Daily Rant – August 18, 2009
August 18, 2009
Why would anyone automatically assume that young people are Democrats? I mean, I know they generally are, but why? Is it because they have better ideas than Republicans? No. But Republicans have this mistaken identity as old business men, when nothing could be further from the truth.
My feeling is that, in the beginning, Democrats were hip and cool. John F. Kennedy was young, handsome and cool. But he was also for lower taxes. Republicans have been portrayed as rich white guys, but isn’t that also true of most Democrats? Look at John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and so on. They don’t come any whiter than that. And if you look at Republicans, the head of the party is Michael Steele! I guess he’s just not the right kind of black guy.
So why aren’t conservatives considered cool? After all, we relish FREEDOM. Isn’t that what young kids want? Shouldn’t they be against a repressive government of old people? I am not saying there isn’t a lot of that with Republicans, but you get a better chance of less government with one of them than you do with a raving liberal like Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank.
See, I think the Democrats’ growing problem is this; they want to control everything as if they can. Make a small change in the economic policy and it flows out in various ways, too numerous to mention. In fact, make a law here and who knows how it will affect something that legislators never even considered? How many times have we heard about the law of unintended consequences?
Health insurance: Blue Cross/Blue Shield is advertising for health insurance. Pay for my own health insurance? What a concept. Since when has this ever been meant to be FREE? NEVER except to the socialists who are tryng to nationalize another sector of the American ecnonomy and destroy it.
So my last thought today is this; have Democrats demonized one to many times? Who are the bad guys? Wal-mart. oil companies, car companies, insurance companies, real estate companies, financial institutions, Starbucks, smokers, trans-fat eaters, etc. Who is left that are friends to the Democrat party? One or two people? Look at it this way. Check the list. You are probably a member of at least one of the target groups on the Democrat enemies list or are associated with and/or patronize at least one of them. I think that is why people are starting to wake up… I hope! Everyone is an enemy of this administration which is why they refuse to listen to us.
- FedUpEditor
API Energy Survey
June 29, 2009
I hope you had a great weekend despite House passage of the Waxman-Markey bill. Now the focus will move to the Senate where Barbara Boxer reportedly plans to hold mark-up of a similar bill at the end of July.
I’m writing to you today, however, about another issue. This morning API released the results of its third annual “Energy IQ” survey, intended to gauge Americans’ knowledge about energy issues. Considering the gravity of some of the energy proposals being debated on Capitol Hill right now, the results are particularly striking.
While the survey revealed that Americans now recognize the United States will need more energy in the coming years, respondents vastly underestimated the amount of oil and natural gas that will be needed to meet that demand. Conversely, respondents overestimated the role that renewable energy sources will play in meeting future demand, the amount of oil the U.S. imports from the Middle East, and oil and natural gas industry earnings.
A more detailed analysis of the findings can be found at http://acuf.org/issues/issue128/090320news.asp, along with a video and an interactive widget that you can embed in your blog so your readers can quiz themselves. I also will post a podcast about the survey tomorrow, and place a series of posts on the Energy Tomorrow Blog every day this week, with each day featuring a new theme.
Jane Van Ryan
API
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The third annual Energy IQ survey, conducted for the American Petroleum Institute (API) by Harris Interactive®, comes as a new administration and Congress are pursuing energy and climate policies that will determine America’s economic competitiveness for years to come.
In comparing the new results to surveys from previous years, Harris found that Americans are more aware of how current policies limit domestic oil and natural gas production, but they also continue to subscribe to common, yet critical, misperceptions about how the industry operates and the energy we’ll need in the future.
Demand: Americans understand that we need more energy to grow our economy, but they continue to underestimate the amount of oil and natural gas we’ll need in years to come.
- While the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects U.S. energy demand will increase 9 percent during the next 20 years, only 5 percent of respondents chose the correct answer. The majority overestimated this number, believing that U.S. demand would increase 16 to 21 percent.
- When asked about the role fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal will play in meeting global energy demand, only 10 percent of respondents answered correctly that fossil fuels will meet 85 percent of this demand. This is the second consecutive year this number has dropped even though EIA figures for future U.S. reliance on fossil fuels have risen by five percent since 2008.
Supply: Americans overestimate the amount of oil and natural gas supplied to the U.S. by the Persian Gulf countries and underestimate the amount that is supplied from North America.
- According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 12 percent of the oil consumed last year in the U.S. came from the Persian Gulf countries. Only 7 percent of respondents chose correctly, while more than 40 percent believed that over 30 percent of our oil supply came from the Persian Gulf.
