Video Clip:Milton Friedman – The Robber Baron Myth

Milton Friedman – The Robber Baron Myth

Uploaded by on Mar 15, 2010

Professor Friedman explodes the myth that America’s 19th century industrialists exploited the ordinary man

May 1, 2012 – 7:05 am Categories: Milton Friedman | Post a comment

An open letter to President Obama (Part 67)

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

In this article below you will see that the American people do not want Obamacare but yet it is being crammed down their throats and all the regulations that go with that too.

Sickening Regulation

by Michael D. Tanner

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.

Added to cato.org on February 29, 2012

This article appeared in National Review (Online) on February 29, 2012.

Never underestimate the brilliance of our federal bureaucracy.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it must delay implementation of new reimbursement codes for Medicare. Those new regulations would have increased the total number of reimbursement codes from the current 18,000 to more than 140,000 separate codes. The delay will undoubtedly come as a relief for physicians who will have additional time to try to understand the bureaucratic complexity of rules that, for example, apply 36 different codes for treating a snake bite, depending on the type of snake, its geographical region, and whether the incident was accidental, intentional self-harm, assault, or undetermined. The new codes also thoroughly differentiate between nine different types of hang-gliding injuries, four different types of alligator attacks, and the important difference between injuries sustained by walking into a wall and those resulting from walking into a lamppost.

And Democrats wonder why Americans still resist having the government control our health care?

Less than a month before the Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of Obamacare, the American people have already reached their judgment. According to the latest USA Today poll, fully 75 percent of Americans believe the new health-care law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional. And if the Court doesn’t throw Obamacare out, Americans want Congress to do so: Half of voters want the law repealed, compared to 44 percent who want it retained. Moreover, those who want it repealed feel much more intensely about it. Fully 32 percent “strongly support” repeal, compared to just 18 percent who “strongly oppose” it. This is consistent with other polls — for example, the latest Rasmussen poll has 53 percent of likely voters supporting repeal, with just 38 percent opposed — and virtually unchanged since the law passed.

[F]ully 75 percent of Americans believe the new health-care law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional.

Despite constant predictions by the media and the laws supporters, Obamacare is not becoming more popular.

The public seems to understand that government intervention does not generally make things less expensive. And there are good reasons for the public’s skepticism. For example, the Congressional Budget Office reported in December that at least six programs that were supposed to save money under Obamacare not only don’t, but some actually are increasing costs. And Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of both Obamacare and its precursor Romneycare, now says that premiums are likely to rise under the new health-care law. In fact, Gruber warns that, even after receiving government subsidies, some individuals will end up paying more than they would have without the reform. Gee, thanks, Mr. President.

And the public understands that imposing new taxes, mandates, and regulations will do nothing to create jobs in a struggling economy. In fact, a poll released last month by the Chamber of Commerce showed that for 74 percent of small businesses they’re “causing an impediment to job creation.”

At the same time, the controversy over the administration’s contraception mandate has brought home to voters just how coercive the health-care law really is.

Most of all, Americans understand that, from the beginning, the debate over health-care reform has been about control. The Obama administration believes that decisions about health care are simply too important and too complex for the average American and his doctor to make for themselves. Only the experts in Washington can get those decisions right. After all, only Washington can understand the difference between a burn from a hot toaster (Code No. X15.1) and a burn from an electronic-game keyboard (Code No. Y93.C1).

Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the American people just don’t believe them.

__________-

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

May 1, 2012 – 7:04 am Categories: Healthcare, President Obama | Post a comment

Hitler’s last few hours before entering hell (never before released photos)

Below are several never released before pictures of Hitler’s bunker. These are the sights that Hitler took in last before entering hell. How do I know he entered hell? Read below and you will see why I can say that with confidence.

LIFE: Hitler’s Bunker

On Monday, April 30, on the anniversary of the day in 1945 when Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in a bunker beneath Berlin, LIFE.com presents a gallery of photos (many of which were not published in LIFE) from the bunker itself and from the ruined city beyond its walls, taken by LIFE’s William Vandivert — the first Western photographer to descend into the bunker.

