Then, on Stossel, on FoxBusiness, he proposes a flat 10% tax for everyone.
16 April 2011
Have I told you I'm still glad I donated to Rand Paul?
Quotes Ayn Rand, bashes the collective, plugs for individual and free market choices in two and a half minutes of rare fresh air in the Senate:
Great line: "The Church never asks for more than 10%, I don't know why the government should get more."
Quote of the Day 4/16
The consumers suffer when the laws of the country prevent the most efficient entrepreneurs from expanding the sphere of their activities. What made some enterprises develop into big business was precisely their success in filling best the demand of the masses.
Ludwig von Mises
15 April 2011
More nullification? Ab-so-freakin-lutely.
Toys in the Attic Strikes Again
by Michael Boldin
Rachel Maddow doesn’t like me. I get that.
Without trying, though, I guess I’ve been getting under her skin. She obviously doesn’t like the fact that the Tenth Amendment Center’s efforts to promote nullification have been gaining some serious traction around the country. Just this week, Rach did a full 14 minute segment on the subject. And her presentation, as you might guess, wasn’t a cheer leading session either.
The segment, titled “Confederates in the Attic” was about how efforts today, primarily championed by the Tenth Amendment Center, to decentralize power and reject unconstitutional federal “laws,” are somehow directly-related to slave owners in the pre-civil war south.
No. That’s not a joke.
She says “a conservative group called the Tenth Amendment Center has been pushing a lot of the anti-health reform stuff…in the context of nullification. And they’re pushing for other kinds of nullification too.”
Ok, other than the absurdity of using the term “conservative” to define an anti-drug war, antiwar, anti-patriot act organization started in 2006 in opposition to GW Bush, she’s right on the money here.
The Center has been pushing anti-health reform stuff? Yup. We drafted the model bill, the Federal Health Care Nullification Act. Versions of our legislation – to either fully nullify or refuse compliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), have been introduced in 11 states so far, and it’s making headway in a few too.
We’re pushing for other kinds of nullification too? Ab-so-freakin-lutely.
----------------------
More from the Tenth Amendment Center director.
Perfect explanation of why to own gold
Gary North, on Lew Rockwell:
I have stressed holding coins, especially tenth-ounce American gold eagles.
I am writing this for those readers who did what I recommended, have quadrupled their money (on paper and in digits), but who may be getting cold feet.
There are good reasons for buying gold. But you should have an exit strategy in mind. You need to consider this.
We are told by the mainstream financial media, which never told investors to buy gold over the last decade, that gold is in the final phase of a bubble market. But how can any market be a bubble market when the mainstream financial media are not running report after report on the bubble, telling readers and viewers about how much money people are making.
What mainstream financial outlet warned investors loud and clear, issue after issue, in 1999 that the dot.com market was a bubble? I told my subscribers in February and March of 2000 that it was, and that they should get out. But I published a newsletter. I was not mainstream.
Read more here.
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Gary North is a great writer, very accessible, clear explanations on many economic topics. Read his archives at Lew Rockwell. This is an awesome review of how intelligent people, with an understanding of the principles of the Austrian school of economics, can read the economy well enough to predict and avoid disasters.
Hey, no comments on silver -- you know I know already, and have bought...:-)
Silver: Messing with your mind...
Ok, I know there are some old fogies out there that either were kids or grownups when these were still circulating, or at least can remember occasionally finding one in change as late as the 70's or 80's.
Here's what blows my mind: one of these quarters, which contains 6.25 grams of silver, is worth $7.63, as of tonight's spot price ($42.21/oz).
$1.00 of face value silver coins is worth $30.52.
Tell that to your older relatives and see if they can wrap their brain around that...
14 April 2011
RAND Paul shows well in presidential poll
Sure, Rand lags behind some of the "mainstream" candidates, but 38 % is not bad for a wingnut.
Educational inroads being made into the minds of the sheeple??? Hope springs eternal.
---------------------
Public Policy Polling:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 13, 2011
Obama leads potential 2012 foes nationally
Raleigh, N.C. – President Obama has held his ground or slightly increased his share of
the vote against his prospective Republican opponents since PPP last took a measure of
the American electorate in March. His closest challenger for the national popular vote is
Mike Huckabee, who lags 43-48, the same deficit as last month. Close behind is Mitt
Romney, down 41-47 (42-47). Obama beat John McCain by seven points in 2008.
Unlikely candidates Chris Christie (39-48) and Rand Paul (38-48) trail Obama as well, as
do Newt Gingrich (38-52, versus 39-50 in March) and Sarah Palin (36-54 versus 38-53).
No candidate has lost the nationwide vote by 18 points since Walter Mondale won only
his own state and D.C. against Ronald Reagan in 1984.
via Lew Rockwell's new political blog
13 April 2011
Tom Woods shows that there is no difference between statist left and right
...On the subject of nullification, using MSNBC leftist pundit Rachel Maddow as an example.
