Last Thursday, Breitbart News’ Mike Flynn broke the news that the Obama campaign was suing in the swing state of Ohio to block a law that extends early voting for members of the military for an additional three days. A fierce battle erupted, with Democrats (and a few conservatives) arguing that Obama campaign was simply trying to extend the military’s privilege to everyone else. Regardless of the remedy they seek, Flynn points out, they are suing to end an exemption for military voters. It would not be the first time Democrats–who pretend, in their fight against voter ID, to want more ballot access–have tried to stop the military’s votes from counting. Continue reading
WaPo Fact Checker Goes Full-Orwell: Facts Earn Pinocchios to Protect Obama
by John Nolte
Apparently Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler has decided to go the route of the thoroughly discredited Politifact and make a complete and public fool of himself — all, of course, in a crusade to protect Barack Obama.
In today’s Post, Kessler takes on two ads critical of Obama and the attention he has paid (or hasn’t) to Israel, specifically his decision not to visit Israel as president. Continue readingSikh Temple Shooting In WI
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: At least four people were shot just before 11 a.m. at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek Sunday morning and a police SWAT team entered the building before noon and brought uninjured people out of the building at 7512 S. Howell Ave. Among those who were shot was the president of the temple. People were in the temple as early as 6:30 a.m. Sunday and many more were arriving for a service that was to begin about 11:30 a.m. There were reports that children were taken to the building’s basement after shots were fired. Someone who sent a text message to a Journal Sentinel reporter shortly before noon said that there were two shooters with children possibly as hostages. And the head priest was locked inside a restroom with a cell phone and that there were as many as 20-to-30 victims.
Con Job: Media Complicit in Harry Reid’s Tax Smear
by John Nolte
There’s no question that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is an absolute political genius — as is the Obama campaign and Obama’s Palace Guards in the media.
Having Reid openly and audaciously lie about a Bain investor telling him thatObama Senior Advisor Accepted $100,000 From Firm Doing Business With Iran
by John Nolte
We all remember the Iranian uprising in June of 2009, or what became known as the Green Revolution. This was the one citizen uprising in the Middle East President Obama did absolutely nothing to encourage or protect. As the president sat on his hands and voted “present,” we all watched as an opportunity to overthrow the Iranian Mullahocracy slipped away.
What might have been the first and most vital moment in the so-called “Arab Spring,” what might have been our best chance at ending Iran’s nuclear program without an all-out war in the area, was allowed to wither and be massacred. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya, however, would receive all kinds of support from this very same White House. Continue readingMark Cuban’s Magnet to Bring Breitbart’s ‘Occupy Unmasked’ to Theatres
by John Nolte
“This film is controversial, and that’s exactly the reason we want to ensure it can find its audience prior to the November elections.” — Mark Cuban, co-studio head of Magnolia Pictures
Mark Cuban is a man who, in February of this year, attended a $30,000 a plate Obama fundraiser. Reportedly, asYou Didn’t Build That
You Didn’t Build That
by Gary Galles
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.Their defense is that what President Obama said somebody else made happen was not their success, but the teachers, roads, bridges, etc., provided by government, that “gave you some help.” However, that broader statement is still both confused and ominous for America. Continue reading
The Conspiracy of the Equals
The Conspiracy of the Equals
by Murray N. Rothbard[This article is excerpted from An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995), volume 2, chapter 9: "Roots of Marxism: Messianic Communism," section 3, "The Conspiracy of the Equals." An MP3 audio file of chapter 9, narrated by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download.]
Gore Vidal and Revisionism
Gore Vidal and Revisionism
by Jeff Riggenbach[This article is excerpted from Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism (2009).]
What Is Economics?
What Is Economics?
Percy L. Greaves, Jr.
As he has said, I am a student of Ludwig von Mises. I consider him the greatest man of our century. If our civilization, the whole of Western Civilization, is to be saved, it will only be because his ideas come to be more generally accepted than they are today.
In this first lecture I have been asked to talk about the science of economics. Continue reading
Friday, August 3, 2012
Weimar solution beckons as manufacturing crashes in US Fifth District?
Weimar solution beckons as manufacturing crashes in US Fifth District?
Worker at General Motors. The collapse in US manufacturing is worrying
The Richmond Fed's twin indices of manufacturing and services – a very good indicator at the onset of the Great Recession – collapsed this month.
Rule Highlights Catholic Tensions over Contraception
Rule Highlights Catholic Tensions over Contraception
New rules requiring free access to prescription birth control
for women with health insurance go into effect on Wednesday, but
controversy lingers at some Catholic institutions struggling to balance
the requirement with their opposition to contraception.
At Georgetown University, the nation's oldest Catholic university,
students and administration officials are still wrestling with the
requirement to cover contraceptives as part of larger effort to expand
no-cost preventive care for women.
