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What Does an Obama Presidency Really Mean?

Ok, enough with the post-election gushing. I personally know a lot of Obama supporters who had lost plenty of sleep over this election and now say that they are relieved as though McCain would have taken away their children.  And now they flaunt “their” victory as though they had placed a huge bet on it. Alas, this is not a football pool. If only they had done a little more thinking about Obama’s platform and a little less blind following in a cult-like trance, they might have seen this.

Barack Obama will enable all Americans to serve:
Obama and Biden will expand AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, engage retiring Americans, and set up an America’s Voice Initiative to send Americans who are fluent speakers of local languages to expand our public diplomacy.

Integrate service into learning:
Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year, and will establish a new tax credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.

So, what we have to look forward to is a fascist-style service to the State (to serve its own ends, not yours) as a condition of citizenship. Please realize that the State does not offer a choice of whether to volunteer or not. Rest assured, Obama will use every ounce of compulsion that George W Bush was able to steal away in his eight years and then some. And for those of us who choose to serve ourselves and our families first, other citizens who exhibit a predisposition toward firearm use will be close by to suggest a more collectivist mindset. But what difference would this really make, anyway? Liberty is for losers … like Ron Paul, right?

On the Topic of Class Warfare

In case you know someone who is a class warfare advocate or believes that somehow the rich are immune from market forces and simply get richer through osmosis, send them this (from Forbes):

The biggest loser [of the Forbes 400 list] this year was casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, whose fortune has fallen $13 billion in the past 12 months–$1.5 million per hour–as shares of his Las Vegas Sands (nyse: LVS – news – people ) have dropped 75% from their all-time highs last October.

Normally, to “lose” that much money that quickly, one would have to work for Halliburton.

Things Are Looking Up

I just bought a new iPhone today and like a lot of other owners, one of the first things I did was check out the applications that are available for it. I opened iTunes and checked the list of top 10 freebies and noticed that Constitution for iPhone was on it. I think that the Revolution is starting to stick in the minds of a lot of people.

Add Big Government to the List of the World’s Greatest Inventors

News travels fast since Al Gore invented the Internet so I’m not shocked to hear jokes already sprouting from the inference that John McCain helped invent the Blackberry.

“He didn’t have jurisdiction over financial markets, first and foremost,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin said, before wandering into more politically perilous ground.

“But he did this,” he said, holding up what looked like a BlackBerry. “The telecommunications of the United States, the premier innovation of the past 15 years, comes right through the commerce committee. So you’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create. And that’s what he did.”

Better living through Big Government. Maybe a Ron Paul presidency would have killed innovation altogether, huh?

The New Criteria

Just Googled:

Number of hits for “sarah palin” + style: 19,500,000

Number of hits for “sarah palin” + constitution: 229,000

Yeah, So?

Just got this in an email from my state rep, Steve Barrar. He seems concerned about the shortfall in his personal piggy bank otherwise known as state revenue. He also would like us to believe that we can only prosper through government programs designed and implemented by some superior race in Harrisburg. We should be as concerned with a shrinking of the Commonwealth as we were with Clinton’s shutting down of congress.

State Revenues Fall Short of Estimate, Generating Economic Concerns

The state Department of Revenue recently reported that General Fund revenues have fallen short of meeting monthly projections, as August collections were $117.5 million below estimates.

Collectively, this puts the state $117.6 million below estimate for the current fiscal year following July’s $80,000 shortfall. 

August marks the fourth time in the last six months the Commonwealth has missed its estimate by more than $100 million, and it highlights exactly why Republican lawmakers fought hard during budget negotiations earlier this year to control government spending and preserve the state’s Rainy Day Fund.

Although successful, it appears these efforts may not be enough, as Gov. Ed Rendell continues to press for expensive and poorly planned programs such as his health care proposal.

House Republicans have instead been advocating a fiscally responsible plan to ensure access to quality, affordable health care. 

