ThePhalanx.com

What a joke! Congress is clearly to blame for higher debit card fees, since recent legislation restricts the banks’ ability to charge merchants for the services they provide. The banks created a system that would enable merchants to instantly transfer payments from customers to the merchants, without the hassles of credit card processing. The merchants, who freely embraced these systems, subsequently balked at paying for their usage. Surely one cannot expect the banks to provide this service at a loss. This isn’t the government, businesses must charge for the services they provide and so naturally the banks must either charge the users or shut down the system.

Maybe they should be investigating Senator Dick Durbin since he bares the blame for the language creating the Durbin Tax, and kudos to the House for their efforts to repeal it. Then these leftists can ask Sen. Durbin why he received financial contributions from the merchants who lobbied for this change…what nonsense.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/debit-card-fees-wall-street-investigation_n_1008206.html

The Occupy Wall Street crowd has made it clear they want a revolution. The are marching on the homes of millionaires. How dare those dastardly millionaires (most of whom are self-made, not that that matters) keep the money that they earned, when there are people out there who are jealous of the success of others, and who are unwilling to take risks and make sacrifices to achieve their own success. Those millionaires need to turn that money over, to those who played NO role in creating it…turn it over to those who make irresponsible decisions and blame others for their situation.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/10/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_protest/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

The sad fact is, there will always be those who will rationalize or explain away their problems (and in some cases their overt failures)…there will also always be enablers, those who will always give others a pass…we all see them these are the parents who can never admit that their children has made a mistake, the same mentality breeds people who are never short of excuses for the problems they face…it can be seen in washington in the halls of power and it can be seen at Woodruff Park in Atlanta. The fact is, these people marching to the millionaires homes want to take from others because they face a setback (or maybe never tried in the first place) and therefore someone else is to blame. The millionaires in those homes faced setbacks too, but instead of sitting around blaming others or wringing their hands and beating drums and demanding that the government use its police power to steal from others, they got up and tried again, took risks, endured hardships and persevered.  These people are too prideful to cast a critical eye in the mirror would rather take it from someone else.

Now these same Dregs of Society are calling for violence to achieve their aims. This should, of course, come as no surprise…they want a revolution like the French Revolution of 1789. The same revolution in which tens of thousands of people were murdered at the hands of the National Razor. Such capital offenses included: complaining about the new order in France, not being enthusiastic enough about the revolution, criticizing the dictatorial committee of public safety, and of course anyone of wealth. Let the world see what the Dregs of Society have for the 99% of us who don’t believe in stealing to get ahead.

Imagine if the leaders of the United States held a national referendum. The question before the national electorate being one of who should be denied the right to vote. How do you suppose such a vote would play out? It would be safe to say that those who make up the majority of the population would be safe. This is the type of mob rule the founders of this nation were most fearful of. As Benjamin Franklin noted, democracy was not unlike two wolves and a sheep voting on what was for lunch, in such cases the rights of a minority will surely be trampled on, yet such injustices continue to exist and not in faraway lands where tyranny is a long accepted custom, but here in the United States, specifically the Cherokee Klan Nation.

In 2007, the 300,000 member tribe held a referendum on whether or not the decendenats of former Cherokee slaves who had been granted membership in the tribe over 100 years ago should be expelled. One has to wonder what were the underlying motivations of those who made the proposal in the first place. Needless to say, the overwhelming vote in favor of expulsion, has revealed the apparent underlining bigotry within the Cherokee Nation. By what concept of justice and morality can any majority through plebiscite attack to expropriate the rights of a minority? It is not just and it certainly should not be law, but alas it is and was, and the tribal court has now upheld the racially motivated decision. Cherokee proponents of the move argue they have the right to decide who is a member of their tribe and it should be based on blood rather than law or treaties, such as the 1866 treaty which extended membership to the former slaves. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is right to demand the Cherokee’s honor their treaty obligations.