Unpublished: Russian soldiers and a civilian struggle to move a large bronze Nazi Party eagle which once loomed over a doorway of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, 1945. (William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Hitlernext

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This is a new view of a photograph that appeared, heavily cropped, in LIFE, picturing Hitler’s command center in the Berlin bunker, partially burned by retreating German troops and stripped of valuables by invading Russians. (William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Hitlernext

 
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With only candles to light their way, war correspondents examine a couch stained with blood (see dark patch on the arm of the sofa) located inside Hitler’s bunker, 1945. (William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Hitlernext

 
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Unpublished: An SS officer’s cap, with the infamous “death’s head” skull emblem barely visible. Of this image, Vandivert’s notes state simply: “moldy SS cap lying in water on floor of sitting room.” (William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Hitlernext

 
 
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Unpublished: LIFE correspondent Percy Knauth (left) sifts through debris in the shallow trench in the garden of the Reich Chancellery where, Knauth was told, the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were burned after their suicides. (William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Hitler
 
Hell is required because evil must be punished. If hell did not exist then Hitler would have got off because he was never punished for his crimes. Many of his followers lived long and fruitful lives after the war too. However, they will face punishment in the afterlife. Read on.

Adrian Rogers – Crossing God’s Deadline Part 2

Huckabee on Bin Laden’s Death: Who Cares How We Did It, This Was a Murderer

John Brummett in his article “Huckabee speaks for bad guy below,” Arkansas News Bureau, May 5, 2011 had to say:

Are we supposed to understand and accept that Mike Huckabee is in hell where he has official duties as a greeter,welcoming Osama bin-Laden?

We all suspect strongly, of course, that bin-Laden will spend eternity in hell, whatever his form and whatever hell’s. But we should not embrace a politician’s seeking electoral gain by dictating and announcing after-life dispositions. Those we should defer to a higher power, whose divine authority no mortal man should dare usurp, even for TV ratings or votes, or both.

I really am uncomfortable with all this kind of lighthearted talk about hell. The traditional Christian view of hell is a very serious doctrine. It is a necessary doctrine and today I want to show why.

Take a look at this portion of the article “Hell:The Horrible Choice,” by Patrick Zukeran of Probe Ministries. Here is the fifth installment:

 Why Hell Is Necessary and Just

Is hell necessary? How is this doctrine consistent with a God of love? These are questions I face when I speak on the fate of unbelievers. The necessity and justice of hell can be recognized when we understand the nature of God and the nature of man.

Hell is necessary because God’s justice requires it. Our culture focuses mostly on God’s nature of love, mercy, and grace. However, God is also just and holy, and this must be kept in balance. Justice demands retribution, the distribution of rewards and punishments in a fair way. God’s holiness demands that He separate himself entirely from sin and evil (Habakkuk 1:13). The author of Psalm 73 struggles with the dilemma of the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked. Joseph Stalin was responsible for the death of millions in the Soviet Union, but he died peacefully in his sleep without being punished for his deeds. Since evil often goes unpunished in this lifetime, it must be dealt with at a future time to fulfill God’s justice and holiness.

Notes1. Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 282.
2. Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (New York: Touchstone Books, 1957), 17 – 18.
3. Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, ed. Nora Darwin Barlow, with original omissions restored (N.Y.: W. W. Norton, 1993), 87.
4. C. S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan), 69.Woody Allen’s movie Crimes and Misdemeanors does a great job of showing that if God does not exist then people like Stalin and Hitler were “home free” in that they were never going to be punished for what they did. “Existential subjects to me are still the only subjects worth dealing with. I don’t think that one can aim more deeply than at the so-called existential themes, the spiritual themes.” WOODY ALLEN

Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS , is an excellent icebreaker concerning the need of God while making decisions in the area of personal morality. In this film, Allen attacks his own atheistic view of morality. Martin Landau plays a Jewish eye doctor named Judah Rosenthal raised by a religious father who always told him, “The eyes of God are always upon you.” However, Judah later concludes that God doesn’t exist. He has his mistress (played in the film by Anjelica Huston) murdered because she continually threatened to blow the whistle on his past questionable, probably illegal, business activities. She also attempted to break up Judah ‘s respectable marriage by going public with their two-year affair. Judah struggles with his conscience throughout the remainder of the movie. He continues to be haunted by his father’s words: “The eyes of God are always upon you.” This is a very scary phrase to a young boy, Judah observes. He often wondered how penetrating God’s eyes are.

Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his religious father had with Judah ‘s unbelieving Aunt May at the dinner table many years ago:

“Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazis, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says aunt May

Sol replies, “May, how did they get away with it?”

Judah asks, “If a man kills, then what?”

Sol responds to his son, “Then in one way or another he will be punished.”

Aunt May comments, “I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free.”

Judah ‘s final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”

Woody Allen has exposed a weakness in his own humanistic view that God is not necessary as a basis for good ethics. There must be an enforcement factor in order to convince Judah not to resort to murder. Otherwise, it is fully to Judah ‘s advantage to remove this troublesome woman from his life.

The Bible tells us, “{God} has also set eternity in the hearts of men…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV). The secularist calls this an illusion, but the Bible tells us that the idea that we will survive the grave was planted in everyone’s heart by God Himself. Romans 1:19-21 tells us that God has instilled a conscience in everyone that points each of them to Him and tells them what is right and wrong (also Romans 2:14 -15).

It’s no wonder, then, that one of Allen’s fellow humanists would comment, “Certain moral truths — such as do not kill, do not steal, and do not lie — do have a special status of being not just ‘mere opinion’ but bulwarks of humanitarian action. I have no intention of saying, ‘I think Hitler was wrong.’ Hitler WAS wrong.” (Gloria Leitner, “A Perspective on Belief,” THE HUMANIST, May/June 1997, pp. 38-39)

Here Leitner is reasoning from her God-given conscience and not from humanist philosophy. It wasn’t long before she received criticism. Humanist Abigail Ann Martin responded, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” (THE HUMANIST, September/October 1997, p. 2)

The secularist can only give incomplete answers to these questions: How could you have convinced Judah not to kill? On what basis could you convince Judah it was wrong for him to murder?

As Christians, we would agree with Judah ‘s father that “The eyes of God are always upon us.” Proverbs 5:21 asserts, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths.” Revelation 20:12 states, “…And the dead were judged (sentenced) by what they had done (their whole way of feeling and acting, their aims and endeavors) in accordance with what was recorded in the books” (Amplified Version). The Bible is revealed truth from God. It is the basis for our morality. Judah inherited the Jewish ethical values of the Ten Commandments from his father, but, through years of life as a skeptic, his standards had been lowered. Finally, we discover that Judah ‘s secular version of morality does not resemble his father’s biblically-based morality.

Woody Allen’s CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS forces unbelievers to grapple with the logical conclusions of a purely secular morality. It opens a door for Christians to find common ground with those whom they attempt to share Christ; we all have to deal with personal morality issues. However, the secularist has no basis for asserting that Judah is wrong.

Larry King actually mentioned on his show, LARRY KING LIVE, that Chuck Colson had discussed the movie CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS with him. Colson asked King if life was just a Darwinian struggle where the ruthless come out on top. Colson continued, “When we do wrong, is that our only choice? Either live tormented by guilt, or else kill our conscience and live like beasts?” (BREAKPOINT COMMENTARY, “Finding Common Ground,” September 14, 1993)

Later, Colson noted that discussing the movie CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS with King presented the perfect opportunity to tell him about Christ’s atoning work on the cross. Colson believes the Lord is working on Larry King.

(Caution: CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is rated PG-13. It does include some adult themes.)
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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments
April 30, 2012 – 4:41 pm Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

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Gun control in Europe

I really like this post by Dan Mitchell:

About a week ago, I wrote that people in western nations need the freedom to own guns just in case there are riots, chaos, and social disarray when welfare states collapse.

