Choosing The Right Lane To Follow

In pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty

Information you can use

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

TSA Claims Congress Has No Jurisdiction Over It  by Tim Brown

A hearing scheduled for Thursday by the Subcommittee on Aviation, which is a part of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (TIC), had an open invitation to agency head John Pistole to attend to discuss how best to improve our nation’s airport passenger security system through common sense solutions. Pistole refused the invitation claiming that the Congressional Committee has “no jurisdiction of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).” Subcommittee Chairman Thomas Petri (R-WI): The purpose of this hearing is to examine the impact that the regulations and policies of the Transportation Security Administration have on aviation passenger experience and the free flow of aviation commerce. The subcommittee will hear from government, industry, and labor witnesses on their observations and suggestions on TSA’s policies. Chairman John L. Mica states, “Unfortunately, TSA has lost its way. TSA must become the kind of agency it was intended to be – a thinking, risk-based, flexible agency that analyzes risks, sets security standards and audits security performance.”  I disagree. Personally, TSA should be dismantled and airports should provide their own security. That way, there would be no question about violation of the Constitution, government reform or any of the other mess spelled out on the site. It would be privately run and would actually have to be accountable to both the public, as well as, the airport. They would not be some rogue, unionized federal workers who seem to be virtually immune from serious consequences to their actions.

~~~~~~

Do The Socialists Own You? by Cheryl Pass

A large sharp thorn in the leftist, radical, health care proposals brought to us by Obama’s friends is the question of who owns you? This thorn stuck me in every square inch of my body as I read excerpts from HR3200 and also the section of the Stimulus Bill that handed over our rights to unelected Czars. The arrogant assumptions made in the health care legislation are simply that bureaucrats in the Federal Government know better than you do about what is good for you, and that they have the right to force you into their socialist traps. Slavery has many faces. Socialism is just another form of slavery. Period. No question. Socialism takes your person and hands it over to government bureaucrats. The blacks who are having fits over Obama and calling everyone who disagrees with him a racist are buying into slavery to the Federal Government because it is sponsored by one of their own. And if you are white and you disagree with Obama, the knee jerk reaction of the blacks is that you are a racist, which could not be further from the truth. This is upside down total insanity, the likes of which I cannot fathom. White people in this country fought for the rights of blacks. White people brought us a Constitution which acknowledges and insures the rights of individuals of any color. So why the disconnect? Does the fact that white people did these things offend blacks? This is a test, America. Either you believe in freedom for all of us, or you don’t. Can you imagine how happy we would all be if Obama were in the business of protecting rights for all of us instead of usurping power from us, taking away rights from all of us, and tearing the Constitution to shreds? It is then that blacks in America could truly celebrate this man. Instead, Obama has chosen to enslave us all. A very sad turn of events, indeed.

~~~~~~

All about Taxes; Democrats and the media have ignored the rest of the fiscal-cliff debate. By Michael Tanner

