By William L. Garvin
Christmas has survived for another year. This is probably because the sardonic Jon Stewart pompously declared that there was no “war on Christmas” and mugged and mocked those who are concerned. Unfortunately, many of his sycophants hear his words as “gospel.”
One advantage that entertainers have is that no one ever fact checks their so-called humor. Laugh tracks are also helpful. Another advantage is that they can spout their comedic riffs and never consider any contrarian points of view. For instance, numerous societal observers have commented on the increasing commercialization that threatens to eclipse the religious values of Christmas. It was impossible to miss the ruthlessness and lack of courtesy or concern in many of the “Black Friday” mobs. That was bad enough but then came the release of the “Air Jordan Retro XI Concord” shoes. Those of us who grew up in an era of Keds and PF Flyers don’t understand paying $200 for a pair of tennis shoes but crowds of thousands now vie to do just that. What’s more, they will violently defend their rights to ostentatiously consume.
In Seattle, Washington, police had to use pepper spray (oh, the horror!) to break up fights in the crowd. In Austin, Texas, two officers were overrun and injured when the crowd bolted through the doors. In Atlanta, Georgia, the crowd broke down the mall door to get inside early. Not to be outdone, an Indianapolis mob ripped doors off their hinges. Police reports in Louisville said there were 75-100 people fighting. In Richmond, California, the mall closed down after some idiot fired a shot in the crowd. Lots of folly; not much jolly.
After commercial warfare, there’s spiritual warfare. Despite their relatively miniscule numbers, atheists managed to secure seven of the ten public displays at the Loudon County Courthouse in Virginia. They used one of their displays to depict a Santa Claus crucified on a cross. Their “soul” mates, the Wisconsin Freedom From Religion Foundation felt so strongly that a nativity scene in Athens, Texas, “sends a message of intimidation and exclusion”, they demanded the scene be torn down or they would sue. Unlike other municipalities who buckled under the costs of potential lawsuits, the Henderson County Courthouse display remained intact with overwhelming community support.
Santa Monica, California, has a sixty year tradition of displaying nativity scenes in twenty-one city park spaces. This year, only three spaces went to Christians in the lottery. The rest went to atheists who appropriately left many of their spaces…blank. Then there’s the Massachusetts Superintendent of Schools who banned Santa Claus and cited the “Constitutional separation of church and state.” That is absurd beyond belief. First of all, the “separation of church and state” is not found in the Constitution. Our Constitution guarantees “freedom of religion” not “freedom from religion” as the atheists seem to want. Secondly, it’s unclear as to exactly which church Santa attends or where he is mentioned in any of the holy writings. Unfortunately, this superintendent is a profound example of one who has confused his education with his diploma.
It should also be noted that there is no ornament recognizing Jesus Christ on the national Capital Christmas Tree. Coincidence? Certainly the decision by the House Franking Commission that any correspondence between representatives and their constituents could not bear the greeting of “Merry Christmas” was not accidental. It did permit the apparently non-offensive use of “Happy Holidays.” Let’s pray that no one tells them that “holiday” actually means “holy day.” If you want to push this separation motif further, why do government employees get Christmas Day off? Let’s see the atheists take on the unions over that one!
On a deadly serious note, for the second year in a row, there have been a series of coordinated terrorist attacks on Christian churches in Nigeria on Christmas Day. This year, at least 39 people have been killed and many more wounded by the Boko Haram sect that desires to install Sharia law over all Nigeria. Maybe the hilarious Mr. Stewart should explain to the dead and dying on the steps of St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla just exactly how he reached his conclusions.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Naughty and Nice
By William L. Garvin
Santa's workload got a lot lighter this week with all the additional names that popped up on his Naughty List. First there was Eric Holder, our nation's premier law enforcement officer, saying that the difference between a lie and misleading Congress was the state of mind of the liar, er, uh, misleader. Of course, this didn't really lighten Santa's bag because Attorney Holder is permanently on the Naughty side because of his incompetence and intransigence in the Fast and Furious fiasco.
Also ensuring permanent enshrinement on the Naughty side of the list is the esteemed ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With her perpetually straight face she blithely intoned that extending the unemployment benefits would "make a difference of 600,000 jobs to our economy." Looks like Pinocchio will soon be second best when it comes to prominent proboscis projection. Apparently her muse continues to be the unnamed macroeconomists who have driven this economy into unparalleled debt with their astronomical spending.
