House Act most extreme pieces of budget legislation in decades

 The "Cut, Cap, and Balance Act" that the House of Representatives will vote on next week stands out as one of the most ideologically extreme pieces of major budget legislation to come before Congress in years, if not decades.  It would go a long way toward enshrining Grover Norquist's version of America into law.  It is so extreme that even the budget plan of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would not fully satisfy its requirements — the Ryan plan's budget cuts wouldn't be severe enough.

The bill also would threaten the U.S. government with default and would likely cause the loss of roughly 700,000 jobs in the year ahead.  In addition, the bill would target programs for the poor for cuts, while protecting tax breaks for the wealthy and powerful.

The version of the "Cut, Cap, and Balance Act" that House Republican leaders are now circulating would require total federal spending to be shrunk to less than 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2018 and years thereafter.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that under the Ryan budget plan — which cuts non-security discretionary programs by 33 percent by 2021, cuts Medicaid by$1.4 trillion over the coming decade (and slices it in half by 2030), and shifts thousands of dollars a year in costs to Medicare beneficiaries — federal spending would exceed 20 percent of GDP in most coming years.  CBO estimates, for example, that federal spending under the Ryan plan would equal 20 1/4 percent of GDP in 2022 and 20 3/4 percent in 2030.

Libertarians speak against Obama's War on Poker

Following the Obama administration Justice Department's April 15 shutdown of three online poker sites and indictment of their executives, Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle said, "The Obama administration has just trampled on the rights of millions of Americans."

Hinkle continued, "This is also a scary reminder of President Obama's vision of a government with the power to shut down websites it doesn't like, before a trial has even started.

"Even worse, shutting down this peaceful, honest commerce further weakens our economy.

"We Libertarians believe that adults have the right to gamble with their own money. Government has no business interfering. The Obama administration should drop these charges and restore the websites. Congress should repeal the laws that prohibit gambling, whatever the format."

Libertarians call for permanent government shutdown

As elected officials put on a dog-and-pony media show about a temporary shutdown of small parts of the federal government, the Libertarian Party calls for a permanent shutdown of most of the federal government.

Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict said, "Just think how a permanent government shutdown would allow so many Americans to regain the blessings of liberty.

"Education would blossom as the Department of Education ended its War on Learning, no longer wasting our money and preventing educational innovation with one-size-fits-all centralized mandates.

"Job opportunities at companies big and small would multiply, providing opportunity and choice for American workers.

The "Republican Wall of Shame"

WASHINGTON - At their booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the Libertarian Party is displaying a "Republican Wall of Shame." (View low-res JPG or high-res PDF.)

These are the prominent Republicans featured on the Wall of Shame:

• Mitt Romney, supporter of the RomneyCare socialized medicine program in

LP criticizes Obama administration on military spending

The Libertarian Party criticizes the Obama administration's recent statement demanding more military spending from House Republicans.

The administration claims that the Republican spending bill currently under debate does not provide enough military funding. According to the administration, "The bill...would reduce funding for the Department of Defense to a level that would leave the Department without the resources and flexibility needed to meet vital military requirements."

As a percentage of GDP, military spending under Obama has been higher than it was during any year of the hawkish George W. Bush administration.

Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle said, "Apparently the Republican spending bill isn't military-friendly enough for President Obama.

Hinkle continued, "Liberals are supposed to want schools, not bombs, but Obama wants all the bombs he can get.

"The Republican bill actually increases Defense Department spending 1-2% over 2010 levels, but the administration calls that a reduction.

Hey, idiots! Stop pointing lasers at planes!

Recommended article from Time where I admit I tend to agree that creating another law doesn't appear to be the real solution. Though as the daughter of a former pilot I completely understand the dangers, this part was entertaining as a visual:

It takes only about five seconds of thought to see that Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's amendment to impose federal penalties — up to a five-year prison sentence — for attempted plane zapping would be completely useless. How exactly would it be enforced? Would pilots who get lasered in the air contact a federal anti-laser-pointer task force on the ground? Would Tommy Lee Jones be recruited to lead the manhunts? And if a local cop somehow caught a 12-year-old goof-off trying to Luke Skywalker a 747 with a laser pointer he stole from his corporate mom, would the kid go to the federal pen? Sure, it's conceivable that someone with truly menacing intentions would point a laser into a cockpit. But does Congress think there's nothing in the existing federal code that would allow him to be prosecuted for trying to blind a pilot in midflight?

