I expect there are many people out in the world today, some of them even Obama’s most staunch supporters, wondering why Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Saying that I’m incredulous is an understatement. He just bombed the moon. He has continually bombed and killed civilian innocents in Pakistan. We are not out of Iraq. We are not out of Afghanistan.
Louis Armstrong’s famous song “What A Wonderful World” is now officially satire.
Maybe the Nobel Prize Committee was afraid of being called racist?
The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
Perhaps Obama winning this award is not surprising after all. The only other two sitting U.S. Presidents to win the award were Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt. Hmmm, do I detect a pattern here? Perhaps it should be renamed, “The Nobel Progressive Prize”. It certainly has nothing to do with peace.
What if this obvious political move has the unintended consequence of spreading more resentment for America overseas than less? In effect this would be using the prize as a strategic chess piece for wishes that will never come true.
“I don’t think Obama deserves this. I don’t know who’s making all these decisions. The prize should go to someone who has done something for peace and humanity,” said Ahmad Shabir, 18-year-old student in Kabul. “Since he is the president, I don’t see any change in U.S. strategy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
As part of the platform that got him elected almost a year ago, Barack Obama promised not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 annually. But now he’s seriously pushing the idea that all citizens be forced to carry health insurance or else the IRS will impose a penalty. And he claims this isn’t a tax.
In an interview on Sunday, George Stephanopoulos grilled President Obama by asking the rather obvious question, “Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money [to buy insurance], fining you if you don’t. How is that not a tax?”
Jeff Jacoby’s op-ed on Boston.com discusses the president’s response:
Obama replied that the individual mandate “is absolutely not a tax increase,’’ since, in his view, there is good reason to impose it. He stuck to that position even when confronted with Merriam-Webster’s definition of “tax’’ – “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.’’
But the only one “stretching’’ was the president, whose position was at odds with the legislation itself. “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax,’’ notes the committee staff report on the Baucus bill. “The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.’’
“George,’’ chided Obama, “the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary . . . indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now.’’
Jacoby’s excellent piece goes on to explain how mandatory insurance is indeed nothing more than a tax. Read it here.
So often we hear those associated with the GOP (mostly neocons) complaining about Obama’s big-government policies. It’s the nature of politics, I suppose, that they can’t see past the blinders of their own party to realize that they’re just as much to blame as the Democrats. Indeed, the size and scope of the Federal Government has grown every single year since the days of Herbert Hoover (and probably since even as far back as the days of Lincoln when the country created by our forefathers ceased to exist).
Sheldon Richman at the Future of Freedom Foundation explains how the Republicans are disingenuous with regards to their commitment to smaller government and in fact are to blame for our troubles:
If the expansion of intrusive government (a redundancy) gives you the willies — it should; the cost is freedom and prosperity — you may be tempted to direct your anger at Obama and the rest of the Democratic leadership. That would be myopic, however.
Blame the Republicans, beginning with the former president, George W. Bush. (We could go back further, but time and space are limited.)
The reason can be illustrated by an extraordinary moment that occurred just after Obama unveiled his multiyear budget plan. Contemplating the spending blueprint, Republican House leader John Boehner went before the media microphones and declared, “The era of big government is back.”
For Boehner to make such a statement suggests two possibilities, although both could be true: he thinks Americans are morons or he’s been in a coma since January 20, 2001, when Bush took office.
Note that he didn’t say, “Uh oh, government is going to get even bigger than it is now.” No, he said, “The era of big government is back.” Back — as in: returned after having gone away.
When did it go away? And does Boehner really believe that the American people don’t realize how much government grew under Bush?
Quote of the Day: “Economists used to worry about government using up the nation’s savings. But now Americans have no more savings to use. Still, the nation that can’t save a dime sets out to save the entire planet.” — Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, Empire of Debt, pg 35.
