Cruel Torments of the Devil

Transcript of exchange between Perez Hilton and Miss California USA Carrie Prejean at the Miss USA Pageant, Las Vegas, Nevada, 19 April 2009

Perez Hilton: "Vermont recently became the 4th state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?"

Carrie Prejean: "Well I think its great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you very much."

There were four other contestants at that point but Perez Hilton knew what he was doing by saving that particular question for Carrie Prejean. He knew that she was a Christian and he wanted to put her under some pressure: Live TV, the desire to win, the desire to give the acceptable answer. He wanted to put her faith to a test - if she dodges the question, or equivocates, or agrees with him, he can exult in the knowledge that another Christian can be bought with fame and fortune, that faith isn't real and neither is God, and a flaming homosexual who mocks the Almighty is on the winning side.

She fumbled a bit, caught off-guard by the potent question but quickly realized that she was being ambushed and found her courage. With everything on the line, with victory so close, she gave not the answer that Perez Hilton wanted to hear but the answer that he and America needed to hear. She didn't attack him or homosexuals in general, but stated her case and said, "Thank you very much." Doing so cost her the crown she had worked so hard to win but Carrie Prejean can look herself in the mirror today knowing that her conscience is clear.

The crowd in the Planet Hollywood theatre booed. The title went to Miss North Carolina. Perez Hilton ranted hysterically on his blog, insulting Prejean with language both crude and revealing: For his fans, this is what he's really like. The left-wing press has excoriated Carrie Prejean for accepting breast implants provided by the Miss USA pageant, for posing for topless photos now splashed across the Internet, for appearing in a commercial supporting traditional marriage, for not going away broken and silenced. She has discovered how angry Satan can be when Christians oppose him.

While not diving for the gutter, Perez Hilton has expressed "disappointment" that Prejean "didn't leave her politics out" of her answer. He and his morally naked allies have smugly announced that Miss California USA represents all of that state and should be more inclusive, by which they mean that when Carrie Prejean leaves her politics out, their politics are left in and the millions of Californians who agree with her and who twice approved constitutional amendments have no right to be heard. But beyond beauty pageants and free speech lies a larger issue, one that the press ignores and Perez Hilton, in his malignant glory, doesn't comprehend: The reversal of order that is at the heart of Satan's war with God.

Let's say that tomorrow a Constitutional amendment is passed legalizing gay marriage throughout the United States. TV cameras would pan across throngs of homosexual couples queueing up at the courthouse, champagne bottles would pop all over the country, liberal politicians would give excited speeches about civil rights and liberty and lofty ideals, thousands more children would be adopted into the homosexual lifestyle. Then a little movement would be felt. Some chatter would race across the Internet, advocacy groups would be formed, money would be raised, more speeches about civil rights and liberty and lofty ideals. Bills would be introduced and lawsuits would be filed, and eventually, polygamy would be legalized. After all, if traditional marriage is no longer the standard, then why exclude polygamists? Then we would see similar demands by pedophiles, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, groups wanting to marry groups, siblings and so on, obliterating the traditional view of marriage until only a confused, chaotic mish-mash is left, reversing the institution that God established and which has sustained human civilization for 7000 years. With the decision to move the line having been made, there will exist no reason not to move it a hundred times and certainly not for some moral objection, and America will disintegrate. That's why Carrie Prejean spoke up and why buffoons like Perez Hilton persecute Christians like her.

There have been other buffoons and other persecutions. Read on:

Letter from Pliny the Younger, Governor of Bithynia-Pontus, to Trajan, Emperor of the Romans, 112 AD:

It is my practice, my lord, to refer to you all matters concerning which I am in doubt. For who can better give guidance to my hesitation or inform my ignorance? I have never participated in trials of Christians. I therefore do not know what offenses it is the practice to punish or investigate, and to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age or no difference between the very young and the more mature; whether pardon is to be granted for repentance, or, if a man has once been a Christian, it does him no good to have ceased to be one; whether the name itself, even without offenses, or only the offenses associated with the name are to be punished.

Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome.