Aww, poor guys. Did they ever hear of “making due with less?” They must have because they tell us to do it all the time so that they may continue to spend.

Yo, Easy On the “C” word, Will Ya?

I’ve been trying now to get an Obama supporter, including those who call me on the phone, to tell me what “change(s)” in particular Obama supports. Once you get past his super-stardom and actually listen to what he is saying, it seems, not surprisingly, that he advocates more of the same. His anointment of Joe Biden as his running mate drives home that point as noted in Salon.

This single paragraph says it more succinctly than any other I have read.

Ever since it became clear that Obama would be the likely nominee, the political establishment has been demanding of him more and more proof that his “change” rhetoric is just that — rhetoric, and not anything meant as a genuine threat to the prevailing order of things. Obama, arguably out of political necessity, has repeatedly obliged, eagerly trying to offer proof that he is no threat to them, and the Biden selection is but the latest step in that campaign of reassurance. In sum, Biden is a reliable supporter of virtually every prevailing bit of conventional wisdom within the American elite political consensus, which is why his selection has been widely praised by the establishment, whose principal concern is that their fiefdom not be disrupted and that their consensus not be challenged.

A Riddle

Q: How are the fed chairman and a hack plastic surgeon similar?

A: Their “injections” can cause gross distortions.

Free Market: A Force For Evil

Or so Tom Tomorrow would have us think.

Shame. I used to enjoy reading This Modern World. But, sadly, Tom has succumbed to the same misunderstanding that a lot of Americans do regarding the free market. The conditions which precipitated the housing calamity were not the doing of the free market. It was all due to the Fed. Indeed, the free market could not have allowed banksters to loan indefinitely or even to a point of overextending credit to an unworthy debtor. But this “fear of the unknown” will rule the voters for the forseeable future and they’ll simply ask for it all over again. As Mencken said (paraphrase), the American people know what they want and deserve to get it…good and hard.

When Good Money Goes Bad

Just flipping through today’s local newspaper and noticed a disturbing trend of how gobs of unearned cash gravitating toward unaccountable entities attracts the criminals.

Questions surround grant in Clifton Heights

CLIFTON HEIGHTS – Residents and some council members questioned the transfer of $825,000 in grant money to the Clifton Heights Economic Corp., a nonprofit entity that council has no control over, at a recent council meeting.

“I don’t know how we authorized this corporation when we never got papers on this corporation,” said Councilman Mario Alpini. A listing for the corporation at nonprofit compendium Guidestar.org could not be found.

Police: Mother stole $74,000 from Avon Grove Little League

LONDON GROVE – State police arrested a Little League mom after she allegedly stole more than $70,000 raised through hot dog and candy sales, raffles and donations.

Fresh Start program raises questions in Yeadon

YEADON – Councilman Isaac Dotson received answers to questions he raised at the July 17 council meeting concerning Fresh Start Summer Camp, a popular new program serving 43 local teens under the direction of founder Leslie Lewis-McGirth.

Dotson specifically asked, “How many checks did the finance department issue on behalf of Fresh Start and how much money was spent to date?” And “who authorized Fresh Start employees to be placed on borough payroll?” Dotson also inquired about registration fees, employees, salaries and whether they’d received background checks. He also wanted to know if Lewis-McGirth used the borough’s tax-exempt number for grant applications, and “why the borough has not seen any funds, … cash or check?”

This is all from one weekend in one county. And last but certainly not least, the dead tree version of the same paper today reported on the executive director of National Night Out (a non-profit crime watch organization) is under fire for claiming  $300,000 in compensation from his $1.2 million budget most of which, as in the stories above, flows from us to him at the point of a gun. By the way, I’m also keeping an eye on the $500,000 check my own local youth club collected from the Commonwealth of PA to build a fieldhouse. The previously-privately-funded organization is quickly becoming a highly-protected fiefdom.

PA State Police Do Study; Think Tasers Would Be Fun

The PA State Police did an unscientific study and judged themselves to be worthy of tasers to keep the citizenry in line.

