Some mornings, I can't wait to get up, turn the news on and listen to the spin. It never ceases to amaze me, how our Messianic, narcissistic President can make a speech (daily) and pee down our legs and tell us it's raining. This jobs report was not a surprise, Gallup has the unemployment rate at 10.1%! The government reported 9.6% because they did not include the last two weeks of September. The 77,000 temporary census jobs ended and the private sector grew by an anemic 64,000 jobs overshadowed by the previous month's 93,000 new jobs. When I hear Obama speak (I try not to), he has lost his spark, enthusiasm and I don't think he believes his rhetoric and lies. I do business with many small business owners and they are not spending money, hiring employees, buying capital equipment, and extremely uncertain of their (our) future. Even the liberal sycophants are bailing on the anointed one. Harry Reid's son, Rory, is running for Governor of Nevada. He came out against Obamacare! Imagine Sunday dinner at the Reid's. Rory said Obamacare was bad for Nevada. That will leave a mark. The spin doctors are scheming an attempt to minimize the outright implosion of the democrat party with poll after poll showing the republicans creaming the democrats. I heard some democrat representatives state that they might not vote for Pelosi for minority speaker of the house. I heard she was shopping for a really small gavel. Imagine a life without Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? To dream! I speak with a lot of like minded people (very conservative) and they are really mad to the point of voting all of congress out of office. The number one issue is the economy/unemployment. Yesterday's unemployment numbers are the last numbers before the midterms. Rasmussen reports 63% angry at federal government polices and 43% very angry. This is what voters will remember when they go to the voting booths. Obama said a few months ago, that he would not rest until the economy turned around, that he would have a laser-like focus on the economy. Talk is cheap. How can the American people trust a man who knowingly lies to the populous? He doesn't follow through on anything the citizens want, only on his agenda. Let's not forget the record number of people on food stamps? A mere 41 million people! The socialistic nanny state has begun. Is this part of Obama's plan? Or is he just entirely incompetent? Either way, he is destroying America.
"Socialism dampens the human spirit. Statism kills it."
I find it alarming that Canadians and Europeans are criticizing America for the ridiculous spending the President and congress are accruing. Shouldn't we analyze why they are warning us? My worries are more spending policies in the lame duck session before the incumbents are fired. When they return from their latest time off, the democrats will be licking their wounds and ready and willing to pass more stimulus spending bills instead of lowering taxes. How about a spending and hiring freeze in the federal government? That would be worth ten fold in good PR for Obama (never happen). If we can win enough seats in the house and senate, possibly, we can slow down the liberal policies because some seats are unoccupied and would be filled immediately. In closing, Obama and the incumbents realize 24 days out, that there isn't much they can do now. The latest jobs report was the nail in the democrat's coffin. Our Panderer in Chief can go out and give speeches to his former base, however, the majority of his base feels disenfranchised.
Remember November!
Obama going hand to hand combat with the republican majority:
Progressive Feudalism
By Thomas Lifson
The changes wrought on the American political economy by progressives have taken us in the unmistakable direction of feudalism. The morphological resemblance between the progressive version of America and the historic feudal regimes of Western Europe and Japan is obvious if one takes a few moments to consider the changes in the proper context.
Legal Equality
Feudalism assigned people to different classes based on birth and assigned different privileges and obligations to the classes. The noble classes were considered a different order of humanity from the commoners, and the two groups led separate lifestyles. In addition to huge economic disparities, the two groups had very different rights. If one was of noble birth in Japan, for instance, he could carry a sword. For commoners, unlawful possession of a sword was a capital crime.
In progressive America, two groups today have a parallel distinction. Birth, and birth alone,* determines whether one is a member of a designated victim class, entitled to preferences in college admissions, scholarships, and employment, factors which have a major formative influence on life prospects. Moreover, the ability to litigate as the victim of discrimination with the possibility of massive financial returns is enhanced. According to the testimony of two Department of Justice lawyers, membership in a designated victim class brings with it immunity from prosecution under Civil Rights statutes.
Personal Autonomy
Under feudalism, the ruling class had few limits on its power and regarded the commoner classes as under their tutelage, hopelessly incompetent to make important decisions on their own. Many spheres of life were devoid of personal autonomy. What one wore and where one worked was closely regulated, and in feudal England or France, one could discern whether a person was a peasant, a blacksmith, a merchant, or a noble instantaneously, merely by dress.
In contrast, the bourgeois revolution, which overthrew the European feudal order, gave birth to the radical Enlightenment notion that each person should be the master of his or her own destiny, fit to make the important decisions in life autonomously. What one wore or ate was up to the individual.
In progressive America, personal decisions such as what to eat are now regarded as the proper concern of our government masters. Foie gras was forbidden by the city of Chicago for two years, and if you want to have your restaurant food cooked in trans fats like butter, you ought to know that New York City has a say in the matter.
