Health Care Reform Passes in House

I know I've written a couple of times about how the Obama administration with majorities in both the House and Senate has accomplished nothing... but I rather liked it that way. I disagree with pretty much everything that's come out of that man's mouth, from his policy rhetoric to his ego-inflating "self-deprecating" humor. It was a private source of amusement for me that nothing was getting done, but I was quite hoping that nothing would continue to get done.

Then, low and behold, the House has passed it's version of the health care reform bill. The sarcasm of my excitement would know no bounds were I to bother writing about it, but frankly, I'm too pissed to bother at the moment.

Consumerist has a nifty breakdown of what this version of the bill means for us common folk, so click on over there to get some details written in non-political verbiage.

EDIT: Check out this fascinating article I found over on The Knight Shift this evening for even more information on this "wonderful" new bill. Hip-hip hooray for our idiotic government. This outlines how the new bill "provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax."

How about this one:

If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…

Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.

What's more, according to said article, the Congressional Budget Office has said that the lowest cost family plan under this bill will cost $15,000 in 2016. I don't know about you, but I don't have an extra 15 grand just layin' around.

Oh boy, let me tell you how positively exciting this news is. Pay us more money because paying the health care tax is mandatory, and keeping an acceptable level of health insurance is mandatory and if you don't, we'll slap you with outrageous fines and send you to prison. Because the Constitution says we can do that. Um... yeah.

Socialism much?

Government Threatens to Control the Internet

I find myself yet again drawn to write about the political goings on in this country that I detest so much. I today's idiotic government news, Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) has put S. 773 on the table, titled "The Cybersecurity Act of 2009".

I received an email about this today, and it sounded completely crazy. "Congress is giving the President control over the Internet," and other such radical-sounding quotes abounded, and I was quite skeptical. But, I decided to poke around some more.

It didn't take long before I found that the the person who mailed me was not being radical or crazy or really even exaggerating. It's true, all of it. Head on over to OpenCongress to check out the proposal in its entirety. For your reading convenience, I am including the OpenCongress summary right here (emphasis mine):

This is comprehensive legislation designed to address our nation's vulnerabilities to cyber crime, global cyber espionage, and cyber attacks. It would establish a new Cybersecurity Advisory Panel within the White House and stream-line the cybersecurity effort through all levels of government. The bill also calls on the Department of Commerce to establish and maintain a clearinghouse on information related to cybsecurity threat and vulnerability information to public and private infrastructure deemed "critical" by the President. The Secretary of Commerce would be given access to this information "without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." The bill would also give the President new authority to "declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network."

Let's take a peek at this summary for a moment to figure out what it is, exactly, that's got people all up in arms. First of all, this bill gives the Secretary of Commerce access to what essentially boils down to all the traffic, browsing habits, emails, IMs, forum posts, etc. of everybody in the United States. No longer is this just a conspiracy theory perpetuated by folks wearing aluminum hats, this is the real deal. Of particular concern in the quote "without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." This means that the government won't need to obtain a subpoena or anything to get a hold of your information - they won't have to follow the processes that are in place to protect our privacy and our rights.

They just get to circumvent the whole damn thing.

From the actual bill:

SEC. 14. PUBLIC-PRIVATE CLEARINGHOUSE.

(a) DESIGNATION- The Department of Commerce shall serve as the clearinghouse of cybersecurity threat and vulnerability information to Federal Government and private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks.

(b) FUNCTIONS- The Secretary of Commerce--

(1) shall have access to all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access;

(2) shall manage the sharing of Federal Government and other critical infrastructure threat and vulnerability information between the Federal Government and the persons primarily responsible for the operation and maintenance of the networks concerned; and

(3) shall report regularly to the Congress on threat information held by the Federal Government that is not shared with the persons primarily responsible for the operation and maintenance of the networks concerned.

The blatant disregard for our rights aside, its striking that the bill makes no real effort to define terms such as "critical infrastructure" or "relevant data." Because this isn't strictly defined in the bill, it gives the President the power to determine and change what qualifies.

The bill gives a very loose definition of the term "critical infrastructure: "(A) Federal Government information systems and networks; and (B) State, local, and nongovernmental information systems and networks in the United States designated by the President as critical infrastructure information systems and networks."