Wikileaks: Beyond Good and Evil

One of the better pieces I've read out there on the WikiLeaks story can be found on the Advocate site -- it was written by Advocate Staff and covers a few instances of the differences in media coverage and reaction. One small part:

There is obvi­ously some­thing pro­foundly unde­mo­c­ra­tic about this state of affairs. In order for a democ­racy to func­tion, it is nec­es­sary for the cit­i­zenry to have sig­nif­i­cant access to infor­ma­tion about mat­ters of state. Par­tic­u­larly when it comes to Amer­i­can for­eign rela­tions and Amer­i­can over­seas adven­tures, the cit­i­zens of this coun­try are very much — too much — in the dark (obvi­ously this is gen­er­ally true of every coun­try). Wik­iLeaks or any sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tion thus car­ries with it a democ­ra­tiz­ing poten­tial whereby infor­ma­tion that has been unnec­es­sar­ily locked away becomes avail­able to the aver­age cit­i­zen. On the whole though, lib­eral and con­ser­v­a­tive elites are united in their belief that this ought not to hap­pen, and thus Wik­iLeaks is either demo­nized or shrugged off as fairly insignif­i­cant. Even some lib­er­als, such as Jon Stew­art, who are pre­sum­ably more skep­ti­cal of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­icy than the aver­age Belt­way insider, don’t par­tic­u­larly know how to react to an orga­ni­za­tion that has the poten­tial to pro­vide the kind of infor­ma­tion that could, the­o­ret­i­cally, inform a move­ment that would seek to utterly trans­form Amer­i­can for­eign pol­icy. Stewart’s scathing, ironic style is absolutely top­ping when it comes to evis­cer­at­ing the pow­ers that be, but it has no idea how to respond to the pos­si­bil­ity of act­ing in a man­ner that would chal­lenge America’s impe­r­ial pres­ence in much of the world, some­thing which is at least made more pos­si­ble by a trans­parency orga­ni­za­tion like WikiLeaks.

Ron Paul's lone no vote gets attention

The article on Ron Paul being the only no vote on a resolution honoring Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo linked here makes a very valid point. If Paul really believed that such resolutions were something that the House shouldn't do, then he should have not voted for any resolutions in the past.

Unless he wants to try to argue that honoring Chi Chi Rodriguez is somehow more important, but then he'd lose that argument once you factor in his voting yes on a resolution about Romanian adoptions.

I personally think all of those sorts of resolutions whether they take place in Congress, a state general assembly or a local council are a waste of time and effort, but once you vote yes? It's hard to later decide resolutions are of no value.

Why Ron Paul's newfound power both pleases and worries libertarians.

Slate piece on the recent power of oversight of the Federal Reserve ending up in the hands of Ron Paul -- LINK. While I recommend reading it, what I find most amusing is the assumption that if you are a Libertarian you automatically support Ron Paul.

Then again there's the assumption if you are a Democrat or Republican you automatically support everything elected Democrats or Republicans do.

What it will be is interesting ...

Assistance in social security disability filings

The amount of paperwork and red tape that you have to go through to file a claim for social security disability can be a daunting task. It's why many who may qualify don't try to apply and why some who do apply are wrongfully denied benefits that they truly are eligible for. Companies like Allsup exist to help consumers through the process and have a higher success rate in getting people the payments they are entitled to than those who try to file on their own ...

NIA on Palin comments about food prices

NIA Addresses Sarah Palin Food Inflation Controversy

FORT LEE, N.J., Nov. 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Inflation Association - http://inflation.us - today released the following statement regarding the Sarah Palin food inflation controversy:

Sarah Palin on Monday made a speech at a trade-association convention in Phoenix urging Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to "cease and desist" his "pump priming." Palin said the United States, "shouldn't be playing around with inflation." She went on to say, "All this pump priming will come at a serious price. And I mean that literally: everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so. Pump priming would push them even higher."