State police commissioner Jeffrey Miller (in file photo above) says his department studied the use of Tasers for two years before beginning a pilot program in 2006, which saw 18 troopers issued the non-lethal weapon.

Miller says that during the first six months of this year troopers have used their Tasers 144 times. He says there is no doubt that in some of those situations troopers would have had to use their batons or firearms to protect themselves or others.

So what would have been appropriate in the other 98% of those situations? Nothing? A stern voice? Turning the other cheek? How many involved traffic offenders simply being unfortunate enough to be pulled over by a cop with a chip on his shoulder? How many needed to be “taught a lesson” on how to respect authority?

Pope Benedict Shill for Enviro-Communists

From the AP:

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — The world’s natural resources are being squandered in the pursuit of “insatiable consumption,” Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday in a speech urging followers to care more for the environment and reconnect with the principle of peace.

Benedict, speaking to more than 200,000 pilgrims gathered for the Roman Catholic church’s youth festival, expanded on a theme that has led him to be dubbed “the green pope.” The crowd, massed on a disused wharf in Australia’s largest city, regularly erupted in cheers that gave the event the feel of a sporting event.

Gee, Mr Pope, never realized you were so plugged in to the science thing. You must have done a lot of research on this stuff.

Types of “poison” are afflicting the world’s social environment, he said, such as substance abuse, along with the exaltation of violence and sexual degradation, for which he blamed television and the Internet.

Or could it be that you’re just “green” enough to use it as a vehicle to push your own agenda…just like everyone else?

Hot Chick Slams Turnpike Commission

I don’t watch much teevee these days but I set aside a small bit to watch Pike TV.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is perhaps the most notorius playground of nepotism, patronage and outright theft (except for maybe the PALCB) in the Commonwealth. And now it’s finally being exposed for the fraud that it is.

PA Legislator Vitali Puts Guts On Back Burner, Supports Economic Fascism

I don’t often stick up for a politician but I had all the respect in the world for PA House member Greg Vitali when he exposed and fought in court the heinous Act 44 of 2005 which lavished pay raises on legislators and judges in the middle of the night.

But poor Greg, once a beacon of truth and justice in the eyes of taxpayers here in PA has finally caught his stride and has put political expediency before virtue.

Vitali, who sits on the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, has taken the mantle on environmental issues in the state House and has easily been the biggest proponent for legislation on climate change.

“Climate change is the most serious environmental problem facing the planet,” he said. “Right now, the state … is in the process of enacting measures which will result in greenhouse-gas reduction, but we’re not doing it in sort of a systematic fashion. We haven’t set goals and we’re not working toward pre-set goals in a planned-out fashion, and I think that’s what we’re trying to accomplish here, and that’s really what the bill is doing … This piece of legislation really provides a planning mechanism.”

The bill – the first of its kind to pass on the state level – will allow businesses and industries to track their emissions voluntarily through a registry, require an annual inventory of the sources and amounts of global-warming pollution from business, agriculture and residences, and create a 21-member stakeholder group to draft a report from that inventory for use by the Department of Environmental Protection and Legislature to develop a state plan on greenhouse-gas reduction.

Besides being a little late to the game (the religion of global warming is starting to implode), this is so wrong on so many levels. The most apparent stems from the overuse of the word “plan” reminiscent of the failed Soviet Union. The next is the word “voluntarily” as in “we voluntarily submit tax returns each year.” We all know what happen with voluntary programs. The scariest is the talk of the “21-member stakeholder group.” Something tells me I will never be invited to be part of this group. But like every other government-business partnership, the end result will be New Deal-type protectionism.

Please Tell Me The World’s "Leaders" Are Not Really This Stupid

On the upcoming G8 summit in Japan:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 leaders would agree on steps to fight the soaring price of food and to guarantee supplies.

The steps will provide short-term relief to the crisis and a long-term strategy to increase world agricultural production.

Rising food prices have pushed 100 million people below the poverty line, the World Bank estimates, and have sparked street riots around the world.

