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President Obama said ACORN’s problems are not “the biggest issues facing the country” and not something he was “paying a lot of attention to.”
I guess Chicago hosting the Olympics is America’s big issue.
Most of our country’s serious problems can be laid at the feet of Congress and the White House and not at capitalism. Take the financial crisis. One-third of the $15 trillion of mortgages in existence in 2008 are owned, or securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing and the Veterans Administration. Banks didn’t mind making risky loans and Wall Street buyers didn’t mind buying these repackaged loans because they assumed that they would be guaranteed by the federal government: read bailout by taxpayers. Under a capitalist system, financial institutions would not have been intimidated or encouraged into making risky loans and neither would they have been bailed out if they did so.
Social Security, Medicare and its coverage of prescription drugs have an unfunded liability that exceeds $100 trillion. When those roosters come home to roost, they will make the financial meltdown we’ve been though look like child’s play.
Not withstanding all of the demagoguery, it is capitalism not socialism is that made us a great country and its socialism that will be our undoing.
Soviet manuals from the seventies outline this dimension in some detail. In 1974, Alexander Sobolev of the Moscow Institute of Marxism-Leninism developed the means by which a “peaceful revolutionary process” could take place. To do this, Sobolev stressed the need for a “nationwide political crisis” to be followed by “effective measures to neutralize wavering social strata.” It was Lenin himself that said, “A revolution is simply impossible without an overall national crisis.” [e.g. driving the U.S. into bankruptcy by overspending and over-printing money.]
The aim was to co-opt well-meaning Democrats in Congress into advancing a “peaceful transition to socialism” in the wake of US economic collapse.
[snip]
If the idea that the Communists could use an economic crisis to turn the United States into a Communist country sounds far-fetched, perhaps Gorbachev’s recent remarks will serve to enlighten:
The model that emerged during the final decades of the 20th century has turned out to be unsustainable…It was based on a drive for super-profits and hyper-consumption for a few…I have no ready-made prescriptions. But I am convinced that a new model will emerge, one that will emphasize public needs and public goods….
Will this new model be called Communism? Almost certainly not. But whatever it’s called, the outcome for the US will be the same. [A rose by any other name…]
To flesh out his family history, Obama had taped interviews with various family members. Andersen writes, “These oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to [his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill] Ayers.” Andersen quotes a Hyde Park neighbor, “Everyone knew they were friends and that they worked on various projects together. It was no secret.
via American Thinker Blog: Andersen Book Blows Ayers’ Cover on ‘Dreams’.
Cap-and-trade energy tax legislation appears stalled, at least for now, in the U.S. Senate. But that doesn’t mean the cap-and-trade energy tax isn’t imminent.
Senate Environment Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer hasn’t even introduced the bill yet; new Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln has declared the House bill dead on arrival; and there are several other cross-cutting controversies that divide Democrats on the bill. The Obama administration is unfazed. They are moving full steam ahead with an even more costly regulatory scheme in the name of global warming—shoehorning the regulation of greenhouse gases into the 1970 Clean Air Act, a bill passed before anyone had ever thought of global warming and that couldn’t be less suited to the task.
Driving the push for this massive power grab and circumvention of the elected branches is a key White House official who avoided Senate confirmation by being installed not as EPA director, but instead as White House Climate Czar: Carol Browner.
via A Secret White House Power Grab Is In Full Swing – FOXNews.com.
“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.”
[snip]
The administration aims to teach them—literally. The Environmental Protection Agency is focusing on real children. Partnering with the Parent Teacher Organization, the agency earlier this month launched a cross-country tour of 6,000 schools to teach students about climate change and energy efficiency.
“We’re showing people across the country how energy efficiency can be part of what they do every day,” said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. “Confronting climate change, saving money on our utility bills, and reducing our use of heavily-polluting energy can be as easy as making a few small changes.” [sometimes small changes can make a big difference but to drastically reduce consumption will require drastic changes.]
[snip]
“I don’t think so…maybe I’m optimistic, but there’s very little debate” that a new green energy economy will bring economic prosperity, Mr. Chu told reporters. [He is sorely mistaken.]
Don’t look now, but there’s actually quite a lot of debate as to the economic merits of the new green-energy economy. Whether that will spell a healthcare-style revolt against the energy and climate bill stewing in the Senate is another question.
An update: Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow added: “Secretary Chu was not comparing the public to teenagers. [Yes, he was] He was saying that we need to educate teenagers about ways to save energy. [That’s not what he said.] He also recognized the need to educate the broader public about how important clean energy industries are to our competitive position in the global economy. [Propaganda is not the same as education.] He believes public officials do have an obligation to make their case to the American people on major legislation, and that’s what he’s doing.”
via Steven Chu: Americans Are Like ‘Teenage Kids’ When It Comes to Energy – Environmental Capital – WSJ.
The Times repeated a statement by ACORN’s “chief organizer” to the effect that guerrilla journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles “spent months visiting numerous Acorn offices, including those in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, before getting the responses they were looking for.” What the Times failed to tell its readers was that ACORN’s list of cities where O’Keefe and Giles failed to catch ACORN in criminality was actually longer: it included New York, the scene of video number three. So the Times silently dropped New York from the list, lest its readers catch on to the fact that ACORN’s statement was a lie.
What we knew, but maybe the Times didn’t, was that O’Keefe and Giles were by no means finished.
San Diego, another city where ACORN claimed that the guerrilla journalists failed to “get the responses they were looking for.” ACORN deleted its statement from its web site, presumably having realized that its claims were about to be proved false. It will be interesting to see whether the Times thinks it owes the same obligation to its readers.
The measure preventing Acorn from qualifying for federal grant money was introduced by Sen. Mike Johanns R., Neb. as an amendment to a spending bill funding the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation in fiscal 2010. The House-passed version of the spending bill doesn’t include such language.
It is the third time this year that Republicans have attempted to block Acorn’s eligibility for federal funds.
[U.S. Representative Michele] Bachmann has also requested Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chairman Barney Frank conduct a congressional investigation into ACORN, its use of tax dollars, and whether it should repay tax dollars already received.
In order to immediately stop taxpayer dollars from funding ACORN, Bachmann is requesting the IRS revoke ACORN’s tax exempt status; the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) halt any current funding; and the HUD Suspension and Debarment Committee suspend any future access to funding until ACORN cleans up its operation.
via Big Government.
If it were up to me, Ms. Bachmann would be on the short list for 2012.
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