After obtaining a copy of her speech, the Wall Street Journal's Sudeep Reddy wrote an article criticizing Palin's comments about food inflation, saying that, "Grocery prices haven't risen all that significantly, in fact. The consumer price index's measure of food and beverages for the first nine months of this year showed average annual inflation of less than 0.6%, the slowest pace on record." NIA finds it unfortunate that Reddy has been brainwashed into believing the government's phony consumer price index (CPI) numbers.

Shedding poundage

It's reported that over 34% of Americans aged 20 and over are obese and over 34% of Americans aged 20 or over are overweight. This means about 70% weigh more than they should. This has created a great deal of media interest, governmental interest and a billion dollar industry to sell weight loss products, from diets, seeking the best diet pill to promoting health clubs. Bottom line, part of the problem is we've become to sedentary as a nation...

Libertarians on DADT

This happened a few days back, but it's important to point out -- from the Wall Street Journal:

The Libertarian Party is making a bid for gay voters after a bid to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ failed in the Senate this week, telling them that “like abused spouses who keep returning to their aggressors” they need to stop “handing their votes to the Democrats who abuse them.”

Libertarian Party Chairman Mark Hinkle issued a statement Thursday pointing to the continued ban on gays serving openly in the military and a federal law that lets states not recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

“President Obama and the Democrats had almost a year of complete control of the federal government,” Hinkle said. “They could have repealed ‘don’t ask don’t tell.’ They could have gotten rid of the Defense of Marriage Act. But they didn’t do either.” He added that “the Libertarian Party wants to break this self-destructive behavior” by gay voters who continue to support the Democrats.

Michael Mitchell, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, which represents gay Democrats, said the Obama administration had done “more for the LGBT community than any other administration in our nation’s history – combined.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement on Thursday that Obama was “disappointed” by the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” vote and that he would continue to work with Senate leaders to repeal the policy.

Targeting TARPS supporters

WASHINGTON – This November, Libertarian Party candidates are challenging 97 incumbent members of Congress who voted for the TARP bailouts in 2008. View the list here.

The list includes 33 Republicans and 64 Democrats.

LP Chair Mark Hinkle commented, “Few acts of Congress have evoked as much fear, ire, disgust, and disapproval from Americans as the 2008 TARP banker bailouts, passed with bipartisan support in Congress, and signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush.”

Hinkle continued, “Bailer-in-chief John McCain, who famously suspended his 2008 losing Republican presidential campaign to rush back to Washington DC to vote for TARP, tops our list. He’ll face Libertarian Party co-founder David Nolan in November.”

According to Congressional Quarterly, twelve of these TARP incumbents are in close re-election battles (classified in the “tossup” or “leans” category). The Libertarian Party hopes to help kick them out of office. “They tried to justify TARP by claiming our economy was going off a cliff. Let’s push their teetering careers off a cliff,” said LP Executive Director Wes Benedict.

An epidemic of "sunshine patriots"

If you cut to the chase on the statement released by Ron Paul on his website, one part that I think basically says it all on the topic of those opposed to the building of a mosque two blocks from "ground zero":

This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.

Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.

The faux revolution...

It's interesting that Rand Paul is still being marketed as a libertarian, when the reality is he's not. What's also interesting is that some of those who claim to lean libertarian are advocating violent positions that few who truly believe in libertarianism would support. Washington Post example of behavior no one should support:

The Republican wave carries along a group that strikes a faux revolutionary pose. "Our Founding Fathers," says Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle, "they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason, and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact, Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that's not where we're going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies."

Angle has managed to embrace the one Founding Father with a disturbing tolerance for the political violence of the French Revolution. "Rather than it should have failed," enthused Jefferson, "I would have seen half the earth desolated." Hardly a conservative model.

