With the Obama presidency imploding before our eyes a lot of Republicans have started salivating.  Among them are some of the losers that made Obama’s victory and our death march to socialism inevitable.  I’m thinking of Rudy Giuliani and John McCain in particular.   Rudy, John your ideas are bankrupt. You are killing the GOP.   Lie down and let the Ron Paul Republicans rebuild the party into what it should be – the party of free markets, small government, sound money and non-interventionist foreign policy.  Then principled libertarians and conservatives will join you instead of splitting the vote.   Neo-con wars and smaller increases in spending and taxes is not victory.  Peace and slashing spending and taxes is victory.

The Republicans aren’ t the only ones sporting zombies these days. Eliot Spitzer is also rising from the grave.   Here  is a great post from Roger Stone.   Stone writes:

Prior to the Huffington Post jumping on board, Spitzer’s rehabilitation was largely a product of the Washington Post Corporation: Newsweek, the Washington Post and Slate on-line, all safe places where interviewers can be counted on not to ask Client #9 the tough questions about his illegal activities while he was the highest law enforcement official in the land.

But it gets better.  Listen to this great analysis of how the reckless actions of a power-hungry politician brought misery to exactly the people he was supposed to serve.

The idea of former New York Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer criticizing the AIG bailout is ridiculous; Spitzer is responsible for the economic condition of the company for which they needed a bailout. In fact, Spitzer’s crackdown on Wall Street caused the firms to increase leverage because he took away the ability for them to make money in research and underwriting, and they looked for other ways to make money; like securitizing subprime mortgages.

In fact, if Spitzer hadn’t removed Maurice “Hank” Greenberg from AIG, the company would never have crashed. Greenberg was a much more conservative investor, and had tighter risk management rules that were suspended by the company only after Spitzer drove Greenberg out over charges that proved bogus in the courts.

The billion dollar investment in credit default swaps which were not hedged brought the company and the economy down. This insurance was written only after Greenberg was forced out and never would have been written under Greenberg’s risk management rules. Thus, Eliot Spitzer is partially responsible for the current economic crisis, not some Boy Scout crying an early warning. 

There’s more so you should read the whole thing here at the StoneZone.

So Eliot, John, Rudy  do your parties and the whole world a favor and admit that you are politically dead and just lie down.

In his December 16 interview with Charles Gibson President Obama told the truth about health care costs and the federal budget.  I applaud the President’s leadership in leveling with the American people about the dire financial prognosis.   President Obama finally admitted that Medicare and Medicaid costs are on a trajectory to bankrupt the federal government.

The President has finally recognized what libertarians and other fiscal conservatives have been saying for years – that this huge out of control entitlement will bankrupt us.   It’s about time he came around.

According to the National Center for Policy Analysis:

The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today’s dollars!  That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt.

The NCPA continues:

Politi­cians and the media focus on Social Security’s financial health, but Medicare’s future liabilities are far more ominous, at more than $89 trillion. Medicare’s total unfunded liability is more than five times larger than that of Social Security.   In fact, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2006 (Part D) alone adds some $17 trillion to the projected Medicare shortfall – an amount greater than all of Social Security’s unfunded obligations. 

If you like what decades of Federal Government irresponsibility have brought to you and your kids, you will love the President’s solution?  Another huge out-of control entitlement.  Good thinking Pres….  Let’s just hand over more money and power to the same Federal Government that created the problem in the first place. 

The President says if we don’t pass his program the only alternative is sky-rocketing costs and sure Federal bankruptcy.  I’m disappointed that the President thinks the American people are so stupid that they think there are no other proposals for how to fix health care.   Other alternatives abound – and he knows it.  His carefully crafted language is just intellectually dishonest.  In other words – he’s trying to con you.

His statements also imply that it’s a sure thing that his program will work to control costs.  When has any government program ever be able to control costs?   The American people know better.  According to ABC/Post polls

Fifty-three percent also disapprove of Obama’s work on health care, and the public by 51-44 percent now opposes the reform package in Congress – both more than half for the first time in ABC/Post polls.