Also on the Naughty List are all the pundits who hailed the drop in unemployment from 9.1% to 8.6% as proof that the Obama Economic Doctrine is working. Buried in the fine print (or completely ignored) is the fact that the only reason the rate dropped is because 315,000 workers simply gave up and stopped looking for work and are no longer counted. By this simplistic liberal logic, if everyone stopped looking for work, unemployment would be zero and happy days would be here again! Few of the unemployed and the underemployed who heard the President chortle that the shovel-ready projects "weren't really as shovel-ready as we thought" saw any humor or reason for levity. The President added salt to the wound by promising to veto the Keystone Pipeline job opportunities that would be created by the 1,700 mile project. Since there are already more than 2.5 million miles of pipeline in existence in the U.S., his environmental concerns appear to be primarily a strategy for keeping the green group money flowing into his campaign coffers.
Then there's the matter of the Federal Income Contributions Act (FICA) or Social Security "contribution" or newly coined "payroll tax." Whenever Republicans are in charge, Dems weep, wail, and moan about the impending demise and impending fiscal insolvency of the Social Security trust fund. All the while, they demagogued the issue and sabotaged any efforts at reform. This has resulted in a current unfunded liability of nearly $7.9 trillion dollars. So this year's 2% reduction in the payroll/social security tax meant $105 billion less into the fund; next year it will be $119 billion less. Our congressional leaders have proposed "paying" for this reduction by imposing a new "fee" (not a tax!) on mortgages. That should really help the housing industry where sales are at their lowest point in ten years despite the fact that home values dropped another 5.8% this last year! Would someone please send these economic ignoramuses back to school?
Also in need of remedial education is the Congressional Black Caucus and its "Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act." Their plan will "create 5 million jobs." Undoubtedly they are using the same macroeconomists employed by Nancy Pelosi and their "out of thin air" numbers. They might as well have said they would provide jobs for all 13.9 million unemployed and the other 6.2 million who have flat given up. How will they do it? You already know, don't you? They will impose another $800 billion in taxes on millionaires and $350 billion in taxes on investors. Here we go again, another trillion dollar redistribution of wealth shenanigan that will fail in every way except for increasing dependency on Big Government. Please give them a lump of coal and an Economics 101 Basic Primer on finance in their stockings.
On the "Nice List" are the names of nearly 1.5 million men and women who have served admirably in Iraq over the last nine years. Welcome home and THANK YOU! Also on this list are the countless men and women who are still in harm's way. We look forward to wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays in person as soon as possible. Stay safe!
Santa's workload got a lot lighter this week with all the additional names that popped up on his Naughty List. First there was Eric Holder, our nation's premier law enforcement officer, saying that the difference between a lie and misleading Congress was the state of mind of the liar, er, uh, misleader. Of course, this didn't really lighten Santa's bag because Attorney Holder is permanently on the Naughty side because of his incompetence and intransigence in the Fast and Furious fiasco.
Also ensuring permanent enshrinement on the Naughty side of the list is the esteemed ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With her perpetually straight face she blithely intoned that extending the unemployment benefits would "make a difference of 600,000 jobs to our economy." Looks like Pinocchio will soon be second best when it comes to prominent proboscis projection. Apparently her muse continues to be the unnamed macroeconomists who have driven this economy into unparalleled debt with their astronomical spending.
Also on the Naughty List are all the pundits who hailed the drop in unemployment from 9.1% to 8.6% as proof that the Obama Economic Doctrine is working. Buried in the fine print (or completely ignored) is the fact that the only reason the rate dropped is because 315,000 workers simply gave up and stopped looking for work and are no longer counted. By this simplistic liberal logic, if everyone stopped looking for work, unemployment would be zero and happy days would be here again! Few of the unemployed and the underemployed who heard the President chortle that the shovel-ready projects "weren't really as shovel-ready as we thought" saw any humor or reason for levity. The President added salt to the wound by promising to veto the Keystone Pipeline job opportunities that would be created by the 1,700 mile project. Since there are already more than 2.5 million miles of pipeline in existence in the U.S., his environmental concerns appear to be primarily a strategy for keeping the green group money flowing into his campaign coffers.
Then there's the matter of the Federal Income Contributions Act (FICA) or Social Security "contribution" or newly coined "payroll tax." Whenever Republicans are in charge, Dems weep, wail, and moan about the impending demise and impending fiscal insolvency of the Social Security trust fund. All the while, they demagogued the issue and sabotaged any efforts at reform. This has resulted in a current unfunded liability of nearly $7.9 trillion dollars. So this year's 2% reduction in the payroll/social security tax meant $105 billion less into the fund; next year it will be $119 billion less. Our congressional leaders have proposed "paying" for this reduction by imposing a new "fee" (not a tax!) on mortgages. That should really help the housing industry where sales are at their lowest point in ten years despite the fact that home values dropped another 5.8% this last year! Would someone please send these economic ignoramuses back to school?
