Sibby Online

Military a victim of terrorist attack on our own soil

This leaves no doubt that Obama cannot handle being tghe Commander in Chief:

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan reportedly shouted the familiar Islamic phrase asserting the supremacy of Allah, "Allahu Akbar," before he killed at least 13 fellow soldiers and wounded 28 at Fort Hood in Texas, according to the base commander.

Lt. Gen. Robert Cone told reporters he's received unconfirmed reports that Hasan uttered the Arabic phrase meaning "Allah is the greatest."

The father of one of the soldiers who was at a staging area for medical and dental checks said she heard the shooter exclaim "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire, reported KSL-TV in Salt Lake City.

She described the incident as an attack by terrorists.

KSL did not identify the family, saying they agreed to talk on condition of anonymity, because they feared their daughter could get in trouble with her superiors.

The soldier's father said his daughter was frantic and upset when she called him yesterday afternoon shortly after the incident at about 1:30 p.m. Central Time.

"She said, 'Dad, I'm OK. Don't worry, I'm OK.' And initially I said, 'What are you talking about?' She said, 'Haven't you heard?' And I said, 'No.' And she said, 'We've been attacked by terrorists.'"

GOP moderates are the problem

I have been pointing out that the so-called moderate Repubicans to be the same as the Progressives who are running the Democrat Party. I have also been sayiong that the GOP leadership want conservative to be voters, but not part of the party leadership. Allen Keyes has support for that thought:

GOP leaders like to pretend they handpick left-leaning nominees for office out of some kind of political necessity. Anyone tempted to believe them should ponder the bizarre mess they created in the special election just held in New York's 23rd Congressional District. A seat that should have been a safe bet for the GOP is to be occupied by a Democrat instead, simply because the Steele/Boehner Republican bosses put up a candidate whose positions on the issues of Republican principle waved a contemptuous red flag in the face of the conservative moral constituency that is, in electoral terms, the bull elephant of the Republican herd. It was a choice so stupid that it awakened in me vigilant instincts from my days as a high-level Reagan appointee in the U.S. State Department, serving in the trenches of bureaucratic warfare. The personnel at State are generally of high caliber. When they produced a blatantly incompetent result, I made it a rule to assume, for tactical purposes, that someone intended it to happen (since no one as intelligent as the average FSO would do anything so stupid.) My task was to identify and thwart that source of bureaucratic opposition (often sadly within the staff or bureau I was responsible for).

With this rule in mind, what would we say of the events that just transpired in New York's 23rd? Well, some folks saw a reasonably safe GOP seat as a chance to slip a pro-abortion wolf into the Republican congressional fold. When GOP leaders like Michael Steele or John Boehner talk about wanting "moderates" in the GOP, they may not be paying lip service to tolerance for the sake of appearances. They may be stating their strategic political goal. Perhaps from their viewpoint, the deeply held conservative convictions of the grassroots core of conservative voters is like the critical mass of radioactive material needed to produce a nuclear fission reaction. These voters are indispensably necessary for the GOP's electoral success, but under no circumstances must their political activity be allowed to produce an explosion of authentic conservative results. Instead, every opportunity must be used to insert "moderates" into positions of influence who (like the control rods in a nuclear reactor) will absorb and channel conservative political energy to produce a controlled reaction that results in sustained political power for the party elite. The label "moderate," therefore, doesn't refer to candidates' political views (which on issues like abortion and homosexual marriage are anything but moderate). It refers to their political effect.

Keyes gives examples:

They backed Arlen Specter rather than the conservative, pro-life candidate being raised up by the conservative grass roots in Pennsylvania. They back Schwarzenegger rather than the conservative pro-life candidate being lifted up by the conservative grass roots in California. They back Trey Grayson rather than Bill Johnson, the Reagan conservative rising from among grassroots conservatives in Kentucky. Would these vanguard elitists rather have a crypto-Islamic, national socialist with a predilection for Caesarism (the alien-sounding term "czar" applied to Obama's unconstitutional White House dictators is just the Slavic rendering of Caesar) at the political helm than a genuine conservative who pays more than lip service to the belief in God and decent liberty that is characteristic of many American voters? The vanguard elitists sporting the Republican label happily gather and spend millions of dollars on the research and advertising needed to turn unappealing "moderate" mediocrities into viable candidates for office. Put behind conservatives really in tune with grassroots conviction, fewer resources would produce a more assured result, calling forth the conservative majority artfully installed for purposes of manipulation behind the contrived façade of the current two-party electoral sham. The whole point of the sham is to prevent that majority from realizing its true strength.