Soon accusations spread, as usually happens, because of the proceedings going on, and several incidents occurred. An anonymous document was published containing the names of many persons. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ--none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do--these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.

They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food--but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.

I therefore postponed the investigation and hastened to consult you. For the matter seemed to me to warrant consulting you, especially because of the number involved. For many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. But it seems possible to check and cure it. It is certainly quite clear that the temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented, that the established religious rites, long neglected, are being resumed, and that from everywhere sacrificial animals are coming, for which until now very few purchasers could be found. Hence it is easy to imagine what a multitude of people can be reformed if an opportunity for repentance is afforded.

Letter from Trajan answering Pliny the Younger:

You observed proper procedure, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it--that is, by worshiping our gods--even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance. But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution.

For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age.

In Pliny's day, it was a capital offense simply to be a Christian and that is where we are headed today. As long as there have been Christians, there have been people who hated them, whence Perez Hilton's vulgar rage, but someday the most important question that moron will ask will not be, "What do I think of Christ?" but rather, "What does Christ think of me?"

Good Riddance

So Arlen Specter is a Democrat again - big deal. For 28 years the man has had it both ways by getting huge support from the GOP during election season (like when the RNC supported him against conservative Pat Toomey in 2004 even when Specter had opposed President Bush's tax cuts) but voting whith the Democrats on stuff like the Obama stimulus package, illegal immigration and check-card voting for union elections. He's pro-abortion, pro-affirmative action and he joined John McCain's Gang of 14 four years ago that hijacked the review process for President Bush's judicial nominees. With friends like him, who needs enemies?

Sen. Specter admits that the political situation in Pennsylvania had the greatest influence on his decision. Mr. Toomey is mounting a serious challenge for Specter's seat and the senator believed that he would lose the GOP primary next Spring and, if he declared as an Independent like Joe Leiberman, the general election. Given that he doesn't want to retire, the only option left was to switch back to the Democrats he abandoned in 1965 and count on massive support from President Obama and the DNC next year which he's sure to get. So at least Senator Specter is honest enough to say that craven political survival drove his announcement and not some highfalutin philosophical reason like the tax policies of the Club for Growth.

The Democrats are exultant, of course. With Al Franken near to closing the deal in Minnesota, Specter's defection brings them a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (at least on paper) and no real threat to their agenda through next year. They can run through every wild-eyed piece of legislation they've dreamed of submitting for the past forty years but which was simply too dangerous to consider until now: passage of the Kyoto Protocols, cap-in-trade limits on industry, mandatory union membership for every job, citizenship for illegal immigration, Federal legalization of gay marriage and euthanasia, outright government ownership of every major industry from airlines to real estate. The future is bright if you're a socialist now that Arlen Specter is on your side.

For the Republicans, Specter's betrayal is both a kick in the groin and an opportunity. They are weaker in the Senate than at any time since 1976 and have virtually no chance of even slowing down the radical agenda I described above, yet are closer to their conservative core. The country club Republicans who chafed at Ronald Reagan and who sneer at the NASCAR dads who voted for them have pushed the Party to the left for years, away from the principles that brought them victory after victory and toward bigger government, higher taxes and spending, acceptance of abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, illegal immigration and so on, blurring the distinction between Republicans and the Democrats they ostensibly opposed. These misguided blue bloods thought by emulating the liberals and differing in policy only by degree, they could avoid the bitter debates that are at the heart of American democracy, get along with their enemies and keep their jobs longer. However, as was demonstrated in the past two elections, becoming more like the Democrats only gave more power to the real Democrats, and as Dr. Phil is fond of saying, "How's that workin' for you?" The answer, of course, is disastrously. The American people want and deserve a real choice when they go to the polls, not two shades of gray. By abandoning the Republicans, Arlen Specter gives them a chance to rediscover the power of conservative ideas: Let's hope they take it.

