He Said It! - Al Sharpton Claims American Public Voted for Socialism When Electing Obama

With friends like Al Sharpton, the President hardly needs enemies! With the number of Conservative-Americans increasing from a low of 37% in 2007 to 41% and rising today and with Independents shifting wholesale away from the Democrats they voted for in 2006 and 2008, Al Sharpton throws a little gasoline on that already raging fire.

The Gathering Storm....

How our massive debt, abysmal economic policy and shifting economic fault lines are undermining the Keynesian economic model

Recently James Srodes (the former Forbes Magazine Washington Bureau Chief) wrote a compelling article titled The Great Recession of 2011-2012, in which he outlined the case for a “double-dip recession,” or more aptly a deepening Keynesian trough that is fast approaching.

I’ve said since November of 2008 that “this recession was going to be worse than any we’ve seen in a generation” and that “the worst is yet to come” – in the form of massive public sector layoffs that will impact a huge swath of very spoiled American workers (government/Municipal workers) who’ve never been impacted by such financial vicissitudes before.

The warning signs are all around us, in the news that more and more state and local Municipalities across the nation are looking at shockingly shrinking revenue pools, especially in property taxes (due the devaluation of housing prices across the country) and in places that depend on usually reliable private sector revenues, like New York State and New York City, California and Illinois, with those private sector revenues falling off precipitously the financial crunch in such places is even worse. In response, Municipalities across the country are laying off more and more public sector workers.

Just this week, New York City’s MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) announced 1,100 workers layoffs. Other major layoffs are imminent in New York City. The NYPD has already shrunk by almost 2,000 members due to attrition, the Department of Education is facing over 1,000 jobs lost, while the FDNY is looking at closing at least 20 Fire Companies and an estimated 1,000 jobs lost!

All of this is proving those market-based economists, from Rothbard, to Friedman to Becker right and those Keynesian “Public Sector economists,” wrong.

Public sector jobs are NOT as “productive” and “revenue generating” as private sector ones, nor are government deficits and private investment at all “the same in their economic impact.”

In FACT, the entire public sector relies on private sector generated revenues to exist.

As I’ve noted before, if the Keynesians were right that public sector jobs create the same economic effect as private sector capacity and productivity, then Zimbabwe, a nation with HUGE public sector needs, could be transformed, virtually overnight, into an extremely prosperous and productive nation merely by massive public sector hiring!

Of course, the problem is that Zimbabwe doesn’t have the money to pay for that army of bureaucrats because....it lacks the vibrant private sector that would generate the revenues to pay for it.

But it’s more than just the current reality that’s destroying the perceived efficacy of Keynesianism, as if that isn’t enough, but the shifting economic tectonic plates, such as the increased global demand on commodities from oil to precious metals to agricultural products to water, greatly increasing the price of these commodities is making it much harder for today’s entrepreneurs to make money from these resources and that, in turn is undermining the spirit of optimistic generosity that has been a hallmark of the West for over a Century!

Beyond that, and at precisely the worst possible time, the U.S. has gone on a massive spending spree, as its revenues continue to dry up. The result has been a mammoth printing of U.S. currency – more U.S. Dollars have been printed between 2000 and today than were printed between 1789 and 2000!

Worse yet, we have an administration in which its core members have little understanding of basic economic principles and tend NOT to believe that increases in the money supply creates inflation.

Indeed, President Obama has nominated Janet Yellen to be vice chair of the Federal Reserve. That pretty much assures that the “Obama Fed” is going to be very reticent in fighting future inflation and defending the value of the dollar. Janet Yellen subscribes to the Phillips-curve model that trades off unemployment and inflation, or in the words of Larry Kudlow, “rather than seeing excess money creation as the cause of rising prices, she focuses on the unemployment rate, the volume of new jobs being created and the growth of the overall economy.”

Apparently Ms. Yellen believes that inflation is caused by too many people working, wages and prices rising, and in short, too much prosperity, which is akin to the old 1970s model that blamed inflation on “Union-driven pressure for higher wages, resulting in higher prices for goods and services."

Unfortunately, that’s NOT what causes inflation at all. In FACT, that’s a response TO inflation!

Inflation IS the devaluation of the currency by printing/creating an excess of it. The clamor for higher wages, amidst rising prices for goods and services is merely the RESULT or RESPONSE TO inflation. In other words, BOTH rising prices and wages are SYMPTOMS of the DISEASE of government printing too much money.

The stars are aligned for a near “perfect storm” for America. As commodity prices, the cost of water, energy and the materials we need to produce and prosper rise amidst the burgeoning industrialization and the subsequent growing competition for all those things, America has buried itself deep in debt, making it vulnerable to creditors who can wreak economic havoc on us at any time by merely raising the cost of servicing our enormous debt.