Common to the feudal and progressive regimes is a deep and abiding disdain for the classes needing regulation and guidance. It is not so much that they hate or despise the lesser beings over which they rule, as it is a sense of obligation to make the right decisions for them.
Sumptuary Laws
Feudal rulers reserved for themselves certain luxuries. In feudal Japan, silk was an extravagance reserved exclusively for the noble classes. Wealthy merchants sometimes purchased garments with silk linings but with humble cotton, wool, or linen outer surfaces, so as to enjoy the warmth and softness of silk while preserving their lives.
In progressive America, Nancy Pelosi regularly jets from Washington, D.C. to her home in San Francisco on a luxury Gulfstream private jet belonging to the Air Force when she isn't commandeering a larger C-32 executive transport, the military version of the Boeing 757. Meanwhile, corporate executives were forced to cancel orders for and sell executive jets during the financial crisis of 2008-9. While President Obama told corporations to not hold meetings in Las Vegas, federal agencies are free to have meetings there.
Guilds
Under feudalism, officially recognized guilds enjoyed monopolies and special privileges, and in return, they offered financial and other support to the ruling class. In progressive America, powerful labor unions are allowed to force people to pay them dues in order to work in certain companies and public organizations. In return, these unions channel vast amounts of money in campaign donations to ruling class politicians at election time.
Moreover, unions can be insulated from the market consequences of their actions, as in the UAW members whose health care pension costs drove GM and Chrysler bankrupt but whose lavish benefits were preserved at taxpayer expense. Money spent under the stimulus bill has been channeled mostly to union members.
Estates
In European feudalism, clergy enjoyed special status as both advisers to rulers and justifiers of ruling class power. They were even called the First Estate, for they interpreted God's law, usually in a manner which maintained that the kings ruled by divine right.
In progressive America, a comparable role is played by lawyers and the courts, which enjoy vast powers and can command wealth that would be the envy of any bishop or cardinal in feudal France. Many of our most important decisions in progressive America are now taken away from the people's representatives in legislative bodies and decided by courts, themselves comprising members of the legal class.
Taxation
Under feudal regimes, the rulers took as much as they could in taxes, up to the point where peasants began starving and tax revenues decreased. In progressive America, taxes have also trended in that direction.
The Bourgeoisie
Under feudalism, the bourgeois class were regarded as upstarts and a threat to the legitimate ruling class. They were despised, ridiculed, and regulated. In progressive America, President Obama sees profit as an optional feature of corporations, and the disdain, regulation, taxation, and liability which business owners must endure have never been worse. As with feudal rulers, the progressive ruling classes see the bourgeoisie as vulgar pretenders to their own exalted status and a threat to their own power.
Back to the Future?
If progressivism has its way, more and more of our lives will be regulated by government bureaucrats setting rules and regulations and licensing people to engage in even the most mundane tasks. It is quite accurate to say that the reforms won by the rising bourgeois class from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, limiting and then ending feudalism, are in full retreat in progressive America.
It is time to rename progressives "regressives," a change I first proposed several years ago.
Thomas Lifson is editor and publisher of American Thinker.
Pathetic Funnies:
Obama waking up on November 3rd
Ulterior motives (repost)
Promoting Job Creation and Economic Growth
By Doug Schoen
Given the Rasmussen Reports polls released this week that show that 86% think the issue of the economy is very important, and just 38% of Americans say the economy will be stronger in a year, it is clear that creating jobs and stimulating the economy is a top priority for our country.
Despite the significance of this issue, there has been no rational discussion among political, business and academic leaders on how to create jobs and encourage entrepreneurship.
As Kauffman Foundation CEO Carl Schramm points out in the Economist, government policy debates lack a real discussion on how we spend and tax, and politicians often simply champion small businesses as the key to job creation, when in fact, firms less than five years old are responsible for nearly all net job creation. Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post adds that this distinction between new and old firms is much more significant than the distinction between small and big firms: over long periods, almost all job growth comes from new businesses, due to high failure rates among existing firms.
The White House lacks a coherent job creation strategy. The administration has passed a stimulus package that has not produced the results that were anticipated and promised, it has given bailouts to banks and automobiles to simply stop these companies from going under, and it wants to increase taxes for those making over $250,000 annually by letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year. Most recently, Obama proposed a plan to invest $50 billion in infrastructure – a plan that was met with skepticism, as infrastructure investments do not usually stimulate the economy quickly.
The Republicans meanwhile, have simply opposed all of the Democrats’ ideas. They are against stimulus plans, against the health care bill, against cap-and-trade, and against tax increases. In the Pledge to America that the Republicans released last month, Republican simply reiterated their positions of “no.” They called for taxes to not be raised, the health care law to be repealed, federal spending to be limited, and Congressional approval for any federal regulation that would add to the deficit.
