation. So it was no surprise that when the FCC recently loosened restrictions barring companies from owning a newspaper and TV station in the same city, these critics went apoplectic and are now urging the House to follow the Senate in blocking the measure.

Media consolidation supposedly threatens free speech. A few conglomerates, critics warn, have seized control of our media outlets, enabling these......

The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:

 The Green Energy Fantasy

Will a green energy industry be an engine of economic growth? Many want us to think so, including our new President. Apparently a booming green economy with millions of new jobs is just around the corner. All we need is the right mix of government “incentives.”

These include a huge (de facto) tax on carbon emissions imposed through a cap-and-trade regulatory scheme, as well as huge government subsidies for “renewable,” carbon-free sources. The hope is that these government sticks and carrots will turn today’s pitiful “green energy” industry, which produces an insignificant fraction of American energy, into a source of abundant, affordable energy that can replace today’s fossil-fuel-dominated industry.

This view is a fantasy--one that could devastate America’s economy. The reality is that “green energy” is at best a sophisticated make-work program.

There is a reason why less than 2 percent of the world’s energy currently comes from “renewable” sources such......

Officials: Mexican Drug War Moving Deeper Into U.S.

PHOENIX - Hit men dressed in fake police tactical gear burst into a home in Phoenix, rake it with gunfire and execute a man.

Armed kidnappers snatch victims from cars and even a local shopping mall across the Phoenix valley for ransom, turning the sun-baked city into the "kidnap capital" of the United States.

Violence of this kind is common in Mexico where drug cartel abductions and executions are a daily feature of a raging drug war that claimed 6,000 lives south of the border last year.

But U.S. authorities now fear that violent crime is beginning to bleed over the porous Mexico border and take hold here.

"The fight in Mexico is about domination of the smuggling corridors and those corridors don't stop at the border," Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said.  [READ MORE]

Mitt Romney: 'Pet Liberal Projects' Will Bankrupt Nation

Former Massachusetts Governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tells Newsmax that the Democrats’ massive stimulus package is laden with “pet liberal projects” that won’t help the economy at all.

He also asserts that President Barack Obama is actually hurting the economy in two ways — and said Republicans in the Senate are close to having “no voice whatsoever.” [READ MORE]

Rahm: Obama Will Agree to 9,000 Earmarks

President Barack Obama is set to sign a $410 billion spending bill with some 9,000 earmarks — a practice he repeatedly criticized on the campaign trail last year.

Dismissing the congressional pork as “last year’s business,’’ White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said Sunday that the president wasn’t happy with the earmarks. But, Emanuel said, Obama would nevertheless sign the bill.

Republicans criticized the increased spending and the abundance of earmarks, which account for $3.8 billion of the omnibus.

Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., speaking on ABC's "This Week," said the "fact that there are 9,000 earmarks in this bill and the fact that the vetting process just doesn't take place the way it should — we ought to stand up and draw the line right now and stop the waste." [READ MORE]

FAMILY, RACE, AND THE BLAME GAME

"The bottom line is that the civil rights struggle is over and it is won. At one time black Americans didn't share the constitutional guarantees shared by whites; today we do. That does not mean that there are not major problems that confront a large segment of the black community, but they are not civil rights problems nor can they be solved through a 'conversation on race.' Black illegitimacy stands at 70 percent; nearly 50 percent of black students drop out of high school; and only 30 percent of black youngsters reside in two-parent families. In 2005, while 13 percent of the population, blacks committed over 52 percent of the nation's homicides and were 46 percent of the homicide victims. Ninety-four percent of black homicide victims had a black person as their murderer. Such pathology, I think much of it precipitated by family breakdown, is entirely new among blacks. In 1940, black illegitimacy was 19 percent; in 1950, only 18 percent of black households were female-headed compared with today's 70 percent. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks. If black people continue to accept the corrupt blame game agenda of liberal whites, black politicians and assorted hustlers, as opposed to accepting personal responsibility, the future for many black Americans will remain bleak."