Seen from this perspective it is clear that the Obama faction's present ascendancy isn't mainly due to anything the leftist Democrats have achieved. It's due to what the false-flag "conservatives" of the Republican Party power structure have prevented true conservatives from achieving.

And that is exactly what played out in South Dakota's District 20 Senate seat during 2008. And Pat Powers was part of the problem. It is time for true conservatives to stop being fooled by the GOP elite and take matters into their own hands. Either conservatives are respected and given the reins of the GOP, or we need to move on.

Socialists need to kick the denial habit

Burt Prelutsky wants the socialists to be exposed for what they are:

For some peculiar reason, America's left-wingers object to being called socialists. In fact, we have only one member of Congress, Vermont's Bernie Sanders, who has the gumption to admit he is one. Still, so far as I can tell, he's no more socialistic than any of the other leftist pinheads in Washington. I mean, the truth is, Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Charles Rangel, Brad Sherman, Barbara Lee and all the rest of that silly crowd vote exactly the same as Sanders, so why aren't they equally honest about their true identities?

Instead, they walk around like a bunch of mild-mannered Clark Kents, but as soon as a vote is called, they rush off to the nearest phone booth and emerge wearing a cape and little booties, just in time to vote for Obamacare, trillion-dollar stimulus packages and cap-and-trade.

What is even more disturbing is that it's not just the liberal media that denies the obvious fact that the "S" on Barack Obama's own chest stands for socialist. I keep hearing such people as Bill O'Reilly and Michael Medved taking members of their audience to task for even suggesting such a thing. I'm sorry, folks, but the emperor is not only naked as a jaybird, but he's a bigger left-wing dingbat than Hugo Chavez.

Let us not forget that Obama was the presidential candidate who told Joe the Plumber that redistributing wealth was a good thing. Lest anyone think that was a one-time slip of the tongue, it was also Obama who announced that the terrible failing of the Constitution, the Supreme Court and even the civil rights movement was that none of them ever promoted the redistribution of wealth.

Well, the way I see it, redistributing one's own wealth is called charity. Redistributing other people's, when done by the government, is totalitarianism. When perpetrated by an individual, such as Jesse James, Willie Sutton or Bernard Madoff, it's called a felony.

Cap & Trade bad for agriculture

Will Senator Tim Johnson side with the partisan tyranny, or will he stand up for rural South Dakota by pulling a Baucus:

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved climate change legislation Thursday with no Republicans voting for the bill or even participating in the process.

With Republican boycotting the proceedings, Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) relied on a little used interpretation of committee rules to move the legislation. Traditionally, two minority members are required to conduct committee business.

Boxer said that she passed the bill “in full accordance with long-standing committee and Senate rules.”

“This is not a procedure we wanted; it’s a procedure that’s available to us,” said Boxer. “The majority has to be able to do its work…otherwise the whole Senate could come to a screeching halt.”

Republicans called Boxer's move the “nuclear option,” warning that it violated decades of committee precedent.

“I am here to appeal to you and the members of the committee,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, the top Republican on the committee, said in a brief statement. “In the history of this committee, we have not been able to find a time when the bill has been marked up without minority.”

A Republican committee member visited the committee daily this week to deliver a short statement laying out GOP objections to the process.

Top Republican committee leaders and several moderate members — including climate bill leader South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham — have sent letters this week in support of the boycott.

Eleven Democrats voted for the bill, enough to give the legislation a majority of the 19 members on the committee.

Montana Sen. Max Baucus was the only Democratic to vote against the bill, citing concerns about the agriculture provisions included in the legislation.