Surely it is not a question of genetics…look upon some of these so-called Cherokees who have advanced this agenda, many of these Cherokees are as white as the palest Scandinavian, yet we are to believe they are the defenders of Cherokee purity? Nonsense, they are the defenders of bigotry and nothing more. Is anyone else struck by the incredible irony that a people who have endured such hardships, over the centuries, such as the Trail of Tears, could perpetrate such an injustice?

Links:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44516027/ns/us_news-life/#.TnDrxF28q5N

http://www.cherokeephoenix.org/Article/Index/5473

In three years a President we have a chief executive who would fit in quite nicely in the pages of a French history book, having the ego of Charles De Gaule, the economic ignorance of Louis XVI and the self-serving political opportunism of Marshall Petain. Indeed, this President for whom there has been not a single notable accomplishment before or during his president is noted for his Hugo Chavez like ability to blame others for his many, many short comings. Obama only true accomplishment is the creative ways in which he tries to insert the names of his predecessors and contemporaries when justify failed economic and/or political performance.

Its sad and perhaps laughable, that any man, with a straight face, can somehow mouth the words of blame for a economy whom he has personally shepherded through the doldrums since January 2009, whereas under any previous recession, significant recovery had long since between achieved within a 3 year time span. Perhaps it is not France, but Italy where President Obama’s most accurate comparison can be found. This president has labored tirelessly in pulling a Mussolini, that is he is working feverishly to  draw attention away from his personal failures through deception and distraction. One need only look toward the president’s new campaign site, dedicated not to an inspiring vision, no you will find no record of accomplishments championed, no only smears and attacks on his political opponents, and why not, such campaigning works.

But given the climate of uncertainty that now prevails in American, will anyone fall for a 2012 campaign of nonstop browbeating a name calling in lieu of extolling his many accomplishments? Yet, what else can we expect? This president has no accomplishments to extol…

Pity poor, Rick Perry, the governor has caught tremendous heat as of late for stating the obvious, given his assertion that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Well of course its a Ponzi scheme. But for most politicians, rather than confront this reality, it is far easier to demagogue those who challenge the conventional wisdom, given the gross ignorance of the masses

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors and to use for personal expenses, instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity.

http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm

In what way is Social Security NOT a ponzi scheme? The system is predicated on the belief that returns are guaranteed, that funds are secure, having been invested in a “lock box” or “trust fund,” while in reality these funds are spent as soon as they come in.

Indeed, without new investors this Social Security fraud would collapse, whereas if those funds were truly being invested in a trust fund, a new investor would not be a prerequisite for continued success. The essential difference between Social Security and a Ponzi scheme is the fact that Ponzi schemes are voluntary, where as Social Security is a scheme forced upon the citizenry through the coercive powers of the federal government.

This government has and continues to perpetrate a fraud on the American people, and worse, still,, though we are aware of the danger, legally there is nothing we can do about and those with legal responsibility, rather than being jailed for what would surely be a crime  in the private sector, these individuals are re-elected.

One must suppose that in this competitive climate, being a blowhard is something of a requirement for a union chief in an era of declining union membership. That certainly seems to be the case with regard to Teamsters president, James Hoffa.

Not one to shy away from controversy has declared war on the Tea Party and called on his members to “take out” the Tea party “son of a bitches” [sic]. As Hoffa noted they declared war on the unions first and thus the gloves have come off (assuming they were ever on nib the first place).

“It’s absolutely a war. They declared war on us. We didn’t declare war on them. They’re the ones that introduced right to work in 14 states, and went after public employee bargaining rights in both Wisconsin and Ohio. We’re fighting them across the board. They want to roll the clock back to about 1900…”

Imagine the premise that a person being free to work without being coerced, through force of law, to join an organization that doesn’t represent your interest is somehow regressive.

“they want to balance the budget on the back of working Americans. They don’t want to have more revenue from the billionaires and the trillionaires.”

