Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-41C: Stupid people

Posted on 2013-10-26 by TPOL Nathan

Abominable Act (ObummerCare)  – Politics 2013 (Stupid people)
ObamaCare ACA website broken – GOP to blame:
(Politico via the Last Resistance) Facing such intense opposition from congressional Republicans, the administration was in a bunker mentality as it built the enrollment system, one former administration official said. Officials feared that if they called on outsiders to help with the technical details of how to run a commerce website, those companies could be subpoenaed by Hill Republicans, the former aide said. So the task fell to trusted campaign tech experts. Read more here.

Nathan: Well, stupid is as stupid does, and the White House continues to be stupid.  How much of a stretch is it to blame the GOP by claiming “we were afraid of them?”  Like Bush, the Dems and the White House treat and use the GOP as a boogeyman who will eat all the little children, give cancer to all the old folks, and re-enslave anyone of color.  You know, I have even run into a few Democrats who are sick of this and ticked off by it – but not many, I admit.  Modern Democrat voters are one of history’s biggest arguments against democracy.  Ole Woodrow must be tickled pink that he helped make the world “safe for democracy.”  But keep in mind, it ain’t only Dems that are stupid.

Stupid People – World Wars
Adelson: Obama should fire nuke to send message to Iran
(Washington Post) Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who extensively funded numerous Republican campaigns in the 2012 election, said at a forum Tuesday that President Obama should fire an atomic weapon into the middle of the desert to send a message to Iran.

Nathan: Insanity and loose cannonballs! Some GOP types (quite a few) fit the traditional stereotypes as warmongers and idiots, like Sheldon here.

Mama’s Note: One must assume this person inherited his wealth. He doesn’t sound intelligent enough to maintain a piggy bank on his own. Probably needs someone to feed and dress him, what with all the mindless drooling…

Nathan: My thought too, but here is what Wikipedia has to say: “ Adelson was born and grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Sarah (née Tonkin) and Arthur Adelson.  His family was Ukrainian Jewish. His father drove a taxi, and his mother ran a knitting shop. His business career began at the age of 12. He began to sell newspapers at the age of 12 and started a candy-vending-machine business at the age of 16. He attended trade school to become a court reporter but later joined the army. He is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited which operates The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. He also owns the Israeli daily newspaper Israel HaYom. As of October 2013, Adelson was listed as the 12th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $34.4 billion.”

So (assuming Wikipedia is reporting truthfully)  it isn’t inherited insanity: senility maybe.  Or maybe he is a prodigy: super intelligent in a very small area, but an absolute idiot in every other way.  Some media suggests he was using hyperbole to make a point about taking action: others figure he is just an evil monster that wants to help the world get destroyed sooner or later.  I figure he is just one more example of why it is a bad idea for governments to be allowed to play with dangerous toys.  And why it is a GOOD idea to allow peaceful and private people to have weapons to keep things like someone dropping a nuke on their heads from happening.  Fortunately, most of us just have to worry about the random terrorist or carjacker or burglar or mugger – as the next person seems to understand.

Hoploclasts and hoplophobes
Interpol chief raises question on armed citizenry
(Freedom Outpost) INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K Noble “What I’m saying is it makes police around the world question their views on gun control. It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the past with an evolving threat of terrorism?’ This is something that has to be discussed. For me it’s a profound question. People are quick to say ‘gun control, people shouldn’t be armed,’ etc., etc. I think they have to ask themselves: ‘Where would you have wanted to be? In a city where there was gun control and no citizens armed if you’re in a Westgate mall, or in a place like Denver or Texas?’

Nathan: So, the “world’s top cop” is in favor of gun freedom?  Or at least something less than the total gun control that is the Tranzi and liberal and statist goal?  Or is he just blowing smoke up our noses?  We’ll see how long he lasts. Note he doesn’t say the police and citizens MUST or NEED to change their views – just question them.  Right.  Well, stupid people don’t realize that they are doing the same thing over and over, which is why they seem insane to many of us.

Mama’s Note: I found it encouraging that this person even mentioned the fact that armed individuals are the best defense against “terrorists.” Whether or not his tranzi masters will allow him to remain in the post will be interesting to watch. For now, I give him the benefit of the doubt.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-41B: Guns and government stupidity

Posted on 2013-10-24 by TPOL Nathan

Guns are part of American culture and life: part of what MAKES us Americans, and gave us more liberty than anyone else on the planet for a long time.  Today, as with all things “American,” guns are hated.  By many but not all people.

Hoplophiles – Former Republic of Texas
Gun Rights Rally at Alamo Successful?
(JPFO) The “Come and Take It San Antonio!” rally was intended to draw attention to a right Texans already have — to carry long arms publicly so long as they don’t do it in a menacing manner. Organizers thought it necessary to offer a reminder after several open carry advocates were threatened with arrest at a Starbucks in the city two months ago. The problem remains that a local ordinance effectively limits the open carrying of firearms to police and security guards. That ordinance was not enforced Saturday. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus mingled in the crowd that police estimated at about 300 to 400, but the larger police presence remained around the perimeter of the Alamo plaza. “There are too many issues associated with trying to enforce every ordinance here today,” McManus said. He said his priority was that people be able to exercise their constitutional rights and that everyone remain safe. Volunteers walked through the crowd placing red plastic straws in rifle chambers, a visible assurance they were not holding a round.

Nathan: Brave and good words to hear from an appointed police chief – or even an elected sheriff these days.  These SHOULD be the priorities of peace officers: rights and safety, with rights coming first.  The business with the red straws is understandable, but NOT a good idea.  We MUST educate the public that an empty weapon is a useless weapon, and that loaded guns are NOT a safety hazard any more than gasoline in a fuel tank or antifreeze in a radiator.  The fact that no one requires the idiots in blue or black uniforms (yes, I know that they are not ALL idiots) to empty their chambers and go around with unloaded weapons, and the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE to force the gangbangers and hold-up artists and hitmen to empty THEIR weapons should mean that an unloaded weapon should be viewed with as much distaste as a “wardrobe malfunction” that reveals a private body part.  Until we regain this mindset, the thugs (both “private” – gangbangers and crooks – and “public” – corrupt politicos and cops) will rule the streets.  Even in Texas.  Even at the Alamo.

