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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Government At All Levels Loses Its Common Sense

When  government becomes all powerful and stops serving the public and instead becomes a bully, the idea of personal freedom quickly erodes. Whether it is a child's lemonade stand that is closed down for "health" reasons as in the following story or a local school board which did not follow its own rules in selling off property as in the case of West Bloomfield, Michigan selling off a school without competitive bids (to a Muslim group), we are nearing a time when America becomes a dictatorship. Is that event close at hand?  In a previous posting, we told you of the North Carolina Governor who called for no 2012 elections so that the current legislature could be things straightened out. No one would even express an idea like that way twenty short years ago, it was unthinkable.  Now it is promoted, not by some fringe blowhard, but by a mainstream governor. 

Freedom is lost, not overnight, but slowly. A little nibble here, a small restriction there  and then all of a sudden, it is all gone.

Take freedom of speech  as an example.  Most people would tell you that it is an important right and very necessary in a free society.  However, it is very quickly being eroded.  Years ago a law was passed that you could not cry out "FIRE" in a movie house.  That made sense. Doing so would endanger others. However, in the past twenty or so years, we have come up with "hate speech" laws where one's utterance toward someone in a protected class will result in your being charged with a crime.

Please understand that we are not saying that one should use such language, however, to criminalize language, is wrong. Words no matter how vile and despicable should not be a crime. Politically correct language is no replacement for freedom of speech.

How long will it be before calling the President, your Senator or Representative a name, become a crime? We fear time is near. Once that occurs, our freedom of speech is lost.

Omnipotent government regardless of how kind initially, will, over time, become domineering and crushing of the peoples freedoms as it tries to maintain control. It is a normal human condition that all organizations wish to continue to exist and will do everything in their power to stay in control regardless of the price.  A good example is Libya.  As the Gaddafi's dictatorship was falling, not only did they turn their guns on the protesters but also uninvolved civilians.  They turned on the very people they governed.


Are we there yet? Probably not, however, the United States it would not take much to put us over the edge. For example, a world economic collapse, riots in the streets, imposition of martial law, and elimination of the rights of speech, assembly, gun ownership topped off with the elimination of elections could dramatically end America as we know it.

We still  have time but we must reverse the actions taken by all levels of government starting with our local representatives.  We must hold them responsible by watching their actions and bringing suit when they violate laws or pass laws which violate our basic rights. It is up to each of us. Are you willing or are you going to sit on the sidelines and let someone else do it?  The choice is yours.



