Posts by RichardLarsen:

Labrador’s Vote for Speaker Elicits Negative and Illogical Response

January 24th, 2015

 

By Richard Larsen.

 

The recent reelection of John Boehner as Speaker of the House brought to light a disturbing trait among some who self-identify as “conservatives.” Boehner has been perceived as a thorn in the side of conservative interests since his first election four years ago, as he has continually acquiesced, or as some say it, “caved” to the left in his chamber, and to the president. The sentiment is captured in a landmark political cartoon showing an elephant reaching across a dangerous precipice toward an indifferent president, titled merely, “The Compromise.”



The sentiment is understandable, and shared by nearly all of us on the right of the political spectrum. But what was disturbing was the reaction of some toward their own congressmen who supported Boehner.

Raul Labrador (R-ID) won reelection from Idaho’s 1^stCongressional District in November and is as steeped in his conservative ideals, and the classical liberal precepts the country was founded upon, as any conservative in Congress. There can be no question that his loyalties lie with the Constitution, the enumerated powers of the federal government, and the rights ostensibly assured thereby.

But after it became known publicly that Labrador had voted for the Speaker, an outpouring of obstreperous denunciations ensued. Comments on Labrador’s Facebook wall accused him of being a traitor, a turncoat, of betraying his conservative values, and betraying all conservatives who voted for him. Many declared they would never support him again, while others called for his recall.



Anyone with a modicum of political savvy, knows, or at least should know, that our chosen candidates, and elected officials, are not always going to vote the way we want them to, or the way we would if we were there. But the very notion of removing, or refusing to vote again for, the congressman because of one vote, even though he may a Freedomworks conservative rating of 90, on a 0-100 scale, is nothing short of idiocy.

This is a dangerous mentality that seems to be common at extremes of any ideology. “Unless you agree completely with me, or refuse to vote precisely the way I would have you vote, I’m not going to support you.” The only way to assure that your representative votes precisely as you want them to is to hold that position yourself. No one sees issues and solutions precisely the same way, except perhaps pure ideologues.

The derision heaped upon Labrador for his Speaker vote is a perfect example of how illogically and ideologically rigid some can be. Labrador’s conservatism is indisputable, and yet because of one vote, he’s called every pejorative epithet in the book, and many who share his ideological orientation throw him under the bus. This is where the ignorance of governance is so blatantly manifest. A viable educational tool might be to consider what other forms of extremism employ the same tactic that ostracizes and divides based on ideological “purity.”



A critical component to our efforts in working together in this democratic experiment is the didactic process of refining tactics based on efficacy. That includes identifying the destructive tactics that preclude the very notion of compromise, (which is essential in a constitutional republic), and contribute to the increased polarization of the body politic. This is clearly one of the most detrimental tactics; when we are so rigid in our ideological convictions that we destroy the relationship shared with others who think mostly as we do. It’s destructive to the political process, and its nascence and impetus, is based in ideological rigidity.

It’s also a tactic of some on the left, as superbly promulgated by Saul Alinsky. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Conservatives should realize that the consequences of implementing the tactic on themselves vitiates the advantages of a conservative voting block by dividing and parsing tranches based on perceived fealty to our founding principles. The result basically culls the “nonbelievers” from the “believers,” by lashing out, maligning, and condemning those who are perceived to not agree entirely, essentially ostracizing those who should be our allies.



It should be disturbing to conservatives when they learn that they employ the same tactic as other extremists, but many seem to revel in it, as if it’s a badge of honor of how “conservative” they are. That’s not a measure of political ideological integrity – it’s a measure of political ignorance of how the system works and how we have to work together in this republic of ours.

We should express our disapprobation to our elected officials when we disagree. But it’s totally illogical, and self-destructive, when we marginalize and alienate those with whom we share values, but may differ occasionally on specific votes. There aren’t many affirming or positive adjectives that can be used to describe someone who can only be supportive of, or civil to, someone with whom they agree 100% of the time.

If conservatives continue these tactics, they will succeed only in splintering and dividing themselves, granting the left victory after victory at the polls. It’s so often quoted that I hesitate to say it again, but apparently some need the continual reminder. As Ronald Reagan once said, “He who agrees with me 80% of the time is not my enemy.” Or his variation on that theme, “My eighty-percent friend is notmy twenty-percent enemy.”

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Economic optimism

January 16th, 2015

 

 

 

By Richard Larsen.

 



As we embark on a new year, positive economic indications are abundant. Having experienced the worst recession in modern financial history six years ago, the U.S. has slowly but surely emerged on more sure footing heading into the New Year. What has precipitated economically over the past six years cannot causally be attributed to any policies or governmental programs. Recovery has occurred in spite of government efforts, and is a testament to the free market capitalistic system our economy is based upon.

In December the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through the 18,000 level for the first time ever, capping a 7.5% gain for 2014. Due to lower gas prices, we saved approximately $14 billion in energy costs for the year. And our moribund Gross Domestic Product (GDP) finally started to show signs of life with a 5% annualized growth rate in the third quarter. These data have significantly improved consumer sentiment, which is a measure of economic optimism. The latest reading of 92.6 represents a marked upward move from a third quarter reading of 82.

 Due primarily to these factors, there’s even been improvement in the  job market. Nonfarm payrolls have risen 26 consecutive months  through December, averaging about 210,000 per month, according to  the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Job growth is critical to economic  growth since 70% of our economy is consumer driven, and more  people with jobs, and especially good-paying jobs, augments growth  sustainability.

The employment data still do not indicate a full recovery, however.  According to the BLS Table A-15, 11% is closer to the real unemployment rate than the present headline figure of 5.8%. Item U6 indicates that the “Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force,” is nearly double the headline figure. There are too many still underemployed or only working part-time, who are looking for better jobs.

 The Participation Rate is too low at 62.8%, which is near all-time lows  for employable adults holding jobs. Pre-recession Participation Rate  was over 66%. Currently, there are 6.9 million fewer Americans in the  work force, either working or looking for employment, than there were  six years ago. Those who have given up on finding a job are no longer  counted in the headline household unemployment rate. Consequently,  with 6.9 million fewer Americans working or searching for work, a  significant percentage of the drop in unemployment since 2009 is l  largely due to those who have given up on finding a job. According to  the BLS, demographic factors explain less than one-quarter of the  decreased labor force participation.

When we look for causal factors for this recovery, however tepid, we cannot find any from the government. Nothing done by the Executive or Legislative branches of government have contributed to the recovery. With but a couple of exceptions, everything government has done in the past six years has thwarted economic growth and recovery.

The three major governmental accomplishments over the past six years have restricted and constrained our economic engine. The “Stimulus” of 2008 did not stimulate. According to the Wall Street Journal, over half of the $850 billion ($1.1 trillion, including interest) “stimulus” bill could be more correctly classified as discretionary spending. The Congressional Budget Office “scoring” of the stimulus package indicated that only 12 cents of every dollar would have a stimulative affect on the economy. The scoring process clearly indicated the impotence of the “Stimulus” for creating positive, let alone sustainable, economic growth.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) doesn’t stimulate the economy, for it is laden with new taxes and fees imposed on individuals and employers to be implemented over the next few years. And actually when the full impact of those new taxes hit, the adverse effect on the economy will be considerable. For as Christina Romer, former chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, revealed last year, “Tax changes have very large effects: an exogenous tax increase of 1 percent of GDP lowers real GDP by roughly 2 to 3 percent.”

 Likewise, the FinReg, Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform is a  deterrent to growth. It solidifies the crony capitalistic relationship  between Wall Street, the major banks, and Washington by assuring  further government intervention with institutions deemed “too big to  fail.” The costs of implementation at the private sector level have  resulted in higher fees, charges, and interest rates for financial  institutions to recoup the implementation costs. Anything that takes  from producers and savers to pay for regulatory overreach is  antithetical to economic stimulus.