That basically means "anything we want to include." To give you an idea of what can qualify, the bill defines "cyber" as: "(1) any process, program, or protocol relating to the use of the Internet or an intranet, automatic data processing or transmission, or telecommunication via the Internet or an intranet; and (2) any matter relating to, or involving the use of, computers or computer networks."

This gives the President power to define "critical infrastructure" as pretty much anything he damn well pleases. This might include:

• Your home network (2 computers and a router, for example)
  
• A business' internal support network (intranet)
• The entire Interne

There is no definition at all for "relevant data," but the Patriot Act has shown us that we can define "relevant data" in the loosest possible terms.

So, essentially, Section 14 of this bill creates a place (clearinghouse, as it were) where the Secretary of Commerce stores information and can access it at any time. Think of the credit bureaus, but with even more information. This information can and likely will include who you are, what your browsing habits are, your social networking site updates and posts, your emails, IM conversations, usernames, passwords, and anything else that could possibly be used to link you to terrorist activity.

Does that scare anybody else here? I don't know about you, but I honestly can't think of any line in the Constitution that gives our government the right to spy on its citizens. Because that's essentially what this is.

The summary also mentions that this bill gives the President the power to "declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network." In real-people speak, that means that the President can order all Internet providers across the country to shut down all Internet access to all citizens of the United States if the President feels it is necessary.

Once again, we lack true definitions of things like "cybersecurity emergency" and "critical infrastructure". Yet again, we are left under the President's prerogative and he is free to define critical infrastructure as pretty much anything. As for "cybersecurity emergency," this is as easy to fabricate as a threat from a terrorist group. Ample evidence exists to suggest the Bush administration used the raising of the threat level during election periods to divert media attention from big Democrat news. We should be expecting similar shenanigans if the government is given the power to turn the Internet on and off.

For example, say there's a big Republican (or Independent, or Libertarian, or whatever) webcast taking place tomorrow. Oh, look at that, we just overheard a terrorist cell which was planning on hacking networks X and Y. We're declaring cybersecurity emergency and shutting down the Internet until we catch the terrorists. Sorry, Republicans.

More concerning is the fact that the bill gives the President the authority to not only shut down the entire Internet in this country, but also put limitations on such traffic. In real-person speak, this would allow the President to shut down certain websites by blocking all traffic to those sites.

In case that doesn't concern you, let's go back to our hypothetical Republican webcast. The day of, we happen to overhear terrorist threats, so we're going to block all traffic to that site.

Never mind the worst case scenario I just illustrated, but think for a moment of the ramifications. This essentially allows the g-men to control the flow of information across the Internet, to control what we read, what videos we can watch, what podcasts we can subscribe to...

But wait, we're not through yet! The bill also creates a Cybersecurity Advisory Panel - which will be comprised of President-appointed (yet another government office where the citizens have no say over who will represent them) officials who will determine and advise the President of cybersecurity threats and courses of action. They will oversee the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which will "establish measurable and auditable cybersecurity standards for all Federal Government, government contractor, or grantee critical infrastructure information systems and networks [...]". This Institute will have authority over such things as (again, emphasis mine):

• SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION SPECIFICATION LANGUAGE- The Institute shall, establish standard computer-readable language for completely specifying the configuration of software on computer systems widely used in the Federal Government, by government contractors and grantees, and in private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks. -this allows the government to see what software you have installed on your computer and across your network, as well as how you're using it.
  
• STANDARD SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION- The Institute shall establish standard configurations consisting of security settings for operating system software and software utilities widely used in the Federal Government, by government contractors and grantees, and in private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks. -this allows the government to potentially do things such as dictate what operating systems you can use, require a "back door" or tracking bug be coded into all OS programs so they can monitor your activity, or determine the level of encryption you can use over the Internet.

And if you thought that was all... The bill also calls for the creation of regional centers which will be able to dictate to privately owned companies the software they can install on their workplace computers.

PURPOSE- The purpose of the Centers is to enhance the cybersecurity of small and medium sized businesses in United States through--

(1) the transfer of cybersecurity standards, processes, technology, and techniques developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology to Centers and, through them, to small- and medium-sized companies throughout the United States [...]

So, not only does the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 give the government power over what you can view on the Internet, whether you can access the Internet or not, what security features come in software (including operating systems), the power to look at your specific computer and determine how you are using your programs, but it also gives them the power to dictate what businesses are doing with their computers as well.

