Stock Market and Political Commentary

Power and Stupidity

This week was proof positive the democrats in Congress are power hungry to the extreme and the republicans and simply stupid beyond belief.

First let's consider the power hungry democrats.  They would have no office or power without the Constitution which establishes the office of the President and the Congress.  Before they take office they smile while holding their right hand in the air and placing their left hand on the Bible (or is it the Koran these days?) and they swear to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Next they become the arch enemy of the Constitution themselves.  They could care less about the constraints placed on the federal government outlined in this marvelous document, which is the foundation for all of our laws in the United States, that has been the basis for more freedom and prosperity for more people than has ever been experienced in human history.

 In the House of Representatives they passed a health care bill this week that shows just how power hungry and insane the democrats are and also shows they will take away every spec of your liberty and freedom unless they are stopped soon.

With this bill they are saying that they have the power to force every citizen in America to buy a particular product.  And if you don't what will they do?   Fine you heavily and throw you into prison for up to 5 years... for not buying health care insurance... and only the kind they approve!

 PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail

JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail

Friday, November 06, 2009

Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

                                                         - - - - - - - - - -                                                   

“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]

                                                         - - - - - - - - - -    
                                                

“Criminal penalties

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

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

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=153583

The Constitution in no way gives them the authority to do anything even close to this, but they could care less.  And as long as their are enough idiots in America that are able to pull the lever for these lunatics on election day they will do as they please.  But let me guarantee you one thing.  Our standard of living will drop like a stone and our freedoms will be nothing but a distant memory.  This is not theory; it is already happening now.

Now let's deal with the incredibly stupid republicans.  With the bill as written by the democrats it could not pass even though they had an overwhelming majority.  There was an internal fight among the democrats about certain areas of the bill.  In particular, many democrats would not vote for it if it contained federal funding for abortion.  So it would have simply died in the House.

If they had a lick of sense the republicans from the very start would have made it clear the Constitution in no way authorizes them to force Americans to buy health insurance and offered no amendments or participation in the Marxist action whatsoever.  

But no, here come the dummies to the rescue!  They push an amendment to ensure there is not any federal funding for abortion and this then allows enough democrats to vote for it to put it over the top by a super slim margin.  It was so close that if 3 representatives had voted "No" instead of "Yes" then the bill would not have passed.

Now I'm against abortion on demand and I'm certainly against federal funding for abortion.  But that is not the point.  By making this change the republicans gave cover to enough democrats on the issue to vote for the bill.  As long as it is alive it is a threat to our nation.

The republicans had a chance to kill it by staying away from it, but they were simply not smart enough to do that.  So now it is up to the Senate.  Are the republicans there any smarter than they are in the House?  Don't bet the farm on it.

Folks I can't stress enough what a disaster this thing will be for Americans if it becomes law.  You will be forced to pay a large percentage of your income for health care that will be greatly diminished from what it is now.  This may be the price we all have to pay for stupidity.  Can we afford it?  No.  The final outcome will be ugly.

J. Cogburn

The Plan In Action

Did you know there are millions of people who have a plan for your life?

Well they do, and they are called liberals.  Now let's see how their plans actually work.

First, they drum up phony fears about generating electricity through nuclear power.  Next, they fight all efforts to get our own energy through drilling off shore, drilling on shore, drilling in Alaska, etc.  Instead they talk about putting up windmills that are ugly, expensive, and produce zero power when the wind is not blowing.

Then presto!  It is finally time for them to begin controlling your life directly.  

California appears poised to be first to ban power-guzzling big-screen TVs

But don't worry because it is for a good cause.  In exchange for giving up your freedom to watch the type of TV that you want you get the following:

"The payoff could be big for TV owners, said Ken Rider, a commission staff engineer. Average first-year savings from reduced electricity use would be an estimated $30 per set and $912 million statewide, he said."

Yes that's right..... you get to save $30 a year.   What a deal!

This is just another example of how liberals know much more about how you should live your life than you do.  Imagine, if left to your own devices you would be watching one of these big screen high definition TV's that are really nice to watch, especially for sports and nature programs, and wasting $30 per year.  