Mama’s Note: Amen, Nathan. It was painful to watch all those people working so hard at being essentially UNARMED. The real disaster of the day, however, was the uninvited assault on everyone present by Alex Jones. Whoever let that cretin get hold of the microphone needs to spend the next month listening to his rants, nonstop. Not even bathroom breaks…

Self-defense/Defense of others – Home front
Arizona: Mass shooting thwarted by CCW defending friends
(Freedom Outpost)

Nathan: The entire point of this (and other incidents) is that we CANNOT depend on ANY government agency to defend people against attack.  We all know how long it would and DOES take police to respond to ANY 9-1-1 call.  A major second point is that if this party had been at a bar or restaurant (several years ago, before THAT law was dropped), this defender would have been unarmed IF he obeyed the law.  The deaths of perhaps a dozen or more people were avoided, and can be avoided in most cases.  Not all, but many, concealed carriers of weapons are very much aware of their environment and too many of us have a hyperdeveloped sense of duty (love) for others bred and taught and hammered into us:  we WILL go towards the sound of the guns.  And no, this doesn’t mean gunfight at the OK Corral. In this case, a single shot ended the wild, random shots of the attacker.  If anything, we should deplore the fact that a single shot was enough, and that the attacker DID NOT die as an immediate “reward” for his aggression.  If the attacker had gone ahead, unresisted, and entered the building, we would have had a standoff and the SWAT would have come in and killed a few more.  Compare this to the middle school shooting in Sparks, Nevada:

NO self-defense – Government-run, tax-funded schools
Classmates Recall Nevada Middle School Shooting Events
(Arizona Daily Wildcat) [Follow-up story to a Monday incident in Sparks, NV where an angry, bullied student showed up, killed a popular teacher, wounded a student, threatened other students and then killed himself all before cops arrived.]

Nathan: One dead teacher, because he tried to talk the angry student out of it, instead of having a weapon (and the backing of two or three other teachers or staff with weapons) to use to reinforce a command to “STAND DOWN.”  Or, worst case, to shoot the attacker down like the rabid dog he so resembles. Yes, there were “two dead” because the rapid dog killed himself.  Frankly, that doesn’t count: he should have never had the chance to kill himself; someone should have done it to him.

One more point of comparison:  in both cases, the media used the word “shooter” to describe the man who defended his friends at the house party and the dog who killed a teacher and himself.  Because in the media’s eyes, it seems that the two are morally equal.  The defender didn’t have a badge and a uniform, so he is just as evil as the kid, in their eyes.  How much longer will we put up with this?

Mama’s Note: Now, Nathan… let’s not cast aspersions on dogs here. 🙂 The person who shot the teacher was evil… dogs are almost never evil. But I agree. As tragic as it would have been for that teacher to kill what most would consider a “child,” we would all have been better off. And that is, of course, if this story is truly as reported. There are just so many lies these days, that one becomes cynical and distrusting of everything in the media.

Stupid people – California nuthouse
California: People sign petition for police state
(Freedom Outpost)

Nathan: A great video, as always.  He has such a wonderful straight face.  People hear what they want to, and do NOT know history or philosophy in the least.  And then, there are the ones who WANT a police state to “protect” them and keep them safe and secure, as well as housed and fed and entertained.  (Are we sure there isn’t some sort of genetic reason for this instinctive desire to be enslaved?  Are some people genetically actually slaves, after generations of breeding in which the rebels were killed or driven out?  If homosexuality can be “genetic,” then why not slavery?)

Mama’s Note: Not “slavery” as such, of course. This police state stuff is, for these people… SO FAR… quite comfortable – more like being cattle in summer. Real slavery isn’t at all comfortable, as these idiots are bound to discover at some point. Winter is coming…

Islamic war: Syrian-Canaanite front – Mainstream Media
British Press Shill for Syrian War
(Conservative Action Alerts)

Nathan: As the story points out, this smells like the Kuwait “throw the babies out of the incubator” story from 1990 or 1991.  Or stories about the US stealing African and Asian children for organs.  But this is the Brit media, still trying to drum up support for yet another war.

Mama’s Note: Forgot where I saw it… but the phrase is: “Let’s you and him fight…”

Stupid cop tricks (2 stories)
Teen Faces Felony Charges For Possession Of A Loaded Tackle Box
(Freedom’s Phoenix) 17 year old Cody Chitwood was busted during a random sweep of the Lassiter High School parking lot by police and this student who has never been in trouble before now faces prosecution, large fines, prison time, and the loss of his plans to join the Air Force in the future due to a hysterical overreaction that has resulted in his arrest. – See more at: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/zero-tolerance-lunacy-teen-faces-felony-charges-for-possession-of-a-loaded-tackle-box_102013#sthash.j7USakOy.dpuf Read Full Story

Nathan: Cops can decide when and when not to take action, and obviously, this was and is intended to push a lesson: make sure that the children are taught that they must be slavishly observant and obedient to all authority.

Mama’s Note: Well, we can look on the bright side. If all goes well, it will prevent him from becoming a drone in the US military. Maybe he can grow up and learn to do something useful, or even understand liberty and justice at some point.

NYPD Mistook Jolly Ranchers For Meth Rocks
(Freedom’s Phoenix) A New York City man arrested this summer for possession of methamphetamine was actually carrying Jolly Rancher candies that cops mistook for a controlled substance, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit. Love Olatunjiojo was busted in late-June after being searched by cops who approached the 25-year-old and a friend as they walked on a Coney Island street.

Nathan: The stupidity of NYPD cops has to be at least in part the result of hiring policies: heaven forbid that they hire someone with the brains to tell the difference.  But the DAs and others SHOULD have been able to tell the difference if they hadn’t been after this guy for “walking while black,” as near as I can tell.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-41A: Government-ruined schools and society

Posted on 2013-10-23 by TPOL Nathan

Travel and work have delayed commentary-writing this week, but here is a hodgepodge of stories to share (and shudder about):

Home front – Stupid cops – Local Tyranny
Shocking Russian Travel Alert Warns About US Cops
(TheTotalCollapse.com) A shocking report prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) for the Federal Assembly (FA) is urging a new law be passed giving to all Russians traveling to the United States a “warning” that American police officers have entered upon an“unprecedented killing spree” that in the past decade has seen nearly 5,000 innocent civilians gunned down without benefit of either charges being filed, or being convicted of a crime. Two of the worst American cities for police abuse likely to be visited by Russian citizens, this report says, are Chicago, which was condemned by the United Nations for its practice of widespread police torture, and New York City whose government paid out over $1 billion between 2000-2010 in lawsuit claims related to police abuse, and last year, 2012, had to pay out another $131 million to settle civil rights and police abuse claims too.

Nathan:  As with so many other things, we have to ask if this is just more noticeable these days because it is easy to get news at the local level across the nation and world – or if this really is a massive increase that seems to be taking place across the nation.  You can search and find a dozen cases of cops killing – or just attacking, beating, and wounding – innocent people nationwide seemingly every week. Chicago and NYPD cops seem to be in the news every week, but it can include small town police in Missouri or Oregon or South Carolina just as easily. Again, take into account that the website with this data has known veracity problems but the documentation seems to be complete and accurate.

Home front – Economics
580 US pets die after eating jerky from China
(Daily Telegraph)”Almost 600 pets have died and a further 3,000 have fallen ill in the US after eating meat jerky treats that have been linked to China. The US Food and Drug Administration has asked pet owners to contact them after receiving multiple reports of pets falling ill. Since 2007, it has received reports involving 3,600 dogs and 10 cats. Of those, 580 have died.” (10/23/13)

Nathan: Thanks to Scott and his correspondents for this.  As Scott pointed out, this is very likely due to diethylene glycol, a poisonous substitute for glycerin and a known problem.  You can read about it athttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19586352: Most of the documented cases of DEG poisoning have been epidemics (numbering over a dozen) where DEG was substituted in pharmaceutical preparations. More often, these epidemics have occurred in developing and impoverished nations where there is limited access to intensive medical care and quality control procedures are substandard. TOXICOKINETICS: Following ingestion, DEG is rapidly absorbed and distributed within the body, predominantly to regions that are well perfused. Metabolism occurs principally in the liver and both the parent and the metabolite, 2-hydroxyethoxyacetic acid (HEAA), are renally eliminated rapidly.