Government Declares War On Lemonade Stands

October 14, 2011 by  
Government Declares War On Lemonade Stands
PHOTOS.COM
In community after community, budding entrepreneurs are being told to pack it up and scoot before they’re charged with various violations.
Let’s switch for a bit from the deadly serious to the merely very irritating.
Last week, I pondered whether the U.S. is now sanctioning murder. Please click here if you didn’t read that very important column. So much more has come out about the slaying of Anwar al-Awlaki, and there has been so much confusion and controversy, that I’ll definitely return to the topic very soon.
But today, I want to talk about one of the most ridiculous results of our Big Nanny government run amok. It is the startling fact that all across the country, children are being told that their lemonade stands are against the law. And not just lemonade stands, but sales of Girl Scout cookies and Japanese green tea have also been declared enemies of the State.
I kid you not. In community after community, these budding entrepreneurs are being told to pack it up and scoot before they’re charged with various violations. In some instances, in fact, fines have been levied.
I’m beholden to the Freedom Center of Missouri, a relatively new public policy group in the Show Me State, for documenting the following list of outrages. Please note that all of these occurred this year. Such crackdowns are becoming more and more common.
Aug. 6: Massachusetts State police shut down the stand of a 12-year-old refugee from Fukushima, Japan, who was selling green tea he brought with him when he and his family evacuated after the tsunami.
Aug. 1: Police officers in Coralville, Iowa, ordered at least three sets of children to quit selling lemonade during the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa unless they first got a vendor’s permit and a health inspection. This is the first known example of a coordinated set of shutdowns at a single time.
July 19: In McAllen, Texas, authorities shut down a girl’s lemonade stand for failing to obtain a food permit and threatened a grandmother who protested with a $50 fine.
July 17: Police in Appleton, Wis., inform children that despite legally selling lemonade and cookies in their front yard during an annual city festival for the past several years, a new city ordinance bans these sales. The reason? To protect licensed vendors from competition. How’s that for a great example of how America works?
June 16: A county inspector in Maryland closes kids’ lemonade stand and fines parents $500 for violating county law.
June 10: The Philadelphia Department of Health shuts down a lemonade stand operated by a cancer charity because it lacked a necessary permit and — get this — didn’t install a hand-washing station.
March 7: Officials in Hazelwood, Mo., said a cookie stand in a family’s driveway violated local ordinances and ordered an end to the Girl Scouts cookie sale.
Feb. 26: Georgia police demanded the closure of a Girl Scout cookie stand until the girls obtained a peddler’s permit.
Feb. 26: Savannah, Ga., officials determined that city ordinances require an end to a 40-year tradition of Girl Scouts selling cookies outside the historic home of the organization’s founder.
Is this a world gone crazy or what?
I wish I could tell you that the evil triumvirate of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama were responsible for this nuttiness. But they aren’t. In virtually every case, the culprits were local officials obeying local ordinances. So much for my long-held conviction that the closer you can bring government to the citizenry, the more fair and efficient it will be. Clearly, in the communities described above, some petty bureaucrats have an awful lot of time on their hands.
Have you heard of a similar outrage in your community? If you have, please notify the good folks at the Freedom Center of Missouri at www.mofreedom.org. They have a national map on their website where they like to track such things.
I thought of a way we can turn this absurd negative into a bit of a positive. And that is by asking you to share an inspiring story from your own youth when you demonstrated the same entrepreneurial spark as the youngsters above. What happened as a result?
I’ll start. My first money-making effort, besides a long list of chores that earned me a weekly allowance, was setting up a roadside lemonade stand along the highway that ran past our house.
What I didn’t consider, and what neither parent pointed out to me, was that the two-lane highway was in rural Ohio and that cars zipped by at 50 miles an hour. Want to guess how many slammed on the brakes and backed up a few hundred yards so they could buy our lemonade?
None. Our only customer in three days was a nice neighbor who knew we were there and came to a stop in front of our house. My younger brother, who was my partner in the enterprise, got pretty discouraged after the first hour or two. Because I was older and bigger, however, I made him keep at it for two more days.
Truth be told, I didn’t mind our lack of success. First of all, I had all the lemonade to drink I wanted. Second, I always had a book handy and could wile away the quiet hours with one of the Black Beauty stories or Tom Swift and his electric whatever. It didn’t take much to keep me happy in those days.
But during the third day, I finally threw in the towel. I had had enough of my brother’s complaining. Besides, he came up with an alternative idea that made sense to me.
“Why don’t we walk along the highway and pick up all the empty bottles we find,” he suggested. “We can take them to the store in town and collect the deposit on them. Then we can spend it on Coke, candy and comic books.”
Like any brother, Jeff knew all my weaknesses. I wasn’t that crazy about Coke or candy; in fact, I preferred a root beer float. But the chance to purchase a brand-new comic book, and not wait until my monthly haircut to read whatever remnant of a comic book I could find in our neighborhood barbershop, was irresistible.
So we went inside and each took a pillowcase from our bed. Then we started searching the roadside and gutter for castoffs.
You’ll probably be surprised to learn how successful our efforts were. As I recall, we received 2 cents for every small glass bottle we found and a nickel for the larger ones. After a couple of hours of effort, I think we’d each earned a dollar or two. That may not sound like much today, but back in the early 1950s, it was a king’s ransom — or at least enough for several comic books and candy.
The whole experience was a great lesson for us. Our parents made sure we realized there was no such thing in this world as something for nothing. If you wanted something, you had to earn it. As the Lord said in Genesis 3:19, “By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made” (NLT).
I wish I saw more examples of today’s youngsters working as hard for their spending money as we did a generation or two ago. Kids today take their $100 sneakers and jeans for granted as well as their $200 electronic gizmos.
Would they actually be better off if they had to trudge down the highway, picking up empty soda and beer bottles to earn a few extra dollars? You tell me.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
–Chip Wood

Chip Wood
Chip Wood is the geopolitical editor of PersonalLiberty.com. He is the founder of Soundview Publications, in Atlanta, where he was also the host of an award-winning radio talk show for many years. He was the publisher of several bestselling books, including Crisis Investing by Doug Casey, None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen and Larry Abraham and The War on Gold by Anthony Sutton. Chip is well known on the investment conference circuit where he has served as Master of Ceremonies for FreedomFestThe New Orleans Investment ConferenceSovereign Society, and The Atlanta Investment Conference.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Obama Support Black Support Declines


Can things get any worse for Obama especially among his core constituency--Blacks? It does not look good but the final measure of his popularity will be the election in November 2012.  Will they abandon him and the Democratic Party? I doubt it.  They might not be like the way he is doing things but in the end they will not enmasse abandon the party.   Articles like this are good news but in the end are meaningless.