But mainstream conservatives have been strangely disoriented by Tea Party excess, unable to distinguish the injudicious from the outrageous. Some rose to Angle's defense or attacked her critics. Just to be clear: A Republican Senate candidate has identified the United States Congress with tyranny and contemplated the recourse to political violence. This is disqualifying for public office. It lacks, of course, the seriousness of genuine sedition. It is the conservative equivalent of the Che Guevara T-shirt -- a fashion, a gesture, a toying with ideas the wearer only dimly comprehends. The rhetoric of "Second Amendment remedies" is a light-weight Lexington, a cut-rate Concord. It is so far from the moral weightiness of the Founders that it mocks their memory.

The rebirth of Friedrich Hayek

Recommended article from across the seas - Friedrich Hayek: Darling of the right is reborn in the USA.

What is especially interesting is we have had these arguments before...

Friedrich August von Hayek was born in Vienna in 1899 to a family steeped in academia, and became a polymath whose learning spanned psychology and the law as well as philosophy and economics.

Working at the London School of Economics in the Thirties and Forties, he became the most persuasive of all the "Austrian school" of economists who advocated for limited government, a classical liberalism that is today more commonly described as libertarian.

They passionately opposed central planning of whatever political hue, from Nazism to Communism, and that included opposing the nationalisations and Keynesian demand management that took hold in social democratic Europe after the Second World War. It was a lonely position for much of the post-war period.

In a vivid way, it mirrors the intellectual clash between Hayek and another dead economist, John Maynard Keynes, who argued for governments to step in with big spending programmes to prevent a recession from spiralling into a depression. It was Keynesian policies, lashings of them in every major country in the world, that pulled the global economy back to growth after the financial crisis.

Keynes declared himself in "deeply moved agreement" with The Road to Serfdom, but he had a sting in the tail of his praise. He declared that the philosophy was of no practical use. A minimalist government, which left people to fend for themselves, was unconscionable, he said, and no matter how seductive it appears on the printed page, no one would support its introduction in the end.

Rand Paul underground electric fence idea

It's hard to take Rand Paul seriously, and with plans like this one that's getting some media attention, a billion dollar underground electric fence between the U.S. and Mexico is really hard to take seriously. As pointed out by several sources, including this one:

Rand Paul wants to bury a wire on the border and run electricity through it. As soon as somebody crosses the electric fence, choppers will be dispatched to dispatch the offending illegal back to whence they came.
Apparently Paul has a way to detect the difference between iguanas and other wildlife that is currently allowed to cross the borders unimpeded.
“My plans include an underground electric fence, with helicopter stations to respond quickly to breaches of the border,” state the Kentucky candidate for Senate on his website.
“I have not heard that. “Underground? What would happen? How would that work?” said National Republican Senate Committee Chair John Cornyn.

And another arrest...

Reported on Reason:

Libertarian activist George Donnelly participating in, and filming, a Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) action outside a federal courthouse in Allentown, PA, was assaulted, arrested, and had his camera taken by federal agents earlier this week. Full report on the details of the incident from the Libertarian Examiner.

Yesterday, from a new Libertarian Examiner report, Donnelly is now out of jail, though it is unclear from their report whether the charges were dropped.

Libertarian photographer sues Dept. of Homeland Security after arrest for filming courthouse protest

I missed this story...in the New York Daily News:

Antonio Musumeci, a 29-year-old software programmer, videotaped the arrest of a Libertarian activist outside Manhattan Federal Court last year.

His lawsuit says that even though he was standing in a public plaza next to the courthouse, an inspector with the Federal Protective Service told him he was under arrest.

Musumeci was forced to sit on the sidewalk for 20 minutes, he says. His camera memory card was confiscated and he got a ticket for filming on federal property, a violation.

The ticket was later dismissed in Manhattan Federal Court, court papers say. His memory card was never returned.

Musumeci, himself a member of the Manhattan Libertarian Party, later returned to the courthouse to videotape other political protests organized by the group and made sure to stand on the public sidewalk.

Even so, he was again threatened with arrest, according to the lawsuit the New York Civil Liberties Union filed Thursday on his behalf.