Nathan: It is NOT a new problem: FDA sent out warnings in 2007 and 2011

I suggest that if you HAVE a dog (or have friends with dogs) that you be very careful, but also notify local retailers (pet stores etc,; I know that Walgreens carries a lot of various pet jerky products made in China) so that they can take action to protect their customers’ pets (AND the company’s liability).  The point should be made that this kind of nonsense comes out of China several times a year: pets, children, even adults have died because of shoddy, contaminated, poor or even counterfeit products coming out of China.  Since China is STILL a police state and still a Communist state with a large and bogus trapping of supposed capitalism (“State capitalism” would be more accurate), it is fairly certain that the Chinese government knows and condones this, and is using it as one way to “get back” at the West for perceived enmity and past actions.  And we are, as consumers, stupid enough to accept this without checking.  We expect OUR government (FDA, USDA, BCE, etc.) to work against them to “protect” us, when we know that our government(s) are incompetent and incapable of doing so.

Mama’s Note: I make my own dog treats. The commercial ones are too expensive, and often have ingredients I don’t want to give to my pets. I’ll post a recipe for them as soon as I can. Leftover or scrap meat and fat, freezer burned vegetables and cracked eggs… lots of otherwise wasted food can be used to make dog treats that will be good for them, and satisfy their need for treats.

Home front – Abominable Act (ObummerCare), etc.
US Physicians walking away from Medicare practice
(Surgery Center of Oklahoma Tumbler Newsletter) See if you can make any sense out of what is below.  Don’t feel bad if you can’t.  Neither can the physicians who must comply with this stuff.  This regulatory maze, combined with notoriously low rates of pay from Medicare, combined with the severe penalties for non-compliance (jail time) serve together to achieve the rationing of care the government thinks will help balance their books.

Nathan: More and more are dropping out.  And not just from Medicare and Medicaid, but from practice in general.  According to one report, the medical care industry has FIRED over 40,000 employees this year: it is likely that many of these are due to physicians or other lead professionals ending their practices or resigning.  I assume this will continue until the government tries to start drafting them to force them to continue to work.

Mama’s Note: Don’t know how “drafting” doctors or nurses would work… you can force someone to pick cotton, though not efficiently. How would you force someone to perform surgery or make a careful diagnosis? How would one force young people to spend the years of careful study and dedicated practice to become health care professionals. Not likely.

Stupid Government
Pentagon to sell bunker busters, cruise missiles to Gulf monarchies in $11bn deal
(TheTotalCollapse.com) The Pentagon plans to sell $10.8 billion worth of advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The hardware includes bunker buster bombs and cruise missiles.

Nathan: Why do we do this?  Why do we NEED to do this?  (I use the “generic” we meaning the FedGov supposedly representing and serving Americans.)  The gang lords that are the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates are NOT our friends: they are evil and monstrous slavers and tyrants who happen to sit on top of oil that has held the world at their mercy for five decades, but need no longer be coddled or catered to. Again, take into account that the website with this data has known veracity problems but the documentation seems to be complete and accurate.

Government-run, theft-funded schools
Zero Tolerance in Schools As Usual
(Freedom Outpost) This week, Kristin Tate reported that an autistic student in Greenville, South Carolina was suspended for a picture of a bomb (the suspension was lifted) and last week an Alabama high schooler committed suicide after facing criminal charges for streaking at a football game.  The incidents join a number of similar school disciplinary actions which have received nationwide attention this year.

Nathan: I suppose this kind of thing really isn’t news anymore, at least not to those of us who pay attention.  Parents, get your children out of these places. Friends of families with children in school: help wean them away from the state’s institutions:  evil things happen to children there, and they become evil as a result of being indoctrinated for 13+ years.  I see that the preferred term is no longer K-12 for public schools, but P-12 (for “preschool”) and saw one conference talking about P-20 (apparently for preschool through graduate school!) as being the realm of government and the “professionals” and parents are NOT wanted.  Each week, more and more stories DO come out, and more and more lives are ruined by these institutions.  As the next story shows.

Government-run, theft-funded schools
Idaho: Collective punishment deals with bomb threats
(Jonathan Turley.com) It appears that the school officials at Bonners Ferry High School have learned to appreciate the concept of collective population punishment. After a series of faux bomb threats scrawled in the boy’s bathroom, school officials have placed large areas under continual surveillance and reportedly withheld food from all boys to try to prompt them to turn in the culprits. (Idaho)

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: “No persons may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” The association of collective punishment with terrorism is worth noting.

Nathan: Turley fails to address the root of the problem: it is letting the state educate the young, run the schools, and steal money to do it.  This sort of tactic IS totalitarian in nature, and is going to be seen more and more.  Such collective punishment can be found used back for decades in public schools.

Home front
Brooklyn white couple attacked by black teen gang
(Freedom Outpost) Brooklyn, NY. The confrontation began when Ronald Russo, who is White, was driving with his wife Alana and audaciously beeped at a pack of Black jaywalking juveniles. Evidently, Russo was unaware that these weren’t typical teenagers. These “youngins” proudly wear defiance on their sleeves and intentionally disregard the laws that govern civilized society.

Nathan: Like the last story, this really isn’t news anymore.  While most black-initiated violence in this nation is against other black people (hmm: prejudice or bigotry against your own, there is a LOT more black-on-white violence than white-on-black, despite claims otherwise by the media and Tranzis.  These teens seem to fit one man’s definition of “ni**ers” as being an evil ethnic group and culture which is no more typical of standard “black culture” than the KKK or skinheads are typical of Anglo or “white culture.”  IF NYPD were an effective police state force, they’d have these rounded up, but instead, the NYPD and other city and state (and federal) organizations enable and facilitate this sort of gang and gang violence.  Expect it to get worse.

Technology – Home Front
Google files patents for gesture-controlled cars
(Raw Story)

Nathan: Scary, scary, especially for those of us who like to keep time to the classical music radio station or make rude gestures at stupid drivers.  I have my doubts (as do Gareth and Matthias) that these technologies (based on computer gaming technology) really are patentable, but understand that Google is trying to protect its turf and future (and yes, fault Google for doing so: they are becoming like a government themselves).  Supposedly this will help improve road safety, but so far, all I see is more threat to safety on the highways.

Mama’s Note: Beware the terror of the unintended consequences.