--Walter E. Williams, George Mason University economics professor

ON GOVERNMENT

By Cal Thomas:

"Who believes government needs more of our money, when it already wastes so much of it? Do we want to replace this great country with all the opportunities it affords to people who play by the rules, work hard and make right decisions, with a country that doesn't care what rules you live by because government will take care of you? And what does this say about people who have played by the rules? They have paid the bank, but now see people who did not getting a handout from government for their mortgages, as if paying and not paying are morally equivalent. Each generation must renew the principles delivered by the preceding one. I fear this generation may be dropping the baton, seduced by the flattering words of politicians who promise not to let us fail, or suffer, or even feel bad. That is a fool's bargain because it is through failure (or the threat of it) and suffering that we grow stronger as individuals and become more self-reliant. ... We face a future of ever-bigger and intrusive government and the punishing of achievement unless this generation realizes it has dropped the baton it was handed and returns to pick it up."

***********

"Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite."

--Ronald Reagan

"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary."

--Ayn Rand (1905-1982), Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter; wrote Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Obama Moves Against Charitable Deduction

By Hugh Hewitt

"President Obama's budget is so bad, so irresponsible and so staggeringly expensive that it is difficult to know where to begin. So I will begin by speaking on behalf of the least and the lost who will suffer as support networks of churches and not-for-profits are devastated by the president's decision to attack the charitable deduction.

This is nothing short of a naked attempt to shrink the private, not-for-profit sector so that government is obliged to grow to fill its place. It is an all out assault on religion of all sorts, as ministries, churches and parachurch organizations will be crippled by this change in the tax code if it proceeds.

This is one of the most radical, and cunning, attempts to upend a basic feature of the American way of life, and it must be defeated.

Call your Congressman and Senator and demand that they leave the charitable deduction in intact. And call the White House too.

President Obama must abandon this effort to defund churches and charities."

Barack Obama's Expensive Domestic Agenda Will Cost America's Middle Class
WSJ.com

President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."
[Review & Outlook] AP

This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

"A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion."

[Read more]

Byrd: Obama in power grab - John Bresnahan - POLITICO.com

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch.

In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

While it's rare for Byrd to criticize a president in his own party, Byrd is a stern constitutional scholar who has always stood up........

Freddie Mac Investigates Itself

Freddie Mac Investigates Itself Over Lobbying Campaign to Avoid New Regulations

Washington (AP) - Lawyers hired by mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac are quietly investigating the firm's own $2 million lobbying campaign, The Associated Press has learned. The lobbying effort helped quash proposed new regulations on the company before the housing market collapsed. [MORE]

GOOD STUFF

JAY LENO:

"It looks like more than 13,000 people were caught up in that Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. You know what a Ponzi scheme is? That's where you throw good money after bad, or as the government calls it, a stimulus package."

"It came out today that the House Democratic Caucus spent $500,000 of taxpayer money for retreats at luxury resorts and spas -- though Democrats say that the time was used for "strategic planning for the country." Really? Then what's the Capitol building for?"

"President Obama, getting very tough now, has imposed a $500,000 salary cap for executives getting federal bailout money. And, listen to this: Now on weekends, they can only play miniature golf."

"See, the whole theory behind this salary cap is if you're not performing well, and you're taking taxpayer money, then that should be reflected in lower wages. Of course, under that criteria, everybody in Congress should get like, what, two bucks an hour?"

ON THE CONSTITUTION

"Until the 1930s, the Constitution served as a major constraint on federal economic interventionism. The government's powers were understood to be just as the framers intended: few and explicitly enumerated in our founding document and its amendments. Search the Constitution as long as you like, and you will find no specific authority conveyed for the government to spend money on global-warming research, urban mass transit, food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, or countless other items in the stimulus package and, even without it, in the regular federal budget."

--Independent Institute senior fellow
Dr. Robert Higgs--

**********

"Americans have long ago abandoned respect for the constitutional limitations placed on the federal government. Our elected representatives represent that disrespect."

--economist Walter E. Williams--

545 PEOPLE

By Charlie Reese

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper and has been a journalist for 49 years.


"Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi.She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to do so.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red .

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; t o lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

"Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt."

--American poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

"You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer."

--Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)--

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

--French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it."

--John Adams

Obama’s Budget Chief Doesn't Know Total Cost of Obama's Health-Care Plan
Washington (CNSNews.com) – President Obama’s budget chief Peter Orszag on Thursday described $634 billion as a “down payment” for health-care reform. But the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget was unable -- when asked by CNSNews.com -- to come up with the total cost for Obama’s plan to reform the nation’s health care system. Orszag would only say that “more” money will be necessary as the administration works with Congress on its health-care initiatives.