What's more, this bill was introduced very quietly in the Senate. This is likely because the g-men feel they have overused the "It's for your own good" thing. Now they're just going to quietly try to pass a bill that takes away even more of our rights. It's really nothing more than a sneaky power grab by the folks in office. As such, it needs to be quashed, and quashed now. For the sake of our rights as citizens of the United states, this things should never be allowed to pass into law.

In that vein, Campaign for Liberty is hosting a petition against this bill. I urge you to stand up for your rights and add your name to this very important petition.

More on Politics - Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize, Wants to Extend School Year

I was doing soooooo good at avoiding politics here, but now I find myself with a need to vent.

For those of you that haven't heard yet, our esteemed President has won himself a Nobel Peace Prize.




There's a strong outpouring of venom in regards to this topic across the intertubes. My facebook newsfeed is alight with people wondering "WTF?" and "Bullshit" and other such disbelieving sentiments. Twitter is buzzing with people both congratulating the decision and stoning it.

Me, I think the decision is ludicrous. Yay, we have an American who won the award. Go-go American pride. That's all well and good, but I must pose the question: What has Obama done to promote peace since he's become President... or ever for that matter?

Sure, he runs around trying to curry favor with foreign governments (which includes declining to meet with the Dalai Lama in favor of placating the Chinese government), but that hasn't done much in the way of promoting peace... especially considering that the award nomination had to be submitted just 12 days into his Presidency. In the first 12 days, he accomplished... nothing.

Not that this has changed in any way since those initial 12 days. First, the wars that G-Dub started during his miserable 8-year term are not over, and are looking to get far worse before they get better - issues are escalating in Afghanistan, and there's been no notable improvement in Iraq since Obama took office. The news has been speaking recently of Venezuela, North Korea with their nuclear threats, and China becoming quite powerful. and yet, even 10 months into his Presidency, we're supposed to think he's done enough to promote peace to deserve this award?

So far, all we've heard from Barack Obama is bold and empty promises, a lot of rhetoric and hyperbole, with a few Superman jokes thrown in for good reference. He has failed to deliver on even the simplest of promises, including (but not limited to): getting rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," ending the war in Iraq, nationalizing health care (not that I want that to go through, but still), or saving the economy (or even making the economy his first priority). And, mind you, that's with a Democrat-controlled House and Senate. Fail, fail, fail.

One thing that he is pushing for is a solution to the fact that America keeps dropping in the ranks of most educated population. His solution.... Make the school year longer.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

That helps how? The only way to educate successfully, in my most humble of opinions, is to motivate. Extending the school year, cutting into the one time of year every school kid looks forward to, is NOT going to motivate anybody. I know I wouldn't be motivated, and I used to love school.

Let me throw a suggestion out there for the masses. Let's start teaching the kids instead of teaching the test. I loathe standardized tests, I think they're idiotic. You cannot teach every kid when you are teaching to a standardized test. You will fail in teaching, because the people you are teaching are NOT standardized. The idea that schools get paid more based on how well their students do on tests is a big fat failure. We all get that schools need more money, but parsing out that money based on test results is insane. Teachers need to be given the freedom to actually TEACH kids again instead of spending their time teaching kids how to fill out bubbles and how to answer the specific types of questions to be found on a test. This does not prepare students for the "real world" in any way, shape, or form.

If Obama would like to improve our education system, start out by getting rid of this standardized testing bull crap. That's my thought on one way to improve the state of our education system. Sure, it probably won't fix everything wrong with it, but it's a bigger step in the right direction than extending the school year will ever be.

The Horror...and the Health Care Reform

I have a story for you.

My car registration was up for renewal in July. I sent in a check at the beginning of the month, which was cashed on July 17th. Almost one month later, I have not received my new stickers or registration card. I've taken to carrying a printed copy of the cashed check in my car just in case I get pulled over for my plates being expired.

Numerous calls to the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder offices have yielded me, "We mailed it, it should come in the mail any day now." That answer is unsatisfactory at best, as I am currently driving around with expired plates, which carries quite a fine should I be unlucky enough to have a cop behind me at a red light. I called again today, all three offices, and was met with the same voicemail on each one. "We are sorry we are unable to answer your call. Please leave a message, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible." There was also a note on there about how 2 of the 3 offices are closed on Fridays, and they're not open weekends, so the soonest I could expect a call back is on Monday.