How many times have we heard that the only thing standing in the way of a grand bargain to reduce our growing national debt is Republican intransigence on taxes? If Republicans would only agree to dump Grover Norquist, Democrats will agree to cut spending and reform entitlements. Then, we can all join hands and sing Kumbaya as we usher in a new era of compromise and fiscal responsibility. Except that now that Republicans have agreed to raise taxes, better, revenue, as part of an agreement to avoid the looming fiscal cliff, liberals appear to have decided that there really isn’t a need to cut spending after all. “Suddenly the clear and present danger to the American economy isn’t that we’ll fail to reduce the deficit enough; it is, instead, that we’ll reduce the deficit too much,” warns Paul Krugman. All this worry about debt and deficits is “an entirely contrived crisis,” writes Robert Kuttner in the Huffington Post. After all, as the New York Times explains, “deficits are actually a good thing when the economy is deeply depressed, so deficit reduction should wait until the economy is stronger.” “So,” sums up Robert Reich, “can we please stop obsessing about future budget deficits? They’re distracting our attention from what we should be obsessing about — jobs and growth.” Congressional Democrats already appear to have successfully taken Social Security reform off the table. This, despite the fact that Social Security faces $22 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Democrats may be willing to trim Medicare, but both Harry Reid and Dick Durbin are opposed to structural changes, such as raising the eligibility age. Of course, anything resembling Paul Ryan’s premium-support plan is beyond even discussing. Democrats are more inclined to rely on the type of reforms contained in the Affordable Care Act. Yet the administration’s own actuaries project that, even if all of the ACA’s reforms work exactly as hoped, Medicare will remain $42 trillion in the red. And that’s the best-case scenario. Yet the media still seem obsessed with Republicans and taxes: Will they stick to the Taxpayer Protection Pledge or not? Will tax rates go up or will loopholes be closed? How much new revenue will Republicans agree to? But there is a profound lack of curiosity when it comes to the other half of this supposed bargain. Remember that hypothetical deal of $1 in tax increases to $10 in spending cuts? Republicans are still being asked about it and criticized for rejecting it. But balancing the budget under that formula would require $9 trillion in spending cuts over the next ten years. When was the last time the president or a Democratic congressman was asked whether or not they would agree to such a deal? For that matter, it’s worth noting that more than half of Democratic congressmen and eleven senators have signed a pledge to oppose any changes to Social Security or Medicare. If pledges are the root of all evil, couldn’t we pause for just a moment in our attempts to run Grover Norquist out of town to work up the tiniest bit of outrage about this one? In fact, many Democrats actually want to spend more, at least in the short term. The president’s most recent budget calls for $2.6 trillion in increased spending between now and 2022. That’s $1 trillion more than the $1.6 trillion that the president has called for in new taxes. Therefore, the tax hikes would not be used to reduce the deficit, but to finance new spending. And, according to news reports, the president has already floated the idea of still more stimulus spending as part of the fiscal-cliff talks. That’s not a “balanced approach.” That’s simply old-fashioned tax-and-spend politics. The time may someday come to parse the exact meaning of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. But for now, Republicans are simply negotiating with themselves and with the news media. Democrats haven’t even come to the table.

~~~~~~

Shocking: Obama’s Tax Increases Fund Government for Eight Days
President Barack Obama has proposed raising taxes on the rich to put America’s fiscal house in order, but critics say federal spending is so massive that the wealthy don’t have enough money to cover the nation’s unprecedented debt.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) said President Barack Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy would only generate enough revenue to fund the federal government for eight days. “The president’s plan to increase taxes on the upper two percent covers the spending by this federal government not for eight years, not for eight months, not for eight weeks but for eight days. Eight days only,” said Mr. Price. “It’s not a real solution. So, again, I’m puzzled by an administration that seems to be more interested in raising tax rates than in gaining economic vitality.” The problem is that the rich don’t have enough money to put so much as a dent in America’s $16 trillion national debt. “If the IRS grabbed 100 percent of income over $1 million, the take would be just $616 billion,” writes John Stossel. “That’s only a third of this year’s deficit. Our national debt would continue to explode.”

~~~~~~

More Falsified Darwinian Expectations

Scientists continue finding the real world to be opposite evolutionary expectations.  Here are some recent examples.

1. Bergmann’s Rule Isn’t

It’s a shame to have to debunk a law of nature, especially in biology, which doesn’t have that many to begin with.   Since 1847, Bergmann’s Rule has predicted that “cold-climate animals tend to be larger and stouter than animals living in hot or dry climates,” explained PhysOrg. Isn’t it strange that nobody tested this “rule” on insects for 165 years?  Matan Shelomi, a doctoral candidate in entomology at UC Davis, took on this rule as a project in evolutionary biology.  He checked 300 scientific papers and found that Bergmann’s Rule doesn’t work for insects, even though it consistently does for warm-blooded animals.  His findings in a nutshell: “Insects are just as likely to follow Bergmann’s Rule as they are to oppose it, and a slight majority show no size variation at all.”  Like most things in biology, there are many factors affecting traits.  Any rule of nature that tolerates large exceptions is no rule at all.