Fortunately the liberals are going to put a stop to all this wasteful spending... and believe me,  they know about wasteful spending.  Next stop on the complete government control tour;  health care.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bigtvs14-2009oct14,0,4908205.story

J. Cogburn

New and Important Development

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Judge Confirms Eligibility Trial to Proceed

I just received a call from Orly Taitz, my attorney in the case seeking proof of Obama's eligibility for the Office of President of the United States. Judge Carter has release a statement declaring that the dates he set for the hearing and trial on the eligibility issue are confirmed, and it will move forward as scheduled. Apparently he was not swayed by the Obama lawyer's arguments.

Could it be that a judge will have backbone enough to actually uphold the Constitution and demand Obama produce a certified copy of his birth certificate?  If so there will be one of two questions Obama needs to answer...

1.  Since your birth certificate says you were born in Hawaii, why did you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers to keep from showing a certified birth certificate that you could have produced for $15 if in fact you were legal?  (Since his father was not a US citizen he actually cannot meet the natural born citizen clause in the Constitution anyway but they will ignore that and declare victory if his actual birth certificate shows he was born in Hawaii).

2.  Why did you commit the biggest fraud in American history? 

3. Will you be willing to grant interviews while you are serving your well deserved prison term?

4. Will you have William Ayers write another book for you about your sorry life that lists you

as the author?

These are important questions if we are to take the law seriously in this country.

If not we are now officially a banana republic and this will become more apparent as time goes on.

http://loyaltoliberty.blogspot.com/

J. Cogburn

Debtors Revolt - Interesting Video

This lady is revolting against Bank of America and I'm cheering her on!

Even though I am a big believer in the free market, I also believe in a few common sense rules to govern our society too.  

I do not believe financial institutions in America should be able to charge more than 15% interest on anything at anytime.  If they can't make the loan for that then don't make the loan. If they can't issue a credit card for that then don't issue the credit card. The average person would be better off not getting a loan than getting one with a very high interest rate....guaranteed.

And what has this lady upset is something I've said long ago is simply immoral in my opinion.  Even though she has paid her credit card bill on time for years they suddenly decided to jack up her interest rate to 30%.  I don't care if they put it in the fine print; it should not be allowed!  

This is something that some of the democrats have been more interested in than Republicans, but that is OK with me.  I'm always interested in what is the right thing to do for our country and our citizens, not which party supports it.  But it just so happens that modern day democrats normally support things that take us further from the Constitution and Freedom so I oppose them most of the time.

Under the Constitution the Federal government actually has authority to be involved in Interstate Commerce.  They have abused this power terribly, and pretend that it gives them the right to regulate everything, but because of the nature of credit cards this I think would be a legitimate area for them to be involved in, especially if it was ensuring usury rates were not being charged to consumers.

See the Video

After you watch the video take a look at some background on how the credit card companies are sidestepping the usury laws at:

Article on Sidestepping Usury Laws

J. Cogburn

Bankruptcy Stats Not in Speech

Did you notice Obama forgot to mention the latest bankruptcy stats in his speech to a Joint Session of Congress this week?

What he did say was this:

"But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink."

However, an article the next day says this:

Nationally, individual Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings jumped 73 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to the National Bankruptcy Research Center, a research firm in Burlingame, Calif.

So far this year, more Chapter 11 non-business cases have been filed in Middle Tennessee than all of last year, according to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Middle District of Tennessee. Thirty-nine personal Chapter 11 cases have been filed in 2009, compared with 11 by this time last year.

Somebody is a liar... is it Obama or the author of this article?

Bankruptcy Article

J. Cogburn

Fellow Human Beings

Recently my Canadian friend sent me the following message...

"You tell me a young girl shots and kills a man as if it was something that a normal US citizen can do and get a good night sleep after doing a good job killing a fellow human being. Something is very wrong with you." 

My response.....

Here is a story about some of our "fellow human beings" here in the US.  

I say society and this poor girl would have been much better off if the girl or someone else had shot this SOB right between the eyes when he was trying to kidnap her.  What do you say Phil?