Biblical principles would lower health care costs

Roger Fredinburg has an idea to lower health care costs:

Watching the "Great Debate" over medical insurance, rising medical costs and ever-broadening government control, I am reminded of some interesting facts, the details of which are not evident in the public or political discussion.

I thought we ought to at least review them before the "rulers" of "Amerika" completely destroy the republic.

Have you asked questions like:

• What is the cost of substance abuse on the medical system?
• What are the medical costs of sexual deviance and promiscuity?
• What's the price of gluttony?
• How about laziness, slothfulness, sedentary lifestyles, etc. – what is the cost?
• And what is the cost of unwed childbirth?
• What is the cost of poor diet, bad attitudes, fraud and basic neglect?

It might sound a bit old-fashioned, but there is a best-selling book out there that has a prescription for clean, healthy living that pretty much covers the basics on health, diet, relationships, attitudes, moral behavior and even a little about sex, sexuality, child raising and self-control. You can find it in any bookstore – it's known as the Holy Bible. I understand it's available in English now.

I am struggling to understand why people pick on smokers and fat folks but leave the fornicators, substance abusers and perverts out of the debate on medical and insurance costs that are rising unnecessarily in America.

I have attached the results from a government study done in 1992. I think you will agree it is our moral compass needing change, not the medical system.

If you extrapolate over time the compounding medical costs leading to the present day, it's easy to infer that the reform we need in this country isn't health-care reform – it's social, spiritual and moral reform.

If you really want to control the medical costs in America, then control immoral behavior. It might be more effective if we were to tolerate a little old-fashioned religion and discourage immorality with a vengeance.

Here's that study:

A study prepared by The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated the total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse to be $245.7 billion for 1992. Of this cost, $97.7 billion* was due to drug abuse. [This estimate includes illicit drugs and other drugs taken for non-medical purposes. It does not include nicotine.] This estimate includes substance abuse treatment and prevention costs as well as other health-care costs, costs associated with reduced job productivity or lost earnings, and other costs to society such as crime and social welfare. The study also determined that these costs are borne primarily by governments (46 percent), followed by those who abuse drugs and members of their households (44 percent).

The 1992 cost estimate has increased 50 percent over the cost estimate from 1985 data. The four primary contributors to this increase were: 1) the epidemic of heavy cocaine use, 2) the HIV epidemic, 3) an eightfold increase in state and federal incarcerations for drug offenses, and 4) a threefold increase in crimes attributed to drugs.

More than half of the estimated costs of drug abuse were associated with drug-related crime. These costs included lost productivity of victims and incarcerated perpetrators of drug-related crime (20.4 percent); lost legitimate production due to drug-related crime careers (19.7 percent); and other costs of drug-related crime, including federal drug traffic control, property damage, and police, legal, and corrections services (18.4 percent). Most of the remaining costs resulted from premature deaths (14.9 percent), lost productivity due to drug-related illness (14.5 percent), and health-care expenditures (10.2 percent).

Shooter always a Muslim

This clears up some misinformation on the terrorist attack at Fort Hood:

A Muslim U.S. Army officer opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas today, killing 12 soldiers and wounding 31, before he was shot by a base police officer.

The gunman, Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, orginally was reported to have been killed, but the Army said this evening Hasan is in custody, in stable condition.

The Army Times said Hasan, 39, was a psychiatrist recently reassigned from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to work with soldiers at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood.

A cousin, Nader Hasan, told Fox News Malik Hasan has "always been a Muslim" and was not a convert as had been reported.

Nader Hasan said his cousin, of Middle Eastern descent, was born in the U.S., attended high school in northern Virginia and graduated from Virginia Tech.

Hasan's name was on a list of officers who received promotions in May, published by the Army Times.

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales told Fox News the massacre did not appear to be the act of a mentally ill or extremely stressed person.

"This was a deliberate act of execution," he said.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said military officials told her Hasan was "pretty upset" about his scheduled deployment to Iraq on Nov. 28.