 

Those three governmental “successes” were all passed before 2010 when leadership of the House changed hands. This was perhaps the most effectual event leading to economic recovery. After 2010, with a divided congress, less has been done governmentally to interfere with the economy. Consequently, business owners, CEO’s, and employees have adapted to the new “normal” of higher costs of regulation and are gradually digging themselves out of the morass. The greatest benefit of a divided congress is less governmental intervention.

This should be perhaps the greatest measure of a successful government or regime. Rather than measure productivity based on how much legislation is passed, measure it based on how little they encroach on our liberty and our capitalistic economy.

The great economist and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, once said, “Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government– in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”

The objectivist philosopher, Ayn Rand, echoes this sentiment. She wrote, “America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance — and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.”

It appears at least ostensibly that the intent of the 114th Congress will be to roll back some of the onerous regulatory burdens conceived by their predecessors. If they are successful in doing so, the growth potential of our economic engine could be unleashed for significant expansion. After all, look at how far we’ve come in spite of their predecessor’s efforts to stifle free enterprise in our capitalistic system.

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Ideological “Weeds” Thrive Across the Land

January 7th, 2015

 

By Richard Larsen.

 

While recently rereading a classical literary piece from a century ago, I realized anew how each person is a microcosm of the demographic group or society to which he or she belongs. Truly, no man is an island, and we all bring to our society characteristics, traits, and attributes which contribute to the whole. When we analyze some of the notable events from the past year, we can’t help but realize how our individual contributions either ameliorate, or vitiate, the cumulative character of our society.

The book, As a Man Thinketh, by the English moralist James Allen, abounds in insightful truisms and verities. The following is but one of many such gems. “A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”

As much idiocy as we observed playing out on the public stage this past year, it’s obvious that there are too many minds not being planted or cultivated with ennobling or productive seeds. And, according to Allen, the evidence is manifest behaviorally. Not unlike the timeless wisdom of Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

 Case in point, the “Hands up, don’t shoot,” social phenomenon that was  spawned, and perpetuated, based on fictitious accounts of the tragic  shooting of a young man in Ferguson, MO. The fact that such a f  fallacious mantra would gain such traction among the race-baiters,  celebrities, misinformed, and even professional athletes, does not  portend well for our culture. But why bother with facts and evidence,  when a fabricated story can be so superbly spun for the sake of  advancing an ideological narrative, or inciting riots and precipitating  violence? This provides evidentiary validation of Allen’s thesis, that “an abundance of useless weed seeds” can bear sway in the absence of “useful,” and I might add, informed and fact-based “seeds.”

On a par with that evidentiary validation, but much more consequential in its long-term implications, is the request by law students at Columbia, Harvard, and other law schools, to postpone their final exams. They felt they had been “traumatized” due to their protests of the Ferguson and New York grand jury decisions to not charge policemen for perceived wrongful deaths. Would anyone even consider hiring an attorney who felt “traumatized” because they protested too strenuously, and felt themselves to be incapable of taking tests as a result? Aphorisms aplenty seem to apply in such an instance, primary of which is simply to “grow up.”

As we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Great Society “war on poverty,” the nation’s redistribution of over $22 trillion is one of those governmental policies that evokes great emotion yet, as inefficacious as it has been, clearly is bourn of ideological “weeds.” Our poverty rate is about the same today as it was fifty years ago, which means our wealth redistribution has accomplished nothing, and has not addressed the underlying societal issues which are causal to poverty.

Another example is regrettably provided by our president, who, after claiming that all of his policies were on the midterm electoral ballot, was thoroughly trounced as voters rejected his legislative and ideological pawns who supported his policies. Yet, in the aftermath of such a drubbing, became increasingly pertinacious, clinging to his rejected ideology, and claimed to hear what those who didn’t vote had to say. The mainstream media should have had a heyday with such vapidity, yet, as has been their wont over the past six years, gave the president a pass on his vacuity.



Equally vacuous was the president’s reference to the Biblical story of Mary and Joseph in an amnesty speech delivered last month. He may want to break down and actually read the Bible, if he’s going to “quote” from it. Mary and Joseph were not illegal aliens, and, contrary to his other “quote” from the Bible in the same speech, the Good Book says nothing about “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” It’s bad enough when our fellow countrymen fill their ignorant voids with uninformed “weeds,” but when our president does it, and he gets away with it, it does not bode well for our media or our society.

That such ignorance, bourn of ideological “weeds,” can flourish in our “enlightened” culture is indeed discomfiting. It’s enough to make one wonder if “The Walking Dead” TV series is more reflective of our collective consciousness, rather than simply apocalyptic TV fiction.

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“Merry Christmas, And Don’t Take Offense”

December 24th, 2014

 

By Richard Larsen.

 



 

Following is an excerpt:

 “I’m offended every time I hear a Christmas Carol, or see a nativity scene, or see a cross, especially if it’s all lit up. Even the Santa Claus and decorations bug me because I know that it all has to do with Christmas.” Such was the comment made on a California radio talk show a few years ago, by a fellow who chose to take offense at the season, rather than look for the good.

It really is disconcerting that there are some who suffer great angst over a national holiday that is intended to acknowledge not just the birth of Jesus Christ, but our humanity and commonality.

Calvin Coolidge said, “Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.” When explicated in those terms it’s hard to imagine anyone taking umbrage at the celebration of Christmas.

Some are quick to take offense at various elements of our culture, and this time of year such relapses seem to increase significantly. Confucius is credited with saying, “He who takes offense when none is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a bigger fool.”

That seems appropriate consideration for any who take offense at what is not intended to offend. Some, like the aforementioned caller, take offense from displays like nativity scenes or menorahs, appellations like “Christmas Trees,” or greetings like “Merry Christmas,” and even music that may make reference to He whose birthday we celebrate as a national holiday. No offense is intended, but a free and open expression of anything with a hint at religiosity creates an anxiety for some even as our celebration of Christmas continues to morph into more of a secular celebration.

Each of us determines for ourselves whether we will be offended. And it’s not just about Christmas or religious expression; it’s about everything in life. When we are offended, we’re making a conscious decision to grant someone else control over our attitude. If we allow others to offend us, whether intentional or otherwise, we sacrifice control of our attitudes to someone else.

Contrast those who are so quick to take offense at the drop of a “Merry Christmas,” with an atheist philosophy professor I had an ongoing discussion with on a blog a couple years ago. After commending him for wishing readers “Merry Christmas,” he responded back, “By the way, if there’s a ‘war on Christmas,’ I’m not part of it. It’s fine with me if people want to put a manger scene in front of City Hall. Being an atheist doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy holidays and traditions.” What a healthy, mature, and tolerant attitude! He obviously has learned the great lesson of life that he can choose to be offended or not, it’s strictly voluntary, and that going through life with a chip on his shoulder, just waiting for someone to knock it off, is no way to live.

I appreciate Coolidge’s perspective on Christmas, for certainly there is an increase in sensitivity to others at this time of year in spite of the often-hectic schedules we maintain as we shop for just the right gift for each of our loved ones. But the foundational motivations for finding that gift are love and gratitude. That principle of love can and should be shared by all people, not just this time of year, but throughout the year. If there were a way of packaging this spirit of love and sharing that as our gift to everyone, think how much better the world would be. Surely, most of the world’s problems could be solved.

Charles Dickens, in 1843, penned the now immortal “A Christmas Carol,” that played a significant role in making of our Christmas observance the overt celebration that it is today. But it was also instrumental in transforming a holiday from one disavowed by many Christian sects because of its communal hedonistic excess to one of personal goodwill and compassion. If one man can, through his creativity and power of communication, do so much to transform Western holiday observance, how can we deny the potential of each of us, within our spheres of influence, to create such a transformation of our Christmas observance?