What is your opinion?

 

 

Gallup: Obama Hits All-Time Low Among Blacks as Cain Surges Among Republicans

Herman Cain
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain speaks at the Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(CNSNews.com) - Gallup releasednew polling data today that showed African American presidential candidate Herman Cain's support was surging among Republicans even as President Barack Obama’s job approval hit an all-time low among blacks.
In a poll of 1,064 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents conducted Oct. 3-7, 18 percent said they supported Cain for president. That put the former Godfathers Pizza CEO in a close second behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who placed first with 20 percent. 
Meanwhile, only 80 percent of blacks told Gallup in the week that ended on Oct. 9 that they approved of the way Obama was handling his job as president. Previously, Obama’s lowest approval among blacks had been the 81 percent he had received in the weeks that ended on March 6 and August 14 of this year.
Obama’s highest all-time approval among blacks was 96 percent--a level it reached during five different weeks of 2009, Obama's first year in office.
Former Gov. Rick Perry placed third after Romney and Cain in the Republican presidential primary poll that Gallup released today. Perry garnered the support of 15 percent, down from the 31-percent support he had in the previous Gallup Republican presidential poll, which was conducted Sept. 15-18.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, with 8 percent, was fourth in the latest Gallup poll. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Michele Bachmann tied for fifth with 5 percent, former Sen. Rick Santorum was next with 2 percent, followed by former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman with 1 percent

Solyndra Gets Better By The Day


If one wrote the Solyndra story it could not get any better than it is becoming. In fact, many people would not believe it as it would be too outrageous. Conspiracy against the taxpayers conducted by the highest levels of the government involving rewarding contributors and guaranteeing loans for them.  Wow, what a story. Where are our friends at Occupy Wall Street? Oh, I forget, President Obama is one of their friends and they would not want him to look bad. They are only going after the really bad people who provide jobs to millions!


If the following story about the email links the White House has finally turned over to Congress does not disgust you, nothing will. If this story turns out to be accurate, the abuse of power and the cover-up on this should result in charges for many in the West Wing as well as the well-heeled donors who also were involved.  We will see what happens.



E-mails Link Solyndra Investors, Campaign Donors and White House

by  Jason Mattera
10/11/2011

Friday night dumps at the White House.

Now that’s something the Occupy Wall Street mob could rally against.  But instead thelowlifes are defecating on police vehicles, sporting nasty-looking coke nails on camera, mindlessly chanting whatever their organizers are telling them to, slamming their palms on Conga drums, scouring lower Manhattan for sex and free food, and fantasizing about what an absolute treat it would be to call Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela home.

Last Friday night, the White House released a treasure trove of e-mails that only stoke the flames of the Solyndra demise.  You know, that failed green energy company that blew through $535 million of taxpayer dollars, an incident that Obama said he doesn’t regret.

Before we get to the latest Solyndra scandal involving the most honest, transparent and ethical administration in the history of the universe, how about a quick recap of the facts?

First we have the billionaire George Kaiser, an Obama fund-raiser and Solyndra investor, who made multiple visits to the White House before the solar panel company was granted the $535 million in taxpayer money.  The White House says that Kaiser didn’t lobby them on the loan approval, but we’ll never know, because the meeting wasn’t done in public for all to see.  The administration’s denial seems all the more incredulous considering that Kaiser himself is on record bragging about how he helped secure funding for Oklahoma projects through the gargantuan stimulus program.

Second, we know that the Office of Management and Budget was concerned that Solyndra wasn’t ready for prime time, and therefore didn’t want to be rushed to sanction the government loan.  Those concerns fell on deaf ears, however, because Solyndra was more about a political victory, not an economic one, for Team Obama.