- Fifty-three percent of respondents believed that Saudi Arabia was the largest U.S. supplier of imported crude oil. In fact, according to the DOE, Canada is our largest supplier.
Taxes: Americans underestimate the industry’s contributions to the U.S. economy through jobs and taxes, and overestimate the industry’s profits.
- Only 15 percent of respondents knew that six million Americans are employed directly or indirectly by the oil and natural gas industry.
- Only 9 percent of respondents knew that oil companies pay more than 40 percent in income taxes as a share of their income. The majority thought that it was less than 30 percent, and one-third of all respondents believed companies pay less than 15 percent.
- Similarly, when asked how much the oil and natural gas industry paid in taxes over the past three years, only 10 percent of respondents answered correctly—$242 billion. One quarter of respondents believed that the U.S. oil and natural gas industry contributed less than $100 billion.
- More than 40 percent of respondents believed that the oil and natural gas industry earn more than 20 cents per every dollar of sales. In fact, the industry earns just below 6 cents on every dollar.
The survey also found that other misconceptions exist about U.S. oil company stock ownership and industry investment in alternative fuels. For more information, read the full Energy IQ survey and test your energy knowledge.
Heritage Foundation Tells Truth About Gov’t Health Care
June 25, 2009
Heritage Foundation has several article written by doctors and economists who have studied congress’s health care reform package. Besides the hidden piece written by old Senator Kennedy that exempts Senators and Congressmen from their own plan that they are foisting upon us, the numbers also do not add up. Is that any surprise? Budget estimates are always understated in order to get legislation passed and is always found to be much more than originally estimated. Not only that, but it never works like they planned either.
Heritage says, “The government cannot bend the health care cost curve from Washington without resorting to arbitrary caps and price controls that always lead to a reduction in the willing suppliers of services and waiting lists.” What does this mean in straight talk? Government will put limits on procedures and doctors will choose not to do them. Less doctors means longer lines for those who do. Read more here.
Heritage says, “Some of the projected savings for financing Obama’s health agenda, including the creation of a new public plan, would come by squeezing savings out of Medicare. At a time when Medicare is dangerously close to bankruptcy, it is short sighted to funnel funds into the creation of another government-run program instead of shoring up Medicare.” This means they are going to take one bankrupt program and steal the money from it to fund another new program that will eventually also go bankrupt. Seniors should be worried about Obama’s statement that instead of a pace-maker for a 100 year old patient perhaps they should be given pain killers and be left to die. So much for hope and change. Read ther rest of this article here.
Heritage has many articles and studies on the health care reform issue. Some of them may be found here.�
Daily Rant – May 10, 2009
May 10, 2009
Imagine your checking account is overdrawn by over $11 billion dollars. Don’t you think you would be a little concerned? Of course, you can’t print money like the government can. But how much more can we spend before we collapse?
You could say Fannie and Freddie wobbling was a dire warning. The fact that financial markets are collapsing might also sound a bell. And if auto makers failing doesn’t indicate there is a problem, then what does?
So how do we fix a problem of overspending by overspending? In AA they say you can’t think your way out of a drinking problem; the thing that’s broken is the one you’re trying to fix it with. So goes our economy. We can’t fix a credit crisis by borrowing more money!
And what if Obama gets nationalized health care? The only thing it will fix is Democrats being in the majority forever. And that means the end of the US if we don’t have a two party system. We will then have a dictatorship. Some people think I am exaggerating, but just as Hitler had the youth telling on their parents, now Obama is asking citizens to tattle when stimulus dollars don’t get used where they are supposed to go.
There’s one problem; the website won’t be up and running until 2010. Election year? Does anyone else think conspiracy? Make no mistake, politicians of both stripes are in it to get re-elected. But if what they propose doesn’t help the country but helps them get and keep the job, then is it really a good thing?
School Vouchers
Obama tried to stop the voucher program in DC until people started getting upset. This administration is not strong enough to withstand public scrutiny, so it will be imperative for conservatives to shine the light on his deceit. After all, shouldn’t a program that actually helps people be lauded? What could be the reason he would oppose this? One word: UNIONS. Teacher’s Unions to be exact. There can be no other reason.
Utah (you’ve got to love those Mormons!) started a state wide voucher program in 2007. We’ll see how well it works. What will the educators and politicians say when it does?
- FedUpEditor
Ed McGill Talks About the Eroding of Our Society
May 4, 2009
Talking in context of the first 100 days of the Obama administration, Ed McGill educates the listeners of the Changing World Views radio show. Here is the interview.