So, I drove my expired car down to the only office in the Springs that's open on Fridays and sat in the "Get in line here to receive a number" line, which didn't move once in the ten minutes I stood there before losing my patience and leaving. If the line to get a number is that ridiculous, I can only imagine how long I'd be waiting once I received my number.

I came back to my office and jumped on the DMV website, trying to see if there was another way I could escalate my situation online. Of course, there was none, but I did find the conveniently helpful message "Due to severe budget cuts, only the Chapel Hills office will be open on Fridays. All other locations will be open Monday - Friday." Or something to that effect.

So, the trek to get the stickers I paid for will resume on Monday, I suppose.

I bring this up on this blog, because of all the debate for and against the health care reform that will essentially allow the government to run our health care. Can you imagine a health care system run by the same inefficient bureaucrats that run the DMV services?

Can you imagine going to the hospital where you must wait in line to get a number, then chill in the waiting room until your number is called? More to the point, could you imagine driving a loved one to the emergency room only to find they are closed, a sign hung on the door that reads "Due to the severe budget cuts, this emergency room location is only open Monday - Thursday, 8:00am - 5:00pm. Thank you."

That's a truly scary thought.

More of My Cash for Your Clunkers?

I'm back to writing on the politics that make me nauseated. This week the Senate has been preparing to vote on whether to donate $2,000,000,000 of taxpayers' hard earned money to the silly and expensive Cash for Clunkers program.

See, the point of this program is to give people who trade in an old gas guzzler, specifically SUVs, up to $4500 extra trade-in credit, funded by you and me. The trade-in credit is only good towards the purchase of a gas-friendly vehicle (the most popular of which, so far, have been Toyota, Honda, and Ford). The current program, apparently, has been a wild success, as they have pretty much run out of funds. Hence the vote to throw more money at it.

I have several problems with this whole Cash for Clunkers business. First and foremost, it's anti-Constitutional. Congress was never granted power to utilize taxpayer funds to stimulate private businesses. Or to encourage environmental cleanliness. They were never given the power to tax citizens either, but that's whole different ball of wax.

Second, the g-men are regulating what kinds of cars you can buy with your cool $4500 taxpayer funded stimulus. Only cars that get good MPG qualify, so if you're in the market for an SUV, you're out of luck. Also, you can't apply that to used cars of any type, including gas-sippers, so folks not looking to drop new car money are also SOL. I have never liked the idea of the gov'ment picking and choosing what I can and can't buy. Also, the government specifies what kinds of cars you can trade in. Are you looking to trade in your old Honda Civic to get a sexy new Camaro? Tough cookies for you, you get no Cash for Clunkers cash. Even if your old Civic is 20 years old. "Clunkers" is really defined as Trucks, SUVs, and Vans.

Finally, I bought a new car (a Civic as it happens) 3 years ago. Brand-spankin' new. And you want to know what? I never asked taxpayers to help me fund that purchase. So that begs the questions, then, why does my tax moey go to help somebody else buy a new car?

Besides all the above reasons, here's another good one for why the Senate should not pass a bill to dump more money into this program. A group of about 50 of the largest dealers in the nation have come together and put their own credit in place, titled the Automotive Stimulus Package. This new (and more awesome than the government's) package allows trade-in customers to get from $500 - $4500 in extra trade-in credit and has the following requirements

• The vehicle must be owned, registered, and insured for at least 6 months
• The vehicle must be model year 2006 or earlier
• The vehicle must be in working condition
• The vehicle must be at least 2mpg less efficient than the car you wish to purchase

PLUS, it covers buyers who are in the market for a used car.

This, folks, is the market in action. The government doesn't need to do anything, the private sector is taking care of itself (and doing a better job of it than the g-men, no less). Time for the government to get the hell out... long past time, actually, this is more of a wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Of course, we have a Congress that likes to be seen as helpful. They think this is helpful, so expect the bill to pass through the Senate and another $2 billion dollars of our money to get flushed.

Reaction to Obama's Two-Faced Speech at the National Archive

I promised myself that I wasn't going to blog today. I was going to stay busy preparing for my vacation, making sure everything at work was tidy and shiny so it would be fine while I am away for a week and a half. Yet, here I am, eating lunch, and finding it necessary to blog. 

Who here watched Obama's speech given in the National Archive? Anybody?

Who here was scared by that speech?