2. Blind Conformity Isn’t

Although an article in Medical Xpress doesn’t mention evolution, psychologists are a largely evolutionary bunch.  Secular psychologists generally assume psychological traits arose by natural selection, just like everything else.  In a new paper in PLoS Biology, the article said, Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher found that “blind conformity” in humans is a “myth.”  This was an idea developed from studies during the 1960s and 1970s that appeared to show humans will participate in cruelty in response to an authority figure if the crowd does.  Not so, say Haslam and Reicher.  Instead, morals and beliefs are intertwined: “Decent people participate in horrific acts not because they become passive, mindless functionaries who do not know what they are doing, but rather because they come to believe—typically under the influence of those in authority—that what they are doing is right.”  This suggests that the human mind is not a passive product of natural selection, but an entity capable of thought and moral choice, even when the choices are bad.

3. Upside-Down Hummingbird Feeder Theory

A short article on PhysOrg described how researchers tried to figure out if flowers evolved to make it easier for hummingbirds to feed.  Using high-speed cameras, a group at UC Berkeley found the unexpected: flowers hang down, making it more costly for the birds to get to the nectar.  This appears to go against simplistic ideas that flowers and their pollinators co-evolve toward cooperation.  “Almost all hummingbird-pollinated flowers hang down vertically, so our hypothesis was that they evolved this way because hummingbirds would have to use less energy to feed from them. We found the opposite – that it’s more costly in energy terms for hummingbirds to feed from these flowers.”

4. Sea Snakes Evolve; See Evolution Defied

According to PhysOrg, two identically-looking poisonous sea snakes are genetically unrelated.  To rescue evolutionary theory, the evolutionists had to invoke convergence:  “Associate Professor Fry said the finding was an example of a situation where two species evolved separately but ended up looking similar, known as the convergent phenotypic evolution phenomenon.”

5. Early Mammal Performs Miracle

The “Lazarus effect” has been invoked to explain a mammal that was thought to have gone extinct since the age of dinosaurs, only to turn up in the evolutionary timeline 16 million years ago.  An article on Science Daily describes the confusion that exists after 100 years of trying to understand a small snouty mammal named Necrolestes: This finding unexpectedly moves forward the endpoint for the fossil’s evolutionary lineage by 45 million years, showing that this family of mammals survived the extinction event that marked the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. This is an example of the Lazarus effect, in which a group of organisms is found to have survived far longer than originally thought.

6. Reality Opposes Theory of Evolution of Life Span

A paper in Current Biology begins, “A new study reports that high rates of extrinsic mortality can lead to the evolution of a longer life — a pattern opposite to that expected under the classic predictions of the evolutionary theory of aging.”  Evolutionists have worked theories opposite the truth despite an aspect of evolution that has “captured widespread interest among evolutionary biologists for well over a century.”  This paragraph should raise eyebrows among students of philosophy of science: Such inconsistency between studies raises eyebrows, particularly because we can generally confirm the classic predictions when we pull the strings in the laboratory setting, but struggle to do so when testing the predictions in more realistic, natural environments. Does this mean that the evolutionary theory of aging is not generally applicable to the real world? Or is there some unaccounted factor at play, whose effects run havoc in the wild and alter the trajectories of aging in unpredicted directions, but that we effectively nullify in the laboratory environment? Emerging theoretical studies and the latest empirical evidence mounted by Chen and Maklakov, would suggest that the answer to this latter question is ‘yes’. Apparently there are too many variables for an evolutionary “law of aging” to make predictions.  A theory without predictions, though, is pretty useless for science.  Damian K. Dowling, author of the paper, tried to put a happy face on this falsification: “Clearly, the Chen and Maklakov study provides a new insight into the evolution of life span. Ironically, in doing so, it reminds us how much remains to be done if we are to ever fully understand the evolution of aging in natural populations.”

~~~~~~

Texas Schools Teaching Boston Tea Party As “Terrorist Act”
The most historical instance of protesting against taxation without representation is now being taught in Texas schools as a terrorist act. As recently as January of this year, the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative included a lesson plan that depicted the Boston Tea Party, an event that helped ignite the American Revolution, as an act of terrorism. TheBlaze reports that in a lesson promoted on the TESCCC site as recently as January, a world history/social studies class plan depicted the Boston Tea Party as being anything but patriotic, causing many people to become upset with the lack of transparency and review for lessons. “A local militia, believed to be a terrorist organization, attacked the property of private citizens today at our nation’s busiest port,” wrote the teachers in charge of organizing the curriculum about the Boston Tea Party.