Hutchison said she was informed by officials that Hasan was not shooting randomly but was targeting people he knew.

Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, a base spokesman, said two additional suspects, also soldiers, were apprehended. U.S. Rep. John Carter, whose district encompasses Fort Hood, said the two suspects have been released, but a third has been taken into custody.

Cultural Marxists & anti-war peaceniks provoke violence on military base?

Here is another bloody shoe on the left's foot. Again, remember how the Progressives point to violent acts such as McVeigh and blame conservatives. Here are some details on yesterday's shooting at the miltary base in Texas:

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 11 people before being shot dead at Fort Hood, had said Muslims should "rise up" and attack Americans in retaliation for the US war in Iraq, a former army colleague said last night.

And then there is this:

Federal law enforcement officials say the suspected Fort Hood, Texas, shooter had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.

The officials say the postings appeared to have been made by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was killed during the shooting incident that left least 11 others dead and 31 wounded. The officials say they are still trying to confirm that he was the author. They say an official investigation was not opened.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

One of the Web postings that authorities reviewed is a blog that equates suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades.

And add this:

Officials were investigating whether Hasan was his birth name or if he may have changed his name, possibly as part of a conversion to Islam. However, they were not certain of his religion.

So what would have prevented the military from throwing, what looks like an Islamic enemy, from their ranks? Would the diversity nuts of the far-left Cultural Marxist movement scream discrimination? If so, then who now has blood on their hands? Or should I say on their foot. And let us not forget to add the anti-war peaceniks to the bloody shoe on the left foot.

So what are the anti-gun left going to say...ban guns in the military?

Obama does not understand the real meaning of "free"

Progressives seem to think that if the government provides it, it is "free". False, someone still has to pay for it. Ben Shapiro proves that Obama does not understand the real meaning of "free":

President Obama says he is a fan of the free market. Back in September, Obama spoke to Wall Street. He stated, "I have always been a strong believer in the power of the free market." He then explained that he wanted common-sense regulation of the market: "Common-sense rules of the road don't hinder the market, they make the market stronger. Indeed, they are essential to ensuring that our markets function fairly and freely."

To paraphrase Spanish dueler Inigo Montoya from "The Princess Bride": President Obama, you keep using the phrase "free markets." I do not think it means what you think it means.

Here is how the free market works: open competition among sellers, informed bidding among buyers. Sellers are responsible for competing; buyers are responsible for informing themselves. When the government pledges to increase competition or keep buyers informed, the market is no longer free. And when the government makes those pledges and then fails to enforce them, the free market is utterly perverted.

Unfortunately, President Obama's favorite "common-sense" regulations attack both sides of the free market: They restrict competition among sellers while providing false guarantees to buyers. They require that sellers charge certain prices or meet certain conditions, and they incentivize buyers not to do their research – after all, the government will ensure that no one puts bad products into the marketplace, right?

Thomas Sowell explains economics in a way that rings with clarity and truth – don't miss his book "Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy"

Wrong. Goldman Sachs is a perfect example of how the quasi-free market championed by Obama leads to chaos. On Monday, McClatchy Newspapers reported that Goldman Sachs, the nation's leading investment bank, profited handsomely from the downturn in the housing market by falsely selling mortgage-backed securities as triple-A rated investments. The securities were actually closer to junk. In 2006 and 2007, Goldman sold more than $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities, meanwhile betting against the housing market in shady ways.

The question isn't whether Goldman committed legal fraud here, although the indicators say that Goldman did. The real question is why buyers would buy these securities. The wizards of finance who bought the mortgage-backed securities while listening to Goldman's triple-A sales line must have been willfully blind – many of these securities were backed by immensely hazardous subprime mortgages. So why did the buyers fall for it?

They fell for it because they assumed that the federal government would prevent fraud. They fell for it for the same reason that Bernie Madoff's investors fell for his scam – the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to prevent these sorts of things. We pay our taxes so that a government agency will do our research for us and ensure that sales pitches are proper and accurate. We do not want to abide by the age-old aphorism "caveat emptor" – buyer beware. We do not want to be self-informed buyers. We want to be spoon-fed information by our investment advisers, no matter how ridiculous the information.