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Food Stamps – An American Evil – part 3

Posted on 2013-10-20 by MamaLiberty

[Continued from an earlier article] By Nathan Barton

Food stamps are a way to hide hunger:

Remember, the reason we DO NOT have soup lines today like in the First Great Depression is because they get their food from the same grocery stores as the rest of us, with the money magically transferred to their little plastic cards electronically.  We don’t worry about what we don’t see: we don’t know whether that piece of plastic is a debit card, a credit card, or an EBT (welfare) cared.

Food stamps discourage personal action, in two ways:

For the hungry: “I don’t have to work: I may have to eat Ramen six days a week, but Uncle Sugar will pay for it, so I won’t starve.”  Food Stamps are EASY, and without the personal embarrassment of standing in a line to beg a meal from a nice Salvation Army or Hope Mission lady, or even worse, having to listen to some prayer and sky-pilot shouting to get a meal.

For the not-hungry: Food Stamps discourage personal action by those who otherwise WOULD HELP fight hunger and feed the needy:  “The government is paying them to eat, I don’t have to spend my time and my money (well, more of my money) since I’m paying taxes and the government is providing it.  Out of sight, out of mind:  we’d be far more bothered by seeing people in a soup kitchen line three times a day than even if the people getting EBT had to stand in line at the local welfare office outsiden where we could see them.

Food Stamps breed dependency:

And NOT just in those who get them, but in those who can shirk their christian (or other faith) responsibility to care for the hungry, because the government is doing it.  And more dependency ON THE GOVERNMENT means more power TO the government.  We ALL give up personal responsibility.  And at the same time, liberty.

It even applies to the middlemen:  to those who take from the “rich” and give to the “poor” – more taxes to collect, more people to collect them. And more businesses to take the stamps and provide the goods and services, at the same rate they sell to everyone else. More mouths to feed: more hands to feed them.  More paperwork, more people and pens and computers.  More fraud: more people to investigate and do the rituals to claim to control it.  In the old days, if you were hungry, well, the Lord told the farmers to leave some of the harvest in the corners of the fields so that the poor and hungry could glean the fields.  You had to WORK to eat – even if the food was “free” – not the “work” of filling out some forms and trudging down to the local welfare office.  The hobo who begged for a meal from a housewife EXPECTED to do some work for it: painting a fence, chopping weeds, picking up trash.  When the charity came from your local church (or a local church), YOU had to ask, and YOU had to justify why you couldn’t work and pay your own way – or at least part of it.  And more likely than not, it wasn’t straightforward charity too: in those days people remembered Paul’s admonition: “if a man does not work, neither shall he eat.”  Today, “if a man does not work, find a way to classify him as disabled or whatever and give him all you can.”  So my last point:

Food Stamps make governments bigger and more powerful.

While there appear to be many factors in why there are such differences in states, I suspect that the KEY factor is the mental attitude of dependency versus personal responsibility.  If I am in trouble, am I going to do something about it, or am I going to run to some government agency and demand that they take care of me?  Too many Americans choose to do the second: their society, in places like DC and Oregon and Rhode Islan are BUILT around “government will take care of it.” Although food stamps are a measure and the result of this dependency, they are also a convenient, even attractive way, to increase dependency and be pulled from personal responsibility. Their governments were already bigger than most: increased food stamps mean bigger government.  The Russian military have a phrase for it: Reinforcing success.  Government WANTS and NEEDS more dependency, less personal responsibility, and to hide reality from those it controls. Food stamps fit perfectly.

COMMENT:  Literally just minutes after I finished this commentary, I received the following link from a correspondent: Foodstamp Program Shutdown Imminent

It contains what looks like a real letter, dated 11 OCT 2013, from USDA FNS (Food and Nutrition Service) (which runs SNAP) to all state SNAP agencies telling them NOT to submit reports that are necessary to have funds transferred for food stamps for October.  The people who saw this letter (who are in Utah) are fearful that this is an early warning that there will BE NO FOOD STAMPS in November, even if the “shutdown” is ended before then.  Given lead times and other factors, this COULD be a possibility IF and ONLY IF the White House and their minions WANT IT TO HAPPEN.  Apparently, FNS is one of the few (maybe the only) part of USDA deemed essential.  As my analysis suggests, ending food stamps is NOT something that the current regime would want to do in the normal course of events: it presents the government as weak and ineffectual and encourages – nay, forces – people to start taking some more responsibility, and weakens their dependence on government.  (The national park fiasco was NOT, for 99.5% of the population, a critical closure problem: not a “life and death” or even close to that kind of situation.)  Food stamps WILL be deemed such, and most states will be unable to fund SNAP without significant changes – including constitutional violations (state constitutions).  States doing so will further distance themselves from the Federal government and may take extraordinary measures, including seizure of federal funds to pay for it (unlike the situation with several states where they are PAYING the FedGov directly to reopen the parks).

So I do NOT think that they will allow the SNAP program to dry up.  I think that the Utah folks are panicking unnecessarily.  But panic has a way of reinforcing itself and taking on a life of its own.  There are two kinds here: those dependent on SNAP who are fearful that they will have nothing to eat (or even, to trade for drugs), and those fearful of what will happen when the first group panics: the bureaucrats, the private charities, and… the law enforcement.  This could lead to more calls (as from that idiot Sheila Jackson Lee) for martial law, or even some kinds of preventative measures like issuing script to supermarkets (AND convenience stores – remember those awful “Food Deserts”) and the like or even attempting to seize supplies to “protect” them against panicking rioters.  Such items are high on the list of things to turn a bad situation into a nightmare that could, indeed, engulf much of the nation in a “hard” economic shutdown.  A real one, not a bogus one dreamed up by the White House to bash their opposition in Congress and the streets.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-40C: Lies and MORE Lies

Posted on 2013-10-19 by TPOL Nathan

Lies and more lies – Economics
Has Income Inequality Really Risen?
(Manhattan Institute) A variety of approaches show that inequality between the bottom and middle has not grown since the 1980s…

Nathan: That we are getting more and more unequal in our income and our life styles is one of the MANY, MANY lies that Tranzis and apologists for the state make: It is not only untrue as shown by the various methods that the Manhattan Institutes (and others) have used, but by simple observation.  Whether we look back just 30 years to 1983 or 50 years to 1963, we see that virtually ALL Americans are immensely better off.  Yes, there are always those who are the billionaires who have gotten richer.  Just as there are ALWAYS those who homeless without even a shopping cart to put their possessions into, and who make NOTHING a day.  But we will always have those with us.  We will ALWAYS have greed and corruption, stinginess and lack of even basic necessities, for a very tiny percentage.  Those of us who believe that government is evil and dangerous see that the slips and slides are due MORE TO government, than being balanced or offset or corrected by government, because of the very nature of government.  And all too often, those who are most down and out are there because of government: laws like minimum wages and proof of residency and licensing, and events like wars (foreign and drug and poverty and terrorism) which leave damaged people on the streets and in our houses and buildings, to name just two.  But that is precisely WHY Tranzis and Statists in general demand wars of aggression against those who DO succeed and wars on poverty that create MORE poverty even while they create more government jobs and more contractors dependent on government:  Their power and wealth grows even faster.  The Robber Barons of the 1880s and 1890s did not exist because there was too LITTLE government, but because there was already too MUCH government: government they could buy and control, government which created conditions which let the Robber Barons isolate and minimize competition and destroy the power of anyone to resist them.  If we believe the Tranzis we will never see poverty go away, and the wealthy will be ever more wealthy.

Mama’s Note: Too many of the early industrialists and entrepreneurs are lumped in with these “Robber Barons.” To those who think all free markets are evil, there is no difference, but companies like the Great Northern Railway were built without government subsidies. My father worked for Great Northern in 1890, when they built the rails across the top of the country. He was a hunter, bringing in game to feed the crews, and always proud of his part in that epic endeavor.

Lies and more lies – Health care
A Look into Canadian Health Care
(The American) The average Canadian family of two parents with two children pays approximately $11,320 in taxes for hospital and physician care through the country’s tax system…

Nathan: We are told how wonderful Canada and Canadian health care is: ANOTHER Tranzi lie.   Just when we are sure that we are really bad off, someone points out something like this.  Of course, Canadians can claim that they don’t have to pay extravagant fees  and insurance premiums – NO, they just run their money (stolen as taxes) through yet ANOTHER middleman.  How stupid can you get?  Nearly a thousand a month whether you have a cold in a year or NOT.  Add this to VAT and all the other taxes, and Canada looks like Sweden once did.

Mama’s Note: As I tell people who complain about the cost of health care today… Just wait and see how much it costs once it is “free.”

Lies and more lies – Liberty
Free Market Falsehoods
(The Freeman) An “ideal” economic system is not one in which no one ever makes a mistake; it is one in which the mistakes that people inevitably make are corrected as effectively as possible…

Nathan: There are many ways of lying. Claiming that economic systems are supposed to be PERFECT, and that only a PERFECT economic system should be used are the kind of second-layer lies that underlie the more obvious lies that politicians, including Tranzis and Statists, love to use to build their power and wealth.  We KNOW from centuries of experience that ANY economic system which involves ANY important decisions made by government agencies at ANY level is as chockful of mistakes as my wife’s fudge is of pecans and other nuts…  believe me, that is a LOT of mistakes.  Whether it is “national socialism” or “international socialism” (Communism) or mercantilism or a (barf!) mixed economy, government is so unaccountable to reality that it makes more and more mistakes as time goes on AND IT DOES NOT LEARN from its mistakes: there are no consequences to the people who make the decisions.

Mama’s Note: And that would be true no matter how wonderful the intentions of the politicians and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, much they do is no mistake at all, but deliberate destruction of other people’s lives and property.

Lies and more lies (Stupid people) – Politics 2013: shutdown
Shutdown: Bush’s Fault?
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan:Well yes, according to the folks (mostly black or mixed race) that were interviewed in DC, and who should know better?  Of course, these are the same folks that help Jay Leno and Glenn Beck be so entertaining, who think that World War Two was between us and the Brits, that the capital of Afghanistan is Blanketville, and that Obama was born in Hawaii. Is it any wonder the Founding Fathers distrusted “democracy” so much.

Stupid government – Politics 2013: shutdown
DOD Bars 50 Priests from Administering Sacraments, Locks Up Eucharist; Priest Sues
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: This is, of course, both a contract AND a moral issue.  It would seem that the DoD wants to try and get rid of ANY religious observance and was using the shutdown as an excuse.  Of course, that drives those pesky religious folks out of even joining up, much less staying in. And so the morals of the force takes another nosedive.

Lies and More Lies – Culture wars: Homosexual “marriage”
Gov. Christie: Same-Sex Marriage [sic] Should Not Be Imposed By New Jersey Court
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Courts should not impose ANY kind of marriage.  We are to blame: when we allow government to start defining (and redefining) words, we have (by definition – pun intended) given them too much power.  Christie is fine with letting government have a LOT of power, but now he has reached his (very high) limit and is squawking.  At least in public.  Who knows how he might go if he gets MORE power.

This is the problem with “democracy” unless that democracy is either L. Neil Smith’s “hyperdemocracy” (that is, unanimous agreement) OR very heavily constrained within a REPUBLICAN (NOT “GOP”) constitution which very specifically prevents (AND PUNISHES) government for about 99% of the things that they want to and do perform.  (And I may be low on my estimate at 99%.)

What about the lies?  Supposedly 10% of the population is “homosexual” BY NATURE:  Not nurture, not willful decision, but supposedly “Because God made them that way,” or (for you atheists and agnostics and “State IS God” people), “Because they EVOLVED that way.”  Right.  Neither mindset can come up with a way that evolution OR God would create this sort of “unchangeable” nature in humans (or any other species); genetic defects do not account for that.  More accurate (and honest) studies indicate that the REAL numbers (at least until recent years) are well under 1% – and due primarily to “nurture” not nature.  But the more that the culture changes the “nurture” portion of the equation, the more common the “defect” and the more the culture is changed.  But the changes are built on lies, just as in Communist or other societies.  Ultimately, it collapses.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-40B: Minor matters

Posted on 2013-10-18 by TPOL Nathan

Nathan:  Compared to the cave by the Congress, all this other stuff (for now) is minor stuff not to be  worried much about.  Or is it?

Home Front – Tyranny on an Integrated Scale
Federal Healthcare Law Used to Take Camera from Man Recording Local Police
(The Blaze) To summarize: a man was charged with crimes for videotaping a police officer making an arrest; the police officer claimed that the arrest was a “mental health check” because the person being arrested was having a mental breakdown.  Therefore, the man filming the incident was violating the privacy of the man being arrested, which is (according to the cop and his bosses) a violation of HIPAA, the federal law on health insurance privacy protection.

Nathan: If I get this right, if you do something that causes you to be arrested, even if you are not later charged with anything, the action that led to your arrest is proof that you are having a deterioration in your mental health.  Therefore, all records regarding this “health evaluation” (arrest) are prevented from being released to protect your “HIPAA rights” – and no one (not even a “real” reporter) can record any part of the process or anything related to that “health and welfare check.”  Anyone attempting to do so will be arrested and charged with violating federal law. Apparently this is one federal law (unlike illegally crossing the border or stealing someone’s identity to get a job as an illegal) that local police CAN enforce.  Your arrest (if you are arrested for video recording) is also not just an arrest, but a mental health evaluation process: you are under observation have been “confined” for a mental health problem.  That means, that you now have a history of mental health problems which makes you ineligible to buy or own firearms, and for anyone in your house to have firearms.  (If they fail to remove firearms because you are present, they too are subject to arrest and a concurrent “mental health evaluation” for disobeying the law, and the cycle continues.)  You also of course are subject to all curtailment of rights and liberties because of your mental health condition, even if you are subsequently released and not charged with anything.  If any of this occurred within the vicinity of a child (the definition of “vicinity” being very elastic, of course), you could further be identified (even without benefit of trial or even a hearing) as a child abuser and a future threat to all children, even your own.  This of course is reason to remove the children from your home, and could require that you move to someplace suitably distant from any school, church building, playground, park, or athletic field, even a college campus.  If any of this arrest and further arrest and all had ANYTHING at all to do with sex: for example, if you lost your temper and used the f-word, or if you grabbed your groin after being kicked between the legs by a cop, you could further be identified as a “sex offender” and required to register as such.  You would, of course, lose more and more rights, until you are nothing but another cog in the great national prison and “justice” government-industrial system.