Much to my surprise and pleasure, this resulted in an invitation to appear on the National Rifle Association’s webcast to discuss the issue.

Uploaded by on Dec 1, 2011

Ginny Simone talks to Dan Mitchell from the CATO Institute – NRA News – December 1, 2011

_______________

As I noted in the interview, I’m just a fiscal policy wonk, but the right to keep and bear arms should be a priority for anyone who believes in freedom and responsibility. And even though I only have a couple of guns, you can see that I’m raising my kids to have a proper appreciation for the Second Amendment.

I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point where we suffer societal breakdown, but I won’t be too surprised if it happens in some European countries. We’ve already seen the challenges faced by disarmed Brits during recent riots in the United Kingdom.

In the NRA interview, I pointed out that law enforcement is one of the few legitimate functions of government, so it is utterly despicable when politicians fail to fulfill that responsibility and also deprive households from having the ability to protect themselves.

Last but not least, watch this video if you want to be inspired about protecting the Second Amendment. Pay close attention around the five-minute mark.

April 30, 2012 – 1:16 pm Categories: Gun Control | Post a comment

The experts on gun control speak out

Great post from Dan Mitchell:

This image really captures the essence of the issue. Share this with your statist friends and maybe they’ll begin to understand.

 

April 30, 2012 – 1:11 pm Categories: Gun Control | Post a comment

Balancing the budget possible with socialist solutions?

I got this cartoon below from Dan Mitchell’s blog.

Where can our government turn to get out of this socialist mess they have got themselves in? They have to realize what really creates wealth. Over in France they are facing the same problems we are because of the welfare state and they are about to put in a bunch of new leaders who want more of the same. How can you get out of this mess by doing the same thing that got you in the mess to begin with? Bradley Gitz wrote on 4-29-12 in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Escape from reality

LITTLE ROCK — The “left” is making a comeback in France. Not just Francois Hollande’s Socialists, but the hard left guys, the French Communist Party (PCF).

More than two decades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union supposedly signaled the end of Marxism-Leninism as a viable belief system, the Communists are once again attracting huge crowds waving red flags and their candidate, the “charismatic” Jean-Luc Melenchon, is said to hold the key to the outcome of the May run-off between Hollande and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Just as some Catholics can be more Catholic than the Pope, during the Cold War the PCF was often more Stalinist than Stalin (or at least Leonid Brezhnev and Andrei Gromyko). The crimes against humanity committed by the Soviet regime and other Communist despotisms around the world never seemed to make a dent in their moral obtuseness. The PCF even condemned Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika as a betrayal of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

That such a blight on the human experience, one exceeding even Nazism in its body count, could gain electoral traction in an advanced postindustrial democracy tells us something other than that cheese-eating surrender monkeys have a unique capacity for political idiocy. Indeed, the foundation of the Communist comeback has been resistance to the austerity measures that the French government has been reluctantly forced to embrace due to France’s mounting debt problems. The irony comes when considering that Communism represents the most extreme extrapolation of the welfare state mentality that produced such debt levels in the first place.

The European crisis (and the American crisis, too) is essentially a crisis of the welfare state. More precisely, it represents the presentation of the bill for payment that the welfare state has racked up for decades on both sides of the Atlantic. And in both Europe and America, the left, whether Communist, socialist,or “liberal-progressive,” is counting upon voters refusing to accept reality and the austerity measures that it so obviously dictates. More of what caused the disease is now being recommended as treatment.

Just as Communism in its heyday represented an effort to repeal the laws of human nature and the economic realities that flowed from them, today’s French Communists (and American liberals) seek to deny that budget numbers have any real meaning because money grows on trees.

What Charles Krauthammer calls “free lunch egalitarianism” is now firmly, perhaps irreversibly, entrenched in the politics of democratic states. That you can get something for nothing (or at least something that others can be made through political coercion to pay for) increasingly drives the voting behavior of ever-larger chunks of their dependent, dumbed-down electorates.

Momentum in that direction continues even after the money has run out.

The ability of Communism to survive in the electoral politics of France requires both historical amnesia regarding its crimes as well as an encouragement of the human desire to believe that two plus two really can be made to add up to seven or eight if one wishes it hard enough; that if we just close our eyes, plug up our ears, and stamp our feet in unison those nasty budget deficits will magically disappear, there will be no need for painful austerity programs, and we can go on providing free college tuition, health care, housing, and anything else that the political left designates as a fundamental human right without economic repercussion.

In the end, there is apparently something deeply ingrained in human nature that makes Communism and other forms of political leftism alluring. But just as there will always be credulous people living under the imperfections of capitalism who crave what Communism promises, there will always also be people who seek to escape from the ugly practice of Communism wherever it is established. What history has never produced, and likely never will, are a people who, once having arrived at the Communist paradise, are content to remain there. The guard towers atop the Berlin Wall weren’t, after all, designed to prevent people from entering.

Of course, no one with anything resembling a functioning brain really believes that if the French do what Melenchon and the PCF recommends-to confiscate wealth, nationalize banks and industries, and dramatically increase government benefits and the minimum wage-things will go well for France. Rather,

their supporters appear to only be hoping that it will provide them with the ability to continue to live beyond their means for a bit longer, and thereby push the inevitable crash onto the next generation.

The truly sad thing about all of this is that the formula for economic growth in the post-industrial age isn’t all that complicated, consisting as it does of secure property rights, low tax rates, and reasonable constraints upon governmental regulation, spending, and welfare state entitlements.

The left, whether in its French Communist or American liberal permutations, cannot construct sustainable societies because it has never figured out where wealth comes from. There are, in the end, no “shortcuts” to prosperity, and reality can only be temporarily ignored.

———◊-

———

Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial, Pages 75 on 04/29/2012

Print Headline: Escape from reality

<!–Editorial 75

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April 30, 2012 – 6:02 am Categories: Social Security, spending out of control | Post a comment

An open letter to President Obama (Part 66)

Sen. Toomey responds to State of the Union address 2012

Leader Cantor On CNN Responding To President Obama’s State of the Union Address

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

Here is an excellent piece from the Heritage Foundation with a reaction to the president’s proposed budget:

Obama’s Energy Budget: The Antithesis of a Market-Driven Energy Economy – Nicolas Loris

If only entrepreneurs had President Obama’s vision of what technologies are going to be successful and profitable in the future. Sadly, the President’s vision seems to suggest that America’s innovators lack the ingenuity and expertise to meet our country’s needs, leaving the taxpayer to pick up the dropped ball. In a nutshell, that’s President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 Department of Energy (DOE) budget. It completely rejects the notion of a market-based energy industry and wastes taxpayer dollars at a time when we desperately need to curtail out-of-control spending. Whether it’s renewable energy, energy efficiency, nuclear, or fossil fuels, the President’s blueprint is all wrong. Not the Government’s Role to Make Energy Technologies Cost Competitive Each year, the President’s budget has moved further away from basic research and more into commercializing politically preferred technologies.

For instance, the 2013 budget proposes to spend $310 million on the SunShot Initiative, a program to make solar energy cost-competitive without subsidies by 2020. The oxymoronic part of this proposal is that the program itself is a $310 million subsidy. And it’s a perfect example of the President’s attempt to hand over America’s energy economy to the DOE. This is an attempt that’s been tried and failed. And it’s not just solar getting a handout—there’s money for wind, geothermal, biofuels, advanced vehicles, energy efficiency, nuclear energy, and even natural gas. Government has no business trying to make private-sector projects cost-competitive. It’s neither appropriate nor necessary. There’s a robust demand for energy domestically and globally that is met with a wide variety of energy sources. According to analysis by HSBC Holdings PLC, the global market for low-carbon energy and energy efficiency will reach $2.2 trillion in the next decade. That’s all the incentive solar needs. If a technology or a company cannot capture part of that market, it doesn’t deserve to be in business, and it certainly needs no help from the taxpayer. Consumers and Businesses Know How to Save Money Energy efficiency spending programs and legislation have largely enjoyed bipartisan support because the practices of being resourceful and saving money are inherently desired. But it’s because they’re inherently good things that we don’t need government mandates, rebate programs, or spending initiatives to make businesses and homeowners more energy efficient. The President’s overview highlights that “the Budget provides DOE with $290 million to expand R&D on innovative manufacturing processes and advanced industrial materials that will enable U.S. companies to cut the costs of manufacturing by using less energy, while improving product quality and accelerating product development.”

Businesses do not need taxpayer dollars to improve efficiency and cut costs; they make those investments all the time with their own money. Nestle’s newest water bottle uses 60 percent less plastic than the one they first introduced in mid-1990s. Businesses make these investments every day to be more competitive and pass the savings onto consumers to capture a larger market share. Energy efficiency programs take an overly simplistic view of how our economy works and fail to take into account the tradeoffs energy consumers and businesses consider when making decisions. Subsidize One Fossil Fuel, Punish Another? In his State of Union speech, President Obama claimed that our country’s natural gas boom came largely as a result of public funding. While nothing could be further from the truth, the President wants to unnecessarily dump money into an already-booming industry. The budget proposal includes $421 million in fossil energy research and development, including $12 million “aimed at advancing technology and methods to safely and responsibly develop America’s natural gas resources.” Much of the $421 million is subsidies for the fossil fuel industry for research and spending that can be done by the private sector. Most of this funding focuses on technologies that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The program includes a clean coal power initiative, research on fuels and power systems to reduce fossil power plant emissions, innovations for existing plants, integrated gasification combined cycle, advanced turbines, carbon sequestration, and natural gas technologies. All of these programs need to go. The Administration proposed a phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies, significantly cutting funding for the Office of Fossil Energy. But the Administration is doing so less because it is good economic policy (which it is) and more to promote an environmental policy of Administration-preferred clean energy sources. When the Administration does talk about eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, they’re not actually removing subsidies but imposing targeted tax hikes on the oil industry by removing broadly available tax deductions. The President’s anti-subsidy rhetoric is on track, but actually defining what’s a subsidy is a different story.

Unsurprisingly, President Obama’s budget proposal for energy is largely a carbon copy of last year’s, with an even stronger government push for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. It hands DOE unprecedented control over America’s energy economy, which has successfully been driven by the private sector. The DOE budget proposal doesn’t need a scalpel taken to it; it needs a hatchet.

 __________________

I believe in the free market and basically if an industry is successful then it will grow and if it is not then it will disappear. It is no place for the federal government to try and re-arrange everything.

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

April 30, 2012 – 5:48 am Categories: President Obama | Post a comment

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 145)

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

On May 11, 2011,  I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:

Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner.  I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.

Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself:

The President should try to eliminate wasteful programs in his budget. Legislators should also examine every line item in the President’s budget appendix and terminate programs that lack sufficient explanations or justifications.
Conclusion
Difficult times present opportunities for leaders to chart a new course. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt reduced non-defense spending by 36 percent to save resources. Policymakers funded the Korean War by immediately reducing non-defense spending by 25 percent. Those spending cuts required difficult choices, and lawmakers rose to the challenge.
In 2004, bold steps are again needed to rein in spending. The choices will be as difficult as those of the past, but that is what budgets are about–setting priorities. Congress and the President should seize this opportunity to refocus the federal government on the programs that matter most. Otherwise, the American people will face higher taxes, fewer jobs, less economic growth, and less effective government.

Here are some more places to cut:

  • Washington spends $92 billionon corporate welfare (excluding TARP) versus $71 billion on homeland security.
  • Washington spends $25 billionannually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.

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April 30, 2012 – 5:46 am Categories: spending out of control | Post a comment

Margaret Thatcher (Part 5)

Margaret Thatcher is one of my heroes and I have a three part series on her I am posting. “What We Can Learn from Margaret Thatcher,”By Sir Rhodes Boyson and Antonio Martino, Heritage Foundation, November 24, 1999, is an excellent article and here is a portion of it below:

What Can We Learn from Thatcher?

The lesson to be drawn is quite simple and not particularly encouraging: Mrs. Thatcher’s success owes much to the intellectual revolution in economic theory. She did not invent anything new; there was nothing novel or original in her economic policies. However, while those ideas had been available for a long time, they had not been translated into policy changes until she came about. It was her leadership, courage, determination, and intellectual integrity that allowed those intellectual insights to inspire actual economic policies and change Britain.

Which brings me to my unpleasant conclusion: The limiting factor in politics today is not the comprehension of the nature of social problems and of their desirable solution — even though we still have a long way to go to make the case for economic freedom fully grasped by the majority of public opinion and of politicians. The really scarce resource is leadership. A principled and uncompromising leader capable of building a coalition, a majority consensus around his platform is essential if we want to move toward a freer world.

Unfortunately, however, the likes of Thatcher and Reagan are not in large supply, and we can’t wait for another one to come about. “So long as the people of any country place their hopes of political salvation in leadership of any description, so long will disappointment attend them.”37 We must continue polishing our case, making it more convincing, exploring new ways to enlarge our freedoms, and above all converting politicians to our cause. This is what Heritage is all about.

Antonio Martino is Professor of Economics at LUISS “G. Carli” University in Rome. He is currently on leave as a Member of Parliament. He delivered these remarks at a meeting of The Heritage Foundation’s Windsor Society in Sea Island, Georgia, on October 3-6, 1999.

April 30, 2012 – 5:43 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

“Music Monday” The Beverly Hillbillies episode with Scruggs and Flatt: Jed Throws A Wingding

The Beverly Hillbillies: Jed Throws A Wingding

Uploaded by on Feb 23, 2012

The Beverly Hillbillies is one of the funniest and most inspired TV comedies of all time! The show was ranked #1 and attracted as many as 60 million viewers per week! The Clampett Clan includes Buddy Ebsen (Jed), Irene Ryan (“Granny”), Max Baer Jr. (Jethro), Donna Douglas (Elly May). Also stars Raymond Bailey (Milburn Drysdale), and Nancy Kulp (Jane Hathaway).

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The theme song “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” was written by producer and writer Paul Henning and originally performed by bluegrass artists Flatt and Scruggs. The song was sung by Jerry Scoggins (backed by Flatt and Scruggs) over the opening and end credits of each episode. It was #44 on the music charts in 1962 and a #1 country hit. Flatt and Scruggs also had another Billboard country top ten hit with the comic “Pearl, Pearl, Pearl,” an ode to the feminine charms of Miss Pearl Bodine who was featured in the episode “Jed Throws a Wingding,” the first of several Flatt and Scruggs appearances on the show.

The six main cast members participated on a 1963 Columbia Records soundtrack album which featured original song numbers in character. Additionally, Ebsen, Ryan and Douglas each made a few solo recordings following the show’s success, including Ryan’s 1966 novelty single, “Granny’s Miniskirt”.

The series generally featured no country music beyond the bluegrass banjo theme song, although country star Roy Clark and the team of Flatt and Scruggs occasionally played on the program. Pop singer Pat Boone appeared on one episode as himself, with the premise that he hailed from the same area of the country as the Clampetts (Boone is, in fact, a native of Jacksonville, Florida although he spent most of his childhood in Tennessee).

The 1989 film UHF featured a “Weird Al” Yankovic parody music video, “Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*”, combining “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” and Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing”.

Because of the show’s high ratings, CBS asked creator Paul Henning to pen two more folksy comedies, spawning a mini-genre of rural sitcoms during the 1960s. Petticoat Junction featured an extended family, including three pretty young women of marrying age, running a small hotel in the isolated rural town of Hooterville. Green Acres flipped the Clampetts’ fish-out-of-water concept by depicting two city sophisticates moving to Hooterville, which was populated by oddball country bumpkins.

Certain actors appeared on more than one of these series: * Bea Benaderet, who had played Jethro’s mother during the first season of The Beverly Hillbillies, was the mother of the family on Petticoat Junction. * Linda Kaye Henning, who provided the voiceover for the Beverly Hillbillies character Jethrine, portrayed Benaderet’s daughter Betty Jo Bradley on Petticoat Junction (the only female who remained all seven seasons). * Edgar Buchanan, who starred in all 222 episodes of Petticoat Junction and guest-starred in 17 episodes of Green Acres, also guested in three episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, always as the character Uncle Joe Carson. * Charles Lane played Homer Bedloe, vice president of the C. & F. W. Railroad, on both shows. He also played an apartment landlord to Jane Hathaway (“Foster Phinney”) during the 1970–71 season. * Sam Drucker, played by Frank Cady, of both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, also appeared in several episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies. * Several animal actors trained by Frank Inn, including Higgins the dog, also moved between series as needed.

Despite the actor cross-overs and the character Uncle Joe Carson’s multiple appearances (which made it clear that the three shows were set in the same fictional universe), the two Hooterville series retained identities that were distinct from The Beverly Hillbillies.

Related posts: 

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs on Beverly Hillbillies

Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs – “The Ballad Of Jed Clampett Lester & Earl – Wreck of Old 97

Earl Scruggs rest in peace

Uploaded by Nekrophyliac on May 16, 2006 the best instrumental bluegrass song ever done!! ________ FLAT & SCRUGGS Uploaded by wininternetnetwork on Dec 2, 2007 Flat & Scruggs Shortbread From CNN: Bluegrass great Earl Scruggs dead at 88 By the CNN Wire Staff updated 11:43 AM EDT, Thu March 29, 2012 (CNN) — Earl Scruggs, […]

The Beverly Hillbillies episode with Scruggs and Flatt: Jed Throws A Wingding

The Beverly Hillbillies: Jed Throws A Wingding Uploaded by AllegroMediaMovies on Feb 23, 2012 The Beverly Hillbillies is one of the funniest and most inspired TV comedies of all time! The show was ranked #1 and attracted as many as 60 million viewers per week! The Clampett Clan includes Buddy Ebsen (Jed), Irene Ryan (“Granny”), […]

“Music Monday” Countdown of Coldplay’s best albums (part 3)

It has taken me a long time to make my decision but I’ve finally made it. Their 3rd best album is X&Y. I love this album so much! The CD includes many good songs like ”TALK”  ”WHAT IF”  ”SQUARE ONE” ”THE HARDEST PART”  ”TILL KINGDOM COME”  ”SPEED OF SOUND” and my favorite Coldplay song ever ” […]

“Music Monday” The Monkees (Part 1)

Davy Jones was a great singer and we will miss him. Jones, 66, born in Manchester, England, became the principal teen idol of the rock quartet featured on the NBC comedy series “The Monkees,” which was inspired in part by the Beatles film “A Hard Day’s Night” and ran from the fall of 1966 to […]

Otis Redding and Memphis “Music Monday”

(Sittin On) The Dock Of The Bay Uploaded by taylorgdaniel on Jun 9, 2010 Downtown Memphis, July 9, 2010, solo by Taylor G. Daniel of Germantown. This song was actually sung just a few miles away from where Redding originally recorded it in downtown Memphis at Stax Records. ______________________ Over the years Otis Redding’s influence […]

Katharine McPhee’s hit song co-wrote by Little Rock native David Hodges

The “American Idol” contestant-turned-actress is getting positive reviews for her role in “Smash.” The singer plays an actress who is competing for the part of Marilyn Monroe in a Broadway show. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “‘Glee’ for grownups” and Entertainment Weekly calls McPhee “mediocre” but “very likable.” Great song: Uploaded by KatharineMcPheeVEVO on Nov […]

April 30, 2012 – 5:38 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment