Third Circuit Burns Innocent Gun Owner in Revell v. Port Authority

Gun owner screwed by an airline delay and the State of New Jersey (not to mention the Third Circuit Court of Appeals). See Revell v. Port Authority.

I guess we don't need no stinkin' Second Amendment.

Obamacare: The Ad

10 Rules for Dealing With Police

I don't do criminal law, but this event and the film showed is excellent. We have many excellent police, and some who are not so excellent. This film stresses the need to be polite and cooperative even if rights are being violated, while politely not waiving your rights.



There is also discussion about why the drug war has a disproportionate impact on the black community. I am not a fan of the war on drugs for many reasons. See blog here.

Racial Discrimination is Wrong

I thought that we in this country could agree on one core principle related to race: discrimination based upon race is wrong. This country has a truly unfortunate past history of race-based oppression.

How is it right to turn the tables and oppress the descendants of the former oppressors? This seems to me to be the two-wrongs-make-a-right theory.

Not surprisingly, the White House supports continued racial oppression : White House Brief Backs Race-Based Admissions.

White House attitude: We don't need no stinking 14th Amendment.

Government Efficiency: One Anecdote

Michelle Malkin has an email from the census worker, who is frustrated by the waste here.

If you think that government run health care would somehow magically be more efficient, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.

I heard a Harvard professor physician interviewed on local radio. The interviewer commented on the frustration of dealing with insurance companies, and she said she would rather be dealing with a single payer government agency that at least would be responsive to political pressure.

What??? There are so many flaws in that logic.

How responsive is big government to a little guy who gets treated badly? I suggest it is about as responsive as Congress was to massive public opposition to the government takeover of health care. Nada.

I don't know what that professor has been smoking, but she is clearly not reality-based.

You can change to a different insurance company if one treats you badly. Try to change to a different federal government.

Update: Another anecdote on the census.

Obamacare Prescription: Bigger IRS

WWhat could be better for health care that a bigger IRS?

ABC has the story.

It seems to me that a bigger IRS leads to more individual stress which leads to more illness.

Contrasting Political Rallies

Photos of contrasting rallies, one left wing, the other right wing. Which one is spewing hate?

Contracting Rallies.

Guess which one the drive-by media would call hateful.

At which would you feel more comfortable?

"Service" From Gov't Agencies Explained

Received via email:

Confused


I became confused when I heard the word 'service' used with these agencies:

Internal Revenue 'Service'
U.S. Postal 'Service'
Telephone 'Service'
Cable TV 'Service'
Civil 'Service'
Federal, State, City, County & Public 'Service'
Customer 'Service'

This is not what I thought 'service' meant.

But today, I overheard two farmers talking, and one of them said he had hired a bull to 'service' a few cows.

BAM!!! It all came into focus. Now I understand what all those agencies are doing to us.

You are now as enlightened as I am.

Most Say Tea Partiers Know More Than Congress

According to a new Rasmussen poll: Most Say Tea Party Has Better Understanding of Issues than Congress.

More details:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of U.S. voters believe the average member of the Tea Party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America today than the average member of Congress. Only 30% believe that those in Congress have a better understanding of the key issues facing the nation.
When it comes to those issues, 47% think that their own political views are closer to those of the average Tea Party member than to the views of the average member of Congress. On this point, 26% feel closer to Congress.
Finally, 46% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is more ethical than the average member of Congress. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say that the average member of Congress is more ethical.

This is astounding in its implications but not surprising.

After the Democrats pushed through their highly partisan, widely unpopular health care bill, commiting political hara kiri (i.e., "suicide" for you younger folks unfamiliar with WWII), it is hard not to think of them as morons.

Obamacare Evils Continue

On Thursday, I posted about the mandatory write-downs that John Deere and Caterpillar must take because of Obamacare. Now, AT&T has announced a $1 billion write down.

On top of AT&T's $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.

Source: Wall Street Journal.

What are these about? Well, these companies are being punished for giving retirees prescription benefits. Yes, instead of dumping their retirees in to the Medicare prescription system, these companies provide retires private retirement benefits.

Oh, the horror. Democrats must punish. The Obamacare bill punishes employers for giving these benefits. The bill levies massive taxes.

Why the writedowns now if the taxes are in the future? Accounting rules for publicly traded companies require them to recognize the present value (cost, really) of future liabilities.

Democrats, who never have been much for logic or for taking resonsibility for their own actions, are incensed.

Meanwhile, Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment "appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs."

In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don't like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.

How dare these compnies follow the accounting rules and reveal the hidden costs of Obamacare! They must be further punished by appearing before Congress to get abused in hearings!

It gets worse:

As Joe Biden might put it, this is a big, er, deal for shareholders and the economy. The consulting firm Towers Watson estimates that the total hit this year will reach nearly $14 billion, unless corporations cut retiree drug benefits when their labor contracts let them.