~~~~~~

It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it   - Albert Einstein

~~~~~~

Orrin Hatch to Newsmax: Democrats Ready to Go Over Fiscal Cliff By: Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter

Sen. Orrin Hatch tells Newsmax that Democrats are willing to allow the country to go over the so-called fiscal cliff so they can then blame Republicans “for everything that’s wrong.” But the Utah lawmaker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, insists that Republicans won’t allow President Obama and the Democrats to push through higher taxes on the wealthy and jeopardize 700,000 jobs. Instead, he urges total tax reform and structural entitlement reform to put the country “back on its feet.” “Do you know what’s ridiculous? The differences between the two sides. Our side is the McConnell-Hatch bill where we would put this over for a year and dedicate the year to total tax reform. Their side is to get rid of the tax relief that Republicans have fought so hard for, and most Democrats too, for those earning over $200,000 a year. You know what the fiscal difference is between the two? $23 billion. So they’re willing to take us over the cliff because of $23 billion.”

~~~~~~

Rich Brits Fled Taxes in 2010. Where Did They Go? Written by Gary North

In 2009, there were 16,000 people in the UK who earned over $1.6 million a year. Then Gordon Brown hiked the tax rate to 50%. In one year, 10,000 of them fled the country. This shows that taxes matter. Unlike Americans, the rest of the world taxes only people who live inside its borders. If you leave, you escape the taxes. Amazing concept! Now that taxes are down to 45%, 4,000 of the expatriates have returned. The others like the new arrangement. Question: Where did they flee to? We don’t know. What tax havens took them in? Bermuda? The Bahamas? The Cayman Islands? The Isle of Man? Jersey?

Where does a rich man go? He lives in urban Britain. How can he preserve his lifestyle in a sunny island nation run by . . . how should I say this . . . natives? The mantra of the Caribbean is this: “No problem.” There are always problems. They do not go away. Americans with money stay put. They grit their teeth. Not the Brits.  California and New York, watch out!!

~~~~~~

Betrayed by Keynesians by Gary North

In the fourth quarter of 2008, the whole world turned to the central banks for deliverance. The central banks responded with the largest monetary expansion in the post-World War II era. All but Austrian School economists either applauded — Keynesians and monetarists — or else remained mute. The politicians did the same. Economic intellectual leaders invoked their central confession of faith: “salvation by monetary inflation.” They spoke on behalf of their followers — the whole world — in the name of their sovereign masters: central bankers. That is what leaders do: they represent. Lesson: choose your representatives wisely. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the whole world turned to the central banks for deliverance. The central banks responded with the largest monetary expansion in the post-World War II era. All but Austrian School economists either applauded — Keynesians and monetarists — or else remained mute. The politicians did the same. Economic intellectual leaders invoked their central confession of faith: “salvation by monetary inflation.” They spoke on behalf of their followers — the whole world — in the name of their sovereign masters: central bankers. That is what leaders do: they represent. Lesson: choose your representatives wisely. You are always at risk of betrayal. You would be wise to select your worldview in terms of intellectual representatives who can give a good account of this position, defend this position against all comers, and, most of all, decide strategically which audience is worth persuading, and which battlefield will prove to be the decisive one. Sooner or later, there will be the equivalent of the Battle of the Bulge. In economic affairs, that day will come when Washington's checks start bouncing. That day is coming. Be prepared.