Entrepreneurial activity is key to a sustained economy recovery. Not only are entrepreneurs responsible for net new job growth in the U.S. economy, but a majority of the employment they generate remains as new firms grow, which creates a lasting impact on the economy. Although only a fifth of start-ups make it to their 25th birthday, employment figures stayed at 68 percent of the initial number. Thus, the number of start-ups that flourish and continue to create jobs balance the jobs lost by companies that close.
The Kauffman Foundation has the most comprehensive plan on how to create jobs and promote entrepreneurship. Here are some ideas that should be included in such an agenda to promote job creation and economic growth.
• Promote a culture of freedom and innovation in America by reducing overly burdensome regulation and limiting the impact of punitive lawsuits of those who create new businesses.
• Develop policies that promote innovation to develop incentives for successfully commercializing innovative new ideas and new businesses.
• Invest in innovation, especially in sectors like energy and health, to create jobs.
• Ensure a skilled workforce through entrepreneurially-driven improvements in our school system, entailing better training in the sciences and engineering, and government policies to support programs that train future entrepreneurs and encourage entrepreneurial activity.
• Promote more open-minded immigration policies to encourage the world's best and brightest to study work and start businesses here.
• Remove red tape and regulation from small businesses to encourage job growth and job creation in smaller firms.
• Offer tax credits for high net worth individuals who invest in small or new businesses.
• Reduce or eliminate taxes for entrepreneurs during their first six months or a year of business activity.
• Set up federal government and state sponsored investment funds for new businesses generally or in areas where it is particularly productive to encourage new entrepreneurial activity.
• Develop coaching or mentoring policies for entrepreneurs to encourage business development and job growth.
• Support efforts by state and local government to encourage entrepreneurial activities through the development of strong local educational systems and institutions and supportive infrastructures designed to attract and stimulate new business development and creation.
The bottom line, creating jobs and promoting entrepreneurship is paramount to our nation’s recovery. The voters already know this, and it is time for the politicians to act.
Quote du jour:
A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Theodore Roosevelt
Writings of Our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers
Federalist No. 65
The Powers of the Senate Continued
From the New York Packet.
Friday, March 7, 1788.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
THE remaining powers which the plan of the convention allots to the Senate, in a distinct capacity, are comprised in their participation with the executive in the appointment to offices, and in their judicial character as a court for the trial of impeachments. As in the business of appointments the executive will be the principal agent, the provisions relating to it will most properly be discussed in the examination of that department. We will, therefore, conclude this head with a view of the judicial character of the Senate.
A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.
The delicacy and magnitude of a trust which so deeply concerns the political reputation and existence of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, speak for themselves. The difficulty of placing it rightly, in a government resting entirely on the basis of periodical elections, will as readily be perceived, when it is considered that the most conspicuous characters in it will, from that circumstance, be too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account, can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny.
The convention, it appears, thought the Senate the most fit depositary of this important trust. Those who can best discern the intrinsic difficulty of the thing, will be least hasty in condemning that opinion, and will be most inclined to allow due weight to the arguments which may be supposed to have produced it.
What, it may be asked, is the true spirit of the institution itself? Is it not designed as a method of NATIONAL INQUEST into the conduct of public men? If this be the design of it, who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves? It is not disputed that the power of originating the inquiry, or, in other words, of preferring the impeachment, ought to be lodged in the hands of one branch of the legislative body. Will not the reasons which indicate the propriety of this arrangement strongly plead for an admission of the other branch of that body to a share of the inquiry? The model from which the idea of this institution has been borrowed, pointed out that course to the convention. In Great Britain it is the province of the House of Commons to prefer the impeachment, and of the House of Lords to decide upon it. Several of the State constitutions have followed the example. As well the latter, as the former, seem to have regarded the practice of impeachments as a bridle in the hands of the legislative body upon the executive servants of the government. Is not this the true light in which it ought to be regarded?
Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel CONFIDENCE ENOUGH IN ITS OWN SITUATION, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an INDIVIDUAL accused, and the REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE, HIS ACCUSERS?
Could the Supreme Court have been relied upon as answering this description? It is much to be doubted, whether the members of that tribunal would at all times be endowed with so eminent a portion of fortitude, as would be called for in the execution of so difficult a task; and it is still more to be doubted, whether they would possess the degree of credit and authority, which might, on certain occasions, be indispensable towards reconciling the people to a decision that should happen to clash with an accusation brought by their immediate representatives. A deficiency in the first, would be fatal to the accused; in the last, dangerous to the public tranquillity. The hazard in both these respects, could only be avoided, if at all, by rendering that tribunal more numerous than would consist with a reasonable attention to economy. The necessity of a numerous court for the trial of impeachments, is equally dictated by the nature of the proceeding. This can never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense by the prosecutors, or in the construction of it by the judges, as in common cases serve to limit the discretion of courts in favor of personal security. There will be no jury to stand between the judges who are to pronounce the sentence of the law, and the party who is to receive or suffer it. The awful discretion which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.