Gag Reflex

BIG STORY OF THE DAY #1: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, BB&T and other big American banks are trying to pay back their share of Federal TARP money early and the Treasury Department doesn't want them to do that - the Feds want to maintain government control over the financial system until they decide to let go. See also the Treasury Department's decision to convert the government's TARP investments in these institutions into common stock, meaning the Feds would literally own America's major banks and dictate the flow of capital wherever they wanted, and also the DJIA tanking almost 290 points as a result: How much punishment does the market have to absorb before the morons in the Obama administration get it?

BIG STORY OF THE DAY #2: Hugo Chavez rants about American imperialism at the Summit of the Americas, gets in a photo op shaking hands with Barack Obama and boosts his popularity even higher among the hate-America-first crowd. President Obama lets a two-bit Commie buffoon pee on his shoes and calls it diplomacy.

BIG STORY OF THE DAY #3: The Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans that they could be recruited by "right-wing militias" without specifically naming any right-wing militias or why, exactly, combat veterans would be more susceptible to racism or the violent overthrow of the country they swore to protect. A report issued by DHS in January detailed specific left-wing terror groups, specific crimes they had committed and specific people they might recruit, illustrating the predisposition of our government and the legacy media to believe the worst about conservatives whether they have proof or not. How reassuring it is to know that you're suspected by the very people you're defending at the risk of your life. "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it." Colonel Nathan R. Jessup


Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/treasury-convert-tarp-shares-common/

Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/futures-remain-red-despite-bofas-results/

Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/american-bankers-association-fed-tarp/

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/19/napolitano-veterans-targets-right-wing-extremist-recruiters/

Resist

On the evening of 16 December 1773, a group of Bostonians dressed as Indians boarded three British cargo ships then docked in the harbor and over the course of several hours, broke open and dumped some 350 chests of tea into the water. This act of rebellion, since called the Boston Tea Party, was a response to an attempt by the British Crown to impose taxes on the American Colonies even though the colonists were not represented in Parliament - in short, tyranny. Following the Stamp Act, the Townsend Acts and the Boston Massacre and followed by the closure of Boston Harbor, the quartering of the King's troops in private homes and summary arrests of leading dissidents, the Boston Tea Party was one of the signal events leading to the American Revolution and eventual independence, a display of defiance triggered directly by the arrogance of the British Empire.

Shift to 15 April 2009. At some four hundred venues, from Boston to Juneau and everywhere in between, tens of thousands of ordinary people gathered to protest the tax-and-spend policies of President Barack Obama and his Democrat allies: 1000 people in Des Moines; 2000 in Beaumont; 4000 in Lansing; another 4000 in Cincinnati. These were honest, hard-working, law-abiding citizens who were mad as hell that their government is blowing their tax dollars in the trillions and sticking them - and their great-grandchildren - with the check. They understood that the President's agenda has nothing to do with "middle-class tax cuts" or "fairness" or "putting money in the pockets of deserving Americans" but with remaking America into a socialist workers' paradise. They understood that the bottom fifty percent of wage earners, who pay only four percent of all Federal income taxes right now, will receive free health care, subsidized mortgages, jobs, car loans and insurance under this new regime, while the top ten percent of wage earners who pay 65% of the total bill will pay even more and be represented less. And they understood the lesson of the original Boston Tea Party, contrary to pinheads like Janeane Garofalo and Keith Olbermann, that tyranny by a lawful government is tyranny nonetheless and must be opposed. They are not stooges of the Republican Party as the liberal media has opined, they're not being manipulated by FoxNews or Rush Limbaugh or the "vast right-wing conspiracy." They are exercising their rights as American citizens to lawfully protest the reckless behavior of the government that claims to represent them but which really represents the interests of the most radical elements of the American Left.

...which not only misunderstands them but ridicules them as well. Here is an exchange between Ms Garofalo and Mr. Olbermann on last Wednesday's Countdown:

Ms. Garofalo: "Let’s be very honest about what this is about. It’s not about bashing Democrats, it’s not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don’t know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks."

Mr. Olbermann: "If you spear your television network … towards a bunch of guys who are just looking for a reason to yell at the black president, eventually you will marginalize yourself out of business, won’t you?"