~~~~~~

Liberty and Morality Are At War and It’s Costing Conservatives Elections by John DeMayo

In the past, I have had many conversations with members of the so called right wing conservative movement called the Tea Party. As much as I agree with what they support, I have come to the conclusion that they all missed a golden opportunity to participate in the larger battles being waged in American society during the election; the moral battles that shape our national conscience and draw distinct lines between conservative ideology and liberty’s accommodation. Our nation has been divided by forces that have hijacked liberty and re-shaped it into an anti-morality movement of sorts. The ability to act or think without government constraints (liberty) will never be honored or respected by an immoral people who substitute convenience for consequence. Likewise ignoring social issues influence on both our governing agenda and elections and expecting fiscal restraint is another foolish wish. Wade into the conversation about the limited government and fiscal responsibility with a Tea Party member and you will find a lot of common sense ideas and principles. However, if you ask a Tea Partier what their opinion on abortion or gay marriage might be, you will more than likely get a dodge instead of an answer. My favorite is “what two people do in the privacy of their home is none of my business.” You do not have to "listen to the experts".  You know from life experience a person's morals and character matter.  It is at the core of every decision they make.  It is who they are and explains why they do what they do.  You know this.  Why would you let ANYONE tell you differently?

~~~~~~

Debate Between Political Classes Shows Stunning Idiocy of the Left

I was recently on a political forum online, hoping to enjoy a fun debate with some unlucky liberal. While there, I was witness to another debate being had between a conservative and a liberal, though it cannot exactly be called a debate; is it fair to characterize a conversation as a debate when one of the participants is so ignorant, she probably is not even aware of her surroundings? So while it never quite crossed over into debate territory, the fun I sought was certainly had. It all started with a liberal saying that free birth control is a constitutional right, followed by the conservative asking, “What part of the Constitution are you referring to?” The liberal, who went by the username Black_Manta, replied, “The part where it talks about liberty.”

Conservative: Are you trying to be dumb on purpose?

Liberal: You have rights, yes?

Conservative: Free birth control is not a constitutional right.

Liberal: It’s about health and happiness, i.e., constitutional rights.

And the exchange went on and on with the Conservative becoming more frustrated with each exchange.  I left the forum.

This is the idiocy we conservatives have to deal with; this is the danger we must deal with: people who are not simply lying, but who genuinely believe in things that are obvious fictions. The good news is that all it should take to remedy the situation is to educate the masses. The bad news is that for all of public schooling’s efforts, liberals seem truly uneducable. Parents, avoid public education at all costs. Leave state-sponsored education to the government-loving liberals.