The only problem is that the federal government has proved itself utterly incapable of preventing fraud. Instead, the federal government provides the illusion of security to buyers while allowing sellers to do anything until proven guilty in a court of law.

The easy solution would be to reinvigorate a healthy sense of self-reliance in investors and buyers – tell Americans to do their own research, to do business with those they trust.

President Obama's solution is to create more regulations – regulations that will undoubtedly be ignored by bad actors and that will undoubtedly hamper honest businessmen.

The Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression

Walter E. Williams presents the view of Professor Steve H. Hanke:

Hanke says that the most repeated statement about the cause of the U.S. Great Depression is that it was caused by the October 1929 stock market crash. How could that be? By April 1930, the stock market had recovered to its pre-crash level. What is not taught in history books is the Great Depression was caused by a massive government failure. The most important part of that failure were the actions by the Federal Reserve Bank that led to the contraction of the money supply by 25 percent. Then, in the name of saving jobs, Congress enacted the Smoot-Hawley Act in June 1930, which increased U.S. tariffs by more than 50 percent. Other nations retaliated and world trade collapsed. U.S. unemployment rose from 8 percent in 1930 to 25 percent in 1933. In 1932, the Herbert Hoover administration and a Democratic Congress imposed the largest tax increase in U.S. history, raising the top tax rate on income from 25 percent to 63 percent. The Roosevelt administration followed these destructive policies with New Deal legislation that massively regulated the economy and extended the Great Depression to after World War II.

Have today's politicians and their economic advisers learned anything from yesteryear's policy that turned what would have been a short, sharp downturn in the economy into a 16-year affair? The answer is very little. Professor Hanke argues that the chief enabler of both the Great Depression and our latest economic downturn is the Federal Reserve Bank, who sees itself as America's systemic risk regulator. This is the world upside down, Hanke explains: The Federal Reserve is the systemic risk.

Don't miss Ron Paul's latest best-selling book, in which he urges citizens and elected officials alike to "End the Fed"

How about a bit of history? Between 1787 and 1930, our nation has seen both mild and severe economic downturns, sometimes called panics, that have ranged from one to seven years. During that interval, there was no thought that Congress or the president should intervene in the economy to enact stimulus packages, jobs programs or massive corporate handouts. Probably, the reason that no one thought to do so was that there was no constitutional authority to do so. It took the Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt administrations to massively and unconstitutionally intervene in the economy and, with the help of a frightened, derelict U.S. Supreme Court, turn what might have been a two- or three-year sharp downturn into our longest depression.

Professor Hanke says that the lesson to be drawn from business cycle history is that, if left to run their natural course, severe downturns are followed by rapid snapbacks. The 1921 recession is a good example where wholesale prices, industrial production and manufacturing employment fell by 30 percent or more and reached their low in mid-1921. There was little government intervention, at least by today's standards, and the economy recovered naturally; and by early 1922, it had fully recovered and the nation was off to the Roaring Twenties.

The bottom line is that the idea that government bureaucrats have enough knowledge to manage an economy well is the height of conceit – what Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek called the "fatal conceit."

Planned Parenthood pushed abortions for profit

So much for Planned Parenthood's immoral sex education to lessen the need for abortion:

A  former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood branch who resigned after she watched an ultrasound-guided abortion told WND the clinic was pushing employees to strive for abortion quotas to boost profits.

"There are definitely client goals," former clinic director Abby Johnson said. "We'd have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients."

Johnson, 29, said the Bryan, Texas, Planned Parenthood clinic performed surgical abortions every other Saturday, but it began expanding access to abortion to increase earnings.

"One of the ways they were able to up the number of patients that they saw was they started doing the RU-486 chemical abortions all throughout the week," she said.

RU-486 chemical abortions kill the lining of the uterus, cutting off oxygen and nutrients, resulting in the death of an unborn baby. Johnson said the chemical abortion costs the same as an early first-trimester abortion: between $505 and $695 for each procedure.

