Voice For Liberty

Tag: Barack Obama

  • Articles of interest

    Chemical security, national health care, global warming cost, school order.

    Extending security standards better decision

    A letter in the Montgomery Advertiser makes the case for extending the present Chemical facility anti-terrorism standards. Legislation is under consideration that would give government the ability to regulate processes and technologies.

    “Although we believe CFATS should be reauthorized and made permanent, we do not support current draft legislation that replaces CFATS and extends the power of the DHS to dictate how a product is made. Decisions pertaining to feedstocks, processes and products should be left to the engineers and safety experts at local facilities.”

    The Stealth Single-Payer Agenda

    George F. Will’s column explains that while President Obama and Congress are presently considering a “public option” health care plan, this is just the first step on the road to a single-payer plan. “The puzzle is: Why does the president, who says that were America ‘starting from scratch’ he would favor a ‘single-payer’ — government-run — system, insist that health-care reform include a government insurance plan that competes with private insurers? The simplest answer is that such a plan will lead to a single-payer system.”

    The Big Chill
    Congress shouldn’t fight global warming by freezing the economy.

    In a Wall Street Journal column, Pete Du Pont explains the enormous cost of the Waxman-Markey global warming bill and how little warming it would stop. “Manzi estimates the additional economic costs of the bill would be 0.8% of gross domestic product, while the economic benefits would be just 0.08% — so the costs would be 10 times the benefits. The cost of reducing emissions turns out to be greater than the cost they impose on societies. According to a 1999 Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimate, the emissions cuts the Kyoto Protocol would have required in 2010 were likely to reduce America’s GDP by $275 billion to $468 billion, or $921 to $1,565 per person, and of course Kyoto does not apply to fast-growing developing countries such as China and India.”

    Taking back control of the classrooms

    “The dirty little secret of America’s schools is that teachers have lost control of the classroom. Disrespect is commonplace. Disorder is an epidemic — 43 percent of high school teachers say they spend more than half their time maintaining order instead of teaching, according to a Public Agenda survey. Learning is impossible in these conditions. One misbehaving student steals the floor, spoiling the learning opportunity for the other 29 students. ‘You know, it really doesn’t take very many kids to ruin a classroom,’ observed David Adams, superintendent of Shelbyville Central Schools.”

    Phillip K. Howard explains that the problem is too much law: “There is a broad perception — by teachers and students alike — that teachers lack the legal authority to enforce respect and order.”

  • In Wichita, protest of ABC’s Obama coverage

    Here’s a message from a local patriot and activist. She is rightly concerned about ABC News — the national organization, not the local affiliate — and its upcoming coverage of the Obama administration:

    Protest in Wichita in front of ABC affiliate KAKE news TV at 1500 N. West St., Wichita this Wednesday, June 24th starting at 4 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. Please join us! We are protesting how ABC is propagandizing the American public and deceiving them.

    What is she concerned about? The editorial ABC Self-Nationalizes For Obama supplies some background:

    Media Bias: As much of the U.S. private sector, including health care providers, resists government takeovers, what a sorry sight to see ABC News leap forward to make itself a propaganda arm of the government. … This Wednesday, on every show from “Good Morning America” (kicking things off with an interview with the president) to “World News Tonight” (broadcast from the Blue Room) to a prime-time special called “Prescription for America” (and emanating from the East Room), the network will puff the Obama administration’s trillion-dollar plan to nationalize U.S. health care. …

    This isn’t your grandfather’s propaganda. Forget public service announcements. Just as some newspaper ads trick themselves up to look like news stories to enhance their credibility, making a partisan program indistinguishable from the nightly “news” is a propaganda tool in the same vein. … Under the cover of news, ABC can present the president’s side of the health reform issue as “factual” and leave out the real costs and concerns about government control and rationing of health care. …

    The best proof that the public is getting propaganda is that ABC is refusing to take ads from critics who are offering to pay for them. Among those turned away: the Republican National Committee and a group called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights. …

    It all amounts to a sad corruption of American journalism. Once upon a time, people would go into journalism to expose the seamy underbelly of American politics. Today, ABC News, in its abject submission to the Obama administration on health care, has decided to become the seamy underbelly.

    For more information about the event, contact Larry Halloran at LarryHalloran@aol.com. Click to get a Google map to the location.

  • Articles of Interest

    Obama’s budget, Citigroup rescue, Twitter, climate change, lobbying.

    The Era of Even Bigger Government: There is very little to be happy about in Obama’s first budget (Veronique de Rugy at Reason) Does the Obama budget work? According to this author, some of the accounting tricks used in the past are gone, but dissembling remains: “To cut the size of the federal government, one actually has to, you know, cut programs. While Obama’s overall numbers do show a spending decrease between 2009 and 2010, he actually increases many categories of spending, which remains far above 2008 levels in any case. In fact, his ‘cuts’ are basically the results of 2009 bailout payments not being extended into 2010. The bottom line is that there is very little to be happy about in Obama’s first budget. It simply expands the Bush policies of bigger government and increased centralization, which threatens to permanently transform America’s culture and economic outlook by making more and more Americans dependent on government.”

    Latest Citigroup Rescue May Not Be Its Last (New York Times) “The big question, of course, is this: Will this plan, the third since October, be the one that finally works? Will it shore up this $2 trillion behemoth? Or is the outcome that the banks and the government are so desperately trying to avoid — nationalization, under whatever guise — only a matter of time? Wall Street’s judgment was swift and brutal. Citigroup’s share price, which a little over two years ago was flying high at $55, plunged 96 cents to a mere $1.50.”

    What Are You Doing? Media Twitterers Can’t Stop Typing (New York Times) A look at the popular service Twitter and how some news media personalities use it.

    The Doomsday Bias. American Spectator article describing testimony of Dr. John P. Holdren, nominated for chief White House Science Advisor. “Holdren’s particular brand of science is infected by what we can only call a doomsday bias.”

    Liberal Groups Are Flexing New Muscle in Lobby Wars (New York Times) Just a short few years ago, Democrats were railing against the lobbying efforts of Republicans. But now: “When Newt Gingrich’s Congress was moving full-speed in its efforts to shrink the government more than a dozen years ago, Ralph G. Neas, an indefatigable champion of liberal causes, threw up his hands and declared that his side had been outmaneuvered. … Recent days have found Mr. Neas in a new perch … this time, he is supported by his own phalanx of big business backers, including the Exelon power company and Giant food stores.” It’s a mistake to assume that business is against bigger government and in favor of free markets. As Milton Friedman said: “Naturally, existing businesses generally prefer to keep out competitors in other ways. That is why the business community, despite its rhetoric, has so often been a major enemy of truly free enterprise.”

    What is Seen and What is Unseen: Government “Job Creation” (Foundation for Economic Education). A nice explanation of unseen consequences of government action and how this concept applied during the New Deal. “Barack Obama and his advisers should take a lesson from history: the New Deal and its public-works projects were a disaster, and it would be remiss to think they should be given another try. As Bastiat explained, government doesn’t create wealth; it only diverts it. When wealth is in the hands of the government it inevitably tends to serve political ends rather than consumers. FDR’s New Deal policies are a testament to that, and if they are repeated in response to our current economic crisis, it will only hinder the recovery.”