~~~~~~

It's All About Choices, Stupid  by Tibor Machan

There is a phony conflict afoot that statists are fond of bringing up when they try to discredit the free society. It is about the individual versus the community. Champions of human liberty are often mischaracterized as denying the significance of human community life. As if individualists advocated that people live like hermits, apart from their fellows, in solitude. Of course, individualists do not advocate anything of the kind. What they insist upon is that human beings be understood as choosing their associations instead of being simply herded into groups that some of them prefer to be part of. Nearly everyone is better off living in the company of others. Hardly any human activity is carried out isolated from others and even when it appears like it, others are usually surrounding it, supporting it, helping it along and so forth. Solitary existence isn't the objective that individualists are promoting. What individualists are seeking is a kind of society in which people can make a choice as to what groups they will join, for how long, where, etc. And, yes, they also want to be left in peace for a good bit instead of being dragged into the company of others when they'd rather carry forth on their own. Writers, composers, painters and the like are among these. Again, the bottom line is that one size doesn't fit all! What the communitarian types want is for them to dictate the kind of groups everyone must be part of. They detest the possibility of people making up their own minds about such matters since free choice runs the risk of noncompliance and to bring others on board for their journey of their own free will requires successful persuasion, something that cannot be guaranteed. The communitarians want to be in charge of everyone's destiny. Their imperialism is contrary to human nature and whenever they try it, all hell breaks loose and we get gulags and concentration camps instead of peaceful communities and companionships. The important point is not to argue about how much people draw from each other as they make their way through life. What is crucial is that in a genuinely free country when they draw on each others' contributions they do this of their own free will and are not lumped together by some philosopher king, like it or not.

~~~~~~

Federal Appeals Court Blocks Obamacare Mandate

A federal appeals court has granted an injunction blocking the enforcement of the Obamacare mandate that companies must provide insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients in violation of business owners’ religious beliefs.The ruling comes in a lawsuit involving O’Brien Industrial Holdings, a St. Louis, Missouri, company that runs businesses that explore, mine and process refractory and ceramic raw materials. “By granting our motion, the appeals court blocks the implementation of the HHS mandate and clears the way for our lawsuit to continue – a significant victory for our client,” said Francis Manion, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice. “The order sends a message that the religious beliefs of employers must be respected by the government.” The case is significant in that it does not involve a church, Christian hospital or other explicitly religious business. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius tried before the recent election to tamp down controversy over the Administration’s violation of the First Amendment by trumpeting a religious “exemption” that didn’t satisfy most of the complainants about the original mandate.

~~~~~~

Supporters of Obamacare Admit It Hurts the Poor

Some supporters of Obamacare are honest enough to admit a few of its warts. Would that they would take those admissions to their logical conclusions. David Gamage is an assistant professor of Law at UC Berkeley who has worked on the tax provisions of Obamacare for the Treasury Department. In an October 30 article in the Wall Street Journal (“ObamaCare’s Costs to the Working Class“), he expresses sincere concern over the presumably unintended consequences of the Obamacare law as written. Instead of repenting of his support for the law however, he advocates “further reform,” failing which dire consequences will ensue. What needs to be understood by ordinary citizens who are not privileged enough to be paid by the government to help the government command other people’s lives and money is that these consequences are predictable, were predicted, and that this is only the beginning of a vicious downward spiral. The term “perverse incentive” appears seven times in Professor Gamage’s article. Accepting a higher-paid job could cost a citizen more on net balance than it is worth due to the loss of health-care subsidies. Employers now have every incentive to make as much of their workforce part-time (and thereby ineligible for health insurance benefits) as possible. “ObamaCare’s new subsidies may also create penalties for marriage and incentives for divorce.” People who have access to affordable individual coverage but NOT affordable family coverage through their employers will be disqualified from receiving family coverage from the Obamacare plan. And so on and on.

~~~~~~

Harry Reid opens his mouth again

Watch in his own words REID: WE DESERVE CREDIT FOR CUTTING $1 BILLION

~~~~~~

No Further Words Necessary

~~~~~~

Can We Admit Now That The Bush Tax Cuts Weren’t Ever Just For The Rich?
Going back a few years, when Democrats talked about the Bush tax cuts, they described them as though it were tax policy that only benefited the richest Americans. The “tax cuts for the rich” was their refrain, over and over again. But things have changed. In the context of the current “fiscal cliff” combat, suddenly Democrats are being forced to admit that the Bush tax cuts weren’t just for the rich. The Bush tax cuts actually reduced tax burdens quite a bit for people who are not rich at all. Case in point, this CBS report about President Obama’s new social media campaign in support of his proposed tax increases:

Mr. Obama is promoting the hashtag #My2K to continue to the conversation about a potential tax increase on the middle class if Bush-era tax cuts are allowed to expire. The keyword #My2K was chosen specifically because, according to the White House, a middle class family of four could see a tax increase of about $2,220.