Universal health care as a weapon

In America power is supposed to belong to the people as the Founding Fathers intended. The three branches of government check and balance each other. Citizens elect government officials regularly. People are given the freedom to pursue their dreams, whatever those may be.

Our Founding Fathers realized the perils of too much government, and that's starting to show its ugly head with this administration...

The economy is certainly a critical aspect of our well-being and the nation's viability. The government should be involved in minimizing the adverse impact of a recession, but the Obama administration has definitely gone too far by pushing for TARP legislation without proper scrutiny, seizing control of major financial institutions, and taking over major corporations like General Motors. The White House now dictates who banks can lend money to and how much, and who becomes CEO and who sits on the board of directors.

This means American people can't get a loan to buy a house, car, or business without government approval. The other way to think about this: The government can now dictate how big of house you live in, what type of car you drive, and what type of business you operate. It's that simple! Don't be surprised when you receive notice about your house not meeting environmental standards, or your car putting out too much carbon, or your business deemed too controversial for the community.

And consider the fact that the administration is now pushing hard for a universal health care system. Yes, imagine the government in charge of your health. Imagine doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and various hospital staff absorbed as federal employees. If you think going through the airport is bad with TSA's "efficiency," wait until you need to make a trip to the clinic! But okay, you can live with some inconveniences and inefficiencies...

But what worries me greatly is the issue of privacy.

Today our medical history and data is shared by you and the doctor, and anyone you designate. Our medical privacy is protected by law. But what happens when universal health care is implemented? Your health record is shared by you and... the government! Yes, President Obama and his friends will know if you have an urinary infection or AIDS.

If you were a celebrity or politician, that's the information tabloids would pay money for to splash across the cover. That's also the information some politicians could use against their opponents or worse yet, ordinary citizens. All in the hands of the government.

Flat tax proposed for California

We all know California is in deep economic trouble. Its GDP surpasses even some nations, but lately the state is on a downward spiral of economic decline. It's in so much trouble that the Governator Arnold Schwarzeneggar (R), considered by some to be a RINO, is proposing a flat tax.

It's a good idea: simple to report, easy to audit, and guarantees a steady tax revenue for the state.

But opponents say it's unfair as it taxes the wealthy at the same rate as the poor. These opponents probably don't publicize the fact that most poor households don't pay taxes.

No matter. If it's fairness they seek, then Gov. Schwarzeneggar ought to study the FairTax! How great would it be for a state like California to radically adopt a new tax code similar to the FairTax?

Buy our Treasuries, we'll keep quiet about Tiananmen

It's quite upsetting knowing that we as Americans are so indebted to China economically that our Treasury Secretary has to travel to Beijing short of begging the Chinese to buy dollar assets... Although China has become prosperous in recent years thanks to the government embracing capitalism, it's still a communist nation with little regard for personal freedom.

As June 4 Tiananmen Massacre anniversary approaches, Beijing has activated its Great Firewall to block popular Internet services like Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc.

Yes, it's come to this, America. We now depend on the world's largest communist country, censor, and human rights abuser, to prop up our economy.

Another idiotic Democrat bill: Paid Vacation Act

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) believes the best way to stimulate our economy is mandating a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees after they've worked for an year. He wants to make companies with over 100 employees to do this. The reasoning? More vacation means less stress, less sick days, and happier workers.

Naturally, Rep. Grayson's proposal appeals to the tourism industry in his home state where Mickey Mouse and Shamu would love a piece of your wallet. Maybe he does have decent intentions of helping Florida's economy, but this Paid Vacation Act is pure idiocy.

Do we really need the government telling private firms how to manage their human resources? This is another case of a politician looking to control more of our lives. More government is never the answer. How would the founder of a medium-sized business feel? Stop hiring at 99 employees? Cut health care benefits in order to fulfill this mandate? And what if most people simply end up staying home to chill instead of spending money at theme parks? After all, American families are facing a financial crunch and have to watch their spending... many cannot afford a vacation at a Florida theme park.

Please, no more talk about government forcing stupid ideas down our throats! Rep. Grayson (and others like him), PLEASE just stay out of the way of capitalism. And about France's vacation mandate? Well, there's also a reason France has a high unemployment rate and frequent street riots!

Bank of International Settlements: the mother of all banks

Project World Awareness found this obscure gem about the path towards a global currency. In the last G20 summit, these leaders have agreed to support the beginning of this global currency by activating the IMF's power to produce money in the form of SDRs (Special Drawing Rights). What could the next step be?