Surely we can each be “Dickens” in our homes, neighborhoods, and communities, by redoubling our focus on the charity that is at the heart of our observance. Surely we can, through our individual acts of kindness, and increase in sensitivity, mollify the malcontents, touch the lives of those who may think they are forgotten or unappreciated in our society, and somehow ameliorate the temporal conditions of those who may have less than we.

Said Dickens of Ebenezer Scrooge, “…he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us.” A fitting end for his tome, and a noble goal for each of us.

Regardless of your theological beliefs, may the spirit of Christmas fill your home, so you can find joy in extending charity, service, and heart-felt comfort in reaching out to the lonely and the needy. Even the secularists amongst us would be hard pressed to criticize our observance of Christmas if it translated to such universal, humanistic altruism, which is what He whose birthday we celebrate would desire of us. To each of you, Merry Christmas, in the full, inclusive context of all the good that Christmas represents.

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Oligarchy In America-Tyranny Of The Federal Judiciary

October 20th, 2014

By Richard Larsen.



 

Two key decisions rendered by the Federal Judiciary this week severely challenge not only the foundational institutions of our society, but the fundamental operation of our republic.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced this week that it opted to not hear appeals by five states regarding their traditional marriage laws. Utah, Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma all had laws on the books defining marriage as a contractual institution including a man and a woman that had been appealed to the Supreme Court from lower courts. The net effect is that judicial decisions at lower levels against those state laws will now stand, opening the way for same-sex marriages in those states.

The Supreme Court’s rationale to not hear the cases may well have been portended by Justice Antonin Scalia last month in Bozeman, MT, when he said, “It’s not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections that are not subject to the usual rule that you have to get the majority to agree with it.”

Even more disconcerting is the decision by three judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Idaho and Nevada’s laws supporting traditional marriage. A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit, consisting of Judges Stephen Reinhardt, a Carter appointee from Los Angeles, Ronald M Gould, a Clinton appointee from Seattle, and Marsha S. Berzon, a Clinton appointee from San Francisco, struck down state laws reaffirming marriage between a man and a woman. Since the Supreme Court will not hear states’ appeals on the issue, same-sex marriage is a fait accompli, not only for Idaho and Nevada, but inevitably in all 50 states.

Our federal judiciary has become, arguably and disturbingly, an oligarchy. When they rule on the “constitutionality” of an issue, it is assumed to be the final say in whether a vote of Congress or the vote of the people via referendum or initiative is legitimized or annulled. This is not how the Supreme Court and its substrata of appellate courts were intended to operate, nor is it de facto the way it should be.

The federal judiciary, as it has evolved, has unchecked and unlimited power over the nation by either of the other branches–the executive or the legislative–or even the people. Its members are not accountable to the citizenry, since most of their appointments are for life, and they cannot be removed from the bench by a vote of the people they purportedly serve. Their ruminations and the results of their decisions are insular, and they often trump the will of the people with regard to key social issues. Their decisions are presumed to be final, even though they may be at odds with the democratic majority of our citizens.

Herein lies the fundamental problem about the present construct of our federal judiciary as it has evolved since the founding. If, as stated in the 10th Amendment, all “rights and powers” not specifically itemized in the Constitution are held by the people collectively or by the states, what right does a court have to negate the will of the people? As it relates especially to key cultural issues like abortion, public religious displays, and definitions of marriage, should not the final court be the court of public opinion, rather than an oligarchy of judges insulated from, and not accountable to, the citizenry? In most of these cases, state courts have ruled, and appeals are then made to the federal judiciary.

Thomas Jefferson portended this judicial despotism: “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.”

Justice Scalia said recently, “I question the propriety, indeed the sanity, of having a value-laden decision such as same-sex marriage made for the entire society by unelected judges.” That sentiment is echoed by Chief Justice John Roberts: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire,” he said. Clearly, though, the judiciary is doing just that–making the rules–when they essentially legislate from the bench.

According to Reuter’s research published in January, 2014, Democrat appointees to the federal bench are a slight majority, at 50.5% of the total federal judiciary. In their book, “The Behavior of Federal Judges”, researchers Lee Epstein, William Landes, and Richard Posner, document how Democrat appointees rule on the bench more liberally than Republican appointees rule according to strict constructionist interpretations. Given that verity, and the growing majority of liberal judges in the federal judiciary, the continued unraveling of “democratic rule” by the federal judiciary in America is perhaps a forgone conclusion.

Jefferson clearly understood the system of checks and balances on the respective powers of the three branches of government. As he said in a letter to Abigail Adams in 1804, “The Constitution… meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” It has obviously become a despotic branch since it can overturn the will of the people as expressed even in referenda or initiatives.

Liberalism and progressivism have been able to successfully advance elements of their agenda through the judiciary that they have been unable to accomplish at the ballot box or through elected officials. Since federal judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, those positions should be recognized as the key to preserving the slight semblance of the American republic as envisioned by our founders. As it appears now, that vision is rapidly evaporating.

 

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New Face of Global Terror, ISIS, And How We Helped Create Them

September 8th, 2014

 

 

By Richard Larsen.

It is not uncommon to find inconsistencies and even contradictions in U.S. foreign policy. Usually a few years of separation are required to reveal our inconsistency, as in the case of Iran. Rarely do we see such striking contradictions in real time as we do today in the Middle East policies of the Obama administration.

 ISIS occupies the center stage of our current iteration of contradictory  policy. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which subsequently  changed their name to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL),  apparently now wants to be known simply as The Islamic State (IS).  This is the militaristic group that has emerged out of Syria, Al-Nusra,  and merged with Al Qaeda of Iraq, to take over significant portions of  eastern Syria and northern Iraq.

Threatening to violently take over all of Iraq and Syria, establishing an  Islamic caliphate that would eventually cover the world, they have mercilessly spread their destruction from city to city. They behead or conduct mass executions against whoever opposes them (including American journalists), kidnap for ransoms to fund their operations, and have vowed to raise the ISIS flag over the White House. They are well funded from bank robberies, selling oil on the black market, and from kidnap ransoms. They are well trained, militant, and are well armed, predominantly with U.S. equipment.

This is the Al Qaeda-linked group of terrorists that Obama referred to as “JV” (junior varsity) just a few months ago. In an interview with New Yorker magazine in January, the president applied a metaphor, saying of ISIS, that putting on a “Laker’s uniform doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” That “JV” group of militants, now figured to be 10,000 strong (including some westerners and as many as 300 Americans) is now perceived to be the greatest terrorist threat in the world.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, more than 32 times the president claimed Al Qaeda was “decimated” or “defeated.” To acknowledge their resurgence just two years later would not fit with his narrative as slayer of Osama bin Laden and vanquisher of his terrorist group. Consequently, their emerging threat had to be minimized.

But that’s just the tip of the ISIS iceberg for the administration. We have to realize that for the past few years the president has been actively engaged in toppling Middle Eastern regimes; Khadafy in Libya, Mubarak in Egypt, and Assad in Syria. In fact, just over a year ago the president was requesting $500 million to help the “freedom fighters” in Syria topple the Assad regime. The majority of those “freedom fighters” now go by the name ISIS, and the president was poised to fund them.

Even worse, according to CNN last August, CIA sources have revealed that the Benghazi consulate attack of 9/11/12 was directly linked to a clandestine administration operation providing arms to the rebels in Syria. It wasn’t just the consulate compound in Benghazi that was demolished by the marauding jihadists, but the CIA facility two kilometers away, that housed the cash and weapons caches being smuggled into Syria. Jihadists got all of it.