So we first have Janeane Garofalo, a hardcore liberal and Hollywood C-lister whose flagging career has been given a boost by her appearance this season on the decidedly conservative 24, a mainstay of the Fox Network she bitterly criticizes. (She apparently understands the business well enough to ride the best horse in the race.) Ms. Garofalo dismisses the stated objectives of the nationwide TEA Parties, insults the intelligence of those who participated - a typical liberal tactic - then labels them racists and rednecks, the boilerplate epithet of the Left thrown at anyone who disagrees with them, as if people who go to church, work hard, pay their taxes, raise their children without welfare, watch NASCAR and own guns do not have the right to complain about their taxes being wasted. It doesn't occur to her that people could honestly disapprove of President Obama and the agenda he's advancing simply on political grounds: For her, it's literally black and white. She was then answered by the equally liberal host of Countdown, whose show has been regularly trounced in the ratings - The O'Reilly Factor has been the number one cable news program for 100 months in a row and FoxNews outpolls CNN and MSNBC combined. Keith, for his part, simply accepted his guest's ludicrous accusation at face value and wondered aloud if FoxNews' coverage of the TEA Parties would torpedo their ratings, which I can't help but assume was wishful thinking on his part. (He has to understand the business well enough to know that when he consistently sucks against the opposition, cancellation awaits.) Together they form a perfect microcosm of the sheer intellectual and ethical nakedness of the Left, hence the popularity of the TEA Parties: As long as idiots like these defend Barack Obama and his spendthrift policies, resistance will deepen.





Source: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/teaparty.htm

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/15/anti-tax-tea-party-protests-expected/

Source: http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/04/17/janeane-garafalo-says-tea-parties-were-for-rednecks/

One Doesn't Follow The Other

America has suffered a welter of violence over the past five weeks. From Alabama to Oakland, from North Carolina to Binghamton, New York, lunatics with guns have killed and wounded police and civilians alike, destroying the lives of hundreds of innocent people:

• Saturday, 04 April 2009 - Pittsburgh, PA
  Three police officers killed


• Friday, 03 April 2009 - Binghamton, NY
  Thirteen people killed, four wounded


• March 29: Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, N.C., before a police officer shot him and ended the rampage.


• March 29: Devan Kalathat, 42, shot and killed his two children and three other relatives, then killed himself in an upscale neighborhood of Santa Clara. Kalathat"s wife was critically injured.


• March 21: Lovelle Mixon, 26, shot and killed four Oakland police officers after a traffic stop. Mixon was killed in a shootout with SWAT officers.


• March 10: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff"s deputy across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself.

Sometimes the perpetrators have survived to face justice, sometimes they took the coward's way out to avoid that justice (only to usher themselves into the presence of Almighty God to face His justice, and that eternally) but they've always managed to assume ultimate power for a short time and inflict terrific damage, exacting revenge for whatever wrongs they blamed society for doing them and then leaving grief-stricken communities to clean up the mess and figure out how to go on. These maniacs have also provided the rabid ant-gun Left in this country with fresh incentive to ban guns, as if they needed any more. ABC News, for their part, immediately broadcast two stories on the Obama administration's low priority on gun control to try to stir up "righteous anger" over the issue and will broadcast a special tomorrow night featuring Diane Sawyer, who will refute the reasons commonly cited for owning guns. The major line of reasoning they employ is that these mass shootings could be prevented by banning private ownership of firearms altogether, or at least making it so hard that no-one will try. They also paint as irrational the very desire to own a gun, as if no government anywhere at any time in the United States has acted tyrannically, stripping the citizens of their rights, their guns and their lives - we know both arguments to be patently and even laughably false:

• There are approximately 20,000 laws governing firearms in this country at all levels of jurisdiction. Private ownership of firearms is one of the most heavily-regulated activities in our society but contrary to the liberals' thesis, the areas where guns are most tightly controlled usually suffer the highest rates of crime. It is also no coincidence that crime is usually lower in the areas where guns are more available to honest citizens - guns are successfully used to defend lives and property over two million times a year and for every life taken by gun crime, 25-75 lives are saved.