Meanwhile, John DiStaso of the New Hampshire Union Leader reported this week that ObamaCare could cost the Granite State's major ski resorts as much as $1 million in fines, because they hire large numbers of seasonal workers without offering health benefits. "The choices are pretty clear, either increase prices or cut costs, which could mean hiring fewer workers next winter," he wrote.

The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don't make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.

I blame "The One" (i.e., Public Enemy No. 1, Barack Obama). Public Enemy No. 2, Nancy Pelosi, is not far behind.

Obama Working Hard to Kill Private Sector Jobs

Now we have it. The administration of Public Enemy No. 1 is working hard to kill jobs with Obamacare: Farm equipment manufacturers take deep hits from ObamaCare

Not all jobs. Just private sector jobs. government jobs are alive, well and growing. Obamacare is estimated to require 16,000 new jobs at the IRS.

Wowser.

And you are paying for it. In so many ways.

Unbelievable Interview: Answer the Question!

Representative Weiner keeps accusing Bill O'Reilly of making up lies, when all O'Reilly is doing is asking a simple question that Mr. Weiner can't bring himself to answer. This is pretty funny.



I defy anyone to sympathize with Weiner. This is what happens to people who simply repeat canned talking points without paying attention to the questions asked.

Exit question. Does the Congressman come across more as a whiner or a wiener?

MSNBC's Schuster Easily Bested

Kevin Jackson demonstrates that MSNBC's David Schuster is not a journalist, but a hack pressing a point of view:



This liberal bias is par for the course with MSNBC.

To its credit, MSNBC drought a conservative on the air to comment, which is pretty rare. They don't like it when conservatives make fools of them, as happened here. Actually, Schuster did it to himself.

The You Tube poster of this video (note the derogatory term "teabagger") completely misses the point.

This Image Says It -- Updated

Rasmussen Poll: 55% want Obamacare repealed.
.

Democrats Surprised at the Anger Against Them

Threats of violence against Democrats. Is anyone surprised, really?

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is warning that some of his Democratic colleagues are being threatened with violence when they go back to their districts — and he wants Republicans to stand up and condemn the threats.

The Maryland Democrat said more than 10 House Democrats have reported incidents of threats or other forms of harassment about their support of the highly divisive health insurance overhaul vote. Hoyer emphasized that he didn’t have a specific number of threats and that was just an estimate.

I can't remember any issue ever that generated such strong emotions, except perhaps issues that led to the Civil War.

I reject the threats of violence and embrace threats of punishment at the polls. But I understand the threats of violence. If my anger were uncontrolled ....

The Democrats have to be really dumb clucks not to see threats of violence coming. Their action in passing the Obamacare bill was evil and thoroughly reprehensible for many reasons, including that fact that their constituents by and large passionately hate the legislation. It threatens people's health care freedom and as a result, their very lives.

Unlike most Europeans and our friends to the north, Americans (U.S. Americans) are not sheep. We don't want Nanny telling us what to do, what doctor we may see, and that we must buy insurance we don't want. Nanny does not know best how to spend my money.

We are the same people who rebelled in 1776. Our 2010 rebellion should be at the polls, but the anger is very, very deep. The Democrats sliced away portions of very souls. Woe unto them at the polls; the Democrats sabotaged our way of life. It looks like treason from here.

No wonder people are angry and threatening violence. How could the Democrats not see this coming?

Shocking subhead from MSNBC

here is the headline and shocking subhead from MSNBC:

Record numbers now licensed to pack heat
Firearms deaths fall as millions obtain permits to carry concealed guns

MSNBC is not known for being gun-friendly. In fact, its reputation is pretty bad. See the link to a dishonest report relating to guns.

However, the headline is for an article that is pretty even-handed.

Freedom Lost, Thanks to that Enemy of the People, Barack Obama

As far as I am concerned, Barack Obama is now Public Enemy No. 1. "The One" takes on a whole new meaning.

Nancy Pelosi is Public Enemy No. 2. Ya gotta give the Prez top billing. Theft-by-legislation is still theft in my mind.

Investor's Business Daily lists 20 of the freedoms these people have stolen from the American people.

The sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee.

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).

4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d)(1)(A))

8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A)).

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).

The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)

18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).

19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).

That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).

20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Read 'em and weep. Weep for the country.

Take revenge at the polls in November 2010 and 2012.

Defeat Public Enemy No. 1's cronies in 2010. Defeat Public Enemy No. l himself in 2012 (along with that goofy looney-lefist Sherrod Brown).
.

Demon Pass Explained

Great Gov't Healthcare -- Walgreens Says No

Walgreens announced that it will no longer take new Medicaid patients for prescriptions, because it loses money on them. Reimbursement rates are too low, below the break-even point. Story here.