Keep it up Pres….. Remember what happened when Hillary Clinton tried this?

Listen to the President’s language on what will happen if we don’t do things his way.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year

“your employers are going to load up costs on you”

So now this is your employer’s fault?

I think the President was on the right track when he recognized that it’s run-away Federal Government programs that are leading us to bankruptcy.  Demonizing employers and begging the question about alternatives may be slick political speechmaking – but it doesn’t contribute to intelligent solutions and it doesn’t save any lives or any jobs.

From the Institute for Justice:

WEB RELEASE: November 24, 2009
Media Contact:
Christina Walsh (703) 682-9320

[Private Property]

Arlington, Va.—The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, today announced that it would uphold the decision of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) to condemn privately owned homes and small businesses to make way for wealthy developer Bruce Ratner’s so-called “Atlantic Yards” development of 16 mammoth skyscrapers centered around a basketball arena.

“Today’s decision puts homes and businesses throughout New York at risk of condemnation,” said Dana Berliner, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice (IJ), which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case. “Courts have a duty to look carefully at the government’s claim that it has the right to take someone’s home or business, and the Court of Appeals has simply refused to do that.”

While upholding the taking, the New York court did not go so far as to embrace the United States Supreme Court’s much-maligned reasoning in the 2005 Kelo v. City of New London case, which held that the U.S. Constitution allows governments to condemn property for economic development alone. Instead, the Court found the takings were for a “public use” because of the ESDC’s determination that the area to be condemned was “blighted”—a determination that was based on a study paid for by the would-be developer and not even initiated until years after the Atlantic Yards project was announced.

In a dissent, Judge Robert Smith excoriated the majority for abandoning its duty to critically examine the ESDC’s assertions. “To let the agency itself determine when the public use requirement is satisfied is to make the agency a judge in its own cause,” Judge Smith wrote. “I think that it is we who should perform the role of judges, and that we should do so by deciding that the proposed taking in this case is not for public use.”

“The developer’s study did not find anything a normal person would call ‘blight,’” explained Berliner. “Instead, it found that the neighborhood was ‘underutilized’—in other words, that the developer could think of bigger things that could be built where these homes and businesses are. If that is all that is necessary for condemnation, then literally every piece of property in New York is at risk.”

The majority’s opinion frankly acknowledges that the court may be opening the door to “political appointees to public corporations relying on studies paid for by developers . . . [as] a predicate for the invasion of property rights and the razing of homes and businesses.” But, it says, preventing such abuses is not the job of the courts, advising New Yorkers to look to their legislature to fix any problems.

“New York is one of only seven states that has failed utterly to pass any kind of eminent-domain reform in the wake of the Kelo decision, and today’s opinion will only make things worse,” said IJ Staff Attorney Robert McNamara. “The state courts are looking to the legislature to fix the problem, while the legislature is apparently looking to the courts. And that means more and more New Yorkers will be looking at condemnation notices.”

“Property rights are as sacred to citizens of New York as they are to Americans nationwide, and New Yorkers have rightly looked to their courts to protect those rights,” concluded IJ President and General Counsel Chip Mellor. “Today’s opinion should be a clarion call to the state legislature that they cannot avoid this issue any longer. Now is the time to give state residents the reform and protections they desperately need.

You have to check out this Freedom Watch November 11 segment (linked below) . Judge Napolitano interviews former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson about H.R. 3962, the recently passed House Health Care bill.  In the midst of a sea of despair over the latest assault on personal sovereignty, constitutional government and fiscal sanity, we have The Judge seriously suggesting State “Nullification”.  It’s positively inspirational.