That speech was the biggest load of doublespeak I have ever heard, and that includes those given by the fear-mongering regime that was the Bush administration. In this speech Obama speaks both to the necessity to defend the rules outlined in the Constitution ("the rule of law"). He says that without "these documents," referring to the documents housed in the National Archives including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, among others, our country would not be great. 

"Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world. It is the reason that enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they receive better treatment from America's armed forces than from their own government."

That is what this country is about, really. Our values, our rights, our freedoms. 

"It's the reason we've been able to overpower the iron fist of fascism and outlast the iron curtain of communism [...] Where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction, America must demonstrate that it's values and institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology."

What a wonderful statement. It was gratifying to finally hear Obama jump in on civil liberties, and I hoped to hear all about the changes coming our way that would begin to restore the rights that the bush regime had whittled away over the course of their tenure in office. 

Obama goes on to criticize the Bush regime for their "ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism - one that was neither effective nor sustainable, a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass." Utterly scathing, that. 

With those statements, he went on to declare the following points of action that he has taken to rectify these situations:

• Banned the use of torture as an interrogation method. Bravo. This never should have been sanctioned. Cheney would later reply that torture is still a valid method of interrogation, because there is no middle ground in the fight against terrorism. Cheney is beyond senile and should be locked up somewhere. 
• Ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay. Sort of. He points out that in over 7 years, Guantanamo Bay managed to convict a whopping 3 prisoners. That was obviously a failure and deserved to be shut down. 
• Ordered a review of all pending cases at Guantanamo, because he knew closing Guantanamo Bay. He goes on to further criticize the Bush administration for all the legal challenges his people have to face, because it's all their fault. Commence finger-pointing, and a whole lot of it. It wasn't me, it was him. The finger points so hard, it trembles.

And here is where we start to break down. Barely a breath ago, Obama was preaching the wonders of the Constitution, the strength that our rights lend this country. Then he starts in with "what we are doing [...] I will explain how each action that we are taking will help build a framework that protects both the American people and the values we hold dear."

Here's where it gets scary. See if you can spot the subtext in what Obama says right here: 

"We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people."

... scary. Couple this statement with the Patriot Act, which allows the government to arrest anybody as long as they think you are a terrorist, and you have a recipe for indefinite, unjust imprionment of anybody. As I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, there is no recourse for people arrested under the Patriot Act - you are denied your rights under the Constitution. And we now have Obama, paragon of Change, telling us that he will not release people suspected of terrorism if they are a threat to national security. What this boils down to, friends and readers, is preemptive arresting. They are going to arrest you for a crime you might commit rather than a crime you did commit; they're going to bypass all that evidence stuff, and they're going to hold you as long as they damn well please without trial, without representation, without rights. 

This coming from the same man who not even 10 minutes earlier was espousing the virtues of the Constitution and upholding the rights it grants us. 

Think I'm reading too far in between the lines? Well, he goes on:

"Now finally there remains the question of detainees at Guantanamo Bay who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people."

What exactly does that mean? We cannot prosecute them for crimes that they have committed, why? If they did something wrong, prosecute them. If they didn't, let them go. You cannot, cannot, CANNOT hold people without having committed a crime. That goes against the Constitution, the rule of law, if you will. You cannot, Mr. President, start your speech by talking about how we as a nation must uphold the Constitution then not even a breath later, talk about all the ways you intend on breaching that same document. This is a level of hypocrisy that not even Bush the Second could lay claim to. And it's terrifying. 

He is calling it "prolonged detention." It seems so innocent on the surface, those two words. Prolonged. Detention. And yet, what they mean to this country is nothing short of tyranny. To quote, once again, Obama:

"If and when we determine the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and Congressional oversight."

So, we're going to hold individuals to keep them from committing a crime, under the Patriot Act where there is no recourse for those being held, until we deem that they are no longer a threat? Really? So, how long exactly is "prolonged?"

"Right now [...] there are people plotting to take American lives. That will be the case a year from now, five years from now, and in all probability ten years from now."

No, he doesn't define exactly what "prolonged" means, but his reasoning for justifying prolonged detentions is the threat of attacks on America. If there is still a threat of an attack on America in a decade, he will be able to justify holding a prisoner until that threat is gone. Could you imagine being held for a decade without a trial, a conviction, or a sentence? Perhaps I might be arrested for writing this contradiction of the President, this criticism of his (ab)use of power. Perhaps you will be arrested for reading it. Perhaps we will be imprisoned for a "prolonged" period of time until they determine that we are no longer a threat to our country. Somebody tell me how this lines up with the Constitution. 