To make matters even worse, our economy, already reeling from a Keynesian (government micromanaging the mortgage market) disaster, has embarked on a “new path” of HYPER-KEYNESIANISM, which has already seen the unemployment rate shoot up to 10%, with the potential for devastating inflation and sky-high interest rates not seen in nearly three decades looking more and more imminent by the day. According to the National Inflation Association (NIA), “We are now at a point where if the U.S. government taxed Americans 100% of their income, the tax receipts generated would not be enough to balance the budget...The White House is not projecting interest payments on the national debt to break the $500 million mark until fiscal year 2014...By then, even if we go by White House projections that the deficit will be cut to $828 billion in 2012, $727 billion in 2013 and $706 billion in 2014, in 2014 we will still be looking at a national debt of over $18.5 trillion with a public portion of around $13.14 trillion...NIA believes the real rate of U.S. inflation to already be approximately 5%. If the Federal Reserve doesn't raise the federal funds rate to above 5% in the short-term, in our opinion, an outbreak of double-digit inflation is inevitable. By 2014, it is possible the Federal Reserve will be forced to raise the federal funds rate up to above 10% and the public portion of our national debt could exceed $15 trillion. Therefore, in 2014 we could see the interest payments on our national debt reach $1.5 trillion, about triple what is currently being projected and 43% of the government's projected tax receipts that year of $3.455 trillion...NIA believes hyperinflation is possible by the year 2015. Besides the rising interest payments on our national debt, another major catalyst for hyperinflation will be social security payments, which adjust to the CPI-index. As the government's CPI-index rises, so will the social security payments that it owes. This could cause a death-spiral in the U.S. dollar.”

SEE: http://inflation.us/hyperinflation2015.html

Disastrous ideas and ideals have disastrous consequences and just as it appears that our misguided “anti-terror policies” will have to lead to a mass casualty event before most of America really wakes up, it increasingly appears like its going to take a massive economic implosion, complete with the already growing public sector dislocation to wake Americans up to the disaster that Keynesian policies really are!

A Disastrously WRONG Focus on Terrorism....

This Left-wing administration and an equally Leftist mainstream media’s inane focus on “domestic Right-wing terror” threatens to undermine our national security and put millions of Americans at an extreme and unnecessary risk

The arrest of 31 year-0ld Jamie Paulin-Ramirez (pictured above, bottom), in Ireland this week, has apparently given some people some very misguided “ammunition” against America’s focus on “radical Islamic jihadists.”

NEWSFLASH, BOTH Jamie Paulin-Ramirez and Colleen LaRose (pictured above, top) the suburban Philadelphia “soccer Mom” turned jihadist, were “radicalized MUSLIMS!

How bad is America’s PC strictures against properly DEFINING, let alone fighting the War on Terrorism (WoT)?

Well, this week, Lydia Khalil (pictured left), born of Coptic Christian parents in Egypt and grew up to serve on the NYPD’s counterterrorism Unit and is currently a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote an incredibly misguided opinion piece titled, Stop Minimizing Right-Wing Terror, insinuating that America is threatened far more directly by its “militia movements” and Tea Party activists than it is by Islamic extremists!

OK, for one thing, Right-wing terror has been dwarfed over the last two decades by a far more real and virulent Left-Wing terror campaign – that of ALF, ELF and other radical Leftist terrorist organizations.

AND...ironically enough, the two latest “domestic terrorists” (John Patrick Bedell a/k/a “the Pentagon shooter” and Joseph Stark a/k/a “the Austin IRS kamikaze”) were BOTH ardent Leftists.

Bedell was indeed a registered Democrat, a Bush-hater (OK, who wasn’t), and an anti-Capitalist, which pretty much translates into an "anti-American.”

Likewise, Joseph Stark was a Bush-bashing, anti-Capitalist whose final message lauded Marxism over Capitalism (The Marxist creed: “FROM each according to his ABILITY, TO each according to his NEED.....The Capitalist creed: “From each according to his GULLIBILITY, TO each according to his GREED.")

Yes, undoubtedly BOTH these men were avowed Leftists a/k/a “Liberal Americans.”

And yet, Lydia Khalil starts her piece off with, “It's tax season and everyone hates paying taxes, so in a way it was easy to shrug our shoulders at the attack on the Austin, Texas, IRS building last month.”

                

She goes on attempting to link Joseph Stack to the Tea Parties and other “Right-wing” causes, “But violence by those espousing extreme anti-government views is no joke, and it's time to stop putting the serious and growing threat of homegrown right-wing extremism... Elected politicians are pandering to this anti-government sentiment in order to gain the so-called Tea Party, populist, "stick it to the man" vote.”