• Washington, DC, where I work, had banned privately-owned handguns since 1976 until the District of Columbia v. Heller decision last summer but suffers from violent crime at three times the national average. In their zeal to ostensibly prevent crime, the liberal city government actually did the criminals a favor by guaranteeing that they would have a permanent and lethal advantage over their intended victims. From Detroit to St. Louis, from Oakland to Baltimore, from Atlanta to Newark, the cities where liberals rule and guns are banned are also ridden by violent crime, and in the event that a felon can't get a gun, he'll simply resort to some other weapon.

• The incident that sparked the Revolution - the Battle of Lexington - was precipitated by a British attempt to seize privately-owned firearms and ammunition stored at Concord, Massachusetts. Since then, our history is littered with examples of oppressive governments and outgunned citizens: the Johnson County War in Wyoming in 1892, the massacres of coal miners and their families from Ludlow, Colorado, in 1914 to Matewan, West Virginia, in 1920, and perhaps most infamously, the incident at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992. In this latter episode, Federal agents relentlessly hounded Gary Weaver for seven years before surrounding him at his ranch. After shooting the family dog to try to lure Mr. Weaver out of his house, they killed his son Samuel as he defended himself, shot Mr. Weaver in the back and killed his wife Vicki while she held their infant son in her arms. While Mr. Weaver was largely exonerated of the charges levelled against him, twelve Federal agents were disciplined and FBI Director Louis Freeh admitted to Congress that Ruby Ridge was "synonymous with the exaggerated application of federal law enforcement." (NOTE: It is interesting that no Federal agent involved at Ruby Ridge was ever prosecuted. Lon Horiuchi, the sniper who killed Vicki Weaver as she stood behind a door - he couldn't even see who or what he was shooting at - was protected by a Federal assertion of sovereign immunity.) It is this last incident that so starkly reminds us that governments in our country aren't to be blindly trusted and that stripping the citizens of their most potent safeguard is literally suicidal.

Despite our own history and the clear, explicit and unmistakable intent of the Founding Fathers as expressed in the Second Amendment, liberals want to exploit these recent tragedies to eliminate the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for precisely the reason I cite above. The advancement of a socialist state or any other authoritarian government can be checked by a population that is intelligent, well-informed and well-armed, thus the liberals will stop at nothing to eliminate our capacity to defend ourselves. The nutcases who have perpetrated these murders must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, make no mistake, but to erase a Constitutional right guaranteed every citizen to prevent its abuse is absurd. Last year, when it became apparent that ACORN had facilitated voter fraud in ten states, the Left never proposed eliminating the right to vote. It is ironic in the extreme that the same people who emphatically advocate for rights that appear nowhere in the Constitution - abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, legal rights for terrorists at Gitmo - are just as emphatically trying to kill a right deliberately and specifically included, and they must be resisted with all the strength and determination we can muster.

Source: http://www.nraila.org/GunLaws/Federal/Read.aspx?id=74

Source: http://www.nraila.org/heller/proamicusbriefs/07-290_amicus_aaps.pdf

Source: http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=245

Source:http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_12068204?nclick_check=1

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512560,00.html

Source: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/offenses/violent_crime/index.html

Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0921299.html

Oh, For Mr. Benny!

Some excerpts from George Stephanopoulos' interview with Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, on ABC News This Week, 29 March 2009. Try not to choke:





STEPHANOPOULOS: But even if we come out of that, a lot of economists worry that this recovery is going to feel like a recession, that we're going to have a jobless recovery. Very -- I see you nodding your head. You believe that?
GEITHNER: I think a lot -- people worry about this. You have a recession like this, which is born out of a period where people borrowed too much, and we let our financial system take on too much risk. The risk in that conduct is you have a longer, slower, more gradual process of adjustment and recovery.



SO...Mr. Geithner admits that our current economic crisis emerged from an excess of liquidity in the market, as I've discussed at length in this space. What he doesn't explain is how that excess of liquidity was started - by the left-wing social engineers on the Hill.