DC Downsizers have joined with many thousands of Americans to ask members of Congress to co-sponsor Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill. Your pressure worked! The legislation now has 27 co-sponsors in the Senate and 290 in the House (that’s 2/3rds of the House!).
That should have been enough to spark committee hearings, and perhaps even an expedited vote, but Congressional leaders didn’t want either thing to happen, so . . .
In early August we asked DC Downsizers to call the House Finance Committee Chair, Barney Frank (D-MA), and its Ranking Member, Spencer Bachus (R-AL) to ask for hearings on the Audit the Fed bill. Many of you did that, and guess what?
It’s bad enough when Congress allows the Executive Branch bureaucracy to write regulations that have the force of law, but at least we can hold both the President and the Congress accountable for what the bureaucracy does. However . . .
The Fed is an independent institution accountable to no one. In fact, without an audit, we’re not even allowed to know what the Fed is doing with many of the powers and resources it already has.
* Let’s use our “Tell Congress to Cut Red Tape” campaign to fight expanded regulatory powers for the Fed.
* Send a letter to Congress using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.
* Use your personal comments to say you oppose President Obama’s plan to give the Federal Reserve expanded regulatory powers.
* You can send your letter here.
Congratulations. Your pressure keeps working, so keep doing it!
Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a look at the Wilson fiasco from a different angle than most of the mainstream media, which tends to focus on the “respect” that the [office of the] President of the Unites States “deserves”. The Judge points out that Wilson shouted “you lied!” while the president was claiming that illegal aliens would not receive health care benefits under the “public option” proposal, and then examines this with respect to the Constitution’s “Equal Protection” provision.
The Constitution imposes on the government numerous burdens that we as individuals do not have. For example, I can tell my nephew to keep quiet at the dinner table because I don’t like what he said about grandma, but the First Amendment prevents the government from keeping him silent on a street corner when he criticizes it. Similarly, I can give a gift to some of my nephews and nieces because they are great kids, but I don’t need to give gifts of equal value, since I can spend my money on gifts however I wish. But the government has some burdens here that individuals do not. The Constitution requires that the government treat all persons similarly situated in a similar manner. This is the essence of “Equal Protection,” which the Constitution requires of the states and the federal government.
Napolitano goes on to cite case-law in which the Supreme Court has ruled that states may not deny people the right to an education based on citizenship status, and undoubtedly “an education is in the same class of social benefits as providing health care.” He points out that Obama with all his collegiate accolades certainly must know this.
Can anyone really suggest that the Harvard Law School-educated University of Chicago-employed professor of constitutional law did NOT know the law when he contended that the Congress can keep universal health care away from illegals? He must have known that, short of amending the Constitution to re-define “persons” and “Equal Protection”, whatever the Congress makes available by way of social services to the general population, it must make available to all persons.
There is no question that under the present law, Congress simply cannot pick and choose which “persons” to whom it will afford social benefits and to which “persons” it will not. How could the president not have known that?
The morons who are adding the “N word” to the end of “You Lie!” need to simmer down. Yes, that means you Jimmy Carter.
Following Joe Wilson’s outburst during Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress I suggested he was merely representing his constituents. I also suggested that he’s probably a liar too, but not many picked up on that. They were too interested in discussing how disrespectful it was for a man to yell two words at the President during his address, two words that probably should have been three words: “We all lie!”
But what I’m most miffed about is all these charges of racism going around. There’s nothing about what Joe Wilson said that was racist. Those jumping to conclusions about race are instigating racism instead of helping prevent it. Now Jimmy Carter says he believes that Wilson’s comment was “based on racism.” Well I suppose that settles it.
The bottom line is that it is not in any way racist to disagree with the President on health care or any number of issues. Why does having a black President turn so many into race-card-playing Al Sharptons? If this is the way it is 9 months into Obama’s Presidency I’m really starting to worry how this country will be 2-3 years from now.