PLACERVILLE, Calif. – Joyous, miraculous news that a little girl kidnapped nearly two decades ago was found alive gave way Thursday to the horrifying details of how police say she has lived all those years: kept in captivity by a convicted rapist in his backyard and forced to bear two of his children.

Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was 11 in 1991 when she was snatched from her school bus stop, was locked away from the outside world behind a series of fences, sheds and tents in the back of a suburban home.

Her abductor, investigators said, raped her and fathered two children with her, the first when Jaycee was about 14. Those children, both girls now 11 and 15, also were kept hidden away in the backyard compound.

"None of the children have ever been to school, they've never been to a doctor," El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said. "They were kept in complete isolation in this compound."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090828/ap_on_re_us/us_kidnapped_girl_found

J. Cogburn

What Would a Judge Say?

Suppose you made a claim in court.  Then a judge says the claim must be validated by showing the court a certified copy of a legal document issued by the state that we'll call a "Type A document".

To satisfy this, you tell the judge to look at a "Type B document" on the internet.  The document was not presented to the court by the state or even by you; it was simply an image out on a web page.  In addition, the judge required the document to be Type A and the web page has an image of Type B.

What would be the judge's reaction?  You most likely would be held in contempt of court, fined, and probably thrown in jail.

Yet this is what Obama has done.  His Certificate of Birth shown on the internet is not a Birth Certificate.  And yet this is the proof he has given regarding his claim to be a natural born citizen even though we know his father was from Kenya and that he attended Muslim schools in outside the country in his youth.  

Only a fool would accept an image of a document on a web page as absolute and legal proof of anything.  Yet all the fools of this nation and Obama Kool-Aid drinkers are doing just that.

Perhaps our CIA officers, who they now want to prosecute for protecting our country after 9/11, could refer the court to document images they have posted on the internet when asked for any documents that were created during their interrogations.  To follow the Obama precedent, when asked about interrogation documents they could post school term papers on a web page and have the judge take a look and see that the term papers confirm they did not conduct an illegal interrogation.

J. Cogburn

What Is My Solution?

My Canadian friend writes.....

Jim you sure know how to distort things. GM shuts down = dealers shut down, part companies shutdown, GMAC shuts down(that is the one that got GM into trouble), my friend's warranty on his new chev. is invalid, etc..

Phil

PS what was your solution to the car industry, banking and the economy? 

My reply...

The fact that you think I have distorted the facts is simply confirmation that I am correct.  With interest, how long do you think it is going to take the taxpayers to pay back all these hundreds of billions of dollars given to banks and car companies?

And what were the opportunity costs for spending the money on bankrupt car

companies and banks instead of somewhere else in our economy?

btw, are we taxpayers supposed to be on the hook for $70,000,000,000.00 because some GM and Chrysler owners who could afford to buy a new car might not have their warranty honored?  I didn't buy a new car from GM or Chrysler... how is that supposed to be my financial problem?  Or worse yet, why is making this my children's problem a good idea by forcing them to pay back this debt when they are adults?

You know the amazing thing is that liberals today and many misguided conservatives think that we have to reinvent the wheel every time somebody or some business has a problem, financial or otherwise.  They think these type of situations never occurred in the past.

Very, very wise white men (not Latina women) created the Constitution of the United States.  It is an incredible document that allowed the United States to produce over 30% of the world's GDP with only 5% of the world's population in less than 200 years after the country was founded.  Even today we still are producing over 20% of the world's GDP.

Why?  Because the Constitution established a rule of law, property rights, and freedom that allowed men to create wealth through their labors and not have it confiscated by lawless dictators.  When people are allowed to freely trade and become wealthy through their ingenuity and hard work they work hard and create ingenious inventions that benefit everyone.

Just consider the cases of North Korea vs. South Korea.... East Germany vs. West Germany.. the Soviet Union vs. the United States.... there is no comparison in economic output.  Why?  Freedom, property rights, and contract law  vs. authoritarian dictators and government officials making all the rules and decisions for the people, it's as simple as that.