STEPHANOPOULOS: So do Americans have to get used to the idea that the boom times really aren't coming back?
GEITHNER: Well, we're going to emerge out of this stronger. And we're going to do that because the president and the Congress are going to make sure that we have the government doing a better job of things it needs to do.
So we have a more productive economy in the future, better education outcomes, better health care system, better energy policies, stronger infrastructure.

Mr. Geithner tells us that the Federal government is putting the economy in a headlock and that incomes, education, health care and energy will be rationed.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Stronger, but as affluent as we were in the past?


GEITHNER: Well, you know, we want to have sustainable growth. We don't have -- we don't want to have a recovery which is going to be artificial and short-lived, just produce the seeds of the next crisis.
We want to have a durable recovery based on a stronger foundation that has a stronger, more productive economy emerging through it where the gains are more broadly shared across the economy as a whole.

Remember how Mr. Obama answered Joe the Plumber's question on that campaign trip in Ohio last October, about how he wanted "to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success, too…" and "I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody"? Remember how everybody on the Left from Joe Biden on down excoriated Joe for daring to ask such an impudent question? Here's Tim Geithner saying that's exactly what Obama's doing.


STEPHANOPOULOS: So income inequality goes down?
GEITHNER: It should go down. Again, you know, if you look at the record of performance in the '90s, you know, we had very strong productivity growth during a period of fiscal discipline, fiscal responsibility, strong private investment, and the gains were shared much more broadly.
We can do that as a country, but it requires getting this government to do a better job of doing things only governments can do. That's why I assume important we get better outcomes. That's why fixing our health care system and get costs growing more slowly is so important. That's why we need a better energy policy. And that's why infrastructure needs to be improved.

Mr. Geithner assures us that income distribution in the Obama administration will flatten, not from a result of making low- and middle-income people more prosperous but by punishing the hell out of people in upper income levels. He also paints a rosy picture of the 1990's under Bill Clinton, who inherited an economy coming out of recession but raised taxes anyway, who didn't face 9/11, the economic shock it administered, the Global War On Terror and multiple natural disasters simultaneously.

Mr. Geithner also repeats his earlier assurance that the Federal government, invested with ultimate national power, will force us into a centralized, planned economy - the "better outcomes" he mentions.


STEPHANOPOULOS: And you are obviously trying to do that with your plans to shore up the banking system. You laid out what to do about these legacy toxic assets in the banking system this week. And a lot of people are wondering, will it actually work? The stock market definitely seemed to like it, so did a lot of experts. As you know, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman was not a fan. And I want to show what he wrote this week in The New York Times.
He said when he read this plan, it gave him a sense of despair. And he went on to say: "Financial executives literally bet their banks on the belief that there was no housing bubble and the related belief that unprecedented levels of household debt were no problem. They lost that bet and no amount of financial hocus-pocus, for that is what the Geithner plan amounts to, will change that fact."
Financial hocus-pocus.
GEITHNER: George, this is a piece of a series of initiatives we've put in place to help get the financial system doing what it needs to do, which is to provide the credit necessary for recovery. You know, economies depend on financial systems. They're what is -- provide the oxygen, the blood that economies need to grow.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But he says it's just not going to work, that these banks are insolvent, and that even if you put more capital in them, eventually you're going to have to take them over.
GEITHNER: But I just wanted to -- let's step back for a sec. So this is piece of a broad framework of initiatives we're undertaking to help restore the strength of the financial system. Part of our plan -- a core part of our plan involves making sure banks have enough capital to provide the lending we're going to need to get recovery back on track.

Mr. Krugman correctly observes that the home mortgage industry and by extension, the American financial system, trusted the Federal government would not allow a collapse of the housing boom they created and were disastrously wrong. Therefore, it's small wonder why American investors distrust anything Washington tells them now. Mr. Geithner answers Mr. Krugman's criticism by saying the Obama administration's answer to the financial crisis, which he already said was the result of too much credit, too much borrowing in years past...is to spur more borrowing. Is there any wonder why so many people - let alone conservatives like me - think Mr. Geithner is simply a fool? How does dumping more liquidity into the market solve the problem when the market is already drowning in liquidity?