While most of us have yet to meet the first trillioniare, the fact that the top 5% of income earners pay most of the revenues to the federal government must have slipped the mind of Hoffa, who himself is paid handsomely by extorting the hard earned salaries of his members. Nonetheless, we must give Hoffa credit for being true to form, if your very livelihood rested on the premise of maintaining an entrenched federal bureaucracy, even at the expense of future generations one would expect just such a rapid diatribe particularly given such a vitriolic and ethically questionable lineage.

Links:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/09/06/hoffa_on_tea_party_they_declared_war_on_us_we_didnt_declare_war_on_them.html

On this labor day, the president, challenged the Republicans in the House to pass a yet to be announced Obama jobs plan, placing country ahead of party. Anyone hearing Obama’s words must wonder why it has taken the president 3 years to focus on jobs. It seems that for most of his presidency he has worked tirelessly to create conditions sure to destroy as many jobs as humanly possible with increasing taxation, regulation and failed multi-trillion dollar government schemes, which have succeeded only in ballooning our federal debt.

Without question, Barack Obama is the most partisan president in recent history, his partisanship is only rivaled by his capacity to blame others for his mistakes and his colossal inexperience. Here we have a president with no experience managing ANYTHING, must less creating jobs, who has surrounded himself with professional bureaucrats who are equally inept with NO private sector experience.

This president has cultivated a climate so hostile to small, medium and large businesses that it should come as no surprise that not a single new job was created during the month of August. If Obama the Job Destroyer (OJD) was truly interested in job growth, he and his statist compatriots would resign en masse, is there any doubt the stock market and private sector growth would skyrocket in the absence  of OJD?

Links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14793919

Let’s imagine, as laughable and as utterly ludicrous as it may seem, Barack Obama was responsible for managing a business, be it a sandwich shop or a Fortune 500, would you honestly say that you would renew his contract?

No corporate board would allow such a slipshod record of “accomplishment” to continue. Any CEO with such a record as this president would surely be terminated. If any CEO increased his firms debt by over 25% in 3 years with nothing to show for it, meanwhile productivity was in steady decline, and prospects for future growth were none existent, the board would sure expect answers. If that CEO subsequently blamed his many many failures on his predecessors or the board itself one would surely witness a firing without delay, and the American people should expect no less.

Today, the most partisan president in American history denounced partisanship in Congress. The man who refers to his political opponents has his ENEMIES, has called on the citizens of this nation to bring about a citizen revolution against Congress.

Against Congress? What unmitigated audacity. Here we have a president with no vision, no plan, no ideas, no understanding of economics, no record of accomplishment and no public speaking ability minus a teleprompter and he has the nerve to speak out against partisanship? A man who hasn’t given a single speech since becoming president without blame someone else for his many many many problems. This is the man at the head of our affairs now?

It never ceases to amaze when a politicians version of history is compared with reality, such as President Obama’s criticism for tax breaks for corporate jets, when such breaks were advanced in the president’s so-called stimulus plan just 2 years ago. Today’s prize for re-writing history goes to Harry Reid, Senate Majority since the democratic takeover of that house in 2006. Reid called for a return to the fiscal discipline of the Democrats in the 1990s when the budget was balanced.

“[It's] time we return to the type of fiscal discipline that democrats brought to Washington in the 90′s when democrats in the Congress and White House balanced the budget and used the surplus to do what Mr. President? To pay down the debt…”

One must wonder if perhaps the strain of leadership has begun to vex the Senate leader…who knew Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole were Democrats, because the budget certainly wasn’t balanced until after they took control of Congress in 1995. Indeed, Congress has been under democratic control since the election of 2006 and Reid has never presented anything close to a balanced budget in his 5 plus years as Senate leader, and in the last 2 years there has been no budget at all. The premise that Congressional Democrats offer fiscal discipline is perhaps the greatest lie ever told in Washington and the fact that such a statement goes unchallenged by the media in the country, highlights the incredible bias of that institution.