Monthly Archives: May 2010

Kentucky US Senate Poll: Paul 49% Grayson 33%

The Rand Paul phenomenon in Kentucky shows no signs of ebbing tonight – as the Bowling Green opthamologist’s double digit lead continues over Secretary of State Trey Grayson. He says his message is behind his 16 point lead.

Paul 49%
Grayson 33%
Stephenson 3%
Martin 3%
Scribner 1%
Undecided 11%

“I come from the Tea Party movement,” Paul said Wednesday, “and the tea party movement really feels like government is out of control, that we’re being consumed by this debt.”

As Trey Grayson campaigned in Louisville this morning, some may suggest the dark clouds that hung over him were a metaphor for the poll numbers..

“We’re seeing a very close race,” Grayson insisted. (Read more from whas11.com)

Senate Votes 37-62 against Fed Audit

How They Voted:

Akaka (D-HI), Nay
Alexander (R-TN), Nay
Baucus (D-MT), Nay
Bayh (D-IN), Nay
Begich (D-AK), Nay
Bennet (D-CO), Nay
Bennett (R-UT), Nay
Bingaman (D-NM), Nay
Bond (R-MO), Nay
Boxer (D-CA), Nay
Brown (D-OH), Nay
Brown (R-MA), Nay
Burris (D-IL), Nay
Cardin (D-MD), Nay
Carper (D-DE), Nay
Casey (D-PA), Nay
Conrad (D-ND), Nay
Corker (R-TN), Nay
Dodd (D-CT), Nay
Durbin (D-IL), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Nay
Franken (D-MN), Nay
Gillibrand (D-NY), Nay
Gregg (R-NH), Nay
Hagan (D-NC), Nay
Harkin (D-IA), Nay
Inouye (D-HI), Nay
Johanns (R-NE), Nay
Johnson (D-SD), Nay
Kaufman (D-DE), Nay
Kerry (D-MA), Nay
Klobuchar (D-MN), Nay
Kohl (D-WI), Nay
Kyl (R-AZ), Nay
Landrieu (D-LA), Nay
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay
Leahy (D-VT), Nay
Levin (D-MI), Nay
Lieberman (ID-CT), Nay
Lugar (R-IN), Nay
McCaskill (D-MO), Nay
McConnell (R-KY), Nay
Menendez (D-NJ), Nay
Merkley (D-OR), Nay
Mikulski (D-MD), Nay
Murray (D-WA), Nay
Nelson (D-FL), Nay
Nelson (D-NE), Nay
Pryor (D-AR), Nay
Reed (D-RI), Nay
Reid (D-NV), Nay
Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Schumer (D-NY), Nay
Shaheen (D-NH), Nay
Specter (D-PA), Nay
Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Tester (D-MT), Nay
Udall (D-CO), Nay
Udall (D-NM), Nay
Voinovich (R-OH), Nay
Warner (D-VA), Nay
Whitehouse (D-RI), Nay

Byrd (D-WV), Not Voting

Barrasso (R-WY), Yea
Brownback (R-KS), Yea
Bunning (R-KY), Yea
Burr (R-NC), Yea
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Chambliss (R-GA), Yea
Coburn (R-OK), Yea
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Cornyn (R-TX), Yea
Crapo (R-ID), Yea
DeMint (R-SC), Yea
Ensign (R-NV), Yea
Enzi (R-WY), Yea
Feingold (D-WI), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
Isakson (R-GA), Yea
LeMieux (R-FL), Yea
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Risch (R-ID), Yea
Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Sanders (I-VT), Yea
Shelby (R-AL), Yea
Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Sessions (R-AL), Yea
Thune (R-SD), Yea
Vitter (R-LA), Yea
Webb (D-VA), Yea
Wicker (R-MS), Yea
Wyden (D-OR), Yea

Congressman Waxman (D – CA) sneaks anti-vitamin amendment into Wall Street reform bill

I think this illustrates the advantages of the libertarian (vs. socialist) solution to the problem we generally agree on, that food is often dangerous and unhealthy.

This article demonstrates how the government contributes to the problem. Yes many of my socialist-leaning friends call for increased government involvement to help solve it.

Of all the sneaky tactics practiced in Washington D.C., this recent action by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) is one of the most insidious: While no one was looking, he injected amendment language into the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173) that would expand the powers of the FTC (not the FDA, but the FTC) to terrorize nutritional supplement companies by greatly expanding the power of the FTC to make its own laws that target dietary supplement companies.

This is a little-known secret about the FTC and the nutritional supplements business: The FTC routinely targets nutritional supplement companies that are merely telling the truth about their products. Some companies are threatened by merely linking to published scientific studies about their products.