Mama’s Note: Thank goodness there are not enough cops to do this very often, though once is too much, of course. The best thing I can think of to prevent this is to stay out of the cities where these psycho cops run around loose… They can’t be everywhere. And if you do decide to video something, have a camera too small to detect, and don’t call any attention to yourself in the process. Have some way to upload the video instantly too, then the cops can’t destroy it and say it never happened.

Europe’s Collapse – Border Jumpers
EU Ratchets Up Border Security
(PressEurop) “The EU is building up a team of heavily-guarded men to help Libya stop unwanted migrants and to collect intelligence,” reveals news websiteEUobserver days after at least 34 migrants drowned after reportedly setting sail to Europe from Libya. Meanwhile, in a separate story, EUobserver also announces that EU border security agency Frontex is considering using aerial drones, which can be operated remotely or with a pilot, to monitor frontiers.

Nathan: Learning a lesson from Big Brother (the US), I guess.  Cooperating and sending “police” into Libya, using drones, setting up spy networks, and meanwhile, watching people die.  Of course, this being the EU, the “border security” will make even the Mexican Border in the US look like it is airtight (and being run by professionals).  No doubt the EU has decided that something has to be done, because it is clear that they can no longer rely on the US to be either the man on a white horse OR the big bad boogeyman to keep the riffraff away.  But we have MORE from Europe:

Europe’s Collapse – Slavery
880,000 slaves in the European Union TODAY
(PressEurop) According to the latest figures from the European parliament’s [Organised Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering Committee(CRIM), approximately 880,000 people in the European Union are living in slavery.

They notably include “children that are forced to beg, men who are forced to work for pitifully low wages, and women who are forced to work as prostitutes,” explains De Morgen. The daily adds that CRIM has called on member states to apply the EU’s directive on human trafficking, and demanded that the European Commission implement its strategy for the eradication of trafficking in human beings.

Nathan: These are, of course, the 100 percent slaves, not the 40 or 50% slaves who are called “taxpayers” by governments, but whom are slaving for their “betters” by being forced to give significant parts of their income to the State.  When you add THOSE numbers, just as here in the US, MOST of the population is living in slavery.  What is worse, most of those who are do NOT CARE – they are “secure” and therefore willing to accept their chains.

Islamic wars
Malaysia: Court restricts use of “Allah” to Muslims
(The Hindu [India]) “A Malaysian appeals court ruled on Monday that only Muslims can use the word ‘Allah’ to refer to god, upholding a government ban on the word being used in a Catholic publication. The ruling reverses an earlier lower court decision. … On December 31, 2009, the Kuala Lumpur High Court lifted the prohibition, noting that the church had a constitutional right to use the word in its publication on the ground that religions other than Islam can be practiced in peace and harmony.” (10/14/13)

Nathan: This adds fuel to those that accuse the Muslims of worshiping a moon god or some such, but also shows that even so-called “secular” governments in predominantly Muslim countries are anything but.  And it warns us of what is to come as the US declines more rapidly.  The writer of The Last Centurion may still see his predictions come true.

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Food Stamps – An American Evil – part 2

Posted on 2013-10-18 by MamaLiberty

[Continued from an earlier article by Nathan Barton]

The four lowest states are relatively conservative (if not necessarily in national politics) and all in the west – other than that, they have little in common.  North Dakota is incredibly wealthy (relatively) with the Bakken etc. oil and gas boom, and very low unemployment.  It and Wyoming are very small (in population) and have traditions of self-sufficiency and community help.  Nebraska is relatively well-off, doing better than Wyoming economically but with two large urban areas.  Colorado, frankly, surprises me: the state is a mess, with a bad (and probably again worsening economy), bad liberal government, and major urban areas and smaller urban areas with a huge underclass.

Although Montana and South Dakota are in the second tier (10-15% food stamps), they are very similar to ND, MT, WY, and NE.  BUT they have a large AmerInd population, both on and off the Rez, and the economic straits of the tribes as well as their treaty rights mean that the great majority of them are on SNAP.  Since 10-12% of SD’s population is enrolled members, this alone counts for the participation.  (Colorado has tribes but such a small percentage that they are literally a drop in the bucket, even with urban AmerInd population.)

Also in that second tier are three states in which the participation has DOUBLED since 2008 – just five years.  Idaho, Utah, and Nevada have many problems: Nevada in particular has been very hard hit by the Crash of 2009 – this depression in all but name.  Its tourism/gaming industry was attacked by both its unions, its federal legislators, and the White House:  it is actually a surprise to see it isn’t higher.  Utah and Idaho have shifted population, with far more non-LDS (and thus not using the excellent Bishop’s system available to LDS in dire straits).  They have also been hit by changes in government programs and regulations: timber, mining, and other fundamental industries have been in bad shape.

Now to the other end:

Why on earth is there a 20-25% rate in Oregon of all places?  Oregon is socialist (as well as anti-military) but not much more than Michigan or Wisconsin.    It wasn’t the Crash that drove this up by a huge amount of participants.  Perhaps Oregonians are more susceptible to government advertising (propaganda) about food stamps and other programs.  Perhaps the attacks by government on the timber industry and many other industries has dragged it down.   Oregon is NOT business friendly, I’m told, so maybe small businesses have been hurt more.

It is easier to understand why New Mexico is so bad off:  large AmerInd population (remember treaty rights and such) – especially the Navajo and various Pueblo, lots of immigrants, especially illegal ones, in New Mexico, perhaps because the culture is more similar to Latin America than any other state.  It has been damaged by liberal administrations and legislatures and urban governments (Albuquerque and Santa Fe in particular), and hit by government control and by government reductions in military and research matters.  But still, like Oregon, there must be other reasons.

Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana may be so high because they are part of the Old South and the Black Belt; as well as having entrenched Democratic municipal governments and many endemic economic problems.  (Louisiana’s condition is obviously Bush’s fault since he caused Katrina and all but destroyed New Orleans.)  The last one in this fourth, bottom tier is Rhode Island, with strong liberal control at all levels, an economy that hasn’t recovered from not being bombed during WW1 and WW2, and massive immigration. It has doubled in five years, again perhaps because with almost no industry left, even the parasites have started moving away.

I am surprised to find DC in this tier (I don’t count it because it isn’t a state – except for a state of mental distress), but maybe if you take away all the government parasites with incomes of over $50,000 a year (that is, those who supposedly WORK for government, not those who are officially on welfare), it would be way over 25% on food stamps. Of course, a GS-1 (there are, apparently, a few of those left) gets more than $20/hour, but only about $22K a year: possible to be eligible for food stamps in a one-earner family.  But face it, DC has an entitlement mentality and has since the War between the States:  gimme gimme from the guy squatting at 1600 PA right now to the most derelict bum sleeping on a street grate.