You need to see it yourself.  Napolitano points our that the Bill authorizes the IRS to enforce new government health insurance mandates.  Mandates that even have Democrats complaining they were written by the health insurance industry.   So what can we do about it?  Perhaps what Thomas Jefferson and James Madison did when that pillar of freedom John Adams and his henchmen enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts – the States could “just say NO”.  In the Kentucky and Virgina Resolutions two of our Founding Fathers suggested that the sovereign State Governments should declare the Acts null and void (Nullification) and even that it was the duty of State law enforcement officials to protect the State’s citizens from the initiation of force by Federal officers attempting to enforce the Acts (Interposition).  Damn, Judge!  That’s MY kind of talk.  Want to run for President?  Move to NYS and run for Governor next year!   Anybody who seriously talks about Nullification is cool in my book.  Out of the question? Too radical?  The Judge points out some interesting examples.  Think of California and Medical Marijuana. Think of Real ID.  It’s not exactly the same but things are different than they were in 1798.  

That’s what I call pokin’ a finger in the eye of  The Oppressor.  I’ll take a dozen.  The Judge is currently in negotiations to take Freedom Watch mainstream.  We need to make THAT happen.   RUN,  don’t walk to your email system and let the powers that be over at Fox know that we want more of The Judge.  Send email to viewerservices@foxnews.com with FREEDOM WATCH WITH THE JUDGE in the subject line.

Watch the video here

Manhattan Libertarian Party Membership Director, Antonio Musumeci, was arrested Monday, and his camera’s memory card confiscated.  Antonio was recording  Julian Heicklen, a fully informed jury activist , as he distributed FIJA information at the federal courthouse in New York City.

This incident takes New York City’s police state to new and bizarre levels.  Antonio has several times engaged police who attempted to search him as he entered the subway.  The subway searches are a complete waste of taxpayer money because everyone knows you can simply walk across the street and enter from the other side.  To think that would stop even the dumbest terrorist boggles the mind.  This is just another example of the Bloomberg adminstration wasting taxpayer money simply to prove they can do whatever they want.

Antonio said..

 ”I find it troubling that in public space on federal property a person can be arrested and ticketed for being or admitting to be the press for filming the arrest of someone else. Having such a broad Executive rule restricting the ability to film on public federal property seems to go against the intent of the protections enshrined in the 1st Amendment.”

Arresting Antonio in the act of exercising First Amendment Rights by recording Heicklen exercising his First Amendments rights by passing out information about exercising Sixth Amendment Rights puts me in mind of a scene from Princess Bride.  What if Antonio’s case goes to trial and Heicklen is passing out FIJA info as Antonio’s jury is being picked and Antonio is recording it and he gets arrested….  The world could conceivably collapse in on itself or something.

BUT IT GETS WORSE…

They confiscated Antonio’s memory card.  Apparently Antonio talked them out of confiscating his whole camera.  But he had a miniature “spy” camera on his shirt.   You know what’s coming right?  He recorded the police preventing him from recording the police preventing him from recording him exercising his First Amendments rights by recording ……

Ahhhhhhhhh………………. Only in America.You can find additional blogs, including Antonio’s own account at http://blogofbile.com/.

Hearings began today on Ron Paul’s  HR1207 which proposes to audit the Federal Reserve.  Dr. Wood’s says it beautifully. I can’t begin to compare so read his testimony here.

First, this is a huge victory for the forces of freedom in New York City.  Dozens of heroic volunteers from the Campaign for Liberty and the Libertarian Party gathered signatures, called Congressmembers and lots of other activities and this was repeated across the country.  HR1207 has 290 co-sponsors as a result.  When I checked last no member of Congress from NYC  was included, in particular Financial Services Committee member Carolyn Maloney.

What’s to oppose about this bill?  It only seeks to require a thorough audit by the GAO so that Americans know where trillions of dollars printed by the Fed have gone.

The objections are nonsense.

For example some suggest it would remove the Fed’s independence and subject monetary policy to politics. Nonsense.  There is nothing in the bill that seeks to control Fed actions. An audit will only expose their actions to sunlight.  