And where is this oversight system?

"[...] my administration has begun to reshape the standards that apply [...] going forward, my administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime [...]"

A legal regime? What he's really saying is this: Obama is going to create a system to make illegally jailing United States citizens legal. This is a system that will likely exist beyond the judicial system, which will guarantee it can get away with anything it decides is in the nation's best interest. This is such a step beyond even the radical policies of Bush that it makes my head spin. 

And if you'd like to sit there and think that I'm blowing this out of proportion, I invite you to read this story I reported on a couple of weeks ago, where a tenth grade kid was arrested and denied his due process under the Patriot Act. This kid could be in jail for as long as the President damn well sees fit to keep him there. No lawyer, no trial, no nothing. 

For years, we have lived under the assumption that we are safe from our government because we are protected by the rights granted us by the Constitution. Well, if Obama gets his way, we are no longer safe from our government. Our government is free to treat us as they wish, because we will have no recourse. Spout as he will his dedication to upholding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Obama is doing no such thing. Strip away the poetic language, the pats on the back he gives himself and his administration, cut away the talk of change and hope, and you are left with a message as stark and terrifying as anything we heard from the previous administration. A message that is, in fact, more radical and anti-Constitution than any we heard from Bush or Cheney. 

In the world Obama lives in, "Change" does not mean changing for the better. "Change" means giving the government unlimited power over its people, it means stripping US citizens of their rights, and it means holding citizens without cause for an indefinite "prolonged" length of time at the government's will. 

Obama says, "I am not the only person in this city who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution." We get that you swore an oath, but a mere hundred days into your term, you jump in here with a speech that takes our Constitutional rights and shreds them. How exactly then are you living up to your oath?

We all hoped for change when Obama was elected. I was a very vocal opponent of the man getting elected, as I was for McCain, but after his election, I tried to have hope that perhaps he would change things for the better. 

Hope. With this speech, Obama shows us that Hope is, in fact, audacious.

More on this infuriating issue can be found, oddly, on MSNBC. The station is known for being quite liberal-leaning, however, Rachel Maddow gave a scathing review of this speech on her show, and her points are many and valid. Take a look right here. 

A Prescription for Cheerios?

Pretty soon we may be seeing those bright yellow Cheerios boxes behind the counter... the pharmacy counter, that is. 

In yet another waste of taxpayer money, the FDA has declared that Cheerios' statements of being heart healthy qualify it as a "drug" under federal law. The FDA goes on to suggest that General Mills should file for a new drug application if it would like to keep the wording on the packaging. 

Doesn't the FDA have something better to do with their time, like tour peanut factories?

Now the Government is Stealing Land From Citizens

Like I said yesterday, the terrorists are winning. Today brings news that one more right given to US citizens by the Constitution has been overridden by a power-hungry, corrupted government.

I read on The Knight Shift just a moment ago that the government is seizing private land for use in building a memorial for the folks who dies aboard Flight 93.

...   ...   ...

WHAT the hell is going on here?! According to the Yahoo! article, the government has supposedly been in negotiations with the landowners since late 2004 to buy the land (though the property owners contend that there were NO negotiations at all), but since the "negotiations" were unsuccessful, the government is just going to up and take the land anyway. 

What do the g-men need the land for? How about a $58 million permanent memorial and national park to honor the folks who gave their lives on Flight 93. What's more, the memorial/park will cover a ginormous twenty-two hundred acres. The gov't would like to have the memorial completed by the 10th anniversary of the hijacking, as if the people who died in that plane crash really care when or even if a memorial is built. 

That point aside, I find myself wondering: What in god's name do you do with a memorial of that size? What's the point?

We here in the US have a right, inalienable, to own property. The government has no right to take our property away from us. Yet, here we are with the government poised to step into territory strictly forbidden by the document that governs it. What else is new, right?

From the article, Phil Sheridan, park service spokesperson, had the following to say: "We had a group of people who took some very heroic actions. It's just fitting and right that we get this done in time for the 10th anniversary."

First, do the dead folks care? No. They're dead. Their actions are remembered. Do we need a memorial to help us remember? No. What they did was brave and will live on through history as such. 