Daily Rant – April 23, 2009
April 23, 2009
The truth about ending the cold war needs to be known. Gorbachev gets credit from the left for it from the left, while they portray Reagan as a dunce who stood by while Mikhail made it happen. Not so true.
Take the time to look up Tony Robbin’s “Time of Your Life” set. On one of the last tapes in the set, he relates his story of how he time managed two days in which he interviewed Gorbachev about how he ended the cold war. Although it was hard to get him to open up at first, even after “donating” his airplane to take him and his wife to a summit meeting with George Bush and several other world leaders. But Tony tells of striking up a conversation with Gorbachev’s wife and Mikhail interrupts to correct the record.
So Tony asks him about the end of the cold war and what pivotal moment it happened. After some thought, Gorbachev slaps his leg and says he knows the exact moment.
Apparently he and Reagan were arguing during a meeting. Gorbachev was telling Reagan about the evils of capitalism and Reagan was telling Gorbachev about the evils of communism. At a point where the conversation was so heated, Reagan stood up and started to walk away when he spun around with a huge smile on his face and stuck out his hand.
“This is not going well,” said Reagan, “Let’s start over. My name is Ronald. May I call you Mikhail?”
The story still brings tears to my eyes when I think of two leaders, so diametrically opposed, can set aside differences and start talking. Make no mistake, it was Reagan who started the discussion!
- FedUpEditor
Do it For the Children!
April 20, 2009
President Barack Obama’s Department of Education sat on a report chronicling the success of a school vouchers program until after Congress had voted not to continue the program.
That’s the report from Deroy Murdock, a media fellow with the Hoover Institution, who exposes the subterfuge in an article published by National Review Online.
The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program allows 1,714 children — 90 percent of them black and 9 percent Hispanic — to receive up to $7,500 to attend a private or parochial school instead of a public school in the District of Columbia, which is widely believed to have one of the nation’s most troubled school districts.
Since the program’s launch in 2004, 7,852 students have applied for these grants, and participants have been chosen by lottery.
Obama — who said last year that “you do what works for the kids” — did not intervene as Congress scheduled the program’s end after the 2009-2010 academic year.
“Now it emerges that Obama’s Department of Education possessed peer-reviewed, congressionally mandated, federally financed research proving this program’s success,” Murdock writes.
“Though it demonstrates ‘what works for the kids,’ DOE hid this study until Congress squelched these children’s dreams.”
An amendment in the Senate to rescue the vouchers program failed on March 10 by a vote of 39 to 58. The DOE finally released the report on April 3. Even then, DOE researchers were reportedly barred from discussing their findings.
“You’d think we were talking about nuclear secrets, not about a taxpayer-funded pilot program,” An April 5 editorial in The Wall Street Journal reported.
During the March 10 vote, 57 Democrats voted and 54 of them opposed the vouchers program.
Why? Murdock suggested, “Follow the money,” and he pointed out that teachers’ unions shelled out $55,794,000 in political donations between 1999 and 2008, with 96 percent of the funds going to Democrats.
The “winners” in the Senate vote, he added, are “the teachers’ unions, who hate school choice, hate vouchers, and don’t give a damn about school kids when they threaten union pay, benefits, and control of classrooms.”
Tax payer funded pilot program that WORKS and what happens? They cancel it! It’s about MONEY, not CHILDREN! Just another reason why we need to defeat these people at the ballot box in 2010! Do it for the children! – FedUpEditor
Michael Erickson Gives Some History
March 21, 2009
Michael Erickson [hero] is the Committee Chairman of the Sonoma County Republican Party in California. He stands in complete contrast to who is leading the Marin County Republican Party. Today he wrote a letter, and, with his permission, I am reprinting it here as an educational piece. His references to local leadership have been replaced with my inserts designated by [brackets] to make the document more understandable to those who may not know the names of the various people involved.
Dear Tim,
I am most thankful to see of your interest in meeting with others of the same conservative orientation throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. I am thinking that our respective goals may be quite mutual and as such worthy of greater collaboration.
In my mind, the conservative movement (broadly defined as a commitment to the preservation of our American Nation and Constitution, based on a real insight, first articulated for our purposes by specific statements within the Declaration of Independence, that men have certain God given and thus inalienable liberties and that those liberties may be exercised by men in America only if and when the American Nation is freed from oppressions by foreign powers, whether they be the British Empire of the time of our own Revolution, or more recently the emergence of globalist institutions that work against our own national sovereignty) cannot achieve political power, unless and until it takes back the Republican Party from those who subvert the articulated principles of that party.