Some opponents say that the bill is just a first toward abolishing the Fed.  They are right.  But that’s no excuse to oppose this step even if they don’t want to end the Fed altogether.  If there is nothing wrong going on won’t that help make the case that we should keep the Fed?  Regardless there is no excuse for keeping Americans and even Congress in the dark about vast expenditures that make things like the war in Iraq look trivial.

This is a bill every American should support.  And we shouldn’t accept a watered down version.  Dr. Wood’s put it perfectly…

If the Federal Reserve Transparency Act passes and the audit takes place, the American people will have achieved a great victory. If the legislation fails, more and more Americans will begin to wonder what the Fed could be so anxious to keep hidden, and the pressure for transparency will simply intensify. A recent poll finds 75 percent of Americans already in favor of auditing the Fed. The writing is on the wall.

The Federal Reserve may as well get used to the idea that the audit is coming. That would be a far more sensible approach than the counterproductive and condescending one it has adopted thus far, in which the peons who populate the country are urged to quit pestering their betters with all these impertinent questions. The Fed should take to heart the words of consolation the American people are given whenever a new government surveillance program is uncovered: if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Grand Street News, a fine community paper serving the lower east side, features yours truly in the latest issue. Sharp-eyed editor Yori Yanover noticed that Politico.com was confusing lovable Libertarians with ill-mannered Republicans, and contacted me for clarification:

The other day, we read in Lloyd Doggett’s report in Politico about the disruptions of health-plan town hall meetings a reference to the disrupters being a “mob, sent by the local Republican and Libertar ian parties” that “came not just to be heard but to deny others the right to be heard.”

We could believe this about Republicans (Who can forget the Dade County Brooks Brothers Riot?). But Libertarians? Would Ayn Rand condone brute thuggery? So we emailed the only Libertarian we know—and vote for—our neighbor from East River Housing Jim Lesczynski: “Is this something your people would do?”

Jim Wrote back: “I can’t speak for what other Libertarians would do while acting as individuals, and I haven’t read the Politico report, but I can tell you that the Manhattan Libertarian Party would never send people to disrupt someone’s meeting or town hall. In my opinion, the Libertarian ethic is to treat other people the way you want to be treated. I would not want someone to disrupt my meeting, and I certainly wouldn’t condone the disruption of someone else’s event.”

Just as we suspected.

Yori also notes my current campaign to abolish the Public Advocate, “the office which he, and 98% of New Yorkers consider a useless waste of public money.”

Grand Street News endorsed me for NYC Public Advocate in 2005.

… and start a business issuing 1099’s.   A forbes.com article ‘Senate Six’ Could Sink Small Business yesterday listed a number of nails in the coffins of small businesses, including:

• fees for not offering health insurance
• 35% tax on health plans worth over $8000 (singles) per year.
• cap flexible spending accounts at $2000 per year
• eliminate income exclusions for employers who maintain drug plans for seniors

There is a lot more lunacy in the Senate bill according to the article.  But here is one absolutely insane item. 

–For small business, there’s a provision that will increase the already sky-high tax compliance costs. It requires businesses that pay more than $600 annually to corporate providers of property and services to file an information report with each provider (1099) and with the IRS. Ask your accountant how much that’s going to cost. No one has done an analysis of the cost to business (it’ll be a whopper) vs. the dollars raised by the Treasury (minimal).

Think about that.  If you are still standing up you have never run a business (and complied with paperwork regulations anyway).  And if you have never run a business (like most of the people voting on this abomination) you are unqualified to interfere with those of us who have.   Based on the (Forbes) language above, businesses would have to issue 1099 information returns for virtually every vendor they do business with.  The record keeping and paperwork implications are staggering.  And the revenue potential is minimal.

And it has nothing at all to do with health care.  It has to do with tightening government’s grip on taxpayers and increasing government power.  That seems to be the theme of the bill.  Why else would you cap health savings accounts?  Why else would you tax employer paid health insurance?  Aren’t those the things we are supposed to be encouraging?