 This clarifies the need of the administration to fabricate a story about a  YouTube video causing the “spontaneous demonstration” leading to  the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in  Benghazi. In light of recent developments with ISIS, clearly the  administration was displaying their naiveté, or, worse yet,  intentionally downplaying the effects of surging jihadist groups, by  willfully arming and funding them in their effort to displace Assad.

Clarifying the nature and ideological alignment of ISIS, last week Israeli  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that ISIS and Hamas are  “branches of the same tree.” He explained, “Hamas is ISIS, ISIS is  Hamas. They’re the enemies of peace. They’re the enemies of Israel.  They’re the enemies of all civilized countries.”

This brings us to current events, with the president now authorizing bombing of ISIS targets in Iraq, and leaving the door open to possible raids even into Syria. So now he’s bombing the same militants that he sought to legally fund through congress, was actively arming and funding through clandestine CIA operations in Benghazi, Libya, and that he has characterized as being “JV” terrorists. And let’s not forget that by leaving Iraq so hastily without a Status of Forces agreement, the administration created the vacuum facilitating the successful march of ISIS across northern Iraq.

Last week Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said, “I think evidence is pretty clear when we look at what they did to Mr. Foley [the American journalist James Foley, beheaded last week by ISIS], what they threaten to do to all Americans and Europeans, what they are doing now, the — I don’t know any other way to describe it other than barbaric. 

They have no standard of decency, of responsible human behavior. And I think the record is pretty clear on that. So, yes, they are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else.” He concluded, “We’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Those who maintain that the U.S. should embrace a non-interventionist foreign policy would have us believe that this is not a concern to us. In social media and elsewhere they promulgate an attitude of, “let them kill each other off.”

It could already be too late for that. Last week Texas Governor Rick Perry said, “There’s the obvious great concern that because of the condition of the border from the standpoint of it not being secure and us not knowing who is penetrating across, that individuals from ISIS or other terrorist states could be [crossing the border] — and I think there is a very real possibility that they may have already used that.” Our southern border is not secure, and clearly anyone of means or resources could easily breach it.



There are signs that they have already done so. ISIS has posted and tweeted photographs of their flag flying in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, with the message, “We are in your cities.” Just this week, the United Kingdom raised their terrorist threat assessment from “substantial” to “severe” in response to the rising danger ISIS poses globally.

In the 1990’s, Al Qaeda declared war on the U.S. We didn’t take it seriously and dealt with terrorist attacks as incidents for law enforcement. We all remember what that led to. And according to Secretary Hagel, this threat is greater. Attorney General Eric Holder announced this week that the FBI would investigate the beheading of journalist James Foley. Is history repeating itself, due to incompetence and an ideologically driven approach to assessing and addressing our exogenous threats? Regrettably, it appears so.

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Moral Depravity of Rioting Gang Mentality

September 1st, 2014

By Richard Larsen.

There is only one injustice, thus far, that has occurred in Ferguson, Missouri. And it’s not the shooting of a boy, because the jury is still out (actually, it hasn’t even gone to a jury yet) on the events surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown. The injustice is being perpetrated by those who take it upon themselves to be judge, jury, and executioner against the innocent citizens of the town.

 Two weeks ago, on August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, a 6’2” 300 pound  18 year-old, was shot and killed in the middle of the road in front of an  apartment complex in Ferguson, Missouri. Police officer Darren  Wilson, who shot the young man, has been placed on paid  administrative leave as the investigation continues. No charges have  been filed so far against the policeman.

“Eyewitness” accounts vary greatly about what transpired that hot  afternoon on the Ferguson street. But we do know that Brown was  stopped for jaywalking, not because he was suspected in a nearby store robbery. It is also clear that the youth was unarmed, since no other weapon was found at the site, and all six shell casings were from officer Wilson’s gun. One casing was found inside the squad car. The final, and apparently lethal shot, was about 35 feet from the car. Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner for New York City, who conducted an autopsy on behalf of the Brown family, said “This one [the fatal shot] here looks like his head was bent downward. It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”

The response to the shooting has been understandably disturbing to many, and has resulted in two weeks of demonstrations, riots, as well as destruction and looting of local stores in and around the small Missouri town of 21,000 residents. What is not understandable, or condonable, is the violence that has dominated the news cycle 24/7 since August 9.

 I would be willing to wager that nearly everyone in the nation wants to  see justice served. The problem is, at this point we don’t know what j  justice will look like. If Brown was shot while charging and threatening  the officer, justice will look quite different than if Wilson shot the youth  while surrendering with his hands in the air.

 Neither judicial outcome justifies the idiocy of violence and  destruction perpetrated against the town and its residents. The fact that  charges have not been filed against Wilson heretofore is due to the  judicial process being played out behind the scenes and gathering evidence for grand jury consideration, not because of prejudice or racism. Emotionally charged racial considerations should have no bearing on the expediency of due process, especially with the eyes of the nation so focused on the rulings made in the case.

While the cogs of justice are meshing forward, demonstrations are perfectly acceptable. In America, any demonstration, however fervent, should be the unabated right of any citizen. The impetus behind the demonstrations is inconsequential since it is a constitutionally assured right, whether protesting a cop shooting, or demonstrating against war or excessive government taxation. As an aside, the word “cop” is not a pejorative, which may come as a revelation to some, as it’s an acronym for “constable on patrol.”

 But when demonstrations lead to riots, violence, and property  destruction, law enforcement is justified in utilizing whatever force is  necessary in quelling the mayhem, and restoring law and order. To  deny them that function is to deny the most fundamental requirement  of our constabulary.

Those closest to the victim have called for sanity and peace, while  denouncing the perpetrators of violence and destruction. The father of  the deceased said a few days ago, “We don’t want no violence. Michael  would have wanted no violence. We need justice for our son.” His  cousin likewise called for order to return, saying, “I just want everyone  to know and understand that the stealing and breaking in stores is not what Mike would want, it is very upsetting to me and my family. Our family didn’t ask for this but for justice and peace…. Please let my family grieve in Peace (and) stop the violence in the street tonight, we don’t want this happening when we protest for justice for my cousin Mike Brown, please get this message out to the people that the Mike Brown family do not want this.”

The violence has nothing to do with justice being served, but everything to do with a level of moral depravity in the country that seeks to rationalize illegal and violent behavior as a proxy for real justice. In what sort of twisted sense of judicial propriety can violence be condoned or encouraged as a rational response to a perceived wrong having been perpetrated? In what bankrupt belief system is the destruction of property and attacks on others justifiable for a wrongful death? It would appear we as a society have learned nothing in the 22 years since the Rodney King Los Angeles riots. This is despicable behavior regardless of the age, orientation, or skin color of the perpetrators.

The days of leaping to irrational and unwarranted conclusions, based on the age or color of the victim, before justice has completed the investigative process, should be far behind us. Assumptions of guilt and innocence of all involved might justify demonstrations, but never riots and provocations to violence. For they are, after all, assumptions made without all of the facts on the table. The calm voices calling for peace and justice should always prevail over those whose lawlessness is an excuse for moral degeneracy.

 

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Another Man-made Crisis – Our Southern Border Invasion

July 24th, 2014

 

By Richard Larsen.

It’s impossible to avoid the coverage of the “immigration crisis” on our southern border. The media’s pervasive use of disinformation terminology and appeals to morality of a sentient populace is employed to shape public perception on the humanitarian tragedy unfolding daily in the news. The problems are manifold, but the creation of the crisis is causally singular. And the solution, at least to the cause, could be equally simple.

Just since October of last year, there have been nearly 60,000 children taken into custody for entering our country illegally. The majority of them are from Central America and unaccompanied by an adult.