These considerations seem alone sufficient to authorize a conclusion, that the Supreme Court would have been an improper substitute for the Senate, as a court of impeachments. There remains a further consideration, which will not a little strengthen this conclusion. It is this: The punishment which may be the consequence of conviction upon impeachment, is not to terminate the chastisement of the offender. After having been sentenced to a perpetual ostracism from the esteem and confidence, and honors and emoluments of his country, he will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. Would it be proper that the persons who had disposed of his fame, and his most valuable rights as a citizen in one trial, should, in another trial, for the same offense, be also the disposers of his life and his fortune? Would there not be the greatest reason to apprehend, that error, in the first sentence, would be the parent of error in the second sentence? That the strong bias of one decision would be apt to overrule the influence of any new lights which might be brought to vary the complexion of another decision? Those who know anything of human nature, will not hesitate to answer these questions in the affirmative; and will be at no loss to perceive, that by making the same persons judges in both cases, those who might happen to be the objects of prosecution would, in a great measure, be deprived of the double security intended them by a double trial. The loss of life and estate would often be virtually included in a sentence which, in its terms, imported nothing more than dismission from a present, and disqualification for a future, office. It may be said, that the intervention of a jury, in the second instance, would obviate the danger. But juries are frequently influenced by the opinions of judges. They are sometimes induced to find special verdicts, which refer the main question to the decision of the court. Who would be willing to stake his life and his estate upon the verdict of a jury acting under the auspices of judges who had predetermined his guilt?
Would it have been an improvement of the plan, to have united the Supreme Court with the Senate, in the formation of the court of impeachments? This union would certainly have been attended with several advantages; but would they not have been overbalanced by the signal disadvantage, already stated, arising from the agency of the same judges in the double prosecution to which the offender would be liable? To a certain extent, the benefits of that union will be obtained from making the chief justice of the Supreme Court the president of the court of impeachments, as is proposed to be done in the plan of the convention; while the inconveniences of an entire incorporation of the former into the latter will be substantially avoided. This was perhaps the prudent mean. I forbear to remark upon the additional pretext for clamor against the judiciary, which so considerable an augmentation of its authority would have afforded.
Would it have been desirable to have composed the court for the trial of impeachments, of persons wholly distinct from the other departments of the government? There are weighty arguments, as well against, as in favor of, such a plan. To some minds it will not appear a trivial objection, that it could tend to increase the complexity of the political machine, and to add a new spring to the government, the utility of which would at best be questionable. But an objection which will not be thought by any unworthy of attention, is this: a court formed upon such a plan, would either be attended with a heavy expense, or might in practice be subject to a variety of casualties and inconveniences. It must either consist of permanent officers, stationary at the seat of government, and of course entitled to fixed and regular stipends, or of certain officers of the State governments to be called upon whenever an impeachment was actually depending. It will not be easy to imagine any third mode materially different, which could rationally be proposed. As the court, for reasons already given, ought to be numerous, the first scheme will be reprobated by every man who can compare the extent of the public wants with the means of supplying them. The second will be espoused with caution by those who will seriously consider the difficulty of collecting men dispersed over the whole Union; the injury to the innocent, from the procrastinated determination of the charges which might be brought against them; the advantage to the guilty, from the opportunities which delay would afford to intrigue and corruption; and in some cases the detriment to the State, from the prolonged inaction of men whose firm and faithful execution of their duty might have exposed them to the persecution of an intemperate or designing majority in the House of Representatives. Though this latter supposition may seem harsh, and might not be likely often to be verified, yet it ought not to be forgotten that the demon of faction will, at certain seasons, extend his sceptre over all numerous bodies of men.
But though one or the other of the substitutes which have been examined, or some other that might be devised, should be thought preferable to the plan in this respect, reported by the convention, it will not follow that the Constitution ought for this reason to be rejected. If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert. Where is the standard of perfection to be found? Who will undertake to unite the discordant opinions of a whole community, in the same judgment of it; and to prevail upon one conceited projector to renounce his INFALLIBLE criterion for the FALLIBLE criterion of his more CONCEITED NEIGHBOR? To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely that particular provisions in it are not the best which might have been imagined, but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.
PUBLIUS.
References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.wnd..com/
http://www.theblaze.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.americanspectator.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
CNBC
Doug Schoen
http://www.thehill.com/
http://www.breitbart.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
Thomas Lifson
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/
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