Scary thing is, the family members of the heroes on Flight 93 were pushing for the government to bring eminent domain to bear. Hell, they've even formed a group, Flight 93 Families, with a president and a vice president even. Patrick White, VP of F93F, supports the government's actions here and was even planning on asking for eminent domain to be wielded. Apparently both he and the families of the dead have forgotten what it means to be a citizen of the US, so swept up are they in their greed. 

Civil rights be damned, give us a meaningless memorial. 

I eagerly await the nasty emails that will come from that comment.

Thing is, the folks aboard Flight 93 died protecting the people of this country, because they believed in what this country stands for. Perhaps this is a lesson the government (and Flight 93 Families) should take to heart. 

US Government Using Patriot Act Against its Own Citizens

Pandora is playing "Capital G" by NIN right now... Irony!

I ran across this hoprrifying story while browsing the web this morning. I'm not sure horrifying is the correct term for it either. It goes so far beyond merely "horrifying"...

Back when the Patriot Act was rushed through the House and Senate following the 9/11, the law scared me. Never, EVER, should a law have been passed that supercedes the Constitution. Yet, utilizing the country's general state of panic and lust for revenge, our government pushed through a law that allows them to suspend the rights of anybody they suspect (or claim to suspect) of being a terrorist. It gives law enforcement officials, among other things, unlimited rights to hold prisoners without representation, without proof, and without cause. One utterance of "terrorist" and your rights are magically gone. Poof. You aren't protected, you have nowhere to turn.

That's what this story is about. Federal officials came one night and arrested a tenth grade kid for being a terrorist threat. He's been held now for two months without legal representation and limited contact with his family. His hearings are delayed, then delayed again, all the while this poor kid is being denied his Constitutional rights. 

Pardon my French, but what the fuck is this country coming to? This is not the United States the forefathers envisioned, this is more like the various foreign regimes we have been horrified of in the past. Perhaps this has become cliche by now, but only because it is true. We are moving at an ever more rapis pace towards the world envisioned by George Orwell when he penned 1984. The fate of Winston Smith is scarily close to what this kid is going through right now. 

If that doesn't send chills up your spine, you should get your pulse checked. 

Seriously, folks, anybody reading this and watching this video must acknowledge that this is ridiculous. This is not what the USA is all about. We elected a man who promised us change, yet one of the most atrocious things left over by the Bush administration was the Patriot Act, and he is doing nothing to rectify this problem. He's busying himself with spending record amounts of money and doing more than perhaps any other President before him to socialize this country, but when it comes to the basic rights of the people he was elected to lead, he turns away and refuses to do anything. 

I will inevitably get an email or two about how the Patriot Act is necessary to combat the threat of terrorism, and to that I say bullshit. I didn't believe that back in 2001 and I sure as hell don't believe that now. This Act serves no purpose other than stealing away the few rights that remain to us as citizens of the United States. It gives the government far too much power, and that power is wholly abusable due to an utter lack of checks and balances. 

It's been said that terrorists attack us because they are jealous of the way we are able to live. If you believe that, perhaps you should take a step back and look at this story from the perspective of a terrorist. They are jealous of our freedoms and our rights, yet the government is stripping those freedoms and rights away from us, little by little, so really, the terrorists are winning. Hell, perhaps they've won already. 

If this story horrifies you as much as it does me, do something about it. The Campaign for Liberty is educating people about what their rights are and how they can stand up for them. They are fighting to stem the tide of big government that is slowly eroding our great country and standing up for the Constitution and the rights we have under it. Head on over and educate yourself, then stand up for your rights.

Idiotic Government News - Another $1 Trillion in MagicMoney

Yet again, the government, in the form of the Federal Reserve, has made a poor decision while spouting "save the economy" as the reason. The Fed is now looking to "pump" another $1 trillion+ into the economy. They're accomplishing this by purchasing treasury bonds and mortgage securites. According to the International Herald Tribune:

Having already reduced the key interest rate it controls nearly to zero, the central bank has increasingly turned to alternatives like buying securities as a way of getting more dollars into the economy, a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air. But the moves on Wednesday were its biggest yet, almost doubling all of the Fed's measures in the last year.

There you have it. MagicMoney at work again. Has nobody in the US's central bank (now there's a socialist term for you) heard of the inflation that comes with printing too much money? Anybody? Hands?

