The man who has no imagination has no wings.
Muhammad Ali
Tweet of the Day
"Robbin' (in the) Hood" takes from the industrious and gives to the entitled shiftless. http://t.co/Hl46NKJdNs
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) January 22, 2015
The only thing these leftist trespassing punks won't occupy is a jail cell...http://t.co/BYPBmN4QDE
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) January 22, 2015
Rant of the Day: Obama's Turd Sandwich SOTU
Image of the Day
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| Via Citizens Against Government Waste |
Tom Woods Is Offering Another Free E-Book
This one deals with 14 hard questions posed to libertarians (click here for the pdf version; he also has a Kindle version available).
Facebook Corner
(Cato Institute). "The proper response to offensive speech is speech in turn....Surely, the Pope did not mean to open the door to blasphemy laws, but he cracked the door just a little."
As usual, a Cato Institute columnist can't understand what the Pope said. There was no valid inference for Statist intervention of speech; he was simply pointing out there is a moral dimension to behavior, including speech. If and when you engage in unprovoked hostile speech, it is a violation of the non-aggression principle. You can argue the victim should look the other way, don't sweat the small stuff, or respond commensurately or promise to pray for the jerk, but I wonder how many people would dare to question the honor of a prize fighter's mother?
In the politically correct rally of Charlie Hebdo and their self-righteous poking bears with sticks, Charlie Hebdo has been far more offensive to Christians, and especially Catholics, e.g., portraying the pope as a streetwalker in drag, Jesus engaged in masturbation, or the Holy Virgin Mary performing lewd acts. This isn't "satire"--it's more like some juvenile provocateur who never graduated junior high. In their first post-tragedy issue, where they went from 10,000 in sales to some 4 million and counting, the magazine scoffed at the Catholic Church's condolences, saying if anyone should ring Church bells in their honor, it should be the topless radical feminists who have been interrupting cathedral services across Europe.
Does anyone deserve to lose his life because of his obnoxious behavior? Clearly not, and the pope explicitly confirmed that. But let's not pretend Charlie wants dialogue with people of faith. What Cato Institute should focus on is not whether the Pope has an anti-blasphemy political agenda but the galling hypocrisy of leaders marching for free speech, despite having hate speech laws (including France) on the books.
(Stossel). If Obama gave the State of the Union address I‘d like to hear, he’d say this: I heard you, voters, in November when you took control of the Senate away from my party. I get it. I overreached. I was arrogant. I imposed Obamacare on a nation that was deeply divided about it.
http://www.foxnews.com/…/what-wish-obama-had-said-in-his-s…/
"I promised a post-partisan Washington; together, we can make it happen. I promised to halve the deficit, to protect our civil liberties, to keep us out of dumb wars, let us make it so. As a senator, I called a debt limit increase unacceptable--let us work together to make another unnecessary."
(Rand Paul). I heard about a lot of free stuff, but I didn’t hear much about how he’s going to pay for it. He’s going to add more debt to our country than all previous 43 presidents combined.
He already has...
8 trillion is less than 10 trillion. he inherited 10 trillion from the previous 43 presidents and he has added 8 trillion. he still has 2 trillion to go before he equals the inherited debt
Actually the OP is right--and Michael is wrong, but we need to be a little more specific. The $10.6T Obama inherited from Bush included TARP and, more importantly, about $4T-plus in government entitlement reserves. Now the $700B of TARP of Bush's ending deficit was later capped at $475B, but only $426B went out the door. In addition, another $187B went to the GSE bailout, for a total disbursement of about $613B. So far about $390B has been repaid and another $277B has been earned on the TARP/bailout "investment", i.e., so far the government has cleared about $54B over cost. The deceptive Obama regime treats the returns on the bailouts as "spending cuts" but the real story is that about $700B of the deficit Obama inherited from Bush was used to hide about $700B of Obama Administration overspending. The real national debt through Bush is just under $10T, and over 40% of that was obligations to retirees. The difference is in the neighborhood of $5T in publicly-held debt. Social security has been operating in the red since 2010, with the government transferring interest payments for the reserve to make up the gap from payroll contributions redirected to beneficiaries. Bottom line: nearly all of the $7.5T Obama has added to the national debt has gone to publicly-held debt--which has more than doubled all the publicly held debt issued through Bush. Whether Obama will double the nominal debt through Bush--including reserves--could depend on whether the next recession hits before Obama leaves office. It's highly likely we'll see Obama throw at least another $1T on the backs of future taxpayers
(Reason). If going to war with ISIS is in the best interests of the U.S., then Barack Obama should make that case. Instead, he is content to disregard the Constitution and invite Congress to rubber-stamp his indiscretions—even as he refuses to explain why this next battle for civilization in the Mideast is any more worthwhile than the last one.
This was purely political--he wants to co-opt the Congress to share the political risk. Unfortunately, there are enough neocon Republicans who don't remember the electoral lessons of 2006 and 2008 when a prior Gulf region occupation went wrong. Like Bush, Obama's name won't be on future ballots. What we need is a return to the policies of the noninterventionist Old Right, when real conservatives like Robert Taft consistently applied small government principles equally to domestic and foreign policy.
(National Review). They’re coming for your Denver omelet.
The only thing these leftist trespassing punks won't occupy is a jail cell...
(Reason). The good news is that everyone will have forgotten this turd sandwich by the end of the week. The bad news is that Obama's still the president, Republicans still run the Congress, and we’ll be back again for more drivel next year.
"Robbin' (in the) Hood" takes from the industrious and gives to the entitled shiftless.
(National Review). What's a conservative to do about family leave?
The socialist Dems are very big on paying people not to work. Stealth erosion of economic liberty is how we've ended up with a fascialist economy. There's no such thing as a "free lunch"--even Michelle Obama's school lunches have a cost to taxpayers. The last thing workers with family issues need is for employers to have another reason not to hire. The costs for this mandate are likely simply to be shuffled from other forms of compensation-like take-home pay. Employers already face a competitive marketplace for labor resources--they need the flexibility of dealing with a dynamic marketplace.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Eric Allie via Townhall |
Céline Dion (with R. Kelly), "I'm Your Angel". The most recent of Céline's 4 #1 hits on the Hot 100.