She told WND the clinic was experiencing financial difficulties due to the economic downturn.

"Abortion is the most lucrative part of Planned Parenthood's operations," she said. "Even though they're two separate corporations, all of the money goes into one pot. With the family planning corporation really suffering, they depend on the abortion corporation to balance their budget, help get them out of the hole and help make income for the company."

She continued, "They really wanted to increase the number of abortions so that they could increase their income."

Now Planned Parenthood has retaliated against Johnson, filing a restraining order against her because the clinic fears she may leak confidential information.

The hypocrisy of the secular left

Ted Baehr explains:

Years ago, one basic rule in the lawyer's toolkit was to ask the question, "By what authority?" If there were not a constitutional, legal or legislative authority, then the courts would strike down the executive action.

Recently, the price and wage czar for President Obama told the president of Bank of America that he had to return close to $2 million of his salary. The loony newspapers thought this was a good thing. The question they should have asked, however, was, "By what authority?"

Of course, the czar doesn't have such authority. The government doesn't have the authority to fix wages and prices. This is a bold, outright communist power grab by another refugee from the Dark Ages of the 1960s.

Acclaimed anti-communist author and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told an audience at Harvard in 1979 that, if the Russian people had opposed the Soviet Communists, the Soviets would not have been able to devastate the country and send tens of millions of people to their untimely deaths.

It is time for us to stand up. This czar has no authority to do this. The government has no authority. We need to hold their feet to the fire of the Constitution and restore the United States to a country where the law reigns over the government rather than the government making its own laws for its avaricious, psychopathic power grab. If we sit back and do nothing, we will find ourselves in the gulag.

Of course, the ultimate law is the Law of God found in the Old Testament and New Testament documents. We need wise conservatives who will abide by that Divine Law.

The United States will have either biblical laws or anti-biblical laws – and we will either have constitutional laws or unconstitutional laws. There is no in-between.

Furthermore, the liberal, leftist, libertarian, atheist and secular activists and leaders who cry "separation of church and state" or "separation of religion and state" are actually hypocritically violating their own standard because their vocal opposition to God's Law is itself a commingling of church and state or religion and state, according to their own definitions. They are like the Muslim who wants to replace the traditional Judeo-Christian laws of the United States and Great Britain with some weird kind of Middle Eastern Islamic law, or "Shariah."

That's because you can't very well support a moral/religious law that attacks other people for supporting their own moral/religious law. That is contradictory, hypocritical and illogical.

Someone's moral/legal theology, or doctrine of God's Law, has to win in the end. Either the Christian's, the atheist's, the Muslim's, the Talmudic scholar's, the libertarian ideologue's, etc.

If we want to live in a civilized society, then the biblical doctrine of law and morality should prevail.

Be that as it may, it is clear that the wage and price czar's interference is not only anti-biblical, but also unconstitutional. Neither the Bible nor the U.S. Constitution gives government the right to determine the salaries of private citizens in private companies.

Obamacare will reduce medicals costs, another Democrat lie

Thomas Sowell exposes another Demcorat lie:

We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is "too high"– either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed by the government is likely to lower those costs, and much that is being proposed is almost certain to increase the costs.

There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting costs around, like a pea in a shell game at a carnival. Costs are not reduced simply because you pay less at a doctor's office and more in taxes – or more in insurance premiums, or more in higher prices for other goods and services that you buy, because the government has put the costs on businesses that pass those costs on to you.

Democrat deception on deficits

David Limbaugh exposes a lie trying to be made by the tax and spend Democrats:

I nearly fell out of my chair as I read this New York Times headline: "Democrats Push for Plan to Cut Deficit." From the headline alone, I couldn't tell whether this was before, during or after they supported President Barack Obama's intentional, exponential escalation of the deficit to $1.4 trillion.

That's simply immeasurable chutzpah. But just in case you're ready to be taken in yet again by these fair-weather deficit watchdogs, the first sentence of the Times article reveals their true – and true to form – motive.