Never mind how the Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low. Never mind that the Fed's only real idea here is that the economy can be saved by increasing banks ability to loan out money to consumers - as if we actually need more debt - even though credit is a big portion of what got us here in the first place. Never mind that despite the government's "efforts," banks are lowering credit limits (one of my cards just got lowered by $400 for no real reason and with no notice) and raising interest rates and fees. 

The government's "best efforts" are failing, and failing miserably at that. It is beyond ridiculous that the people this country elected (and in some cases, the people put into power because they were friends with the people we elected) refuse to sit down and actually think about a way to solve this problem. No, the government is, and has been since this whole thing started, is in reactionary panic mode. 

Take, for example, AIG. Who hasn't heard of these bastards by now? We, the taxpayers, have pumped $180 billion into that company to save it from going under. Let's timeline this:

• AIG gets $85 billion in bailout funds
• AIG Executives take $440,000 taxpayer-funded weekend retreat, execs say they will do it again soon
• AIG receives second bailout of $37.8 billion, public outcry forces AIG to cancel second retreat
• AIG execs take $86,000 hunting trip, financed by taxpayers
• After meeting with New York Attorney General Anthony Cuomo, AIG agrees  to reduce expenditures, including a $10 million severence package for it's former CFO. These cut expenditures include cancelling over 160 conferences/events that would have totaled more than $8 million.
• By this point, AIG has used about 3/4 of its $123 billion in bailout funds.
• AIG receives yet another $40 billion in bailout money. This comes after AIG posted a 3rd quarter loss of $24.47 billion dollars. In their press release, the Fed and Treasury state that this additional bailout is necessary "to keep the company strong and facilitate its ability to complete its restructuring process successfully." When did the restructuring begin exactly? This additional funding brings the total AIG bailout to about $163 billion, which means taxpayers own about 79.9% of AIG stock.
• AIG execs hold $343,000 seminar. Execs state that meetings like this are "necessary". AIG CEO issues a statement also calling the meeting necessary.
• AIG sends letter to NY AG Cuomo promising that the 7 top execs will not get bonuses. Everybody else will, but those guys don't get raises. Instead of bonuses, AIG execs get "Retention Payments". Because they don't make enough money as it is.
• AIG posts 4th quarter losses totalling a whopping $62 billion. 
• AIG announces that it will use $165 million in bailout monies to pay bonuses. Lawmakers and taxpayers get upset. The sad part here is that the bonuses are being paid out to the executives of the Financial Products division, which was the division responsible for bringing AIG tumbling down. AIG says they have to pay these bonuses for retention purposes, and because they are contractually obligated to. 
• NY AG Cuomo starts investigating, issues subpoenas. It is discovered that these "retention" bonuses are being paid to people who left the company.
• House Financial Services Subcommittee holds hearing about AIG.
• AIG CEO Edward Liddy requests half the payments be returned, calls payments "distasteful."
• It is made known that President Obama and Congress have been aware of these bonuses for months. 
• Finally, the House and Senate both plan to vote for taxing any bonuses paid to AIG execs or any exec that works for a company the governement bailed out under TARP a whopping 90%.

Isn't all that exciting?!?!? Isn't it funny that despite the fact that our economy is taking a grand nosedive, we can focus this much attention on one company? Obviously what they're doing here is wrong, but there's a bigger picture to all this. These bailouts aren't doing anything to stimulate the economy. The news is riddled with sotries about banks using bailout funds to fill their own coffers, not to provide money to customers, as the bailout funds were designed to do. You have companies like AIG abusing the money we are giving them. The bailout plans are obviously failing, so we instead just pump more money into things like buying securities and bonds, using money that actually doesn't exist. Both plans, the bailouts and the buying, hinge on the idea that we can "make" as much money as we want, but here is a simple fact: every dollar printed reduces the global value of the dollar. When you print trillions of those dollars, just think of how much the value of the dollar is going to plummet. 

I would call yet again for America to start paying attention to what is happening to the country around them. Apathy no longer cuts it - we all need to be involved or this country is going to keep right on spiraling out of control. You can start educating yourself and immersing yourself in ideas and solutions at the Campaign for Liberty.

There's my rant for the day. A thank you shout-out to The Consumerist who do a great job at tracking these things, and all issues relating to consumers, and being snarky about it.