Here’s a tip. Unless the person disagreeing with Obama is wearing a white hood, is burning a cross, or actually says or writes something that is racist, put your race card back in your pocket where it belongs. If you don’t, you are perpetuating racism by “crying wolf” when there is no “wolf” to be found.
Instead of straw-man-jumping directly to racism in your counter-arguments why not argue the actual issue? If you don’t then you are only reinforcing that you have no counter-argument.
Jimmy Carter is setting a very bad example. Do the opposite.
It is unlikely he’d be so honest about his feelings. Instead we will have to consider the following quote from Theodore Dreiser:
Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
In fact, that quote sums up a lot about Barack Obama (and most Presidents I might add). We live in a public relations world. I miss the days of Calvin Coolidge (not that I was alive back then). He delivered speeches standing on the White House lawn reading off of a piece of paper. It was simple and responsible. All presidents should be this “boring”.
It seems to me that we’ve replaced one George W. Bush with another. One was forced to wage a war on terror. This incarnation is waging a war on health care, and potentially American capitalism itself.
I hope this new war finds the opposing side victorious.
If Ron Paul won last November he could have easily started his inauguration speech with the following quote:
The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C’s interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man.
Sumner effectively describes the agitated state of America’s overlooked citizens in 2009 even though his words were penned in 1883. These are the people you see walking and driving to work every day after dropping their children at school. These are the retirees taking up a hobby after working for themselves and the State for their entire lives. These are the stay-at-home mothers and fathers keeping the house clean and the children fed. They go about their daily routine with hardly a complaint nor a frown.
In Sheldon Richman’s commentary at The Future of Freedom Foundation today, titled “When Will the Health-Care Debate Start?” he discusses that fact that, while there’ s been a lot of noise on the subject of “Health Care Reform” lately, there’s really been no debate.
To be of value a real debate requires fundamental disagreement. But this pseudo-debate is between one side, led by President Obama, that wants more government control than the large amount we already have, and another, the Republicans, that thinks we already have the right amount.
And in fact, Obama isn’t calling for “change” — he really wants the status quo. Quoting Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post:
One of the bewildering ironies of the health-care debate is that President Obama claims to be attacking the status quo when he’s actually embracing it. Ever since Congress created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, health politics has followed a simple logic: Expand benefits and talk about controlling costs. That’s the status quo, and Obama faithfully adheres to it.
Of course virtually nobody is arguing for a free-market solution, because, while patently false, the general consensus is that the free market as already failed. And given that insurance companies are really just state-run (in typical Fascist style) government monopolies, they, along with pharmaceutical companies, are salivating over the prospect of having the government compelling everyone to buy their products.
There’s a lot to be unhappy about this week if you believe in individual liberty and free markets.
Sonia Sotomayor becomes the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. She was confirmed and it wasn’t even close, as expected. Souter is out and Sotomayor is in. It seems like a wash to me. The next Supreme Court appointee will be the more interesting one.
The Cash For Clunkers program gets added funds. The Senate approved 2 billion more dollars we don’t have to destroy cars that get poor gas mileage and subsidize the purchase of cars that get better gas mileage. For those that don’t “feel” like understanding economics, John Stossel demonstrates why this program is yet another wasteful boondoggle. Did you know that you can buy a brand new Hummer with your neighbor’s money?
An amendment to the additional money for the Cash for Clunkers program by Senator Coburn would have permitted dealers to donate the traded clunkers to charities and the poor. I say would have because the amendment was defeated by the Democrats. I was under the impression the Democrats cared about the poor? It appears they care about appeasing the environmental lobbyists more.
In response to the massive opposition to Obama’s health care plan the White House has taken another page out of Woodrow Wilson’s playbook. In a modernized version of Wilson’s American Protective League the White House would like you to report “fishy” media content that disagrees with Obama’s health care plan. Feel free to report this article. The email address is flag@whitehouse.gov.
Liberty Maven
Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a look at the Wilson fiasco from 
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