The Incomparable Faith of Keynesian Investors. by Gary North
Occasionally,
I read something in the mainstream financial media whose degree
of delusion takes my breath away. This
is such a sentence (August 2, 2012).
U.S stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Thursday, with investors hoping the European Central Bank will signal further measures to aid growth and prevent the euro zone collapsing.
This was published
by CNBC, a cable TV network that remains perpetually bullish. It
was posted no later than 6 a.m.
Clint Eastwood endorses Romney's presidential bid
The "Dirty Harry" star and Oscar-winning director of "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby" endorsed the Republican presidential candidate Friday night during a Sun Valley fundraiser.
"I think the country needs a boost," Eastwood told The Associated Press as he joined other Romney supporters for the private campaign event.
The Conspiracy of the Equals
by Murray N. Rothbard
[This article is excerpted from An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought
(1995), volume 2, chapter 9: "Roots of Marxism: Messianic Communism,"
section 3, "The Conspiracy of the Equals." An MP3 audio file of chapter
9, narrated by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download.]
What Is Economics?
by Percy L. Greaves, Jr.
As he has said, I am a student of Ludwig von Mises. I consider him the greatest man of our century. If our civilization, the whole of Western Civilization, is to be saved, it will only be because his ideas come to be more generally accepted than they are today.
In this first lecture I have been asked to talk about the science of economics.
Gore Vidal and Revisionism
Gore Vidal and Revisionism
[This article is excerpted from Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism (2009).]
France To Raise Top Tax Rate To Shocking 75%
Samuel Blackstone
John Gress/Getty Images
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Unnecessary Laws Pose More than Nuisance
By Scott Rasmussen
It's a nice idea, but it doesn't work. In my family, we never use the landline. We talk on cellphones. Occasionally, telemarketers call. So do people looking for someone named "Danny," but we no longer answer.
So, if a call came from our local government, we'd never hear their message. But when you're building a house and need to pass inspection, it's easier to put in the phone than fight city hall.
Faber: '100% Chance' of Global Recession
NEW YORK — Investors need to prepare for a global recession.
That’s the takeaway from one well-respected economist after his recent appearance on CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime Report.
According to Marc Faber, the author of the Gloom, Boom, and Doom Report, a global recession is all but a certainty later this year or in early 2013.
When he was asked what sort of odds he put on a global recession happening, the economist famous for his ominous predictions quickly answered:
“100 Percent”
That’s the takeaway from one well-respected economist after his recent appearance on CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime Report.
According to Marc Faber, the author of the Gloom, Boom, and Doom Report, a global recession is all but a certainty later this year or in early 2013.
When he was asked what sort of odds he put on a global recession happening, the economist famous for his ominous predictions quickly answered:
“100 Percent”
The economy was Job One
O’s mission failure
John PodhoretzThe man who said in 2009 that “if I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition” had better believe in the audacity of hope yet again: the hope that he was wrong.
To say Barack Obama hasn’t gotten “this done” is putting it mildly — if by “this” you mean an economy that is providing sufficient employment, sufficient opportunity and sufficient momentum for a populous nation that needs a certain level of growth in all these areas every month just to keep pace with the number of new workers who enter the playing field.
Getty Images
Grim times: A few of the countless harried job seekers at the jewelry-business career fair this week at the Javits Center.
I don’t say this flippantly. The whole concept of the “social safety net” is that government should provide assistance to help those suffering from the immediate practical consequences of a problematic economy.
Food stamps aren’t supposed to be a permanent form of relief. They exist to help those in crisis (and to pour government dollars into the pockets of food-processing companies).
Unlike Obama, Bill Clinton Was a Centrist
By David Harsanyi -
Former President Bill Clinton is slated to deliver a prime-time address at the Democratic National Convention. No doubt, he's going to give one hell of a talk. The man is on his game, enjoying the highest favorable ratings he's seen since 1993; a robust 66 percent of Americans think highly of the former president.It's a politically astute choice by Barack Obama, as "there isn't anybody on the planet who has a greater perspective on not just the last four years, but the last two decades, than Bill Clinton," David Axelrod explained to The New York Times. "He can really articulate the choice that is before people."
The Bad History Behind ’You Didn’t Build That’
The controversy surrounding President
Barack Obama’s admonishment that “if you’ve got a business --
you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen” has
defied the usual election-year pattern.
Normally a political faux pas lasts little more than a news cycle. People hear the story, decide what they think, and quickly move on to the next brouhaha, following what the journalist Mickey Kaus calls the Feiler Faster Thesis. A gaffe that might have ruined a candidate 20 years ago is now forgotten within days.
Three weeks later, Obama’s comment is still a big deal.