The media report this as an “immigration crisis.” It is not. The government’s own definition of an immigrant is very precise: “persons admitted as legal permanent residents (LPRs) of the United States.” It would be more accurately described as an invasion, which is an “incursion by a large number of people.” As a friend sent me this past week, “Sneaking into a country doesn’t make you an ‘immigrant’ any more than breaking into a house makes you ‘part of the family.’”

Secondarily, the crisis with the children is man-made, and there is one man who is most responsible for it. Starting as early as August 2011, the administration started using “prosecutorial discretion” in applying the law against those who enter the country illegally. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano issued a communiqué stating that removing illegal aliens was not an “enforcement priority” of the Obama administration.

Almost immediately after that initial statement, DHS memos evidence an even less subtle approach; a broader “administrative amnesty,” would be applied especially for young people who would have benefited from the DREAM Act, which was never passed by congress. One such DHS memo to the director of United States Citizen and Immigration Services, indicated, “In the absence of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, CIS can extend benefits and/or protections to many individuals and groups by issuing new guidance and regulations.”

Internal memos clearly identify the motive behind such moves to be political. One such internal memo, uncovered by Pro Publica, stated, “The Secretary would face criticism that she is abdicating her charge to enforce the immigration laws,” but expressed hope she would “be viewed as breaking through the Washington gridlock in an effort to solve tough problems at a time when providing Latino voters with something they can support will be a win-win for us all.”

Then for the icing on the cake, just five months before the 2012 presidential election, “Obama announced that he would stop deportations for a half a million people who were brought to the United States as children. For this, he was rewarded with more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote,” as reported by Nationalinterest.org.



Each of these official and unofficial announcements have yielded the administration’s apparently desired effect of escalating the invasion of our southern border. News regarding the relaxation of U.S. restrictions against illegal entry into the country travels like wildfire especially through the “coyote” grapevine, those who transport people across the border illegally.

This relaxation of deportation and border security laws is borne out by the data. According to the Los Angeles Times, “the number of immigrants younger than 18 who were deported or turned away from ports of entry declined from 8,143 in 2008 to 1,669 last year. There were 95 minors deported from the entire interior of the country last year. At the same time, the number of unaccompanied alien children arriving from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras exploded from less than 4,000 several years ago to over 40,000 since last October.”

Last weekend Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), along with several other congressmen, met with President of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez and President of Guatemala Otto Pérez Molina and their wives. According to Granger, the leaders “want their children back.”

“We found out that the president and the first ladies of Guatemala and Honduras want their children back and they’re willing to cooperate with us to send their children back as quickly as possible,” she said.



In spite of claims the children are fleeing violence in their home countries, a new report indicates they’re coming primarily for amnesty. Two weeks ago the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), which is led by the DEA with cooperation from Homeland Security, reported, “Of the 230 migrants interviewed, 219 cited the primary reason for migrating to the United States was the perception of U.S. immigration laws granting free passes or permisos to UAC (unaccompanied children) and adult females OTMs (other than Mexicans) traveling with minors,” the report said.

Clearly the administration has created this humanitarian crisis by its own policies. If they wanted to stop the illegal migration, it wouldn’t take much effort. Rep. Granger indicated that the Central American presidents she met with said it would be “very helpful” if the president would reverse his stance. They said a great start would be for the president to simply state, “Don’t send your children to the United States illegally because we will send them back, they will not complete their journey.”

The president had a perfect opportunity to send such a message when he was visiting Texas discussing the issue with Governor Rick Perry. He created the crisis with administration policies, and he could end it, if he wanted to.

 

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Operation Choke Point – Another Presidential Abuse of Power

July 4th, 2014

 

 

By Richard Larsen.

In a free-market capitalistic system, the economy grows as companies compete freely for consumer dollars by producing superior products and services, adding jobs while their bottom-line grows. In such a system the government plays a role as referee by protecting consumers and ensuring all corporate players compete legally, and fairly. But in a crony-capitalistic system, the government does more than referee — it intervenes, attempting to assure success of some sectors and companies, while thwarting and even penalizing those that are out of favor with the prevailing ideology. Over the past six years our economic system has become increasingly controlled through governmental cronyism, and it just got much worse, and it’s based purely on ideology.

Early last year the Department of Justice (DOJ) initiated a new probe into questionable mercantile ventures facilitated by commercial banks. Initially, “Operation Choke Point” targeted banks that service payday lenders, especially online, and other services that they thought to be dubious. DOJ pressured banks doing business with such firms to “choke” or restrict access of such firms to banking services, even to the point of closing the accounts of such firms.

This policy is not traceable to the passage of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly referred to as FinReg. That Act created consumer protection regulations, as well as other measures such as “too big to fail,” which were designed to prevent a collapse of the financial services industry as we saw in 2008. Those regulations are enforced through the Department of the Treasury.

 Operation Choke Point, however, is being run through the DOJ as an  extension of the president’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force  (FFETF). The Task Force was created in November 2009 for the  express purpose of holding accountable the individuals and institutions  that created the last financial crisis. This task force, headed by the DOJ,  includes the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Secret  Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Federal Deposit Insurance  Corp., and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The evidence for  potential abuses is generated by banks through their reporting of  Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), making banking institutions  partners with law enforcement agencies in identifying and flagging  questionable financial activity.

This puts banks in a tenuous position with law-enforcement and government agencies. As the Wall Street Journal reported last month, “Banks, which need a reliable and safe payments network to survive, have always worked with law enforcement to fight fraud and even terrorism in the financial system. Banks provide tips to law enforcement when a customer’s behavior seems fishy, and they assist in investigations when asked. In the past year alone, banks have filed nearly a million suspicious activity reports with regulators, including suspicions of mortgage fraud, identity theft, counterfeit debit and credit cards, tax evasion and wire-transfer fraud.”

Clearly the intent of the FFETF is appropriate, as it relates to curtailing illegal or dubious financial ventures and transactions, and restricting money-laundering schemes. The problem is, it’s now gone much further than the original intent.

Two weeks ago, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reported that, based on internal DOJ documents, the administration is now using Operation Choke Point to target companies and sectors that are completely legal, yet not viewed favorably by the administration. The report stated that the DOJ is using pressure on banks to “shut down” companies that they find “objectionable.”

“We have documented that they are going after gun and ammunitions manufacturers, gun sellers and non-deposit lenders. Their own memos show they are well beyond enforcing the law,” said Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer  (R-MO) after the report was made public.

And it doesn’t end there. The documents released by the House Oversight Committee show that the DOJ has included the entire firearms industry and classified them with other “high risk” targeted businesses. The trade association for firearms and ammunition manufacturers, The National Shooting Sports Foundation, has reported that, “several of its members have had banking relationships wrongfully terminated as a result Operation Choke Point.”



We have yet again an example of the administration utilizing the tools  of governance to discriminate against activities and companies that are  legal, that they don’t approve of. As previously documented, the  administration has abused their power with the IRS, DOJ,  Environmental Protection Agency, the Labor Department, FBI, ATF,  and OSHA. The administration has abused the power of government,  based on ideology, to harass, intimidate, and put out of business,  companies led by conservative contributors, and conservative non-  profit organizations.

This is the type of political corruption we would expect from a banana  republic, or a despotic Middle-Eastern regime, certainly not the United States of America. Columnist Charles Krauthammer believes we’ll be dealing for years with the “toxic residue of this outbreak of authoritative lawlessness.” This is no longer simply a partisan issue of concern. This goes right to the heart of what defines our constitutional system of government, for we have, until now, been a country governed by law, not presidential whims based on ideology.

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Bizarre Predictions from the First “Earth Day”

May 5th, 2014

By Richard Larsen.

The forty-fourth Earth Day was celebrated this week in over 160 nations around the world. The notion that we are stewards of our planet, and must nurture and protect it as we utilize the resources she provides us is both logical and moral, and should be universally embraced. But from its inception, radically political and often disparate causes and sub-movements have tainted the objectives that led to the establishment of the first Earth Day in 1970. This has severely hampered the possibility of greater support for the cause of protecting our planet and the environment.

Peace activist John McConnell in 1969 floated the proposition that peace and the earth be celebrated together, which led to the first Earth Day celebration on the first day of spring, March 21, 1970. Just a month later, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson founded another Earth Day, which either intentionally or unintentionally coincided with Vladimir Lenin’s 100^th birthday, April 22. The movement went international in 1990 largely due to the efforts of Denis Hayes, who was the national coordinator of the first observance.



From the very incipient stages, the movement was tied more to radical leftist causes than to actual celebration and preservation of the third rock from the sun. What could have led to a very broad, universal movement became instead a fractious and splintered cacophony of extremist propaganda, often bordering on pantheistic adulation of the earth over the needs of the people who inhabit it.

Radicals are too often afforded massive media exposure when gushing their jeremiads and diatribes advocating their specific cause, but all too seldom are held accountable for their apocalyptic projections and forecasts. In an effort to rectify that lack of accountability, let’s go back to the first two iterations of Earth Day, 1970, to review what the “experts” and the media were saying about mother earth.

Here are some of the predictions regarding the earth and our atmosphere itself.

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” said Barry Commoner, a Washington University biologist.

“In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half,” according to Lifemagazine.

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable,” according to ecologist and UC Davis professor Kenneth Watt.

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” lamented Paul Ehrlich, author and Stanford University biology professor.

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate… that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any,’” warned Kenneth Watt.

“One theory assumes that the earth’s cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun’s heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” warnedNewsweekmagazine.



And my favorite, in light of the anthropogenic global warming alarmism of today, “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” warned professor Kenneth Watt.

Some may argue that such cataclysmic projections would have come to fruition had the EPA not been organized later that year and efforts to clean up the environment taken immediately. But listening to their 21^st century equivalents, it’s obvious that we have never done enough.

Then there were the population and human life projections, which included, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” warned Harvard biologist George Wald.

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction,” said aNew York Timeseditorial.

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years,” according to Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich.

Ehrlich continued, “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born… [By 1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”



“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” proclaimed Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day.

And finally, “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine,” said professor Peter Gunter.

If we could shed the cataclysmic alarmism that often accompanies environmental movements, and wouldn’t subordinate mankind in the global hierarchy of needs, the environmental movement could have even more broad support than currently enjoyed. In the meantime, forgive us deliberative types for not gullibly gulping at today’s servings of alarmist hysteria. After all, the movement has a history, and we’re keeping track.

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Paying for Influence – Koch Brothers and George Soros

April 9th, 2014

By Richard Larsen.

 

Judging from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s nearly daily diatribes on the floor of the U.S. Senate, George W. Bush has been retired as the most despised villain, and the cause of all the evils that plague the world. Bush has been replaced by the Koch (a Dutch name, pronounced “Coke”) brothers who are often maligned by the left for their pecuniary influence in politics. Since those on the left are not equally malevolent toward George Soros, who does the same thing, it’s clearly not the money in politics that bothers them — it’s the ideology.

David and Charles Koch are brothers who run Koch Industries, an oil refinery business that is the second largest private firm in the country. The brothers are tied at number 6 on Forbes top billionaires list with personal net worth of about $41 billion each. They’ve expanded and maintained their fortunes by successfully providing the refined product that keeps America moving – oil.

George Soros is chairman of Soros Fund Management, a hedge fund company. Soros is number 27 on Forbes list with a net worth of $23 billion. He’s made his fortune in large part by selling short against international currencies and collapsing financial institutions. In 1997 he was dubbed “the man who broke the Bank of England,” and he was blamed by the Malaysian Prime Minister for collapsing their currency during the Asian financial crisis. He was also convicted of illegal financial dealings in France. His big bet now is collapsing the U.S. dollar and the free enterprise system.

Economist Paul Krugman has been critical of Soros, and others like him, “who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is ‘Soroi’.”

The Koch brothers and Soros spend lavishly in politics. They support individual candidates, contribute to political party campaign funds, lobby politicians, bankroll political action committees, and have established foundations and think tanks to influence politics.

The Kochs spend by far the most, but the bulk of it goes to lobbying. The Open Society Institute is one of George Soros’ organizations, and they provide part of the funding of OpenSecrets.org, so even realizing that their data may be skewed toward a more pejorative coverage of the Kochs, I’m going to rely on their data. According to Open Secrets, the Koch brothers have spent, or as liberals typically describe it, “invested” over $50 million in lobbying from 1998-2010. During that same time, Soros and his primary Lobbying organization, Open Society Policy Center, spent about $13 million.

Donations to federal candidates, parties, and political action committees give a smaller advantage to the Kochs. They invested $2.58 million vs. Soros’ $1.74 million from 1989 to 2010. When extended to include the past four years, the Koch brothers have contributed $18 million in political donations. This sounds like a great number, until we look at the 58 organizations ahead of them, including 18 different unions, according to Open Secrets. Those unions political contributions total over $638 million, almost all of whose funds go to liberal candidates, and is more than 35 times more than the Kochs donate. Among those are the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees $60,667,379, the National Education Association $53,594,488, the United Auto Workers $41,667,858, and the Service Employees International Union $38,395,690

But from here the money for political influence gets a little more shady. From 2001 to 2010, the Koch brothers invested $1.5 million in other political groups, called 527 organizations, compared to Soros’ whopping $32.5 million.

The proliferation and expanded influence of 527s was made possible by the problematic McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform of 2002, so named because of the tax code, Section 527, that they fall under. As described by Benjamin Dangl, the groups “operate as shadow political campaigns working indirectly for or against a particular candidate.” Once contributed funds get to these groups, they can go anywhere, and the audit trail is virtually non-existent. Some are run totally above board and are very straightforward in their objectives. Many others are not. As Dangl says, “Prominent think tanks and campaign finance reform lobbyists say 527s are ‘illegal loopholes’ that enable the privatization of political campaigns.”

The groups that these men contribute to tell an even more significant tale than the sheer dollar volume they pump into our dysfunctional crony-capitalist, or corporatist political system. Since the Koch brothers are ideological libertarians, they’re driven by the classical-liberal Jeffersonian philosophy that America was founded on. Perhaps nothing defines this self-defined mission for the brothers better than the mission statement on the Cato Institute website, which states, “The mission of the Cato Institute is to originate, disseminate, and increase understanding of public policies based on the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.”

The classical-liberal principles of individual freedom and free markets that are so fully embraced and advanced by Charles and David Koch are the very principles the nation was founded upon. They are the principles that made America great. The progressive socialistic agenda advanced by Soros is antithetical to America’s founding precepts, and is heavily invested in the failure of not only the U.S. dollar, but the collapse of the U.S. economic system.

As distasteful as the pay-for-influence system is, the ideological objectives and uses of that influence should be of even greater concern. Should we fear those who support the ideals that made America great, or the one who seeks to destroy and fundamentally transform the country?

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Some Inconvenient Facts On the Minimum Wage Debate

March 16th, 2014

 

By Richard Larsen.

 

Western Journalism and Conservative Daily News versions slightly different:

http://www.westernjournalism.com/illusion-deception-now-facts-minimum-wage/

http://www.conservativedailynews.com/2014/03/political-populism-not-economics-behind-minimum-wage-proposal/

The cause célèbre of the administration these days is a proposed increase in the minimum wage. While the proposal plays well with voters in an election year, especially from a strategic diversionary standpoint, there is little economic or objective reason to buy into the proposal.

Let’s look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) own data on who is affected by the minimum wage. According to the BLS, 3.6 million of our total civilian workforce of 155 million workers are at or below the minimum wage compensation level. That is 2.5% of all workers in the U.S. Comprising that group of minimum wage earners, 31% are teenagers, 55% are 25 years old or younger. That means that just slightly more than 1% of the total workforce over the age of 25 is earning minimum wage.

Even that 1% over the age of 25 earning minimum wage are not typically the primary breadwinner of an American family. According to BLS data, 63% of workers who earn less than $9.50 per hour, (remember, the minimum wage is $7.25) are the second or third earner within their household. And nearly half of those live in households with earnings over $50,000 per year. So not only is the group very small that’s affected by the minimum wage, but the data don’t support the notion that they’re the “working poor.”



This segment of the population has been shrinking over the past thirty years. In 1980, nearly 15% of hourly workers were compensated at the minimum wage level. Considering how moribund the economy has been the past few years, it’s nothing short of remarkable that the total percentage of the workforce now paid at that level is a scant 2.5%.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour will lift approximately 900,000 people out of poverty. And it will take a few years to do it. But according to the BLS, there are 50 million Americans living in poverty, as defined by the government. That’s less than 2% of those living in poverty that will be elevated beyond that classification. The rest of those in poverty are in the custody of the state. Perhaps they just need a good job.

But the CBO also estimates that there will be a loss of half a million jobs by raising the minimum wage. Keep in mind that their estimates are always lower than reality. Current Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen affirmed the economics behind the CBO projections. “I think almost all economists think that the minimum wage has two main effects,” Chair Yellen said. “One is to boost pay for low-wage workers and the second is that there would be negative impact on employment.” Considering the realities of laws of economics, if we wanted to see more job creation, perhaps the minimum wage should be lowered, especially since most of those who work at that level are, according to BLS data, young people, and not primary wage earners for a household.

For those who venerate peer-reviewed research, here’s an economic feast of data. Joseph J. Sabia and Richard V. Burkhauser in a research piece a few years ago stated, “While reducing poverty among the working poor is a laudable policy goal, the evidence suggests that minimum wage increases have thus far provided little more than symbolic support to this population

“Several explanations have been offered for this finding. Card and Krueger (1995) emphasize that minimum wages fail to reduce poverty because many poor Americans do not work. Others have argued that even among the working poor, the relationship between earning a low hourly wage rate and living in poverty is weak and has become weaker over time (Stigler 1946; Burkhauser, Couch, and Glenn 1996; Burkhauser and Sabia 2007).”

“Moreover, even among affected workers, there is strong evidence that increases in the minimum wage reduce the employment of low-skilled workers (Neumark and Wascher 2008). While an increase in the minimum wage will lift out of poverty the families of some low-skilled workers who remain employed, other low-skilled workers will lose their jobs or have their hours significantly cut, reducing their income and dropping their families into poverty (Neumark and Wascher 2002; Neumark, Schweitzer, and Wascher 2004, 2005; Sabia 2008).”

Unions are fully supportive of an increase in the minimum wage, but it’s not out of solidarity or altruism for the low-income earner. It’s because they benefit directly. The Center for Union Facts indicates that many unions tie their base-line wages to the minimum wage, which means as it goes up, their coffers benefit.

There is another inconvenient truth that the advocates of raising the minimum wage need to address. Our de facto open border policy has depressed wages. Approximately a million low-skilled workers illegally come into the country every year, driving down wages, especially at the lower end of the spectrum. Harvard economist George Borjas has documented how our immigration policies have reduced American wages by $402 billion a year, while increasing profits for employers by $437 billion a year.

Once the actual BLS data are examined, and the laws of economics applied, there is little objective reason to increase the minimum wage. The only reason is political. And in an election year, nothing plays better to the uninformed masses than a populist message, especially when it diverts attention so conveniently away from so many other problems created or exacerbated by the administration’s policies.

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The Good of the Whole Sacrificed for a Few

February 18th, 2014

 

By Richard Larsen.

 

With the stroke of a pen and an utterance from the president, Obamacare’s employer mandate has been postponed yet again, this time until 2016 for some businesses. Headlines across the nation from the mainstream media have praised the delay, declaring it advantageous and good for the nation. If it’s “good for the nation,” why don’t we just delay it indefinitely?



The problem with 2,400 pages of legislation is not what politicians promise the legislation will do, but what it does in reality, including the creation of nearly 40,000 pages of regulations affecting our health care. And the reality with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as we’re witnessing nearly daily in financial media, is devastating for the economy, the middle class, and our healthcare system itself.

The ACA (Obamacare) was sold to us on the basis that there were 40 million Americans without health insurance and that the Act would rectify the apparent inequity. That actually is the first broken promise of Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) admits that after 10 years of implementation, Obamacare “will still leave 31 million uninsured.” And we’ll have spent $1.93 trillion failing to achieve the primary objective of the Act! And that new dollar figure from the CBO is still likely an underestimate since they’ve revised the figure upward three times already.

The new requirements imposed on employer sponsored insurance (ESI) plans will make the costs increase significantly for employers. Many employers will discontinue their plans altogether, forcing employees to the state exchanges to buy their insurance for themselves.

Last June, McKinsey & Company released results of a study that found, “Overall, 30 percent of employers will definitely or probably stop offering ESI in the years after 2014. Among employers with a high awareness of reform, this proportion increases to more than 50 percent, and upward of 60 percent will pursue some alternative to traditional ESI.” This contrasts sharply with CBO’s original estimates of 7% of employees losing their current ESI, and the president’s promise that none would.

Those who will be able to retain their current plan will see significant changes. According to the National Business Group on Health, 30% of all companies with ESIs are considering dropping coverage for retirees and over 50% are considering dropping spousal coverage. And it’s not just the private sector, as local governments are looking at the same solutions. The mayor of Chicago, Obama’s former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is planning to drop 30,000 city retirees off of the city’s ESI and push them into the exchanges to buy their own. He projects a savings of $108 million per year.

Promoting the passage of his signature legislation, President Obama vowed, “that my plan will reduce the cost of health insurance by $2,500 for average families.”  But according to Investor’s Business Daily, since Obamacare passed, the cost of an average family policy has already increased by $3,000, because of the new regulations and mandates imposed on providers and insurers.

All the new regulatory requirements are causing health insurance premiums to soar even more, especially for younger and healthier individuals. After all, the government subsidies will pay for the added expense of covering preexisting conditions, which was forced by the ACA. Holtz-Eakins’ American Action Forum analyzed insurance premiums in five major cities, and calculated that Obamacare mandates will cause premiums to increase additionally an average of 169%.

Confirming the fears of many who actually read the bill, Howard Dean, a doctor and former DNC Chairman, wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, “One major problem [with Obamacare] is the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB is essentially a health-care rationing body. By setting doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price, the IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them.” This obviously was what the president was referring to when he said “Give them a pill instead of the surgery.”



 

As of February 1, 3.3 million Americans have signed up. But how many of those are people like me who lost their insurance because of the new coverage mandates of the ACA? The White House estimated 41 million Americans would lose their coverage. And how many are losing their jobs because of the ACA? The Congressional Budget Office just updated their figure to over 2.5 million. How many are losing work hours and facing reduced income due to the Act? According to financial media, millions.

There are a few success stories that are shared anecdotally to make us “feel” better about the consequences — intended and unintended — of the ACA. But at what point do we say as a nation that the cost to the whole is too great for the benefit of the few? It’s time for government to start using cost-benefit analysis, for the ACA would dramatically fail all such tests. And when the damage is much greater than the benefits, it’s bad legislation, regardless of whose name is on it.

This brings us back to the original question. If delaying the full effect of the ACA is good for the nation, why not delay it indefinitely?

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With A Pen He’s A Dictator

February 12th, 2014

 

By Richard Larsen.



The Constitution of the United States was drafted and ratified as the foundational legal codex of the country in part because it would prevent tyranny in America. It had a series of checks and balances between the three branches of government that were designed to disallow any one branch, or any one person, from amassing so much power that they could run the country, and us, as a tyrant. We are witnessing firsthand the unraveling of those assurances.

Over the past several weeks the President of the United States has declared that he has “a pen and a phone” and intends to use them to implement his agenda. He has made it clear that he deems this necessary since he has an uncooperative congress that, unlike his first two years in office, refuses to subserviently rubber stamp everything he wants.

It’s clear from the context of his statements that his intent is to use the power of the presidency to sign Executive Orders and use his phone to force his agenda on the nation. By so doing, he is blatantly circumventing the very precautions embedded in our founding legal codex that were designed to prevent despotic rule in our country.

This perception is one shared by Jonathan Turley, a nationally recognized constitutional law expert, professor at the George Washington University Law School, and a self-avowed liberal.

Turley appeared before the House Judiciary Committee two months ago, where Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte asked the following question. “Professor Turley, the constitution, the system of separated powers is not simply about stopping one branch of government from usurping another. It’s about protecting the liberty of Americans from the dangers of concentrated government power. How does the president’s unilateral modification of acts of Congress affect both the balance of power between the political branches and the liberty interests of the American people?”

Professor Turley responded, “The danger is quite severe. The problem with what the president is doing is that he’s not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He’s becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. That is the concentration of power in a single branch.”

At issue in the hearing was whether the president had the authority to unilaterally change the implementation dates of a lawfully passed Act of Congress, the Affordable Care Act. Turley’s response was an undiluted and unqualified, “No.”

This was not the first time the president has exercised unconstitutional powers of the presidency. Three years ago he declared his administration would not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. Even though congress failed to pass his proposed Cap and Trade bill, he has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to actively enforce provisions of that bill that were never made law. He unilaterally proscribed expansion of offshore drilling without legislatively authorized power to do so. He has granted loans to other nations to drill for oil, without authorization from congress.

He has, without congressional authority, implemented portions of the Dream Act, an illegal immigration bill, which never passed congress. He has ordered the Federal Communications Commission to adopt regulations giving the government control over the internet, and provide him with a “kill switch” to turn it off.

Just to clarify the role of the president, according to our own laws and Constitution. He is to “faithfully execute the laws.” He has no power to create laws or unilaterally change laws. That is the role of congress. Nor can he reverse legally passed laws. If he had those powers, we would no longer be a lawful nation committed to the rule of law, but would be an autocracy, ruled by the capricious and ideological whims of one man. This is precisely what Obama is doing according to Professor Turley.

We clearly have a president who doesn’t respect the Constitution enough to abide by it. He clearly has no respect for the rule of law since he feels it within his power to single-handedly create new code and force it on the nation.

Even the Executive Order (EO) has not the power to legally do what the president is doing. There are three things the EO can be used for: operational management of the executive branch, operational management of the federal agencies or officials, and implementing statutory or constitutional presidential responsibilities. Executive Orders cannot be used to either create new law, or to annul or reverse existing law. After all, his primary function, according to the Constitution and his oath of office, is to “faithfully execute the office” in enforcement and execution of the laws legally passed by the legislative branch.

We have a lawless president who is not doing what he’s required by law to do, and is exceeding his authority by assuming legislative power to create law. What more evidence do we need to impeach and remove from office, a president that is making himself an American dictator? And where is congress’ spine to reclaim their power that he has misappropriated from them?

Associated Press award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho and is a graduate of Idaho State University with degrees in Political Science and History and coursework completed toward a Master’s in Public Administration.  He can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net. 

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The Greatest Threat to the Nation

January 12th, 2014

 

By Richard Larsen.

Our economy, and personal liberty, are under assault in America, The threat to the country is much more stealthy and incremental than that faced by our nation’s founders two centuries ago. According to a Gallup poll this past week, 72% of Americans see the burgeoning power of the federal government as our greatest threat. This should serve as a wakeup call to the statists in Washington who are continuously expanding the role of government in micromanaging our lives.



Regulatory Redtape Entangles the Nation

Much of this expanded control comes in the form of regulation. Since 1993, over 1.43 million pages have been added to the Federal Register that includes all new regulations, regulatory revisions, and presidential documents. The passage and implementation of the “Affordable Care Act” alone has added 10,516 pages to the Federal Register; that’s more than eight times the length of the Bible.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) 20thedition of “Ten Thousand Commandments,” which explicates the impact of the mountainous stacks of regulation on the country, estimates the cost burden of all this regulation at $1.8 trillion per year. To put that figure in perspective, that’s more than half the size of the federal budget, and nearly 12% of the entire U.S. economy.

The cost to the government in enforcing regulation is not that great, a relatively paltry $55.4 billion in 2010, according to the CEI. That allocation of the federal budget covers most of the cost of federal agencies and regulatory enforcement. By far, the greater cost is to the economy, and in abrogated liberty, whittling incrementally away at our individual freedom.



Critics of “big business” should take note that total business profits last year were just over $1.5 trillion, yet the $1.8 trillion in costs for regulatory compliance eclipses that figure. The cost of that regulation is not paid by “big business.” Technically, corporations don’t pay taxes, they just collect revenue from consumers and turn it over to the government. We pay those taxes to the corporations voluntarily in the form of higher prices for goods and services. Consequently, we, as consumers, paid $1.8 trillion more for our goods and services last year to companies just to cover the cost of federal regulation!

According to the House Committee on Small Business, the impact on small business is staggering, and the impact on the economy is perhaps incalculable. Small businesses don’t enjoy the luxury of simply passing on the cost of regulation to their customers, like big business does, but bear a disproportionate share of the costs themselves.

The SBA Office of Advocacy defines small business as independent firms that have fewer than 500 employees, of which there are an estimated 29.6 million in the country. These firms create seven of every ten new jobs, and they employ just over half of the nation’s private sector workforce. The Office of Advocacy calculates that small businesses create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product, and have created over 64% of net new jobs over the past 15 years.



According to the SBA, small firms shoulder a regulatory cost of $10,585 per employee. This is 36% higher than the cost of regulatory compliance for large businesses. And since 89% of firms in the country employ fewer than 20 employees, the smallest businesses are bearing a disproportionate share of the regulatory burden.

The cost of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory compliance affects small businesses four times more than larger firms, according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Research Foundation. They also indicate that the complexity of the tax code, and concomitant costs, disproportionately harms small businesses four times more than large firms.

At a House Small Business Committee hearing, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson said, “Tax code complexity has a direct impact on small business viability and job growth. The more time and resources a small business spends on tax compliance, the less time it will have to grow and hire employees.”

Government, and its hoard of agencies and bureaucracies, was not created by divine unction, and are not infallible. They are to serve the people, not rule over us in totalitarian fashion. The tsunami of governmental regulation is debilitating to the economy and job growth, as well as to individual freedom. And much of the regulatory expansion comes not from congressional acts, but by government agencies expanding and rewriting regulation.

 



 

Americans have just cause to perceive expanding government control as our greatest threat, and we’ve not even touched on the privacy and Fourth Amendment infractions posed by the domestic spying programs.

237 years ago our forebears retaliated against a perceived threat to personal liberty and “taxation without representation” by initiating a revolution against a monarchical power; one that was arguably the greatest power in the world at the time. It’s time for that same American spirit to rise again, this time against a domestic threat, in defense of liberty, and begin scaling back our onerous regulatory burden.

Associated Press award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho and is a graduate of Idaho State University with degrees in Political Science and History and coursework completed toward a Master’s in Public Administration

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