Some have speculated that the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) would be the undisputed choice as a global central bank. It is based in Basel, Switzerland, and boasts a client list of most major central banks around the world. Its influence and power is obvious, and it is known to make or break economies of a country -- the current U.S. recession included.

Axelrod: Tea parties "unhealthy" (that's how much the administration is out of touch)

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod seems to think the tea parties are an "unhealthy" reaction to the current economy and the President's policies.

I'd hate to find out what he thinks is a "healthy" reaction. Maybe surrendering our bank accounts? Voluntarily hand over our wallets to Washington? Bow to the President like he did to the Saudi king?

Anybody who thinks embracing our First Amendment rights is "unhealthy" ought to rethink his or her American citizenship. Seriously, this is how out of touch the Obama administration is with mainstream America.

All I can say to the W.H. is: Keep it up. Prepare to be shocked in 2010.

Obama refusing repayment of TARP

Why would the White House refuse TARP repayment from banks? After all, it's millions and trillions of dollars we're talking about, not exactly pocket change.

Could it be that the administration wants to maintain power over these TARP recipients? This is very troublesome to know. It clearly shows the administration intends to push its own economic agenda to these financial institutions, and by now many of them are regretting to ever have received these government funds.

What's happening now is that the bank executives actually work for the federal government. These banks are no longer serving consumers, but rather serving its master, the gigantic federal government. The government will now dictate who runs the banks, who to lend money to, the interest rate, etc. Does that sound like a healthy banking system?

Obama thinks he's protecting bank CEOs

"My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." That's the message the President gave to bank CEOs during a meeting at the White House. This is interesting and sheds light into this administration's psyche.

First, the administration thinks it is rescuing the banks and serving the people. Nobody disagrees that the banks are in trouble. Many people are angry. But the actions of the administration so far really does not have Americans' interest in mind. The Treasury is pouring money into an ailing financial system, what many thinks is just propping up a dead body. The government is removing the risk from the banks, and that is detrimental to a healthy capitalism. Wall Street rose to become a world financial center not because the entrepreneurs and executives avoided risk, but how they took risks and reaped the rewards.

The trillions of dollars injected into the system are sending the country into an abyss of debt, and ironically Communist China is the one hoarding U.S. treasuries. The well-being of future American generations now lay in the hands of Red China.

Secondly, it is clear the administration, along with the liberal Democrats' control of the Legislative branch, are taking advantage of our financial vulnerability to expand their powers. Congress has passed laws that members and the public had no time to scrutinize, giving the Treasury unprecedented powers over corporations receiving government money. Executive compensations are limited, and CEOs and board members are appointed by Washington.

Third, the fear mongering has driven some people to irrationally despise everything Wall Street. Never mind how Wall Street has helped the country to become a world economic power. Never mind how Wall Street has made money for countless investors. And never mind how Wall Street has provided the millions of jobs for Americans and even foreigners. The fear mongering merely deflects the attention that should be given to the perils of government intervention, namely Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. This two-headed monster in the course of a few decades brought the housing market to its knees today. And not surprisingly, the main political benefactors from Freddie and Fannie and from this crisis, have been Democrats and their sprawling entitlement programs...

Sorry, President Obama. You are arrogant to think that your administration is protecting these CEOs from the population.

Congressman introduces bill to fund underprivileged bankers and realtors

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) plans on April 1 to introduce legislation to further boost the economy and assist the unemployed, especially those in the middle class who work in the financial and housing sectors. His Funding Underprivileged Bankers And Realtors (FUBAR) Act of 2009 would require troubled bankers and realtors to turn over a majority of their assets to the government in exchange for amnesty from any federal investigation and wrongdoing. Plus the bill promises not to conduct embarrassing public hearings of those who opt for FUBAR, even those who have owed back taxes and wouldn't pay for a decent CPA to file tax returns.

The bill is already meeting resistance from House Republicans, but Democrats are confident that they have enough votes to pass it because, well, they have the majority. President Obama has voiced his support of FUBAR, jokingly citing that he's honored to have part of his first name in this bill, as he slowly turns away from the big screen TV to take more questions at a joint press conference with Rep. Frank.

Conservatives, keep up the good fight (but also keep a sense of humor)! We must defeat this bill. Call your Congressman today (April 1st) -- America must say No to FUBAR before it's too late...