Lydia Khalil almost certainly means well, but good intentions count for nothing when you’ve got your facts wrong.

In one part of her essay she intones that, “Statements like these  (joking or even rationalizing anti-IRS anger) by elected officials who have sworn under oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," are deeply disturbing.” While in the VERY SAME article she references the reprehensible Left-wing smear group The Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that has railed against The Oath Keepers (police, military and emergency responders who swear to uphold their oath to the Constitution and NOT obey any orders that would violate that oath) as “dangerous and conspiratorial!”
The fact is, “radical Constitutionalists” are part and parcel of America’s time-honored history, American “Liberals”/leftists are NOT.

As Barry Goldwater correctly stated, “Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice.”

As deep-seated and widespread as Left-Wing domestic terrorism is, it is currently dwarfed by the threat of radicalized Muslim “jihadist terrorism.”

And yet even a former counter-terrorism analyst for the NYPD, a woman born to a Christian group (the Coptics) in Egypt, who have been viciously persecuted by Islamists, SEE: http://uk.nntp2http.com/politics/misc/2008/06/fa09846aae9e652a717a14cbbf176126.html

AND: http://www.aina.org/news/20100303215642.htm)

 sees fit to minimize the jihadist threat, while (deliberately or not) mislabeling America’s most immediate and prolific domestic terror threat – it’s from the LEFT, NOT from the RIGHT.

Intentional or not, this is no menial slip-up, as this ill-conceived refocusing on domestic terrorism needlessly and foolishly puts millions of Americans at both an extreme and completely unnecessary risk.

We’ve already been attacked twice by jihadist terrorists during the current administration – the Fort Hood massacre and the attempted, yet thwarted Christmas Eve jet-liner attack over Detroit.

Apparently it’s going to take a significant body count to wake up some Americans.

Why is FoxNews Always Under Attack?....

WoW! According to Howell Raines the failed NY Times Executive Director, who left shortly after presiding over the Jason Blair scandal in 2003, FoxNews’ ((FNC) Roger Ailes “has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations...”

Raines asks, “Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes...for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration - a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?”

Apparently Howell Raines is either hopelessly hyper-partisan or stupefyingly ignorant of today’s news media landscape...or perhaps both.

FNC, like CNN and MSNBC, the other major 24-hour Cable News Networks offers straight news during the day and Commentary in the evenings.

The mainstream broadcast media (ABC, CBS and NBC, a/k/a the MSM) have long been reliably Center-Left, peopled by a staff that has consistently been over 80% both liberal in outlook and registered Democrats politically.

But recently MSNBC has brought a virulently Leftist and hyper-partisan agenda to an unprecedented level.

MSNBC’s evening crew is the most liberally biased and politically partisan on the air today. Their evening Commentary line-up of Schultz, Matthews, Olbermann and Maddow are all committed (and in a few cases committable) far-Left partisans.

FNC’s evening Commentary crew consists of the fiercely Independent Glenn beck, who has excoriated progressives both Democratic (Carter and Obama) and Republican (Hoover, Nixon, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.), the slightly Left-of-Center, traditionalist Bill O’Reilly, a man who opposes the death penalty, supports a guest-worker program, believes in a strong environmental agenda and regularly rails against “oil companies profiteering at the expense of the folks,” often mistaken for a “Conservative,” by far-Left partisans who revile his traditionalist views and his support for things like Megan’s Law and stricter penalties for pedophiles and the Christmas Holiday. Sean Hannity, a very partisan Conservative and a generally reliable Republican supporter is the lone partisan in FNC’s evening line-up. He’s followed by Greta Van Sustern, a lawyer who usually focuses on crime stories along some other legal issues.

So why have some, like Howell Raines, excoriated FNC without objecting one bit to the far more egregious, hyper-partisan, and out of step with America propaganda they’re nightly spewing out on MSNBC?

Almost certainly because Raines is delusional enough to believe he lives in a Center-Left country, when there is absolutely no indication that is so.

In fact, the most generous poll to date shows self-identified Conservatives (40%) outnumbering self-identified Liberals (21%) by about 2 to 1. America is and long has been a Center-Right nation. This goes a long way to explaining why both Conservative Talk Radio and FNC slaughter their competition in the all important ratings war.

Today FNC has 4X as many viewers as CNN, while the far-Left MSNBC isn’t even on the ratings radar!

Why do you think that is?