For example, here’s an important article that describes how to FDA criminally extorts money out of supplement companies: www.naturalnews.com/024567_health_the_FDA_websites.html

The FTC does much the same thing. They target a particular company that’s having success in the natural products marketplace, then they accuse that company of “inferring” that their products have some health benefit. From there, the FTC demands that the company engage in paying a massive fine to the FTC, which the FTC calls “consumer redress” even though none of the money actually goes to the consumers.
(Read more from naturalnews.com)

$18M Being Spent to Redesign Recovery.gov Web Site

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: For those concerned about stimulus spending, the General Services Administration sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site.

The new Web site promises to give taxpayers more information about where their money is going than the current version of the site.

“Recovery.gov 2.0 will use innovative and interactive technologies to help taxpayers see where their dollars are being spent,” James A. Williams, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, says in a press release announcing the contract awarded to Maryland-based Smartronix Inc. “Armed with easy access to this information, taxpayers can make government more accountable for its decisions.”

The contract calls for spending $9.5 million through January, and as much as $18 million through 2014, according to the GSA press release.

“We are pleased that another major milestone has been achieved,” Earl E. Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, says in the press release. “We thank the GSA for its assistance and look forward to working with Smartronix. (Read more from blogs.abcnews.com)

CIA Veteran on 9/11

“The 9/11 commission was a cover up. The question is, what was it covering up? The charitable explanation is gross negligence, malfeasance.”

Should Hillary Have the Power to Strip You of Your Citizenship?

If Joe Lieberman’s totalitarian plan to give the State Department authority to strip Americans of their citizenship is implemented, all those protections that citizens enjoy that are currently deprived from non-citizens would be a chimera. Since 9/11, the government has treated citizens and non-citizens differently, brutalizing both groups but being especially despotic toward those deemed non-Americans. In the habeas corpus rulings from the Supreme Court, conservative Antonin Scalia consistently argued that citizens should enjoy far stronger habeas protections than non-citizens—in his dissent for Hamdi (2004), Scalia boldly took the most civil libertarian position on the Court; in Boumediene (2008), his infamous dissent was the most anti-habeas. The grounds for his distinction were largely the issue of citizenship.

Conservatives have long been inconsistent on the concept of natural law. They say our rights come from God or human nature, but then turn around and say non-citizens do not have the same rights citizens have. But in any event, if Lieberman’s horrid idea comes to pass, the existence of citizenship will be contingent upon whether the State Department determines that a person has conspired with terrorist groups.

This is a dangerous proposal for many reasons. First, what constitutes terrorism and being an enemy of the United States has been somewhat up in the air over the last several years. Especially with the new Brown Scare aimed at the populist right, mainstream conservatives, libertarians, militia groups, violent extremists and everyone in between, we see the threat of a left-liberal administration cracking down on dissent with ever more despotic tools at its disposal. (Read more from independent.org)

Establishment mobilizes to neuter Fed Audit Amendment

Last-minute maneuvering in the Senate allowed the Federal Reserve to sidestep legislation that would have exposed its interest-rate decision-making to congressional auditors.

Pressure from the Obama administration led Senate lawmakers to alter a provision pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) that was gaining momentum despite opposition from the Treasury and the Fed. It would have largely repealed a 32-year-old law that shields Fed monetary policy from congressional auditors.

. . . . Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, while insisting on a commitment to “openness” at the Fed, said in a letter to Congress the Sanders measure would “seriously threaten monetary policy independence, increase inflation fears and market interest rates, and damage economic stability and job creation.” (Read more from online.wsj.com)

Judge Napolitano with Ron Paul gives a good overview of the issue here.

Ron Paul explains how Sen. Bernie Sanders sells out, calls for support.

Rep. Alan Grayson: You Own the Red Roof Inn, Thanks to the Fed

Feel Sorry for BP?

After the British Petroleum–hired oil rig exploded last week, the environmentalists went nuts yet again, using the occasion to flail a private corporation and wail about the plight of the “ecosystem,” which somehow managed to survive and thrive after the Exxon debacle.

The comparison is complicated by how much worse this event is for BP. Eleven people died. BP market shares have been pummeled. So long as the leak persists, the company loses 5,000–10,000 barrels a day.

BP will be responsible for cleanup costs far exceeding the federal limit of $75 million on liability for damages. The public relations nightmare will last for a decade or more. In the end, the costs could reach $100 billion, nearly wrecking the company and many other businesses.

It should be obvious that BP is by far the leading victim, but I’ve yet to see a single expression of sadness for the company and its losses. Indeed, the words of disgust for BP are beyond belief. The DailyKos sums it up: “BP: Go f*** yourselves.” Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that the government intended to keep “its boot on BP’s neck.”