Kudos to Walgreens. The bureaucrats who set reimbursement rates (and who will also set those rates for ALL of us if President Obama, Nancy "Horrible Woman" Pelosi, and the other Democrats have their way.

Punish. Them. All.

At the polls. Boo them from restaurants. Write your Resentative a letter urging him or her to vote no (in polite terms only). But above all, be prepared to humiliate them at the polls, Not just defeat, but landslide defeat.

Liberal Copycat Coffee Party

Sure, I know the Tea Parties borrowed from the Sons of Liberty over 200 years ago. But, the liberals' copycat coffee parties see, well, ludicrous and unimaginative. That makes the below image (stolen form BigJournalism.com) so humorous:

More Government Arrogance

This is so typical of government folks. here we have Congressional staffers who think they are so special, so much better than the rest of us, that they can bypass security scanning.

Why shouldn't they have special privileges, after all, they are with the government.

Does anyone really think that giving government total control of health care will make government weenies less arrogant? Or that it will improve service?

Britain Bans Ads Exaggerating Global Warming

Britain has discovered that its government (like ours) has been making exaggerated claims about global warming. So, the the Advertising Standards Agency has banned the scare-mongering ads produced by the British government.

See the BBC article.

Tricks, Manipulation and Maneuver -- Update

President Obama and the Corruptocrats are burying the "most ethical Congress ever" under a mountain of tricks manipulation and maneuver.

The destruction of the United States medical delivery system is their goal. They don't care about the wishes of the people. Their goal is highly unpopular. And expensive.

They don't care about ethics any more. Consider the case of Congressman Massa. His unethical, illegal behavior was swept under the rug, covered up, as long as he was a possible "yes" vote on the health care takeover. Once his "no" became firm he was expendable. Nancy Pelosi is a horrible woman. And that is the kindest thing I can say about her.

Nancy, Barack and their band of the corruption will stop at nothing. Back room deals, pretending bills were passed that were never voted upon (the Slaughter solution), "reconciliation" to avoid Senate filibuster rules -- all these bad-government strategies are on the table.

There people are truly scum. They deserve to be out, every one of them.

Update: I am not alone in thinking this way.

Good-Bye Barbara Boxer, aka "Ma'am"

From the California Republican Party:



I love the blimp-head of the egomaniacal Boxer.

The Hopey Changey, Bushy Blamey Strategy

For the first time since his election, President Obama's approval ratings in both the Gallup and Rasmussen polls are below 50%.

Gallup has the approval rating at 49% and disapproval at 44%.

For March 12, 2010, Rasmussen has approval at 44%. More significantly, the passion index -- strongly approve minus strongly disapprove -- is at -16 points. The passion index measures those people most likely to take action (like vote). The Rasmussen results change daily.

Clean Up ATF

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has been widely known as a rogue agency for years. The reputation probably dates from before the Waco Texas incident in 1993 and the Ruby Ridge massacre by ATF agents in 1992. They have the reputation of being police wannabes who watched to many cop show on the telly.

I want to introduce you to a web site where you can get the facts about the ATF and the desperate need to clean it up or eliminate it altogether. It is CleanupATF.org.

From the "About us" tab on the web site:

www.CleanUpATF.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to returning integrity, accountability and decency to the management of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE or "ATF").

In recent years, ATF management has become widely and officially known for corruption, self-service, and at times, overt incompetence. Moreover, ATF managers at all levels routinely retaliate or discriminate against employees who make good faith attempts to address significant cases of flagrant abuse, unlawful acts, waste of taxpayer resources, etc. Managers often use the threat or actual imposition of unfounded disciplinary actions, Internal Affairs “investigations”, punitive transfers, and other flagrantly unethical measures to suppress dissension and subvert legitimate complaints about serious abuses.

There is more detail. Read the entire mission statement here.

A fine example of ATF incompetence is reported below. Watch the ATF "expert" who claims anyone could convert the toy guns into a machine gun. Watch him try to insert a magazine backwards.



Clowns.

Brady Campaign's Ideal America

In Great Britain, two burglar's broke into Simon Thomas's Sussex pub. Mr. Thomas grabbed his shotgun and stopped the burglars, intending to detain them until the police arrived. Mr. Thomas called the police. The Police told Mr. Thomas to put down his gun.

Of course, the burglars, previously frighted, were delighted. They unloaded the stolen bicycles from their truck and left. The police arrived 50 minutes later.

From the Mail Online. That is the world the Brady Campaign wants for you.

ACORN to leave Ohio, Good Riddance

As part of a voter fraud lawsuit, ACORN has agreed to give up its qualification to do business in Ohio effective June 1, 2010.

Read about it here.

ACORN will not be missed.
.

