Palin stepping down from office? Focusing on 2012?
This is a surprise - Governor Palin is stepping down from the Governorship.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race.
The former Republican vice presidential candidate made the surprise announcement from her home in suburban Wasilla on Friday morning. She said she would step down July 26 but didn’t announce her plans.
Steve Hildebrand taking lead for Obama administration as it breaks promises to the GLBT community
Why should the special interest groups that made up Obama’s coalition not feel the buyer’s remorse that the rest of the country is feeling over President Obama? In a recent letter to the Huffington post website, Obama’s campaign manager Steve Hildebrand tries to let down the GLBT community gently over the administration bagging out on doing what they promised:
The new Obama talking points don’t even include DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell as priorities any longer.
President Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, who is himself openly gay, penned a piece for the Huffington Post yesterday that delineates the three “gay” priorities that Congress should focus on: safe schools; hate crimes; and ENDA.
After two weeks of the Obama White House reeling over the gay backlash caused by the anti-gay DOMA brief, which compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia, we now have the number two guy on the Obama campaign suddenly writing about what our legislative priorities should be. Don’t think for a minute that this essay wasn’t either written by the White House, written at their behest, or at the very least cleared with them. This essay is the White House’s thinking on gay issues.
And what is that thinking? First, that the burden for doing anything pro-gay in the remaining three and a half years of the Obama administration is now shifted to Congress. Obama has no role whatsoever, and no power to influence anything, even though he’s still the leader of the free world. The essay makes clear that the onus is on Congress and no one else.
and…
It’s not clear if some gay group is giving Obama the behind the scenes permission to abandon his promises to our community on the military ban and on DOMA, but it’s increasingly looking that way.
A fractured Obama coalition coupled with a country weary of a government moving towards socialism might just be ripe in 2012 for a solid conservative such as Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney or John Thune to capture the imagination of the nation.
Don’t forget to support the SDWC!
As I prepare to ignore the website for a couple of days, as I spend my time with my family, it’s time for the semi-regular reminder that you shouldn’t forget to feed the kitty. He’s looking a little skinny lately. In reference to the ongoing request to drop a few shekels in the donation box..
We’re cruising right along to the next election cycle, and providing original reporting, as well as pointing out the day’s best news from other sources so you don’t have to go scrounging around for it.
But little things such as news aggregators, web hosting, etcetera all cost money. So if you haven’t done so in a while (or ever), your support is what helps keep the South Dakota War College going, and would be greatly appreciated.
Just click on the pay pal donation button link to the right. Or, if you aren’t into using pay pal, you can send it to me personally (Just e-mail me, and I’ll send you the address).
Thanks for your continuing support of the SDWC.
Just a few off the mark, but a success nonetheless.
The Argus is reporting this AM that the attendance of yesterday’s anti-socialized medicine rally was a bit less than the 10,000 they’d hoped for:
A head count showed 325 people in the grandstand for the midafternoon speeches, though organizer Dr. Allen Unruh later estimated 500 to 700 people attended at least some of the four-hour rally. Either way, the turnout was a fraction of the 4,000 at Covell Lake on April 15 to re-enact the Boston Tea Party in protest of government spending.
I don’t think the event was a failure by any means, as they did get some nice coverage on a regional and statewide basis about the issues that the rally were all about. And the organizers can take heart from that. As well as a lesson that they should have planned it for the 4th itself (a day off) and not talked about those kind of numbers for attendance.
Yes, they were more than a few numbers off the mark, but I think it was a success nonetheless. What have people been talking about the last 3 or 4 days, and what do they continue to talk about? Socialized medicine. Even the Argus was in on the act yesterday with a live on-line event with Senator Thune where the topic was covered.
Ok. So they’ll take their lumps for a bit of hyperbole. But they did an important thing in the arena of political battle - they set the agenda.
And we’re still talking about what they did.
Thune demands both sides of the story as EPA tries to squelch one of their own who disagrees with global warming.