Florida’s doubling in five years can probably be attributed to the massive retired population, massive immigration (internal and external), and cuts in government – as well as the real estate crash.  Even so, it is still better off than the worst five states and DC.  Notice that except for Rhode Island, NONE of the 20-25% states doubled:  which must mean that there are so many already on the public teat that is is hard to get that much of an increase.

There are 47 million of us on the OFFICIAL, federal dole.  That is basically one in six of us; 16%.  Of course, the numbers vary significantly from place to place, indeed in the measure of a few blocks.  And with the Crash, even from house to house.  The fact that there are such differences on a state-by-state level is an indication that it is NOT simply economic conditions or social status. There MUST be other factors.  But I don’t have the data to figure out what they are.

So, you say to me, “Nathan, all this description is no doubt fascinating, but it doesn’t mean that food stamps are evil.  So why do you call them that?”  Obviously, people need them or think they need them.  That chart shows that food stamps don’t even pay enough for an average man to eat: about fifty bucks short on a monthly basis.

Here is why:  See part 3 tomorrow.

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The Curtain Rises on the Final Act

Posted on 2013-10-17 by TPOL Nathan

Well, time to wrap it up.  Thanks to Margaret for this story – though of course I’d already heard.  And the handwriting was on the wall:

House Passes Deal to Reopen Government
(New York Times – Breaking News Wed 16OCT2013, 2229 EDT)
The House voted, 285-144, to approve a Senate plan to end the government shutdown and raise the debt limit. The deal would finance the government through Jan. 15 and raise the debt limit through Feb. 7.  President Obama said he would sign the measure.
(Read another account of it here.)

Nathan: Of course he will.  He won. Once more, the GOP “leadership” has rolled over and played dead for the tyrant and his minions.

Margaret asked Debby and me to comment on it and give our thoughts as to what we would predict will happen now.  Here is my reply.

More and more, the people we talk to and write with have said it really will make no difference: the nation is lost and it will be a more or less steady downhill slog from here on out.  The GOP helped reinforce the White House message that the GOP was to blame:  at this point, the GOP stands to LOSE the 2014 elections and this 16 days may well be the major meme the Dems use to ensure the defeat is a crushing one.  I’d like to say that if the GOP loses the House, it will just ensure that the last two years of the current regime will be a romp to total victory FOR them and the Tranzis.  But frankly, given the surgery obviously done on the GOP to remove not just the spine but the frontal lobes and not just the testicles but every bit of intestines, it wouldn’t matter.  They are going to roll over on ObamaCare, on immigration, on attacking every little country that the tyrant wants to attack, and we will see the dollar become even more worthless than it is already.  No country will say anything too loud, but they will quietly walk away from us – even Israel and the UK and Korea, and make accommodation as best they can.

There are stories that the EU and China have come to an agreement to drop the dollar, so the worthless pieces of paper will get even more worthless.  And in real terms, personal household income will continue to drop more and more: we are already at maybe 92% of real (adjusted for the government inflation figures, which themselves are bogus) income compared to 2000 (as 100%).  And inflation will increase.

The military will continued to be emasculated, as he relieves more and more of the few flag officers that were worth anything, and puts more and more opportunistic toadies in command: the good people will all too often be treated like Uzziah.  Veterans will be treated as mental cases, more and more – especially after this last weekend.  States will be still MORE browbeatened and bribed into licking his boots and they will fear to do anything at all. This INCLUDES the western states: SD, WY, MT, ND, UT.  The other states already have Stockholm Syndrome: I expect these to get it as well.  Voting in 2014 will be useless: I expect to again see 85% or more of those who choose to run again to be reelected.  (Yes, the polls say 60% of us want ALL of them gone, but that is what they said back in the 70s and the 90s, and it didn’t happen.  And that was when there was still a bit of honesty left in the elections.)

More and more people, having decided that they have nothing to lose, will “go postal” or “go Galt.”  The cops will increasingly resemble the occupation force they really are, and we will see more and more Fallujah-type incidents: more and more men and women and children gunned down and beaten to death for doing ANYthing to outrage a cop or a political office-holder. More and more people will have their messages and calls (already spied upon) used as evidence or as a reason to ensure that they are dealt with.

The only hope is that SOME of the states in the West (I pray for just a half-dozen) will have the courage to do something other than just roll over.  I fear that massive civil disobedience is beyond the capability of the people as a whole.  Anything less than several million people refusing to follow the insane laws and pay the idiotic taxes will be crushed without mercy.  And they can’t be scattered over the whole country: they have to be concentrated fairly tightly.  And that is not going to happen.  It must be left in the Lord’s hands.  But we know that He expects and demands that WE do something to show our faith in Him, and I do not think that we are any different than Sodom:  Abraham and Lot couldn’t find enough people to save the city.  And I don’t think we can here in what was once America.

Let me add some more:  this last sixteen days has broken a lot of people.  The GS government employees (General Schedule) are going to get every bit of their salary paid.  Rumor is that WG (wage grade) employees will NOT get any pay: they are blue-collar, unlike the white collar GS types.  But no government contractor, even if on personal contract and working in the same offices or shops as the GS and WG, will get a single dime.  Nor will the hundreds of thousands of people, from waitstaff in restaurants and maids in lodges and hotels on (or accessed only by) federal lands, no one who paid to buy timber and weren’t allowed to cut a tree down for more than two weeks, or the people who are in the various businesses that we’ve read about for two weeks.  Some of us were only indirectly affected, often in surprising ways.  We will see how being broken affects all of us: will we accept our change (chains) or is this the event that will cause many of us to resort to real disobedience and even… violence?

Mama’s Note: Part 2 of the “Food Stamp” article will be posted later today.

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Food Stamps – An American Evil

Posted on 2013-10-16 by TPOL Nathan

The Food Stamp Program, originally created as part of the “New Deal” of the evil monster-in-chief F. D. Roosevelt and reinvented again and again by machine politics and a succession of monsters-in-chief like LBJ and William Jefferson Clinton, is in the news this week. Food stamps are now officially the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” (SNAP), mainly provided by Electronics Benefit Transfer (EBT) debit-like cards.  Which is why they are in the news.

In seventeen states, on Saturday, the entire system crashed, no one’s EBT cards worked.   This came very close to triggering several riots, no doubt because people feared that the government shut down had finally come to the point of cutting off the billions in food stamp money handed out to almost 50 million American residents.  It was variously reported that a test by Xerox, the vendor, may have caused the problem, others said that an upgrade triggered it: it was restored some six to eight hours later.  Apparently there were no actual riots.

In ONE state (Louisiana), the exact opposite happened: their “debit cards” (they debit YOUR account as a taxpayer to feed THEIR mouths) HAD NO LIMITS.  So a WalMart was essentially looted.

