THE IRS GOES GLOBAL
Vienna, Austria. The problem of Internal Revenue Service misbehavior is not confined to its actions in the United States, but extends to its dealings with foreign individuals, institutions and countries. All sovereign nations have just as much right to create their own tax laws and privacy protections as does the United States. So it is disappointing that the folks at the IRS and the Obama Treasury and Justice departments seem to have forgotten this basic principle. All are now engaged in a full-scale assault on the basic property and human rights of many non-Americans, as well as many Americans who live abroad or have assets in foreign countries. Representatives of major European think tanks and taxpayer groups are attending the annual Resource Bank meeting here in Vienna, hosted by the Austrian Economics Center and the Hayek Institute. They are appalled by the actions of the IRS. So should we all.
THE OBAMA REGIME AND THE SECOND FRENCH REVOLUTION
Sorry folks, but tonight's entertainment feature on the Second American Revolution, replacing the Obama Regime with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, has been retracted. You will now enjoy a rerun of the French Revolution instead. What? How can this be? Here's the sad story that will explain why you need to learn French and to buy our New high tech neck armor -- specially priced at only $500 to save your neck from the French guillotine. Also excellent protection against vampires. But most of all, this is a surprise revisit from the past to warn us why we must prepare ourselves for the coming French Revolution in America. You will recognize many of the Ministries issuing endless rules and regulations that you have nothing to say about but sadly there will be more, though there will be no Ministry of Silly Walks, because there is nothing funny about it. Sit back, raise your glass of French wine, pick up your guitar and play, just like yesterday, you'll get on your knees and pray, We Won't Get Fooled Again!! (Yes, the classic by The Who is rated by National Review as the #1 Conservative Rock Song of all time. The lyrics are here, you can listen/watch here.) Written in 1971, it looks eerily prescient, because Obama's America today looks more like it's on the way to another French Revolution than another American one. To learn why, we turn to a Frenchman who explained it over 150 years ago.
BUYER’S REMORSE ON OBAMA
Confidence in President Barack Hussein Obama Jr.'s stewardship of the economy has declined, especially among young adults, according to polls conducted in late April. Young voters aren't the only ones regretting they opted for Obama last year. CBO estimates the cost of Obamacare insurance subsidies at $1.4 trillion for the years 2012-21. But CBO assumed few companies would drop their insurance plans - ridiculous in view of the incentives to do just that. The actuary for Medicare and Medicaid estimates 14 million workers will lose their private health insurance. If so, costs could be 46 percent higher. As unions learn they're likely to lose their health insurance plans, they're also experiencing buyers' remorse.
HALF-FULL REPORT 06/07/13
How can you drink water from a gushing firehose? Trying to assimilate and get a fix on what's going on this week will be like that. Let's get out of the weeds, step back and do some dot-connecting. With scandals being piled on scandals - two massive ones breaking in just the last 24 hours - do they have anything in common? The overall theme characterizing all of this is: fascist arrogance. Zero's boss, the Wicked Witch of the West Wing, Valerie Jarrett, epitomized this yesterday (6/06) when she announced on HuffPo TV that there was no way Eric Holder was going to resign. He will, she promised, "be in his position for quite a while." Benghazi exemplifies the brazenness of Zero's lying. Sibelius exemplifies Zero's gangsterism. Let's focus more specifically on the remaining four: IRS, DOJ, Verizon and PRISM. They go beyond arrogance. They are unmistakable evidence of the conversion of America into a fascist police state. We also need to connect the dots between the creation of Police State America and a decision of the Supreme Court this week. That would be...
THESE ARE THE BOYS OF PONT-DU-HOC
On June 6th, 1984, the greatest president of modern times, Ronald Reagan, delivered this magnificent speech at Pont-du-Hoc, on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy Landing. Today is the 69th anniversary of that unparalleled example of American courage. {youtube}eEIqdcHbc8I{/youtube}
WHEN WILL AMERICANS BE AMERICANS AGAIN?