The solution to most all of our problems today is to simply follow the Constitution, but we are gettting further and further away from it and Obama is trying to trash it completely.  Take our national debt for example.  If the federal government would follow the Constitution we would not have this debt because they would realize the powers of the Federal government were narrowly defined in the Constitution and that most everything they are doing, except for national defense and interstate commerce, is power that resides with the states.

Therefore, if they were actually following the Constitution the federal government would not be

able to throw money at every cause they think is worthwhile and that includes education

and health care.  Nowhere in the Constitution does is allow the federal government to be involved

in these areas of our economy, but those are the primary things our idiot politicians running

for a federal office wants to talk about.  I guess they think the people in the states are

just to stupid to be able to handle the education of their kids and their health care needs.

This was addressed by James Madison, considered by most to be the father of the Constitution, in the Federalist papers (45 I think).  He stated that the "general welfare" clause

did not give the federal government the right to do anything beyond what was specifically

outlined for them to do in the Constitution and again stated that those powers for the federal

government were very narrowly defined.

The Constitution outlined a process called bankruptcy.

The founders knew that sometimes in life things go south financially for people and for businesses.

Bankruptcy law is well established and is the proper mechanism for handling situations like the banks,

GM, and Chrysler found themselves in during the last few months.  

This means real bankruptcy through actual bankruptcy courts where contract law that has been established for over 100 years is what determines how the assets will be divided... and the bondholders are first in line, not last in line like the Obama thugs decided just because the new King wanted to pay off his supporters, namely the UAW.

Would all these jobs have been lost if GM and Chrysler went belly up?  No. 

The other carmakers, including Ford and Toyota which have plants here in the US, would have sold more cars and

hired more workers if the market needed more auto production.  So in reality we taxpayers

were soaked $70 billion to date ($50 billion for GM and $20 billion for Chrysler) and in reality

we saved few if any jobs when you subtract the additional workforce that would have been

hired at the surviving car companies.

Low tax rates, reasonable regulations, and free markets are always the answers to more prosperity for more people.  

Don't believe it?  When the automobile was invented people started losing jobs in the horse and buggy industry.  Would it have made sense for taxpayers to subsidize these companies in order to save jobs?  No.

Let the strong survive and let the weak fail.  This clears the way for capital and labor to move into something new and more prosperous based on market demands when companies are allowed to fail based on market conditions.

Through this process we will all be better off.  It's the "invisible hand" at work which Adam

Smith talked about in his Wealth of Nations book written many years ago.

"But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or rather is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by aninvisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it."

Wealth of Nations

J. Cogburn

Interesting Interview

The link below is an interview on July 28 with Allan Keyes that some of you might be interested in.

Notice how logical and clear minded Allan Keyes is.... then think back to the stumbling, stammering Obama when he is off the teleprompter.... in his prime time health care address Obama advises us to take the red pill instead of the blue pill if it's half the price and does the same thing (this man is a genius), etc.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1886760

J. Cogburn

Ted Nugent on Guns

Ted is 100% right.... but insane people don't think that citizens have a right to defend themselves against evil men who are out to mame, rape, and even murder them and their family.  Extreme liberalism is in fact a mental disease evidenced by the fact is totally devoid of logic and common sense.  Unfortunately it is a growing problem in the US and as such our freedoms are under assault as we speak.
 
An insane person has no concept of reality.  They apparently have no clue as to what actually happens when a crime is committed and how the criminal can almost always complete the crime before police arrive even if the victim is able to call the police.
 
The extreme liberal mind also cannot grasp the difference between the innocent and the guilty and how the rules of society apply differently to them.
 
For example, they think killing someone is the same regardless of the circumstances.  They think killing an innocent man is the same as killing someone who has invaded your home and is trying to rob and harm your family.  This is of course certified insanity and anyone who has a properly functioning brain knows it is insanity.
 
But the modern day liberal does not understand this.  They believe they have a morally superior position by insisting that thieves should be allowed to steal, rapists should be allowed to rape, and murderers should be allowed to murder without fear of armed resistance from their intended victims.  This is the thought process of morons and lunatics.... or sheep I suppose.
 
http://biggeekdaddy.com/miscvideos/TedNugent.html
 
J. Cogburn