And now this:  Another Obama bundler, Steve Skinner, was improperly lobbying for Solyndra to get the half a billion dollars in taxpayer money.  The lobbying was improper because his wife, Allison Spinner, worked for the law firm representing Solyndra.

“How hard is this?  What is he waiting for?” complained Spinner, who raised $500,000 for Obama, in an internal e-mail while working for the Department of Energy.  “I have OVP [the Office of the Vice President] and WH [the White House] breathing down my neck on this.”  Spinner was agitated that process was taking too long. Later on he asked a DOE colleague, “Any word on OMB? Solyndra's getting nervous.”

Naturally, Spinner’s wife’s law office denies that she had any involvement in representing the now-bankrupt solar panel company, which we’ll really never know.  They just want us to take their word for it.  What we do know is that Solyndra paid the law firm, Wilson Sonsini, more than $2 million in legal fees for securing the loan.

Looks like the Spinner household had an early Christmas in 2009, eh?

“After eight months of stonewalling by this administration, today we finally learn one of the reasons why they fought our investigation every step of the way,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R.-Mich.), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.  “The paper trail released by the White House portrays a disturbingly close relationship between President Obama's West Wing inner circle, campaign donors, and wealthy investors that spawned the Solyndra mess.”

But there’s more.

Turns out that the in the latest flurry of e-mails released by the White House show that the Energy Department restructured Solyndra’s loans to protect private investors, not taxpayers.  “When Department of Energy restructured the loan in February, they inexplicably not only doubled-down on a bad bet, they put Solyndra’s investors, Argonaut and Madrone to the front of the line for the first $75 million that could be recouped in bankruptcy,” a GOP official on the House Energy and Commerce Committee told HUMAN EVENTS.

And that restructuring could very well have been illegal.

At the time that the Department of Energy (DOE) was flirting with the refinancing, the Treasury Department notified told it to consult the Justice Department to make sure that the terms of the new loan were in fact legal, to ensure that it didn’t violate the “Repayment” section of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  In that section, the secretary of the Energy Department must follow specific protocols before shelling out taxpayer money on loan guarantees.

It looks those protocols were never obeyed.  “In February, we requested in writing that DOE seek the Department of Justice’s approval of any proposed restructuring.  To our knowledge, that has never happened,” wrote Department of the Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets Mary J. Miller in August of this year.

The next hearing on Solyndra is scheduled for this Friday in the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee.  That’s a good place for the “Occupy” thugs to show up and stand in “solidarity” with Rep. Upton against this administration’s corporate cronyism and potentially illegal use of taxpayer money.

Mr. Mattera is the editor of HUMAN EVENTS and the author of Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation (Simon & Schuster). He also hostsThe Jason Mattera Show on News Talk Radio 77WABC. Previously, he was the Spokesman for Young America's Foundation and a TV correspondent for Michelle Malkin. Follow Jason on  TwitterFacebook, and  YouTube.

Occupy Wall Street Unveiled

As the Occupy ...protests continue, we are gaining more of an understanding of their "goals".  It appears as if they are protesting success and achievement. If someone has something, they want it but are unwilling to put in the effort to get it. If you want a Mercedes, you can work long hours and earn it or you can demand that you are owed a car like that which is the mantra of the Occupy groups.

Don't take my word for it, go to their site OccupyWallStreet.org and you will see it in their own words and actions. This is not your Tea Party rally. These are lawbreakers who ignore police orders to the extent they are arrested and pepper sprayed. Their signs are anti-capitalistic and pro-chaos.

To compare them to Tea Party members as the Administration has tried to do over the past couple days, it an insult to the law abiding, small government protesters who saw the financial troubles coming in early 2009 when the first rallies started. The Occupy folks want governmental hand outs, the Tea Party people want Washington out of their lives. The contrast could not be clearer.

Life never is fair. Sometimes people with above normal intelligence get stuck in everyday jobs while those who are more "street smart" advance rapidly and make millions. Other times luck comes to play when opportunity meets preparation. Being at the right spot at the time is definitely helpful. Other people make millions because they know how to make things and create articles that improve our lives. Most people who are successful in this country made the money themselves. Yes, some did inherit it or marry it (e.g. Theresa Heinz and John Kerry), but that is a vast minority.

There is an old Irish proverb which says: poor to rich to poor in three generations. I have seen that in my life also. It seems like for a lot of families, dad makes the money, son either continues to build the business or crashes it and grandson bankrupts it. (To be politically correct, you can substitute the female gender for all parties!) It is not always true, but for the vast majority it is.