There is so little doubt over who is the TTP Hero of the Week right now that I'm jumping the gun, rather than disclose it in the Half-Full Report tomorrow. She's a lady from the small town (pop. 6,600) of Wetumpka, Alabama on the Coosa River some 12 miles north of Montgomery. Her name is Becky Gerritson. Day before yesterday (6/04), in her capacity as founder and president of the Wetumpka Tea Party, she testified on Capitol Hill before the House Ways and Means Committee. After putting up with her and her fellow witnesses being mocked by one of the biggest scumbags in Congress, Baghdad Jim McDermott - who told them they had "brought [IRS persecution] upon themselves" - she told the Congressistas: "I'm not here as a serf or a vassal. I'm not begging my lords for mercy. I'm a born-free American woman, wife, mother, and citizen. And I'm telling my government that you've forgotten your place." "You've forgotten your place." These are indeed the words of a proudly born-free American, and Becky Gerritson should be a hero to all of us for the courage to stand up to the Fascists of Washington and say them to their face. Yet her heroic words are also tragic, for it is millions of her countrymen who have allowed the fascisti to forget their place. How do we get them to become born-free Americans like Becky Gerritson?
THE ESCAPE FROM SOVIET MARXISM TO FREE MARKETS
Vilnius, Lithuania. The capital of this Baltic state seems very much like a normal European city these days, as do those of other Eastern and Central European countries. In retrospect, this simple fact is remarkable, because a mere quarter-century ago Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were part of the Soviet Union, while Poland, the current Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria were still communist states controlled by the Soviets. Back in the mid-1980s, most people, including the establishment in the West, thought that these countries would remain communist dictatorships for the foreseeable future. A few visionaries, such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, thought differently and were widely ridiculed. Others who also thought that the Soviet empire could be rolled back were mocked. Once the communist yoke had been thrown off, few thought that the newly independent countries could evolve into functioning free-market democracies in a short period of time without major strife and loss of life. Yet it happened, and now the citizens of these countries enjoy both freedom and a much higher standard of living. As can be seen in the chart below, real per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) has risen sharply in all of the Eastern and Central European countries over the past two decades.
AMERICA IS ON THE THRESHOLD OF ORWELL’S 1984
Shortly before the second-term inauguration of Barack Obama this January, I wrote the following of my worries over the Obama way of doing business:
But the untruths and hypocrisy hover in the partisan atmosphere and incrementally and insidiously undermine each new assertion that we hear from the president - some of them perhaps necessary and logical. Indeed, the more emphatically he adds "make no mistake about it," "let me be perfectly clear," "I'm not kidding," or the ubiquitous "me," "my," and "I" to each new assertion, the more a growing number of people will come to know from the past that what follows simply is not true. Does this matter? Yes, because when the reckoning comes, it will be seen as logical rather than aberrant - and long overdue.I ended my prognostications with the warning, "And so a reckoning is on the near horizon. Let us pray it does not take us all down with his administration." Four and half months later, it almost has. George Orwell's 1984 is arriving in America.
HOW COOKED IS HOLDER’S GOOSE?
I'm enjoying immensely Attorney General Eric Holder's frantic efforts to keep his job. But why the White House wants him to is mystifying. Mr. Holder's troubles began when we learned the Justice Department seized the telephone records of reporters and editors for the Associated Press. Those troubles vastly multiplied when it was learned the attorney general himself had signed off on snooping the phone records of Fox News diplomatic correspondent James Rosen, then lied under oath about it to Congress. The longer Eric Holder remains attorney general, the more he and the president bleed. So why does the president want him to stay?
IRANIAN SEX AND CIRCUSES
I've often said that Iran=Italy squared, in terms of political complexity. You can't identify the players even if you have the latest scorecard. Still, there's no excuse for so many articles and official pronouncements exploring who's going to "win" the Iranian "elections" on June 14. Nor is there any excuse for failing to understand the Obama administration's latest pretense at getting tough on the regime. And there is certainly no excuse for writing about a presumed sexual revolution that is threatening the regime, of all things. Let's get it all straight. In order: