Follow the Yellow Brick Road - Who Rules America - Part 1

God can and will heal our land, if we believe and have faith...
Hello, San Antonio. It is the first week of the New Year. Let’s start it off on good footing, and let us lay the groundwork that we must in order to understand what is important most of all to our freedoms in this land we all love so much.  God was the central focus of our Founders, and Christianity laid the groundwork for our sovereign laws. Through revisionism and secularism, those in power have worked feverishly to destroy those things, but their tireless work, has not completely p...

D.C. Holiday Pushes Tax Filing Deadline to April 18
Wednesday, January 05, 2011 By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Washington (AP) - Taxpayers will get an extra three days to file their Federal Tax returns this year, and they can thank the nation's capital for the extra time. The filing deadline is delayed because the District of Columbia will observe Emancipation Day on Friday, April 15. By law, local holidays in the nation's capital impact tax deadlines the same way federal holidays would, the Internal Revenue Service said. Taxpayers ...

The Great Middle Class Swindle
Fri Jan. 7, 2011 3:00 AM PST I think what Kevin’s story keeps missing is a plausible causal account of how a tiny number of financiers have been able to hoover up money from the median wage earner....I can tell you a story about how a tiny number of financiers have been able to hoover up money from the broad class of rich people in the 80th-99th percentile who own the bulk of the financial assets in the country by swindling them. I can tell you a story about how a tiny number of financier...

Supreme Court's Scalia Says Discrimination Is Constitutional
LAKEWOOD, COLO.--Antonin Scalia is now officially the Archie Bunker of the Supreme Court. I can hear it now: "If broads had wanted Constitutional protection, they shoulda asked for it!" In an interview with the online publication California Lawyer this past week, Scalia declared that the 14th Amendment doesn't protect women (or gays) from Discrimination: Q. In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thou...

Bank of America vs. Citizens of America
Fortune on the this week's quasi-stealth Bailout of the Bank of America from America's Toxic Twins, Fannie and Freddie: critics of the giant banks....charge that Monday's rally-stoking Mortgage-putback deal between Bank of America (BAC) and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is nothing more than a backdoor Bailout of the nation's largest lender. It comes courtesy, they say, of an administration struggling to find a fix for the Housing Market while quaking at the prospect of another housing-fueled banki...

Pakistani government caves in on fuel costs
ISLAMABAD: Reeling from the loss of a coalition partner and the Assassination of a ruling party Governor, the Pakistani government has capitulated to the opposition by announcing that it will reverse a recent fuel price increase. The decision signalled the weakened position of the government led by Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan People's Party, which faces threats from opposition parties to force its collapse. Though the move, announced late on Thursday, amounted to a possible lifeline for the Pres...

'Journey through hell'
No overall plan to rehouse one and a half million people still living in tents has been made public - despite the creation in New York of an Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). This body, co-chaired by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and former US President Bill Clinton, was set up to co-ordinate emergency and development programmes. Little rebuilding has been done. The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti has long faced chronic problems meeting its basic needs, and is in a cr...

Egypt's Real State of Emergency
In an editorial for the Washington Post, Mohamed ElBaradei bashes the current state of affairs in Egypt, denouncing the Corruption and "hodgepodge" of provisions that allows the ruling regime to retain its "iron grip" over the nation. Egypt has recently held yet another fraudulent and farcical election. Ballot boxes were stuffed. Votes were bought. People who considered voting for the opposition were subjected to violence by professional thugs. And these transgressions have been well documente...

Beware overreaching
It is bad enough that State Legislators are in charge of redrawing the district lines every 10 years to ensure safe election havens for themselves. It is insult to injury to have only one party draw the maps. Recent redistricting years have featured Legislatures split between Republicans and Democrats. This ensured Bipartisan participation - and the courts ultimately decided. The GOP controls both the Assembly and the Senate this year. What's ultimately needed is broader reform that substantiv...

A Modest Proposal on Kidney Donation
Last week, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour sparked considerable Controversy when he suspended the life sentences of two sisters--both convicted in 1994 for their part in an $11 armed Robbery--if one donated a kidney to the other. Gladys Scott had offered months earlier to donate to sister Jamie, who had been on Dialysis since early 2010. But when their release was made conditional upon Gladys's going through with it--a kidney-for-freedom quid pro quo--critics condemned Gov. Barbour. As two ...

Ivory V. Nelson, Lincoln University president, announces retirement
Ivory V. Nelson, who as president led Lincoln University out of Debt and spearheaded a building boom that is transforming the nation's oldest historically black college, will retire in June. Nelson, 76, guided the southern Chester County school during a critical time in its history, when university officials decided to relinquish majority control of the Barnes Foundation board of directors, leading to the art collection's Controversial move from Lower Merion to Center City. The decision was seen...

The question why Ryan Hart endorsed Ridgefield Barbie is answered: She bought him.
Politics is a quid pro quo deal, but I never thought that Ryan Hart was endorsing Barbie because she bought him... but that's a hard conclusion to avoid now. As a county chair, Hart had no right to endorse in a contested primary. His "reason" for violating the ethics of his position was always lame ("I promised") and so I wondered for the last year why he would chuck the responsibilities of his position to sell out to the local empty suit. Well, now I know. Hart just got announced as the Camas M...

Chamber Not Ready to Hail Daley Pick Yet
President Obama picked William M. Daley, a former commerce secretary, at least in part, for his ability to speak the language of Big Business and repair Mr. Obama’s bruised relations with Corporate America. But the president’s chief antagonist in the business community is not celebrating — yet. Thomas J. Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview with The Caucus that he is convinced that Mr. Daley will pursue Mr. Obama’s policies with vigor, even wh

Bill Daley selection pleases no one (but DC reporters)
Congratulations, Barack Obama, for making yet another decision that seems almost calculated to annoy the greatest number of people while appealing to the fewest. You know who's excited about bringing William Daley on as Chief of Staff? Longtime Beltway reporters. This was a pick aimed at pleasing Mark Halperin, who praised Daley as a wonderful "backgrounder" on "Hardball" the other day. No one else likes it. Do any Democrats anywhere besides the "Morning Joe" green room seriously think Obama des...

Michael Likosky: Pelosi Passes the Baton to Boehner
As we start the New Year, the mainstream press and blogosphere are remarkably consistent in their storyline. Republicans want a Restoration, a return to a time of Limited Government, when big businesses and embattled individualists united against unwise spending for the other guy. After a shellacking, President Obama is course-correcting, wooing Big Business, taking for granted his base, all with an eye toward 2012. Americans could be forgiven for thinking that politicians judge success by ...

Mike Lux: What Now?
Now that Bill Daley is the new White House Chief of Staff, there are two directions relations between Progressives and Populists with the White House can go. And no, those directions are not worse and worser. But worse is definitely one of them. Let me start by saying something that will surprise a lot of readers from this lefty populist: I actually like Bill Daley personally. I've known him for almost a quarter century, and he has always treated me with respect in spite of our many disagreeme...

Obama's new bromance with big business
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- President Obama seems to be trying to rebuild his ties with Corporate America, with the latest move being his plan to name prominent business leader William Daley as Chief of Staff. Daley, a JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) executive and former Commerce Secretary, will be named Thursday to serve as the new White House chief of staff, according to two senior officials. Email Print Comment In the wake of the defeat Democrats suffered in November's Congressional Elections, ...

Obama picks Daley as new chief of staff
Stephen Collinson, Agence France-Presse · Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011 WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama chose former commerce secretary William Daley as his new Chief of Staff Thursday, bringing a shrewd powerbroker on the wavelength of Wall Street into his retooled administration. His move delighted the business community but dismayed liberals who fear that Daley, who hails from a prestigious political dynasty in Mr. Obama’s adopted hometown of Chicago, is too conservative and too...

McConnell: Daley pick a 'hopeful sign'
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell called it a “hopeful sign” that there will soon be someone at the White House who knows how to run more than a “Lemonade Stand,” hailing President Barack Obama’s pick for his new top aide, William Daley. Obama announced Thursday that he would appoint a fellow Chicagoan, former banking executive and Commerce Secretary William Daley, to be his new Chief of Staff. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 On the Hill, McConne...

Right Review: The Ice Cream Maker by Subir Chowdhury
Some books are awfully long and tedious to read and add little or nothing to a reader’s knowledge; then there is The Ice Cream Maker. This short book explains one of the major problems facing modern-day America, the lack of emphasis on quality, and the steps that can be taken to reverse this trend. For those of us who were around in the 1960s and 1970s, American quality was something that everyone was proud of, and things made in some foreign countries were belittled as objects that would be ...

Tom Silva: Netflix Opens a Pandora's Box
The recent capitulation of Blockbuster video to Netflix has engendered a lot of ink. Most business writers seem to be getting no end of Schadenfreude at the sight of the king of the late fees (Blockbuster collected half a billion dollars in late fees in its heyday) getting its comeuppance at the hands of an organization that seems to get the concept of Customer Service. So the story we're hearing is that Netflix's ascendancy is the triumph of online retailing and technology over traditional re...

House of Morgan to the White House
The reaction to Daley from the left has been predictable, and baiting them may even be part of the reason Obama chose him: First, he's in fact of the center-right on policy; second, and a bit more subtly, picking him ratifies his criticism of the first two years as having veered too Far Left. But there's also a line of criticism, perhaps a bit more politically potent, from the right. As Michelle Malkin tweeted just now, "Bill Daley's 'Centrist'/'business' bio = greasing Fannie Mae patrona...

It's the 'people's House,' but which 'people'?
IT'S THE 'PEOPLE'S HOUSE,' BUT WHICH 'PEOPLE'?.... Ohio Republican John Boehner formally took the gavel this afternoon, becoming the 61st Speaker of the House. In his remarks -- which were, thankfully, far shorter than the half-hour Speech Newt Gingrich delivered upon becoming Speaker in '95 -- Boehner returned to one phrase in particular more than once. "The American People have humbled us. They have refreshed our memories as to just how temporary the privilege to serve is. They have reminded...

Darrell Issa Sells His Committee To Big Business-- Even Before He Takes Over Officially!
There is some fiercer than usual jockeying among our degenerate political class for the limitless bribes Big Business is willing to pay to make sure their interests are well served. That is the only true and enduring transpartisanship in DC. No one is scratching their head over Obama's apparent decision to name a corrupt Big Business hack like William Daley as his new Chief of Staff-- the perfect, if tragic, successor to Rahm Emanuel. It's all about the benjamins, even more so than about speci...

A Defense of the Free Market
One of the most common refrains from the political left and the media is that, regarding The Economy, Conservatives advocate for unchecked freedom for Big Business to do whatever it wants to do, and for no government interference with business at all. These assertions stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Conservatism. For the conservative, the issue comes down to the proper role of government. To have no government at all is anarchy, and certainly no conservative would argue...