GEITHNER: Absolutely. Our obligation now, again, is to defuse and help unwind this deeply complicated problem that AIG presents. But we want to work with the Congress to put in place stronger tools, stronger resolution authority, so the government can come in more quickly, earlier, before things have passed the point of no return, contain the damage, prevent the fire from spreading, restructure the firm, have it emerge stronger, at less risk to the taxpayer. That's what we need. We should have had this before this crisis, but we didn't. But we need to move quickly now.

Secretary Geithner now says that he wants authority not granted him, the Federal government or anyone under the Constitution, authority to regulate, interfere with and assume control of private institutions. Any private institution. If you weren't scared before, you'd better be scared now.


STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk about government debt. A lot of Americans more and more are concerned about that. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 10 years, the government debt will be 82 percent of GDP. And I'm going to read a question that came in from one of our viewers, Bruce Gower of Rock Hill, South Carolina. He asks, "how do you justify printing money out of thin air and the amount of debt you are subjecting future generations to with this budget? Who cares if roads are smoother if I or my children can't afford a car to drive because of the hyperinflation that had taken away all their spending power?"
Are you worried about hyperinflation down the road?
GEITHNER: That's not going to happen in this country, will never happen.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?
GEITHNER: Will never happen. Because we have a strong, independent Fed, with a clear authority from the Congress to keep inflation low at -- stable at low levels going forward.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The Fed has been putting so much money into the system.
GEITHNER: But that's not going to create the risk of hyperinflation in the future.
We have a strong independent Federal Reserve with a very strong mandate from the Congress, and they will do what's necessary to keep inflation low and stable over time.



I dare you to name a more asinine Treasury Secretary among Mr. Geithner's 74 predecessors.
He is presiding over the second half of the $700 billion TRAP package approved last Fall, the $787 billion stimulus package, the $1 trillion bank rescue package and Obama's $3.6 trillion FY2010 Federal budget, yet he says that all this spending - the cure for the excessive spending he already blamed for starting the financial mess, mind you - will never cause inflation. That by itself defies logic, but he explains himself by saying that inflation will be strangled by an aggressive, proactive Federal Reserve who "will do what's necessary to keep inflation low and stable over time." Tell us. Mr. Geithner, how does the Federal Reserve plan to do that? How has the Federal Reserve controlled inflation in the past? By increasing interest rates so high that they discourage borrowing. Now I'm just the product of western Indiana public schools but that's just absurd. He admits the financial crisis was caused by too much borrowing but he and His Serene Loftiness want to stimulate more borrowing and then slam the brakes on borrowing. Who besides an economically illterate buffoon proposes an idiotic scheme like this? Imagine Jimmie Johnson flying down the straightaway at Talladega and rather than slowing down into Turn 1 to maintain control, he jams the accellerator to the floor. As his car screams toward the wall and he realizes he's going too fast, Jimmie then decides to plant both feet on the brakes. What would be the likely result of this scenario? The #48 car and Jimmie Johnson smeared all over the track, the wall, the stands and everything else, that's what. God save us from Tim Geithner and his demagogic boss and give us Jack Benny, because he might have made us laugh but he sure took good care of his money.

P.S.
HSL fired the CEO of General Motors today but didn't fire the head of the UAW. What do they call it when the workers own the means of production?


Source: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=7201898&page=1





Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Business/story?id=7206475&page=1

DaneGeld

A thousand years ago when pillaging was done the old-fashioned way, with swords, fire and slaughter rather than with legislation, it was common practice in northern Europe to pay huge bribes to the marauding tribes of Vikings then terrorizing the continent so they would do their marauding somewhere else - taking their show on the road, so to speak. The first of these bribes was paid by the Franks in 845 to prevent the sack of Paris, the Vikings being bought off with nearly six tons of silver and gold bullion which, if valued to its maximum, would be worth over $180 million by today's standards. That's big money even if your name is Alex Rodriguez and even bigger money if you're a Dark Age pirate intent on plunder, so an idea - and a phrase - was born: DaneGeld. Shakedown money for those lawless brigands of the North so they won't torch your crops and murder everyone in sight and it worked: For the Franks and the Danes.