Moron of the Day: Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn)

New York states Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has introduced a bill in the New York State Assembly to ban salt. In everything sold in a restaurant.

"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

Salt is essential to our health. So why does Ortiz propose to ban it? Ortiz explains:

Ortiz admits that prior to introducing the bill he did not research salt’s role in food chemistry, its effect on flavor or his bill’s ramifications for the restaurant industry. He tells me he was prompted to introduce the bill because his father used salt excessively for many years, developed high blood pressure and had a heart attack.

This is, of course a Democrat's substitute for actual thinking.

I think this particular moron of the day award is particularly well-deserved.

Obama: People Have Lost Faith in Government

From the President's speech in Missouri:

"People have lost faith in government -- they had lost faith in government before I ran (for president), and it has been getting worse," Obama said at a rally in St. Louis.

Does he think that forcing a widely unpopular government takeover of health care -- stealing from us our health care freedom -- he would be restoring faith in government? By giving people what they have been loudly proclaiming they do not want?

Is he really that stupid?

Melvin Washington v. Indiana

The Indiana Supreme Court has decided that an officer does not have probable cause to search an automobile merely, because the driver acknowledges that he has a loaded handgun for which he has a permit. In this case, on learning of the handgun and permit, the officer handcuffed driver Melvin Washington and searched the auto for the handgun. The officer found marijuana. The officer had no articulable concern for his safety. The driver was outside the vehicle, while the handgun was under the driver's seat. The court overturned the conviction for marijuana possession based upon the illegal search, saying the motion to suppress evidence from the search should have been granted.

Copy of decision here.

The bottom line is that having a handgun permit and actually having a loaded gun does not give the police an automatic right to search a vehicle.

ACORN in the News Again, But Not in a Good Way

More indictments against the Acornistas, this time felony indictments related to double voting and double registrations.

The kicker is that ACORN's management essentially assured cheating by offering incentives for dishonesty. If ACORN workers did not meet voter registration quotas, they got their pay docked.

So what did ACORN expect from its culture of corruption? Its employees cheated of course, with false registrations and multiple registrations of the same persons.

Read it all here.

This emphasizes a point I have often made. Liberals (I'm sorry, are we calling them progressives, now?) do not understand the consequences of incentives. If Medicare (or Obamacare) has piles of money for the taking, folks will work overtime to figure out easy (i.e., cheating) ways to get their hands on it. The incentive is to cheat for the easy money. Felonies are only for those who get caught.

Another simple example. Enact a minimum wage to give workers a living wage. People who aren't worth that much money get fired. Not only no living wage, but no wage at all. Smart.

Big government folks seem incapable of thinking through the steps to determine what incentives they actually create. I guess that problem flows through their management skill as well.

No surprise.

Palin vs. Romney Explained

Jon Stewart's astute political analysis of Palin vs Romney based upon late night appearances:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Leno-Palin vs. Letterman-Romney
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

He is a funny man.

Campaign Posters for the New Democratic Party

Proposed campaign posters for the new Democratic party. Here is a sample:



Here are the rest.

The Great Depression That Did Not Happen

Economist David Friedman debunks a widely believed but fictional view of the Great Depression. The myth was that in part because the United States was on the gold standard, the Herbert Hoover administration had to cut back on spending and raise taxes in the late 1920's plunging the country into the Great Depression. Mr Friedman shows that in fact, Herbert Hoover increased spending.

Mr. Friedman contrasts a period ten years earlier:

From 1920 to 1921, the unemployment rate increased by 6.5 percentage points and prices fell by more than 10%. Seen without the benefit of hindsight, it was obviously the beginning of a depression. Comparing the increase in unemployment and decrease in prices from 1920 to 1921 to the almost identical figures for 1930 to 1931, it was going to be a Great Depression.

President Harding acted as President Hoover is supposed to have acted. By 1923, federal expenditure had been reduced to about half its 1920 level. The table shows the result. The unemployment rate that peaked at 11.7% in 1921 had fallen, by 1923, to 2.4%. One year of high unemployment instead of 11 years under Hoover and then Roosevelt.

It was the Great Depression that didn't happen.

The message is clear that increased spending and increased taxes, a la Obama plan, is exactly the wrong way to cure the country's economic woes.

David Friedman is the son of Milton and Rose Friedman. Milton Friedman is a Nobel Laureate in economics.

Al Gore: Murderer

So this is what the phony global warming hysteria has come to. Al gore did it deliberately. His purpose has been to scare people. He wanted to scare people, feeding into their trust and gullibility, into spending tax dollars on, you guessed it, Al gore's projects.

And scare them he did. One couple was so scared that the did a whole suicide pact thing, almost killing their little girl along with themselves.

Al Gore will have to answer to that one in Hell.

h/t The Funeral Guy