Barney Frank wants to control your pay

The government has successfully put a limit on top executives working in firms receiving bailout money. Now Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) wants more control in how all employees of these firms are paid:

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates."

Again, once the government gets a taste of new power, it never relents in grabbing more.

Oh please, not another .gov website!

The Treasury Department announces FinancialStability.gov:

a website dedicated to bringing transparency and clarity to the immensely complex problems in the financial system and the President’s plans to address them.

If Geithner cannot explain it on TV, how can he explain it on a website? I'd rather all that money, time, and energy spent on creating this website used someplace else. Seriously, how many .gov sites do we need with this administration?!

General Motors is now Government Motors

There is a troubling trend in the relationship between American companies and the American government since Obama took office. Companies are failing, but also failing to enter bankruptcy, a norm in a healthy capitalist society. Rather, the federal government prefers to provide loans and inject capital into them, in turn prolonging the suffering of the firms and of the taxpayers as well. And because of these government funds, now it owns shares of companies, and is even dictating how to run them, on Wall Street and in Detroit.

The latest casualty is General Motors, once an American -- no, global -- icon. Rick Wagoner is now an ex-CEO, to be replaced by COO Fritz Henderson at the demand of the White House. Yes, you read it correctly: it's the President that's telling G.M. how to operate now. Welcome to the new Detroit, folks.

The auto industry has roots so deep in Detroit, Michigan that I wouldn't be surprised one bit if the White House starting handpicking the mayor and governor for the city and state! Heck, just annex Michigan into another federal jurisdiction! Washington, D.C. is still the capitol, but Detroit, D.C. can be where the federal government runs businesses.

More about the unconstitutional bailout legislation

There has been a lot of interest in the constitutionality of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) and the TARP funds. I see a lot of Internet searches about this. George Will has a very good piece in the Washington Post about this topic:

By enacting it, Congress did not in any meaningful sense make a law. Rather, it made executive branch officials into legislators. Congress said to the executive branch, in effect: "Here is $700 billion. You say you will use some of it to buy up banks' 'troubled assets.' But if you prefer to do anything else with the money -- even, say, subsidize automobile companies -- well, whatever."

FreedomWorks, a Washington-based libertarian advocacy organization, argues that EESA violates "the nondelegation doctrine." Although the text does not spell it out, the Constitution's logic and structure -- particularly the separation of powers -- imply limits on the size and kind of discretion that Congress may confer on the executive branch.

One of the beauties of the U.S. Constitution is separation of the three branches of power: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. With EESA, Congress is giving the president unconstitutional powers by allowing him to write the specifics of the law, i.e. how the money is to be appropriated. That should be Congress' job!

Taxpaying citizens like you and I ought to be enraged by this! It's evident that we have a lazy Congress bowing to the demands of a fear-mongering President. And now the next two or more generations of Americans are to pay for the astronomical debt -- bought up by the billions by Communist China. The consequences of ignoring the Constitution is grave...

World's most dangerous city

The world's most dangerous city -- Washington. That's according to Tony Blankley writing in Human Events:

But Washington's threat to the nation and the world is from more than acts of crass political expediency -- hardly an unknown phenomenon in any nation's capital.

I am struck -- and chilled to the bone -- by the fact that in the face of this perhaps unprecedented economic storm, both political parties (with, of course, several individual exceptions) are reflexively and unthinkingly sticking to their normal economic and policy nostrums.

He makes a very good point. The actions of politicians in Washington not only impact the lives of Americans, but very well also the lives of others in the world. It is unfortunate that they do not use their powers wisely.

Collapse of Eastern Europe?

Many of these nations are staunch U.S. allies, so seeing their governments collapse because of the global economic meltdown is somewhat troublesome. The latest to fall is the Czech government, although it wasn't due to the economy. However, Hungary, Latvia, and Ukraine aren't so lucky and has had to approach IMF for funds.

Charities not keen to Obama tax plan

President Obama is putting the tax squeeze on high income earners and may inadvertently harm the chances of charities. The President doesn't think higher taxes would impact charitable donations. Ignorance at its best.

Charities are already suffering in this down economy. Families are spending less and giving less, too. Obviously one would take care of immediate family needs before charitable givings. If the President wants to tax more, it's only common sense that less money would go to charities because less money is left in the taxpayer's wallet.

Obama tries to be a great communicator

The grueling 2008 presidential campaign and was full of surprises. I don't think there's ever been such a dynamic campaign season in past history. We saw the coronation of Hillary Clinton fizzle as the junior senator from Illinois with a thin resume, Barack H. Obama, charmed and talked his way into the White House.