The amount of welfare provided through this program is astonishing, as the above maps and graphs show.  The variation in states is also truly amazing. Because of this great difference, the two events this weekend had significantly different impacts.  For example, as Louisiana has between 1/5 and 1/4 of the entire population of food stamp recipients, the looting could have been done at hundreds of stores – so it could have been much worse.  Those same large numbers in other states, with no “money” on their cards, COULD have resulted in riots and flash-mob-style looting.  But apparently, it did not.

Tomorrow, some thoughts about some of the states and why they have low and high participation.

[Update: see part 2 here]

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-40A: Shutdown, Protests, and Historic Moments

Posted on 2013-10-14 by TPOL Nathan

This weekend may have been a milestone in American history, or may be just another speed bump in the galloping run downhill to oblivion. The great “Government Shutdown” continues (into a holiday weekend and now Day 14) at an 83% totally bogus level (based on workers, higher when you consider total spending) and the government continues to collect billions in taxes each day (because people are apparently still afraid of NOT paying even when they are supposedly receiving nothing for their payments).  At least 3,000 trucks circled and tied up traffic in DC in a protest, while media ignored them or claimed only a few dozen trucks arrived (CNN).  At the same time, more veterans showed up on the National Mall to take down barricades and again mostly be ignored.  Even taking the barricades to place in front of the White House was dismissed as “unnews” by the mainstream media.  Meanwhile, the Electronic Benefits Transfer system (providing for SNAP (food stamps) for millions) shut down “accidentally” due to computer problems in a bunch of states, and riots almost developed in a bunch of places as shelves were stripped bare.  This disgusted a LOT of people – especially those whose taxes pay for the EBT in the first place.  And more and more civil disobedience was taking place across the nation: DC was not the only place barricades or cones were removed in defiance of federal edicts. Are people finally waking up?  Or just protesting feebly against the inevitable? Congress seems increasingly divorced from reality, and the White House seems stuck on blaming the GOP:

Politics 2013: Government “Shutdown” – The “messiah”
Obama not allowing govt to borrow more would amount to new tax
(CNSNews.com) President Barack Obama used his Saturday radio address to press for an end to “this Republican shutdown” and for an increase in the debt limit. “It wouldn’t be wise,” he said, “to just kick the debt-ceiling can down the road for a couple months, and flirt with a first-ever intentional default right in the middle of the holiday shopping season. Because damage to America’s sterling credit rating wouldn’t just cause global markets to go haywire; it would become more expensive for everyone in America to borrow money. Students paying for college. Newlyweds buying a home. It would amount to a new tax — a Republican default tax — on every family and business in America.”

Nathan: The man racks up an incredible number of lies in a few short sentences.  The “shutdown” is not the fault of the GOP (or at least not SOME of the GOP), since we know that the House passed multiple bills and sent them to the Senate which refused to take any action.  Not raising the debt ceiling is NOT a “default” – only an inability to take on MORE debt, but while there are still billions of dollars in tax and other revenues to pay the “credit card bill.”  America’s credit is not “sterling” but is seen as more and more tarnished each day, thanks in large part to lies like this.  It would not become more expensive to borrow money for people who pay their bills – indeed, logically, in a free market, an end to massive government borrowing would free up more money for business and families to borrow.  To claim that for government to stop borrowing money would be a “new tax” is about as Orwellian as you can get.  War is Peace.  Slavery is Freedom. Debt is Money.  It goes on and on.

Mama’s Note: And, furthermore, it is just possible that some of those college students and brides could put off instant gratification and work to save up for their education and weddings, as we used to do. Households might just stop borrowing quite so much and live with last year’s car and TV. The idea that the economy will crash and burn if everyone stops using credit they often cannot repay is another big lie.

Politics 2013: Shutdown – Congress in action
Stalemate in Washington? Wasserman Schultz Suggests That Men Are the Problem
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: HUMANS are the problem.  Yes, once upon a time people thought that with more women in Congress and on the Cabinet and such, we’d have more rational and peaceful government.  People like Wasserman-Schultz, Clinton, Jackson Lee, Boxer, Pelosi, and others long ago disproved THAT little bit of myth:  they are vindictive, corrupt, greedy, and often just plain stupid. No different than the men.  They are parasites, takers, power-hungry, lovers of the state and tyranny (however sugar coated it may be) and are willing to steal, lie, cheat, abuse, and kill others for their own power and wealth.

Congress in action – Politics 2013
Rep. Peter King: ‘We Have to Start Going After Ted Cruz by Name’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Oh, and what have they been doing for the past several weeks?  There are MULTIPLE Senator Cruz?  He is, in the words of many Democrat spokesmen and women, evil incarnate.  But now they are going to really trash him?  The man is a typical politician with a few good things to day, but he is NOT the anarchist or libertarian or radical that they want to paint him.  Would that he WERE!!!

Congress in action – Theft by government
Portman: ‘Greatest Act of Bipartisanship’ Is Both Parties’ Overspending
(CNSNews.com) Both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for the impasse in Washington that has led to a partial government shutdown, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.”I would say the greatest act of bipartisanship over the last few decades has been Republicans and Democrats alike overpromising and overspending.

Nathan: Truth – but only reported by one side, and only believed by one side.  However, despite continuing and louder efforts by the mainstream media to prove it is all the GOP’s fault, more and more people are blaming them all.  And demanding that they ALL go away.

Culture Wars: Killing babies – Congress in action
Pro-life Leaders Urge Boehner To Protect Americans’ ‘Conscience Rights’(CNSNews.com) Leaders of more than 40 pro-life groups delivered an urgent letter to House Speaker John Boehner Friday imploring  him to protect Americans from being forced to subsidize abortions in any deal he makes with the White House to fund the government or raise the debt ceiling.

Nathan: Just like the rest of them, the “pro-life” politicians what to take advantage of the debt and shutdown situation.  But they don’t have the votes OR the guts, because it is more about their power than about saving lives or doing the right thing.

Islamic wars: Arab street revolt – Stupid US tricks
US military aid cuts not expected to hit Egypt hard
(Boulder Daily Camera) “The U.S. decision to suspend delivery of tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to Egypt is more of a symbolic slap than a punishing wound to the military-backed government for its slog toward a return to democratic rule. Egypt is awash in the tanks and planes it would need to fight a conventional war, and spare parts from U.S. manufacturers will continue to be delivered.” (10/13/13)

Mama’s Note: Aren’t we just so glad that Egypt is “awash in tanks and planes” so it can go to war just any time it wants…. Fondest dream of every dictator in the world to be “awash” with the tools of murder – especially if they can get Americans to pay for it!

Nathan: The price of empire for America, I guess.  We arm all sides to the teeth to indebt them to us, and we find that we are all too often their target, later if not sooner.  And so we must buy and give MORE arms to various enemies or supposed friends.  Forty years ago, another high school student called for a Pax Americana and a world American Empire in his original oratory speech given in the waning days of the Vietnam-American Phase of the Great Eastern War, and I hope he is happy with having gotten his wish.

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