You see, besides being bloodthirsty ogres, the Danes were smart enough to recognize easy money when they saw it. If they could make a fortune just by threatening violence, they'd settle for making threats. If the threats worked once, they'd probably work again. For example, in 991 after their victory at the Battle of Maddon, they demanded payment of 10,000 lbs. of silver from the English king Aethelred the Unready or they would burn his kingdom to the ground, and on advice from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Aethelred paid up. The Danes took the silver and left but returned three years later and demanded more as they laid siege to London, and they got it. The cycle was repeated in 1002, 1007, 1012 and 1018, by which time the Danes had extorted nearly 167,000 lbs. of silver from the English people, nearly denuding the island of its valuables. And the practice wasn't limited to the English. The historian Snorri Sturluson reported that Finland and her neighbors paid protection money to the Swedes and that people as far east as Moscow were forced to pay tribute to the rapacious Vikings. Currency blackmailed from their northern European victims was so widespread that more English coins from that period have been found in Sweden than in England itself.

The custom of paying DaneGeld may have spared the subject populations the immediate effects of the Vikings' fury but had widespread and disastrous effects in the longer term, namely:

• The psychological damage caused by being too weak to resist and being forced to pay their enemies not to attack them.
• Rather than improving their own lives, people had to work extremely hard to make their enemies rich.
• As long as DaneGeld had to be paid, a people were kept militarily weak so all their hard work made them no stronger.
• The nobility imposed crushing taxes on the peasants to both pay the DaneGeld and to maintain their lifestyles, sacrificing the common people to a lifetime of backbreaking labor and misery.
• Paying a huge DaneGeld only encouraged the Vikings to demand another.

Even the Vikings who demanded DaneGeld were undermined by the custom. Such fabulous treasure made the reputation of many a warrior but an economy based on extortion was doomed to fail: Having starved their victims of all their gold, the Vikings also starved themselves, condemning Scandinavia to nine centuries of subsistence living.

We are now led by a chieftain no less greedy than those horn-helmeted fiends of the frosty North. His Serene Loftiness Barack Obama, current lord of the skalli at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, demands that the diligent, prosperous workers of America hand over $5.4 trillion for redistribution among his loyal subjects the poor, minorities, illegals, unions and radical environmentalists, the sum consisting of the $787 billion stimulus package, the $1 trillion bank rescue package and his FY2010 Federal budget. This is over and above the $820 billion in rebates and bailouts already approved by the Bush administration which has had zero effect on the economy, but like his Viking predecessors, Mr. Obama gives no thought to the victims of his extortion because taking their money suits his purposes, not theirs. His vision is lofty (hence the title), the radical reshaping of our capitalist, free-enterprise economy into a true socialist model, oriented away from freedom and individual opportunity and toward regulation, entitlement and mediocrity. From somewhere in his past, he is motivated by a resentment of capitalism and its accent on personal drive and achievement, a bitterness flowing from the idea that if his subjects are poor it's because they were cheated, not because they made bad decisions, lacked education, missed opportunities or simply failed. To him, corporations are corrupt and executives are swindlers, and the only way to set things right is to take their profits - stolen from the poor and unfortunate - and give them back to the peasants. Like the Vikings, Obama thinks the fastest way to wealth is to steal from someone else, not help the poor earn more themselves.

Yet his resort to stratospheric levels of taxation and spending will undo him and his class-warfare friends as the DaneGeld undid the Danes, for the same reasons:

• Simply taking money from people who earn it and giving it to people who don't is not the same as prosperity.
• The people being exploited resent it and will find ways to rebel, hurting themselves and the exploiters.
• The people doing the exploiting will always demand more, not caring that they're crushing the source of their wealth until it's gone.

It would be well for Mr. Obama to hearken to the words of Rudyard Kipling, who said the following about demanding tribute and paying it:

"It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost;For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that pays it is lost!"