In the beginning it was all about the Iraq War and by association, the War on Terror. This was an easy shot for Obama, just keep talking about the "unjust" war and voters will gravitate toward the candidate. It was a good strategy and it made sense politically, but more importantly it was working. But as luck would have it, subsequently the economy faltered and everybody's eyes were on Wall Street.

In my view candidate Obama was ready to deal with the War in Iraq, but clueless about saving the economy. I'm starting to believe that his team made extra efforts in strategizing the anti-war platform without paying much attention to the economy, thinking that the War would dominate headlines throughout the campaign season and that the War would be Americans' #1 concern.

Ooooops. Big oooooops.

America won the Iraq War, albeit with great casualties -- not just the fallen soldiers, but also for some politicians. Obama swears in as President in January, and now he's faced with a much tougher issue: the economic recession. This problem cannot be tackled by withdrawing troops or cutting military spending. This problem requires seasoned, talented cabinet members, and it is fought with policies and negotiations instead of bullets and tanks.

I believe he saw the presidency as a career goal and nothing else. He cares not for America, but for his own fame. How else could you explain his obsessive and excessive use of the Teleprompter? Or appearing on TV shows? Or calling prime time press conferences? It seems that this man worries more about his own image and polling numbers than anything else. Has he realized yet that sometimes doing the right thing isn't popular?

President Ronald Reagan was a citizen's president and a great communicator. Obama definitely inspires to be like Reagan, but he is struggling big time. Both are charismatic, charming, great orators. So what made Reagan so effective but Obama so jaded?

It's something deep within, my friends. Reagan was truly passionate about defeating communism, defending America, and inspiring Americans. And Obama? He looks like a college student hoping to pass a public speaking course.

Countrywide memos detail VIP loans to Democrats

Now we can see the juicy details of the Countrywide sweetheart loans to various Democratic politicians... Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) releases a report titled "Countrywide's Systematic and Successful Effort to Buy Influence and Block Reform" which contains emails and memos about these mortgage deals.

Here's an excerpt from the Washington Times:

Countrywide's CEO Angelo Mozilo granted sweetheart mortgages to a number of influential lawmakers including Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Democratic Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota. E-mails obtained by government investigators show Countrywide employees often discussed the political influence wielded by "Friends of Angelo" as grounds for granting the discounts.

Seriously, some of these Democrats need to just resign and pick a different career! They're already cozy with the banks and mortgage companies, why not find a job there?

Newspapers as nonprofits

Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) proposes legislation to allow struggling newspapers to operate as nonprofits similar to public broadcasting stations. Revenues would be tax-exempt and they wouldn't be allowed to make political endorsements. Sounds like a workable idea, but I wonder if it could be executed in the real world.

The mainstream newspapers are so saturated with liberal reporters and journalists that it'll be near impossible for a nonprofit newspaper to be unbiased politically.

And even if this doesn't sound like a true bailout in the Wall Street sense, it's still going to impact the taxpayer's wallet. These newspapers are struggling because nobody wants to read them. By allowing them to become nonprofits, they still need money to operate, and without enough subscribers, that's still a problem. Then what? Will the government subsidize them then?

In today's tough economic time about every business is struggling, but not every one of them is asking for help. The newspaper business is like any other business. If you cannot turn a profit to stay in business by conserving cash and evolve your business model, you may not deserve to be in business considering there are no consumers.

Gov. Palin testing waters for 2012 run?

There has been reports of robocalls to Iowa and New Hampshire residents polling about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Nobody knows who is behind this, but I'm sure the governor will know about the results. Is America ready for Palin after her defeat alongside Sen. John McCain?

The trouble with Palin has been her narrow audience base. She's a big hit with conservatives, but in order to win votes you have to be a big hit with the majority, not just the base crowd. The only way I can see her presidential dream come to fruition is for the current administration to screw up big time. And I mean BIG TIME. That means President Obama puts us in a much worse position than even now. Yes, this financial mess is bad, but it has not punched a hole in Obama's popularity yet. It hasn't been six months yet, so who knows what the next 3.5 years will bring?

Additionally, Republicans have a good chance at regaining seats in the 2010 elections. Expect to see rising stars, and therefore, potential Palin opposition, within the GOP after the 2010 momentum. Palin would have to re-evaluate her chances then.