Although his supporters pooh-pooh the controversy, claiming the statement has been taken out of context and that he was referring only to public infrastructure, the full video isn’t reassuring. Whatever the meaning of “that” was, the president on the whole was clearly trying to take business owners down a peg. He was dissing their accomplishments. As my Bloomberg View colleague Josh Barro has written, “You don’t have to make over $250,000 a year to be annoyed when the president mocks people for taking credit for their achievements.”
Normally a political faux pas lasts little more than a news cycle. People hear the story, decide what they think, and quickly move on to the next brouhaha, following what the journalist Mickey Kaus calls the Feiler Faster Thesis. A gaffe that might have ruined a candidate 20 years ago is now forgotten within days.
Virginia Postrel
Although his supporters pooh-pooh the controversy, claiming the statement has been taken out of context and that he was referring only to public infrastructure, the full video isn’t reassuring. Whatever the meaning of “that” was, the president on the whole was clearly trying to take business owners down a peg. He was dissing their accomplishments. As my Bloomberg View colleague Josh Barro has written, “You don’t have to make over $250,000 a year to be annoyed when the president mocks people for taking credit for their achievements.”
‘What to Do about Huawei?’
It is time for both the administration and the Congress to reveal what they have discovered about the Chinese telecoms giant.
The title above was taken from a recent column by
Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins Jr. that chronicles the
difficulties the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has encountered
in its attempt to crack the U.S. market. The column provoked a strong letter of protest
from three members of Congress—Senator Jon Kyl (R.-Arizona) and
Representatives Frank Wolf (R.-Virginia) and Sue Myrick (R.-North
Carolina)—arguing that the matter of Huawei’s activities is “far more
complicated and dangerous than the piece suggests” and constitutes a
threat to national security.Europe’s Hope: Entrepreneurs
While its politicians dither, startups can take up the mantle of Europe’s economic future.
The news out of Europe only seems to get worse. Each
government bond auction and economic data release piles on the bad news,
exacerbated by a series of summits that overpromise and under-deliver.
Meanwhile, the policy debate is stuck between those who blame government
profligacy and those who point to underlying structural problems that
plague European economies. These problems include rigid labor markets,
dramatic trade imbalances among countries, and, in many places, stagnant
industrial production.Hope, however, springs eternal, and Europe might look for so-called “green shoots” in an organization called Startup Weekend. Over the past few years, this American nonprofit has quietly but quickly overtaken the continent.
The New ‘Buffett Rule’ Everyone Is Ignoring
Taking our eyes off the overwhelmingly important goal of returning the economy to robust growth is a waste of valuable time.
Warren Buffett, recently expressing his disgust with
the debt ceiling debate, condensed a profound truth about our federal
debt into just a few short words. Although this gem of wisdom (below)
deserves to be elevated to the status of a new “Buffett Rule,” that will
not happen in the foreseeable future, because both presidential
candidates are choosing to ignore it. Why? Apparently, they would rather
not complicate the economic debate, especially during election season.
Nonetheless, the new “Buffett Rule” deserves some airtime, because both
candidates have some explaining to do.Why Citizens United Has Nothing to Do with What Ails American Politics
How to address the core flaw in the campaign finance regime.
Citizens United is one of the most misunderstood Supreme Court decisions ever. It doesn’t stand for what many people say it does.Take, for example, President Obama’s famous statement that the decision “reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections.” In one sentence, the former law professor made four errors of law.
The Long, Hot Summer
The grave yawns, the economy is
in the tubes, the world generally is in peril, yet, upon realizing that
there is a game tonight, my heart takes a small but genuine jump.
I expected this long, hot summer also to be a
depressing summer—depressing, that is, to the aging, cynical, yet withal
still half-ardent baseball fan that I remain. As an American,
Chicago-born, I go at things in my own way, which turns out to be a way I
am not supposed to go. By this I mean that I cheer on the two baseball
teams in my city. In jagged point of fact, Chicago White Sox fans hate
Chicago Cubs fans, and Chicago Cubs fans, being somewhat more upwardly
mobile, are merely contemptuous of Chicago White Sox fans.Even though the Cubs are under new management, no one expected much of the team this season as it went into, as the local joke has it, the 106th year of its rebuilding program. Thus far, they have for the most part lived up to these low expectations. Not much more was expected of the White Sox, who traded away two key players—their top- of-the-rotation pitcher Mark Buehrle and a natural hitter named Carlos Quentin—without adding anyone substantial to replace them. Three marquee players—the home-run hitter Adam Dunn, the Cy Young-winning pitcher Jake Peavy, and the brilliant outfielder named Alex Rios—all had a wretched 2011 season, and with none of them young, there was no reason to believe that they would get much better this year. Doldrums is what the 2012 baseball season bode; doldrums unrelieved looked to be my lot.