We must remember that the party, in its founding documents and in its more recent state and national party platforms, is meant to be a conservative nationalist political party. The fact of what the Republican Party has meant historically means that it is the natural home for conservatives (not to mention the fact that, from the standpoint of political practicality, we have no chance of gaining actual, political power in Sacramento or in Washington, by wasting our energies in one of the “third parties” or outside of parties altogether).
How is it that the Republican Party is the historical home of an American nationalism? Because we are the party that secured the Union in the course of the American Civil War. In recognizing the triumph of federalism (over anti-federalism) in the Declaration of Independence, and later in the U.S. Constitution (which replaced the anti-federalist Articles of Confederation on the understanding that a weak confederacy of states cannot guarantee in actuality the capacity of Americans to exercise their liberties in freedom from the encroachments of the internationalist powers of their own period, such as the British and French Empires, which had their own colonial aims in the North American continent), the Republican Party recognized that the unity of the American people triumphed over the parochial interests of any one state.
Yes, the states can and should be protected in their own, legal prerogatives against the encroachments of the federal government (the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution); but that is not the same as allowing the states to disrupt the unity of the American people themselves through secession. In being the anti-secessionist party, our Republican Party thus is the party of the American Union and, as we would describe today, of the American Nation. Preserving our national sovereignty, whether from the NAU (North American Union), or from globalist banks and investment funds which are buying up our assets in return for servicing our debts, is therefore a hallmark of what the Republican Party should stand for today, just as such a commitment to our national sovereignty is a hallmark of what is means to be a conservative nationalist.
How is it that the Republican Party is the historical home of an American, who desires to exercises his God given liberties in freedom? Because just as we were the anti-secessionist party, in the context of the Civil War in which the Republican Party first emerged, so were we also the anti-slavery party. There is an important insight in understanding that slavery in fact is as much a tyranny upon the master, as it is upon the slave, because the master comes to see the fruits of labor for which he has not paid. As the slave sows but never has the chance to reap, so does the master reap what he has not sown. That is why ours was the “free labor” party, meaning that the laborer should be afforded a wage commensurate with his labor and not have his wages reduced, because there is a contingent of slave labor that has the effect of bringing down all wages.
This is why we Republicans must oppose illegal immigration, because the illegal immigrant, whether we say as such or not, is in fact our version of the slave: he is allowed to stay here so as to reduce wages; and if and when he obtains amnesty and then a right to vote, he is meant to keep socialists in power. Indeed, the stain of illegal immigration is a testament to the collaboration of corporatists and socialists. If we are truly to be conservatives, and if our Republican Party is to be in league with her own historical principles as a party for what has been termed “free labor,” then we must stand against this unholy collaboration of Big Business and Big Government and act for the middle class, American family. It is in this manner that we may be in defense of liberty in actuality, because there is no exercise of liberty where the family has broken down and the middle class has been reduced to penury.
We must have the understanding first and foremost that preserving American nationalism and sovereignty and protecting the free man in the exercise of his liberty go hand in hand. Note that I said here preserving an “American nationalism and sovereignty.” I did not state “American government,” as it is clear that all too often our present forms of government have become in themselves instruments of selling out our sovereignty abroad and promoting tyranny at home, whether it be in the form of collusion between the United States Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve (whose membership often rotate back and forth), or the efforts of a local School Board to censure a fellow Trustee for opposing them on a ballot measure. In all such examples of government inspired tyranny, it is the Constitution be damned, all in a name of “capitalism,” or “progress,” or “diversity,” or “tolerance” (note how the corporatist side of the two-headed hydra of corporatist-socialist collaboration tends to favor the first two words, while the socialist side tends to favor the later two words, though often they are serving the same underlying purpose of selling out our sovereignty and undercutting middle class families).
Furthermore, we must know that the Republican Party, because of its actual and historical legacy, has a unique capacity to be the voice for American nationalism and for the free man in the exercise of his liberty. It is our natural home as conservatives and as nationalists (which, as you see here, I regard as essentially interchangeable); it is rightfully ours, not that of the timid do-nothings, or the “Democrat Lite” liberals, or the callous globalists who sell themselves under the guise of “free commerce” (meaning open borders, outsourcing, and other such impediments to our national and economic sovereignty).
In light of these comments, I recommend always the following plan of real action: recruit conservatives of goodwill (who may not agree on all issues but who share an overall orientation towards our nation and our liberties) and, by all means, inspire them to run for their County Republican Central Committees. In my mind, that should be an underlying focus for all of your meetings with other conservative persons or groups.