So to blame the rich, who for the most part are the job creators, for the problems will be readily rectified in one or two more generations. Then there will be the "new" rich we can all admire or blame for our own failures.

These Occupy groups are trying to level the playing field by bringing down to their level, those who have achieved.  We should be trying to raise everyone up, not bring those who are successful, down. To do that  is not America, it is czarist Russia before the Revolution type thinking.  This is not the route that the United States should be following.

You might have friends who believe themselves to be very intelligent and have other friends who have been successful. In our life it seems the underachieving bright people are always jealous of those who have done well. Why?  It must be part of human nature or another reason might be that because school came so easy to the bright ones, they did not develop the skills to compete in the real world outside of the classroom.  We all have known the very bright nerd who could not keep a job, because everyone was so "stupid" where they worked.

The impression we get is that the Occupy Wall Street people are jealous of the achievers. They want some of what they have. "It is not fair that he/she has four houses and I live in this crappy one bedroom apartment. I should have my own house!"  This sounds eerily familiar with Russia, Cuba, China, Cambodia, Korea et. al.

One last comment.  These protesters continue to rail against "business."  Why are there no complaints about basketball, baseball, football players, musicians and actors?  All of these people make millions for "entertaining" us. They produce nothing tangible yet they have not been condemned. In fact, Michael Moore who has made millions condemning business in his movies, spoke at the Occupy Wall Street rally. My guess it that as long as you are against business regardless of your millions, it is OK.  If this is true, this is a confused message.

Bobby Eberle writes today more about this phenomena that is spreading across the US.



Introducing the 'Something for Nothing' Protest

By Bobby Eberle
Down with evil corporations! No more big profits! No more corporate greed! Blah, blah, blah. Those slogans all sound great to a bunch of liberals who have nothing better to do than play video games, live at home, and not work. Why go out and earn a living when, for decades, liberals like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and others are telling you that your plight is caused by the other guy... that you deserve what he has... and that the government will take from him and give to you. It's no wonder people are protesting. Going out and earning something on your own is so "old school."
The "Occupy Wall Street" movement is picking up steam. But what is it all about? If you look at the OccupyWallStreet.org web site, the description reads: "Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%." Hmmmm... the greed and corruption of the 1%? What is it these protesters want? One can only assume that they want MORE. More of what the rich have... more of what the rich control... more of what the rich enjoy.
If that is the case, then my response is: Go out and earn it! The rich pay most of the taxes, yet these protesters want them to pay even more. Why? I wish some reporters would actually ask these people if they know why they are protesting. If some rich guy is forced to pay even more in taxes, how does that help the average "Occupy Wall Street" protester? Will it get him or her a job? No. Will it buy him or her a fancy car? No. Jobs are created when job creators have an environment where they can grow. Fewer taxes and fewer regulations mean business owners can hire. Taxing these business owners makes them LESS likely to hire.
And as far as the fancy cars and boats and houses, you won't get those unless you go out and earn them! If you want to rely on the government, then you will trap yourself in a sub-standard level, because the government cannot artificially create a prosperous environment. If welfare and years of unemployment benefits are your cup of tea, then go ahead... demand more. Demand that the person working 20 hours a day to build a company or lead thousands of people pay more, so you can do less. This is insane!
Oh, and to top it off, now the Democrats are fully on board with this "movement about nothing." As Fox News reports, the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is now working on an online petition for those who want to "let billionaires, big oil and big bankers know that we're not going to let the richest 1% force draconian economic policies and massive cuts to crucial programs on Main Street Americans." Ugh! The massive cuts are due to the fact that people have been led to believe that BIG government is the only way. Now we have a government that can't afford to do what it said it was going to do, too inept to be able to do it anyway, and a population that would rather take from someone else than earn it themselves.
It just goes to show how the left-wing mindset and tactics work on people, and how terrible the results are. With the Tea Party movement, Americans were united in calling for smaller government, lower taxes, and less debt. It's about Americans versus big government. With these folks, it's about Americans versus Americans. How productive do you think that's going to be? Building a platform based on envy and jealousy is what the left is all about, and it is NOT the way to bring America together.
But they use it, because it works. It's just like the famous quote from George Bernard Shaw: "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."