Also in need of remedial education is the Congressional Black Caucus and its "Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act." Their plan will "create 5 million jobs." Undoubtedly they are using the same macroeconomists employed by Nancy Pelosi and their "out of thin air" numbers. They might as well have said they would provide jobs for all 13.9 million unemployed and the other 6.2 million who have flat given up. How will they do it? You already know, don't you? They will impose another $800 billion in taxes on millionaires and $350 billion in taxes on investors. Here we go again, another trillion dollar redistribution of wealth shenanigan that will fail in every way except for increasing dependency on Big Government. Please give them a lump of coal and an Economics 101 Basic Primer on finance in their stockings.
On the "Nice List" are the names of nearly 1.5 million men and women who have served admirably in Iraq over the last nine years. Welcome home and THANK YOU! Also on this list are the countless men and women who are still in harm's way. We look forward to wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays in person as soon as possible. Stay safe!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Throw Them All Out!
By William L. Garvin
According to the Federal Reserve’s Quarterly Report, the average U.S. household’s net worth declined by $21,261 over this summer alone. Interestingly enough, the net worth of Congress had increased 25% from 2008-2010. Why is it that our political leaders always leave office with so much more wealth than they possessed when they arrived? Maybe the reason is that they possess incredible investment acumen.
A recent study of 6,000 congressional stock trades revealed some interesting results. While corporate insiders beat the market by 5% and hedge fund managers managed 7-8%, members of Congress had a 12% return. During this period, the rest of the U.S. showed an overall decline of 1.4%. When confronted by Sixty Minutes about a particularly sweet deal on a VISA card Initial Public Offering (and a potential conflict of interest!), Princess Pelosi pompously proclaimed “It’s not true and that’s that.” This privileged member of the 1% saw no conflict with trading in credit cards while shepherding credit card legislation through the hallowed halls of Congress.
That’s why the Occupy protest misses the mark in several ways. First, it is the lawmakers who profit on inside information that should be their target. Wall Street is hardly the be-all, end-all of crony capitalism. It is the lawmakers who listen to the lobbyists and accept their campaign contributions. It is the lawmakers who are setting the rules that allow the banks to game the system. It is the lawmakers who pressured the banks to give home loans to people who had no way of paying them back. It is the lawmakers who give the approval for the bankers to walk through that revolving door between Wall Street and key administration positions. Throw them all out, as Peter Schweizer recommends in his new book of the same name.
Schweizer notes that Ms. Pelosi and her husband received 5,000 shares of the highly coveted VISA IPO at $44 which increased 50% in one day and nearly doubled in two weeks. She also received stock in at least eight other IPO’s. Schweizer also notes that there was a high degree of correlation between the investment portfolios of members of Congress and how they vote. He points to one study that reveals a significant correlation between how lawmakers voted with respect to the TARP bailout in 2008 and their own investment portfolios. “What they found was the number one determining factor in whether you voted for or against, was not whether you were conservative or liberal, not whether you were Republican or Democrat, but whether you owned stocks in the bank sector.” Again, according to Schweizer, “if you did, you voted in favor of the bailout. If you didn’t, you tended to vote against.”
The current brouhaha over congressional investment acumen pales in comparison to the investment prowess of Hillary Clinton. In 1978, she invested $1,000 in cattle futures and parlayed it into a 630% profit in a single week. She managed to work it up to $100,000 in less than a year by almost always magically selling at the highs and buying at the lows each day. A university study found that the odds of being able to do this are 1 in 31 trillion! As to why she isn’t Secretary of the Treasury, no one knows. At least let her invest the Social Security Trust Fund!
These types of transactions would put a private citizen behind bars but as usual, Congress gets to play by a different set of rules. Today, thanks to the furor raised by Schweizer’s book and the Sixty Minutes segment, there are currently three versions of the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) bills under consideration, (HR 1148, S. 1871, and S. 1903). While each bill is a step in the right direction, none will stop the crony capitalism and corruption in the Congressional ruling class. Until they are prohibited from trading in areas where they have influence or knowledge, until their portfolios are required to be in blind trusts for the duration of their terms, expect the system to be gamed by those who set the rules. We deserve better.
According to the Federal Reserve’s Quarterly Report, the average U.S. household’s net worth declined by $21,261 over this summer alone. Interestingly enough, the net worth of Congress had increased 25% from 2008-2010. Why is it that our political leaders always leave office with so much more wealth than they possessed when they arrived? Maybe the reason is that they possess incredible investment acumen.
A recent study of 6,000 congressional stock trades revealed some interesting results. While corporate insiders beat the market by 5% and hedge fund managers managed 7-8%, members of Congress had a 12% return. During this period, the rest of the U.S. showed an overall decline of 1.4%. When confronted by Sixty Minutes about a particularly sweet deal on a VISA card Initial Public Offering (and a potential conflict of interest!), Princess Pelosi pompously proclaimed “It’s not true and that’s that.” This privileged member of the 1% saw no conflict with trading in credit cards while shepherding credit card legislation through the hallowed halls of Congress.
That’s why the Occupy protest misses the mark in several ways. First, it is the lawmakers who profit on inside information that should be their target. Wall Street is hardly the be-all, end-all of crony capitalism. It is the lawmakers who listen to the lobbyists and accept their campaign contributions. It is the lawmakers who are setting the rules that allow the banks to game the system. It is the lawmakers who pressured the banks to give home loans to people who had no way of paying them back. It is the lawmakers who give the approval for the bankers to walk through that revolving door between Wall Street and key administration positions. Throw them all out, as Peter Schweizer recommends in his new book of the same name.
Schweizer notes that Ms. Pelosi and her husband received 5,000 shares of the highly coveted VISA IPO at $44 which increased 50% in one day and nearly doubled in two weeks. She also received stock in at least eight other IPO’s. Schweizer also notes that there was a high degree of correlation between the investment portfolios of members of Congress and how they vote. He points to one study that reveals a significant correlation between how lawmakers voted with respect to the TARP bailout in 2008 and their own investment portfolios. “What they found was the number one determining factor in whether you voted for or against, was not whether you were conservative or liberal, not whether you were Republican or Democrat, but whether you owned stocks in the bank sector.” Again, according to Schweizer, “if you did, you voted in favor of the bailout. If you didn’t, you tended to vote against.”
The current brouhaha over congressional investment acumen pales in comparison to the investment prowess of Hillary Clinton. In 1978, she invested $1,000 in cattle futures and parlayed it into a 630% profit in a single week. She managed to work it up to $100,000 in less than a year by almost always magically selling at the highs and buying at the lows each day. A university study found that the odds of being able to do this are 1 in 31 trillion! As to why she isn’t Secretary of the Treasury, no one knows. At least let her invest the Social Security Trust Fund!
These types of transactions would put a private citizen behind bars but as usual, Congress gets to play by a different set of rules. Today, thanks to the furor raised by Schweizer’s book and the Sixty Minutes segment, there are currently three versions of the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) bills under consideration, (HR 1148, S. 1871, and S. 1903). While each bill is a step in the right direction, none will stop the crony capitalism and corruption in the Congressional ruling class. Until they are prohibited from trading in areas where they have influence or knowledge, until their portfolios are required to be in blind trusts for the duration of their terms, expect the system to be gamed by those who set the rules. We deserve better.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Democrats “Discover” Death Panels
By William L. Garvin
In the middle of the night, without any substantive discussion, Democrats in the House of Representatives unilaterally passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, generally known as ObamaCare. In a total absence of logical thought, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi proclaimed that “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” No one in Congress had even read the two-thousand page Frankenstein monstrosity that Nancy, Harry and friends cobbled together behind closed doors.
Two of the early ObamaCare critics were Thomas Sowell and Sarah Palin. They had presciently written in August of 2009: “The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” Liberal outrage immediately went into existential overdrive to mock Palin and her concerns.
Typical and predictable attack dogs began their snarling propaganda on sites such as the Huffington Post, Think Progress, Daily Kos, and the AFL-CIO. “Sarah Palin Amps Up the Falsehood by Introducing the Death Panel Myth,” blared one headline. These internecine internet attacks were robotically reported by mainstream media such as the LA Times, ABC News, and small minded columnists in papers both large and small. Daily Kos’s projectile vomiting included the following: But no matter what happens to the legislation, you can expect the “death panel” lie to join all the other sound bite propaganda that now makes up the Republican manifesto.”The improperly named Politifact labeled her charge “Pants on Fire” and awarded it the “Lie of the Year.” Speaker Pelosi almost stripped her vocal gears rushing to the microphone to repeat the blatant slur.
Undaunted, Governor Palin penned another op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal a year ago: “Worst of all, the commission's proposals institutionalize the current administration's new big spending commitments, including ObamaCare. Not only does it leave ObamaCare intact, but its proposals would lead to a public option being introduced by the backdoor, with the chairmen's report suggesting a second look at a government-run health-care program if costs continue to soar.
It also implicitly endorses the use of "death panel"-like rationing by way of the new Independent Payments Advisory Board—making bureaucrats, not medical professionals, the ultimate arbiters of what types of treatment will (and especially will not) be reimbursed under Medicare.” Again, the Governor was mocked and ridiculed by liberals in lockstep.
In typical Alinsky, Chicago political pugilism, propagandists tried to equate “death panels” to “end of life counseling” and continue this transparent ruse even today. This childish straw subterfuge was never the cause for alarm. It was always the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This 15-member Board is appointed by the President and is not subject to Congressional approval. Its stated goal is to reduce per capita Medicare spending and will recommend levels at which Medicare recipients can be reimbursed for health care expenses. Thus, the Board would cap the total amount of money senior recipients could receive for care. You never have to pull the plug on granny (Obama’s words) if you never allow granny to be plugged in to begin with!
This week, Representative Barney Frank, that saint-like epitome of civil discourse (soon to be beatified by Democrat sycophants everywhere) was the latest Dem to sign on and cosponsor legislation to repeal the IPAB. HR 452 already has 214 cosponsors including a dozen Democrats. Today, the “false and pernicious” charges leveled against Governor Palin are the actual adornments of those who mocked too much! Although Democrats are finally starting to discover the truth, don’t ever expect any apologies to Palin or Sowell from the rad-libs!
In the middle of the night, without any substantive discussion, Democrats in the House of Representatives unilaterally passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, generally known as ObamaCare. In a total absence of logical thought, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi proclaimed that “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” No one in Congress had even read the two-thousand page Frankenstein monstrosity that Nancy, Harry and friends cobbled together behind closed doors.
Two of the early ObamaCare critics were Thomas Sowell and Sarah Palin. They had presciently written in August of 2009: “The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” Liberal outrage immediately went into existential overdrive to mock Palin and her concerns.
Typical and predictable attack dogs began their snarling propaganda on sites such as the Huffington Post, Think Progress, Daily Kos, and the AFL-CIO. “Sarah Palin Amps Up the Falsehood by Introducing the Death Panel Myth,” blared one headline. These internecine internet attacks were robotically reported by mainstream media such as the LA Times, ABC News, and small minded columnists in papers both large and small. Daily Kos’s projectile vomiting included the following: But no matter what happens to the legislation, you can expect the “death panel” lie to join all the other sound bite propaganda that now makes up the Republican manifesto.”The improperly named Politifact labeled her charge “Pants on Fire” and awarded it the “Lie of the Year.” Speaker Pelosi almost stripped her vocal gears rushing to the microphone to repeat the blatant slur.
Undaunted, Governor Palin penned another op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal a year ago: “Worst of all, the commission's proposals institutionalize the current administration's new big spending commitments, including ObamaCare. Not only does it leave ObamaCare intact, but its proposals would lead to a public option being introduced by the backdoor, with the chairmen's report suggesting a second look at a government-run health-care program if costs continue to soar.
It also implicitly endorses the use of "death panel"-like rationing by way of the new Independent Payments Advisory Board—making bureaucrats, not medical professionals, the ultimate arbiters of what types of treatment will (and especially will not) be reimbursed under Medicare.” Again, the Governor was mocked and ridiculed by liberals in lockstep.
In typical Alinsky, Chicago political pugilism, propagandists tried to equate “death panels” to “end of life counseling” and continue this transparent ruse even today. This childish straw subterfuge was never the cause for alarm. It was always the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This 15-member Board is appointed by the President and is not subject to Congressional approval. Its stated goal is to reduce per capita Medicare spending and will recommend levels at which Medicare recipients can be reimbursed for health care expenses. Thus, the Board would cap the total amount of money senior recipients could receive for care. You never have to pull the plug on granny (Obama’s words) if you never allow granny to be plugged in to begin with!
This week, Representative Barney Frank, that saint-like epitome of civil discourse (soon to be beatified by Democrat sycophants everywhere) was the latest Dem to sign on and cosponsor legislation to repeal the IPAB. HR 452 already has 214 cosponsors including a dozen Democrats. Today, the “false and pernicious” charges leveled against Governor Palin are the actual adornments of those who mocked too much! Although Democrats are finally starting to discover the truth, don’t ever expect any apologies to Palin or Sowell from the rad-libs!
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