The bill also creates $80 billion in “fees”  based on market share for drug and medical device providers.  Fees? for market share?  Adding cost to drugs and devices?   How does that reduce the cost of health care?  

Where is anything in any of the bills that actually reduces the cost of health care,   things like tax-parity for health insurance purchased by individuals, or interstate competition or expansion of health savings accounts or  deregulation of  health care providers.  The Republicans are at least addressing tort reform which is actually one of the most difficult issues.  There is a ton of easy stuff based on free market  (or free-er market) principles that would actually help small business.  But this government seems intent on destroying small business instead.

CJ Maloney blogs today on Eliot Spitzer in Hubris and the Hooker on Lew Rockwell.

CJ will be our guest at next Monday’s (Sep 14) meeting of the Manhattan Libertarian Party. Details here.

I’m watching the Senate Health Committee debates. Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R)  introduced an amendment that as far as I could tell required members of the Senate to participate in whatever public plan they create for the common man and woman, apparently instead of the lush plan the taxpayer subsidizes for them now.   It always pains me to give credit to Republicans but lets give credit where credit is due.  Senator Coburn – on this one you rock.

Chairman Chris Dodd immediately accepted the amendment however,  New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman (D) objected.  He didn’t see why, since the public plan would be voluntary,  he ( and others among the ruling class) should be forced to participate in something that the proposed law specifically says would be voluntary.  That’s completely rational.

Of course it might be different if the taxpayer wasn’t subsidizing his royal behind.  If he had to deal with the disaster of the US health care “system”  created by his chamber and their lower house brethren that public option might look pretty good.

Or would it? The amendment lost.

So I guess the Senate Health Committee doesn’t have much faith in the quality of the public option.  They won’t give up their privilege but we have to pay for both their privilege and the public option they won’t subject their families to. 

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders proposed an amendment to facilitate the states in experimenting with single payer. He explained how it was revenue neutral since it was really just redirecting existing expenditures, and he limited it to a few states per year. Yeah Bernie – though single payer is fundamentally immoral – the “states as laboratory” is something I’ve preached for decades.  Small problem – it requires waivers on a significant list of Federal program requirements.  It sounded as if (though I haven’t read the bill – pretty sure no one has) they would redirect money from individuals’ medicare etc. apparently without their consent.  There was some discussion about this – no one seemed sure. What the hell – it’s not their health care. See previous paragraphs.   

Hold on – another objection – sure enough – Senator Bingaman. Its seems a lot of people in New Mexico like that medicare money they get from that bottomless piggy bank that is the Federal Government – or from younger generations – I don’t know.  But apparently we can’t have some silly little state making it’s own decisions about it’s affairs. They didn’t really mean it when they adopted the Tenth Amendment.  At least not when it means reducing OUR pork.

Speaking of which – I went to Senator Bingaman’s website to make sure I spelled his name right.  Here is what occupies about 25% of the home page

Bingaman: New Mexico Airports to Benefit from DOT Funds

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today announced that two New Mexico airports will receive funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to make improvements to their facilities and runways. 

• Bingaman: Funding to Help Combat Domestic Violence

• Feds Release Bingaman Secured Funds for Border Law Enforcement Agencies

• Bingaman: New Mexico Pueblos Awarded HUD Funds

• Bingaman: Tribal Communities Awarded Funds to Hire Police Officers and Purchase Equipment

• Bingaman: New Mexico Anti-Drug Organizations Awarded Federal Funds

• Bingaman: Los Lunas to Benefit from Crime Prevention Funds

WOW! Great work Jeff.  You bring home the bacon.  No wonder Arizona, according to the Tax Foundation,  gets $1.30 in Federal Expenditures (Pork) for every dollar paid in.  Hillary and Dick didn’t do so well.  Here in New York, we only get 79 cents back on every dollar we pay in.  Never understood why New Yorker’s like big government. When it come to our fair share of pork our elected officials get rolled – over and over again!

Wait a minute.  What does pork have to do with health care?