I know that I have said much here; but I wanted to share with you at least my own thoughts on the larger struggle. What we are attempting to do, each of us with the gifts that we have in our lives, is part of a much greater struggle, one frankly that cannot allow the “Sashi McEntees” [Chairman of the Marin Republican Central Committee whose leadership is seen as being a moderate] of the world to get in the way. There is history to be made: patriots to be recruited; political stands to be taken; RINOS to be overcome.
Besides courage, there must be a commitment to a sound, focused strategy of action. I am happy to see such a strategy coming together among the patriots in Marin County; it is my hope that, by our common efforts, we may spread this bold strategy, and an understanding of the larger picture, to our friends in neighboring Counties as well.
Sincerely,
Michael Erickson, Chairman
Sonoma County Republican Party
Daily Rant – March 10, 2009
March 10, 2009
What a busy day. I was going from the time I got up until just a few moments ago. So what happened today? I spent a lot of my time out on the road and had time to record my thoughts while listening to Rush.
Wal-Mart stock was downgraded because of cardcheck? Is that what I heard? If so, what does this tell you? I am all for union workers getting paid a fair wage, but do we really need them any more? It seems unfair for an employer to have to pay a worker a certain amount because the union says so. What ever happened to merit pay? Investors know if unions get it, it will be more expensive for Wal-Mart to do business. By losing their competitive edge in pricing, they will be just another store. Too bad people don’t leave them alone.
I heard this the other day. A doctor in New York set up his patients with a mini version of an HMO through his office. For a very small monthly fee and a small co-payment, he would perform unlimited procedures for which he was certified and give patients unlimited office visits for this plan. So what happened? State of New York came in and said he had to stop because what he was doing was essentially insurance and did not have a license to do this. Bureaucrats coming in and stopping people from doing things to help people because it doesn’t fit their model. The patients were furious!
FeedAmerica.org… What the hell is that? Don’t we pay enough in taxes that we need to ask for more money from people to feed the homeless? It’s pitiful that the trillions of tax dollars don’t make it to the needy on the street, only the needy in Washington politics!
Obama is finally right on ONE issue. Merit pay for teachers. Remember paragraph two about the unions? They’ll put a stop to that nonsense! The teacher’s union is very powerful. And here’s a conundrum. If everyone is looking to government as the ones who have all the solutions, then why do government workers need unions? Isn’t the government the end all to be all?
Now the National Park Service is advertising for donations… What the hell is going on? Shouldn’t that be part of the rip-off pork bills that are being passed by congress? Someone should tell Sam Waterston that his buddies in Washington have made us all “give at the office” and there’s no money left!
Recession. Is it the solution to the immigration problem? Fewer and fewer illegals are crossing the borders as our economy suffers. Too bad it takes a recession to solve immigration. Seems like the better idea would be to build a fence!
Card Check. What is it really about? Open elections for unions? Why doesn’t the private ballot mean anything when it comes to voting in unions? If congress passes this, it can only mean that it will help keep them in office with more union contributions. Do you really want that? Do we really want a one party system of government? If you say yes to that then you are a socialist!
Warren Buffett is upset with Obama for demonizing people who own corporate jets. Wasn’t he one of his advisers? In an interview he talks about five things that the current administration is doing that he doesn’t agree with… five things that are core Democrat values. Then why is he a Democrat??? I don’t get it when rich people make their money through capitalism then want to turn the government socialist. What is it? I got mine, now you CAN’T have yours? Of course, in the same interview he turned around and chastised Republicans for opposing Obama… WHAT? I think it’s time for old Warren to go off somewhere and shut up. They are only doing what you just did, you twit!
He says Obama should focus on one thing. I think he is. He’s doing all these programs in the guise of stimulating the economy. Though none of them will, every program he has mentioned is in the spirit of boosting the economy. Yeah, right.
- FedUpEditor
Gas Prices Start To Rise… Why?
February 19, 2009
Gas prices are starting to rise. Why do they fluctuate? The short answer is increase in demand. Jane Van Ryan of API told me this today:
Our chief economist has looked into the gasoline price situation and says the prices have climbed due to supply and demand. In January, demand for gasoline increased for the first time in 12 months, and refiners produced record amounts of gasoline to keep up with demand. The Monthly Statistical Report for January, which API issued yesterday, contains this information. Here’s a news release that provides a summary of the report’s findings: http://www.api.org/Newsroom/us_oil_demand_jan09.cfm
Here’s some additional information: http://www.api.org/aboutoilgas/gasoline/index.cfm It explains the current gasoline situation very well.
A little economics lesson. – FedUpEditor