Obama Paving the Way for Health-Care Rationing, Say Budget Committee Republicans
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, said the president’s claim to be able to save $700 billion a year by cutting unnecessary medical tests and procedures shows that the administration has already decided to ration health care -- and knows how it plans to do it. “It could lead to rationing,” agreed Sen. Judd Gregg (R.-N.H.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

Senate Rejects Fairness Doctrine, But Dems ‘Open Back Door to Censorship’
The Senate passed a Broadcaster Freedom Amendment to a D.C. voting rights bill on Thursday by a vote of 87-11. But Democrats countered with an amendment that seeks to promote “diversity” in media ownership.

'Party of Ronald Reagan Became Party of Chicken Little,' Huckabee Says

“When the free market is allowed to function without (Massachusetts Rep.) Barney Frank’s hand on the scale, people won’t buy homes they can’t afford because they won’t get loans they can’t pay. When the free market is allowed to function without (Michigan Rep.) John Dingell, companies won’t make cars nobody wants to buy.” [Read more.]

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? It is feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. ...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."

--A Pennsylvanian, The Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 February 1788

Congress Toys With Draconian Legislation

By Hugh Hewitt

On February 10 the heavy burdens of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 kicked in--and literally hundreds of millions of dollars of American products became illegal to ship in commerce. These staggering losses will affect hundreds of industries from the very large to the local thrift store. A panicked reaction to the lead-in-Chinese-toys scandal, this law criminalizes the sale of any product with levels of lead or phthalates above the very restrictive limits set in the law. With no means of testing efficiently or inexpensively, sellers of goods aimed at children are now at risk of violating the draconian law, and plaintiffs lawyers are lining up to sue everyone involved.

This is what happens when the Congress rushes in and legislates for the headlines rather than the result. The law needs to be reformed immediately--before even more economic chaos results.

Obama’s On Path To An American Welfare State
by Jed Babbin

Forget all the conspiracy theories of a mythological “North American Union” combining us with Mexico and Canada. Barack Obama wants America to be an unofficial member of the European Union. The path he outlined in his quasi “state of the union” address is to remake America on the model of a European welfare state. [Read more.]

Eleven States Declare Sovereignty Over Obama’s Action
by A.W.R. Hawkins

State governors -- looking down the gun barrel of long-term spending forced on them by the Obama “stimulus” plan -- are saying they will refuse to take the money. This is a Constitutional confrontation between the federal government and the states unlike any in our time. [Read more]

MORE CARBON DIOXIDE WILL BENEFIT MANKIND
Written by William Happer
Thursday, 26 February 2009

Testimony before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on February 25, 2009

Madam Chairman and members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee on Environment and Public Works to testify on Climate Change. My name is William Happer, and I am the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

I am not a climatologist, but I don't think any of the other witnesses are either. I do work in the related field of atomic, molecular and optical physics. I have spent my professional life studying the interactions of visible and infrared radiation with gases - one of the main physical phenomena behind the greenhouse effect.

I have published over 200 papers in peer reviewed scientific journals. I am a member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Physical Society and the National Academy of Sciences.
[Read on.]

Primer on the Great Debate

By Richard Rahn

Do you understand why well-known economists, including Nobel Prize winners, are on opposite sides of the debate about the stimulus package and what should be done about the recession? Not only Americans, but people everywhere are confused, largely because the economists who are writing and speaking about what should be done have such fundamental disagreements.

There are two main schools of thought. One group is under the broad umbrella of the Chicago or Austrian school economists who are heavily influenced by the teachings of F.A. Hayek (1899-1992) and Milton Friedman (1903-2007). The members of the other group are commonly known as Keynesians, who accept many of the teachings of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) and his disciples.[Read more.]

Jimma Obama — now, there's a scary thought

By Jack Kelly

His most ardent supporters debate whether President Obama is more like Abraham Lincoln or like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But so far, the president he most closely resembles is Jimmy Carter.


In 1976, Mr. Carter was a fresh new face with a thin political resume who blew past better known Democrats in the primaries running as an "outsider" and a "reformer."  [Read more.]

Austin Hill : Awakening the Welfare Recipient Within

...after President Obama’s address to the nation, Michael Maslansky of the Luntz-Maslansky Strategic Research firm in Virginia conducted a poll. He discovered that there is now a new divide that has emerged in our country, a divide even greater than that between Republicans and Democrats. He calls it the “responsibility divide,” a philosophical distinction between those who, to use my terms, “have an inner welfare recipient,” and those who believe that our government has now begun to enable other people’s irresponsible behavior. [Read more.]