"Faced with anxiety in financial markets about the huge federal deficit and the potential for it to become an electoral liability for Democrats, the White House and Congressional leaders are weighing options for narrowing the gap, including a bipartisan commission that could force tax increases and spending cuts."

Those elections have a stubborn habit of forcing even drunken sailor politicians to pretend to care about other people's money they otherwise have an unlimited appetite for squandering.

But wait; I thought concern about runaway federal spending was the concern only of those "tea party" protesters the administration has dubbed "potential domestic terrorists" who were carrying "political paraphernalia" – copies of the U.S. Constitution – and engaging in "right-wing extremist chatter" focused "on the economy."

No, we're supposed to believe the Democrats care about deficits again, the ones Obama is planning on expanding to between $9 trillion and $13 trillion over the next decade.

George Soros, a Progressive Plutocrat

The left likes to use the corruption of the wealthy to attack free-market capitalism. But that is in error. For example, take a look at George Soros, a far-left Progressive anti-capitalist:

By betting against the U.S. economy and the dollar, billionaire investor George Soros has made billions from the economic downturn, Corsi wrote.

"I'm having a very good crisis," Soros told London's Daily Mail in March 2009. Soros, who came out of retirement in 2007 to manage his Quantum Investment Fund, has made $2.9 billion in doing so, including $1 billion made in 2008.

"Had Sen. McCain won the 2008 presidential campaign, George Soros would have had influence at the White House, exactly as Soros has now, after promoting and funding candidate Barack Obama since Obama first came on the national political scene with his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that nominated Sen. John Kerry for president," Corsi wrote. "No one should be confused that by backing both presidential candidates in 2008 that Soros is a patriot. To the contrary, Soros was concerned only that regardless of which candidate won, he wanted to be sure he won. Globalists like Soros are concerned about money, first and foremost, possibly to the exclusion of all else. Soros appears to make his political bets primarily to ensure that he preserves his ability to make and keep money."

Soros has been outspoken about his views. He began his 2008 book, subtitled "The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means," by proclaiming, "We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s." Soros went on to explain that the 2008 credit crisis "marks the end of an era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency." He insisted the current crisis was "the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than twenty-five years."

Consistently, Soros has proclaimed the dollar is under selling pressure and "may eventually be replaced as a world reserve currency, possibly by the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights." Soros told Reuters that the U.S. economy is in for a "lasting showdown" and could face a Japan-style period of a decade or more of relatively low growth, coupled with high inflation.

Corsi noted, "Regardless of whether Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain won in 2008, Soros would still have been betting against America, selling short U.S. stocks and buying futures contracts betting the dollar would fall."

Will the Federal Reserve die on its own?

Vox Day predicts the Federal Reserve will die one way or another:

Sham and deception has become the order of the day. As congressional mandarins boldly rush to the barricades of Wall Street to defend the banks again, the administration careens wildly from one absurd public statement to the next; no sooner had it claimed to have created 640,329 jobs by spending $159 billion in stimulus money than it was asserting it had only spent $92,000 per job, not the $250,000 simple division would indicate. The federal government has reached a truly bizarre state of consciousness when it is attacking basic mathematics as "calculator abuse." And this Associated Press account of the administration's defense of nonsense serves as an amusingly apt metaphor for the way in which both the legislative and executive branches are desperately attempting to preserve the present financial system.

"[The White House] aggressively defended an earlier, faulty count that overstated by thousands the jobs created or saved so far."

The strategy of the political and monetary authorities is very clear. Buy time. Extend, pretend and defend. Exert the power of positive thinking, engage in happy talk and attempt to lift the public's animal spirits until the prophecy of economic recovery becomes self-fulfilling and rising asset prices return bankrupt balance sheets to solvency. It is not a good strategy. It will not be a successful strategy. But it is at least a coherent one. The problem is that they are fast running out of time. They simply refuse to understand that the real danger to the Federal Reserve system is not a political one due to the understandable fury of the American people or even an accounting one stemming from uneviscerated audit legislation, it is an economic one based on the simple fact that a fundamentally flawed system is once again approaching its inescapable reckoning.