Primarily it’s because the American people’s political views aren’t shaped, nor even very much influenced by the media, if they were, then through the 1960s and 1970s, when Liberals held a veritable monopoly status over America’s MSM, America would’ve been a Center-Left nation. It was most certainly not.

In fact, those were the same folks, the same viewers and listeners who gave the likes of Rush Limbaugh and other Conservative Talk Radio hosts the HUGE ratings advantage they enjoyed long before FNC came on the scene.

That too shows that media figures and pundits don’t convert the people, nor even sway them much, if at all. Instead it proves that the people respond to those who espouse views that resonate with their own, they gravitate to the people and views that mirror their own. It really is that simple.

Apparently Howell Raines is someone who sees nothing wrong with a corrupt, pro-BIG government media pushing a vile, largely anti-Capitalist/anti-American agenda on an increasingly unwilling populace. That’s the ONLY way to explain his seeing FNC, a lone Center-Right media outlet, as a threat, while apparently having no problem at all with the far more vile and hyper-partisan MSNBC.

That’s NOT OK and that’s why Howell Raines’ views are recklessly irresponsible and dangerously antithetical to an open discourse where all sides are able to offer their best arguments and the people themselves decide which side to support.

“Greedy” Health Insurance Companies Score HUGE With Obama-Care!....

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According to RedState (http://www.redstate.com/) AND the CBO, “Big Insurance” (the name LIBERAL Dems use to excoriate their very best friend) is set to receive $436 BILLION in direct tax credits “PAYABLE DIRECTLY TO INSURANCE COMPANIES”!

SEE CBO doc at: http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10868/12-19-Reid_Letter_Managers_Correction_Noted.pdf

And Red State’s GREAT piece: http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/03/10/i-thought-insurance-companies-were-evil/

That's RIGHT, the BIG Health Insurers are set to get $436,000,000,000 in tax credits "PAID DIRECTLY TO INSURANCE COMPANIES" via Obama-Care!

With all this guaranteed money to the health insurers and “Big Pharma,” is there any way this Bill won’t be an abject disaster for 90% of the American people?....AND how CAN'T "the fix be in?"

After all, the Health Insurance Companies practically WROTE the Senate Bill. Remember?

-->"The compromise health care reform proposal introduced by Sen. Max Baucus on Monday appears to have been literally written by a former health insurance company vice president...

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"...The proposal, which does not provide a public option but compels individuals to purchase health insurance, was written by Liz Fowler, a former vice president of WellPoint and currently the senior counsel to Baucus."

-->(The PDF can be found (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/BaucusFramework.pdf). To see the author, save it to your hard drive, right-click on the icon, and select “Properties.”)

Hey! In a sense, the Health Insurers just did what Congress so often does, in voting themselves a largesse! In this case, the Health Insurers just wrote themselves a $436 BILLION check...on all our accounts!

Rep. Patrick Kennedy "Moron Esquire" (D-RI) Cites.....(gulp)....Bigotry

OK, he's been banned from receiving Communion by his own Church...he's been in and out of rehab more times than a pop starlet and he's consistently one of the most effusive DUMBASSES in the U.S. Congress - here's a sterling example of Patrick Kennedy's slurring stupidity.....On a brighter note, at least he's not running for re-election this Fall!

Another Perfectly Fine Racial Rant...

OK, athletes rarely make even mediocre social commentators (see Charles Barkley as just one example), but some comments made by California Angels star outfielder, Torii Hunter (pictured above) a couple of weeks ago certainly seem to cross the line...I mean if he were white or Asian saying the things he said, he’d have been crucified already.

Here goes, Hunter said; "People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they're African-American. They're not us. They're impostors. Even people I know come up and say: 'Hey, what color is Vladimir Guerrero? Is he a black player?' I say, 'Come on, he's Dominican. He's not black.'...

"As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us. It's like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It's like, 'Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?'... I'm telling you, it's sad," he said.

So dark skinned Latin-American baseball players are “imposters” according to Hunter and they’re preferred to African-American ballplayers because they work cheap?!

Of course its NOT the FACT that the Latin American players have outplayed the competition.....Wait a minute...YES it can!

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, a Venezuelan, scoffed at Hunter's remarks...“I remember in my time, one scout goes [to Venezuela and] 30 players show up. Now, 30 scouts go there and one player shows up. In our country, we play baseball. That's no choice. Here you can play basketball, you can be another athlete, you can do so many things when you have the opportunity. And that's why there's not many [African-American] players out there."

Guillen’s ABSOLUTELY 100% RIGHT...and Torii Hunter is 100% full of sh*t.

But what never fails to amuse me is how African-Americans can spout the most vile, racially bigoted crap imaginable and are rarely called on it.

Pssst! We’re NOT doing them any favors!