How about reality? The incident is a tragedy for BP and all the subcontractors involved. It will probably wreck the company, a company that has long provided the fuel that runs our cars, runs our industries, and keeps alive the very body of modern life. The idea that BP should be hated and denounced is preposterous; there is every reason to express great sadness for what has happened.

It is not as if BP profits by oil leaks, or that anyone reveled in the chance to dump its precious oil all over the ocean. BP gains nothing from this. Its own CEO has worked for years to try to prevent precisely this kind of accident from occurring, and done so not out of the desire to comply with regulations, but just because it is good business practice.

In contrast to those who are weeping, we might ask who is happy about the disaster:

1. the environmentalists, with their fear mongering and hatred of modern life, and
2. the government, which treats every capitalist producer as a bird to be plucked.

The environmentalists are thrilled because they get yet another chance to wail and moan about the plight of their beloved marshes and other allegedly sensitive land. The loss of fish and marine life is sad, but it is not as if it will not come back: after the Exxon Valdez disaster, the fishing was better than ever in just one year.

The main advantage to the environmentalists is their propaganda victory in having yet another chance to rail against the evils of oil producers and ocean drilling. If they have their way, oil prices would be double or triple, there would never be another refinery built, and all development of the oceans would stop in the name of “protecting” things that do human beings not one bit of good.

The core economic issue concerning the environment is really about liability. In a world of private property, if you soil someone else’s property, you bear the liability. But what about in a world in which government owns vast swaths, and the oceans are considered the commons of everyone? It becomes extremely difficult to assess damages to the environment at all.

There is also a profound problem with federal government limits on liability. That is central planning gone mad. The liability for environmental damage should be 100% at least. Such a system would match a company’s policies to the actual risk of doing damage. Lower limits would inspire companies to be less concerned about damage to others than they should be, in the same way that a company with a bailout guarantee faces a moral hazard to be less efficient than it would be in a free market.

But such a liability rule presumes ownership, so that owners themselves are in a position to enter into fair bargaining, and there can be some objective test. There is no objective test when the oceans are collectively owned and where huge amounts of territory are government owned.

And it is precisely the government and the Obama administration that gain from the incident. The regulators get yet another lease on life. They are already sending thousands of people to “save” the region. “Every American affected by this spill should know this: your government will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to stop this crisis,” Obama said.

Are we really supposed to believe that government is better able to deal with this disaster than private industry?

Meanwhile, the Obama administration must be thrilled to have an old-fashioned change of subject, so that we don’t have to notice every single day that its economic stimulus has been an incredible flop, with unemployment higher today than a year ago and the depression still persisting. (Read more from mises.org)

See also:
Federal law may limit BP liability in oil spill A law passed in response to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska makes BP responsible for cleanup costs. But the law sets a $75 million limit on other kinds of damages. (Read more from news.yahoo.com)

U.S. officials: No credible evidence that terrorists trained Shahzad

No credible evidence has been found so far that the Pakistani-American man accused in the Times Square bombing plot received any serious terrorist training from the Pakistani Taliban or another radical Islamic group, six U.S. officials said Thursday.

“There is nothing that confirms that any groups have been found involved in this for certain,” one U.S. official told McClatchy . “It’s a lot of speculation at this point.”

Faisal Shahzad may have, at the most, had “incidental contact” with a terrorist organization, and he may have been encouraged to act, said one of the officials, who declined to elaborate further. (Read more from news.yahoo.com)

Students Kicked Off Campus for Wearing American Flag Tees

On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal’s office.

“They said we could wear it on any other day,” Daniel Galli said, “but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it’s supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today.”

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts “incendiary” that would lead to fights on campus. (Read more from nbcbayarea.com)

(One of the boys was part hispanic.)

Corporate Media Plays Down Pro-Illegal Immigration Thugs Who Terrorized Santa Cruz

Imagine the uproar if 200 Tea Party members had gone on a rampage through a downtown city, smashing windows, starting fires, and spraying graffiti everywhere, the corporate media would be all over it, and yet gangs of pro-illegal immigration demonstrators do this and much worse on a regular basis, with no national news coverage whatsoever.

“A large group of protesters demonstrating at a May Day rally for worker’s and immigrant rights downtown broke off into a riot vandalizing about a dozen businesses around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, police said,” reports The Santa Cruz Sentinel.

An Associated Press report states that eighteen businesses were damaged as pro-immigrants rights activists engaged in violent riots, spraying graffiti, smashing windows, setting fire to shop fronts, and causing damage to a cost of up to $100,000 dollars. (Read more from prisonplanet.com)