Remember: National socialist = socialist = nationalist = neocon = statist. There is no difference between mainstream Republicans and Democrats. They are dark and light of the same color, flip sides of the same coin.
This is the main reason why I don't vote where I live, and donate money to Ron and Rand Paul, Mises Institute, and LewRockwell.com.
-------------------------------
"In a discussion whose every syllable one could have predicted in advance, left-nationalist Rachel Maddow covers nullification, and you’ll never guess: it’s an idea only “racists” and “neo-Confederates” (there’s that agitprop term again) would support!
Of course, her viewers are too delicate to have their worldviews confused by any mention of northern nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, or the fact that South Carolina, as it seceded on December 20, 1860, listed northern nullification among its grievances. I thought this was supposed to be a “neo-Confederate” idea! We certainly can’t mention that Ohio’s legislature declared in 1820 that a majority of Americans accepted the principle of state nullification. And so on and so forth. I am beginning to suspect Rachel has not read my book on this subject."
Here is the rest of his blogpost on LewRockwell.com
During bailouts, Federal Reserve betrayed you (American public): It's worse than you imagined
This is a particularly egregious example of legal plunder of the taxpaying public, which I assume means you and me both:
Rolling Stone reports insane distributions of Fed bailout money:
The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous."
But if you want to get a true sense of what the "shadow budget" is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.
Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income. (emphasis added)
Rare War Between the States photos at Library of Congress
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| Captain William W. Cosby of H Company, 2nd Virginia Light Artillery Regiment |
12 April 2011
Southern Independence movement should broaden its scope
But I say: Good luck finding centrists, leftists, and non-whites to embrace the modern Southern cause...
At any rate, good article with good points raised.
Via Rebellion Blog, article by Jared Taylor, at VDare.com
Some excerpts:
"Americans are famously ignorant of history, and the past is always receding—but for not a few Southerners, The War and its consequences are never far below the surface. William Faulkner famously said: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” This rings true only for Southerners (except perhaps for a few Mayflower-descended Boston Brahmins).
Indeed, some Southerners still dream of an independent nation-state of their own. Since 1994, an organization called the League of the South has tried to prepare for independence, though its leaders—thoughtful and honorable men—concede that that time has not yet come.
Will it ever come? There are enormous obstacles. The South is filling up with Yankees and Mexicans for whom the idea of a Southern nation is meaningless. Blacks are moving back from the North, and for them, a Southern nation is worse than meaningless: it is anathema. Southern nationalists imagine a benign and romantic revival of the Confederacy, with battle flags, chivalry, and conservative Christianity; but for many Americans, there can be no benign revival. They cannot separate the Confederacy from slavery. And any goal with even the slightest, second-hand, undeserved, taint of slavery is at a deep disadvantage."
He goes on to say that any national movement that has a hope of success has to embrace different races, creeds, religions, etc.,. united in their love for the South.
"But today, how many Southerners feel as she did about the South unless they also are deeply conservative? The cause of the South must be at the political center, not the fringe.
Let me be clear: I am not blaming today’s Southern nationalists for their political opinions, many of which I share. I am pointing out only that the broadly-based Southern patriotism of which my mother was a part is gone. There are not many Southern nationalists today who would march for gay rights or would expand the welfare state."
While I agree the movement needs to be broad, I would say that the political center, north and south, is at a low point. Centrists are hard to define, and hard to find. Liberals are too brainwashed about Southern history to see beyond the latest Huffington Post, let alone embrace the idea of an independent South.
I like this line. Speaking of his mother, a political liberal who loved the South and her Confederate Heritage, the author writes:
She didn’t know what to make of the monuments to the Union dead [visiting New England] that are in virtually every town square until she came up with a good, Southern way to think about of them: as monuments to Confederate marksmanship.
 | ||
| Annoying "...the enemy very seriously" |
Love it. I will never be able to look at another Union memorial without thinking of it as a monument to Confederate marksmanship!
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| Pelham's Horse Artillery: bigger guns, same Southern marksmanship |
Be it sooner or later, Deo Vindice!
Tea Party stirrings in Europe, starting in Finland
But those concerned about the EU’s ability to fight that battle should turn to the other end of the continent, where Finland could this weekend elect the eurozone’s first truly Eurosceptic prime minister.
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| Perussuomalaiset |
“If the Portuguese thing comes before the Finnish elections, that will mean quite a fierce discussion and protest,” said Mr Soini. True Finns were last week only narrowly behind the centre-right National Coalition party, according to most polls, and that was before Lisbon appealed for a rescue. “People just don’t get it, don’t want it.”
It is a sentiment that appears to be spreading. Popular anger at bail-outs, austerity and general economic uncertainty has already toppled leaders on the eurozone’s periphery: first in Ireland, then Portugal and arguably Spain, where José Luis Zapatero has said he will not seek a third term as prime minister.
Article in Financial Times, via Drudge
Quote of the Day 4/12
Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
~Alexander Pope
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