I know it’s too early to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day but, “Arrr, shiver me timbers!” No one is even talking about how price supports for dumb initiatives such as biofuels are causing market distortions, raising food costs and dropping the world’s poorest people into starvation. I will go out on a limb here, though, and predict that the only “solution” they can up with is a more uniform scheme of economic fascism instead of simply disbanding the G8 which does nothing other than to guarantee that the world’s most economically influential countries inflate their money supplies at approximately the same rate.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Inga Saffron of the Inky asks why some buildings are built “green” while others in the city of the equivalent of an “SUV.”

In one corner of Center City, a private developer has just completed the tallest green building in America, the Comcast Center. Three blocks east, the state is beginning work on an equally large building, the Convention Center expansion. Consider it the SUV of meeting halls.

I understand her frustration but this situation should illustrate something to those who would ask government to do good by them. If the PA Convention Center, the very definition of a government make-work project designed from the ground up to benefit no one but politicians and their union allies, is so completely out of touch with ecologic principles, why do people in search of what they term “sustainable development” look to the government to provide it?

Birthplace of Liberty Also Seat of Protectionism

There is a new law taking place that says that Philadelphia tour guides pass a test to ensure that they know history.

An unconstitutional law in the birthplace of the Constitution?

There is indeed, claim three tour guides who have taken issue with City Council’s attempt to ensure that they know their history.

The guides filed a federal lawsuit yesterday that seeks to knock down a new city tour-guide licensing law.

Brought with the backing of some tour operators, the suit argues that the law, which takes effect Oct. 13 and imposes fines of up to $300, violates tour guides’ First Amendment free-speech rights.

Part of me smells a protection racket while another suspects that the new law is to drive home a skewed history where political correctness takes center stage. By the way, on this Independence Day,  the order of the day around here is George Washington bashing.

Across Independence Mall on this Fourth of July, storytellers will entertain Philadelphia visitors with tales of the American colonists’ struggle for independence. Literally beneath their feet, though, an equally stirring story of another people’s quest for freedom waits to be told to a much wider audience.

It’s a disquieting narrative about how the first president quartered nine slaves in the nation’s first White House, a mansion at Sixth and Market Streets in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Yet it’s also a saga of hope, telling how two of George Washington’s slaves escaped. Moreover, the seeds of the 20th-century’s civil rights struggle were planted nearby in a colonial-era settlement created by free African Americans.

The little-told chapter in United States history is being uncovered by archaeologists working near Independence Hall. Their legacy will be a fuller picture of the nation’s Founders. (That era was detailed this week in several Inquirer articles, now posted at go.philly.com/presidentshouse.)

Obama Pro-Slavery

Last time I checked, compulsory work for no pay was slavery.

His solution is to promise repeated calls for American sacrifice as president and, to put teeth behind that, he has proposed a major expansion of government national service programs, first unveiled in Iowa in December, that would cost $3.5 billion a year. His campaign said he would fund this effort with savings from ending the war in Iraq and by canceling a new tax break for multinational corporations.

This is already not sounding too benign. I can only imagine what it will morph into.

Taxpayer-Funded SEPTA Metro Competes Unfairly With For-Profit Newspapers

I remember it like it was yesterday. SEPTA came up with the idea to launch its own little newspaper. The Metro would be a benign little affair to be distributed only at SEPTA rail stations and bus terminals.

Designed to be read by a commuter during the length of his trip on public transportation, Metro is concise, easy-to-read and filled with lots of color. Today’s premier edition consisted of 23 pages of news, weather, jobs, money, sports and entertainment.

But flash forward 8 years and it seems that distribution has morphed and competes directly with every other Philly rag.

If there can ever be a predatory pricing scheme, this would be it. Not that a lot of people, younger ones in particular, would mind seeing dead-tree newspapers go away, but one cannot help think that SEPTA has a distinct and unfair advantage since the entire organization is a ward of the State and funded at gunpoint largely by taxpayers.