South Dakota’s US Senator, John Thune, is taking the EPA to task over their scientists apparently telling one of their own to “shut up” about the fact he disagrees with the Democratic party line on Global warming:
Thune said in a Tuesday news release that he sent a letter calling for an investigation to a top official at the Environmental Protection Agency. E-mails made public by the House and Energy Commerce Committee show evidence, Thune said, of an attempt by one scientist to “suppress” the work of another scientist who dissented with the EPA’s view on greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
“I am concerned about the credibility of the Obama administration’s arguments in favor of increased environmental activism and government regulation now that it is clear that legitimate differences of opinion are not tolerated within the EPA,” Thune said in the news release.
According to Thune, the e-mails show that Al McGartland, director of the National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), kept Alan Carlin, an economist at NCEE, from presenting his view that the EPA was incorrect in its research regarding greenhouse gases.
and…
“As Congress considers costly climate change legislation that has the potential to reshape our entire economy, a robust debate on the issue is necessary,” Thune said in the release.
Read it all here (in an article which originally came from the Mitchell Daily Republic).
Group wants to license babysitters. Susan Randall up to her old tricks.
From tragedy, some want regulation. And it’s just making a tragedy worse.
Susan Randall, one of the state’s oldest activists for over reaching state regulation is using the tragic opportunity of a child’s severe injuries (for which an accused was found innocent) to advocate for… what else… Government intervention and regulation!
From KSFY:
A Sioux Falls advocacy group says there is a loophole in South Dakota child care laws which puts kids at risk every day; a loophole which involves some home based daycares.
‘South Dakota Voices For Children’ is hoping this case helps raise awareness about South Dakota’s licensing for home daycare providers… here’s why they’re concerned. Right now every state in the country requires home daycare providers to get a license if they care for seven or more kids. Some states are stricter than this. For example in Minnesota you can only care for two kids before you need a license. In Iowa the number is six. But in South Dakota, the state doesn’t require a license. Unless you care for 13 or more kids.
and…
Susan says that begins with state licensing. “We are clearly an outlier as a state in the commitment that we’ve made to protecting young children that are in childcare.
So, let’s understand this. A day care provider was accused of injuring a child. And she was found innocent. But Susan Randall “is hoping this case helps raise awareness about South Dakota’s licensing for home daycare providers…” Am I missing the logic?
The legislature already has standards in place for day cares. But is that good enough for Susan “Nanny State” Randall?
Not only no, but hell no. Of course, she doesn’t mention that all she’s doing is seizing on a tragedy to promote the same measure she’s long been pushing:
The state requires licensing only for those who care for 13 or more children a day. That could change. The 2007 South Dakota Legislature likely will be presented with another bill to require licensing for those who care for fewer than 13 or at least for those who care for seven or more, said Susan Randall, executive director of South Dakota Voices for Children based in Sioux Falls.
Cities can have their own rules. Aberdeen has no ordinances on child care, but building codes address it, with regulations that apply regardless of how many kids are cared for.
and..
“Often a parent’s relationship with the child-care provider is such that the parent would be seen as a busybody if (she or he) went around the house and checked for safety features,” Randall said.
So why not let the state do the checking, Randall asked.
Why does this seem like Deja Vu? It should - this was a passage from the Aberdeen American news in August of 2006!
The injuries that this child suffered are sad enough. And based on the court’s verdict, no one has a clear conclusion on “what happened” or “what went wrong.” We may never know, and at least in the country we used to live in, there is a presumption of innocence. Especially when someone is found “not guilty.”
But for Susan Randall to use that to foster and whip up a lather to promote the anti-parent agenda she’s been pushing for years staggers the conscience.
It’s little more than the moral equivalent of chasing a child’s ambulance to gain some column inches in the press.
Shame on her.
Nanny staters are going after ballot referral the hard way.
As opposed to letting it stand or fall on it’s own merits, the nanny staters who took free choice away from business owners have decided to challenge the validity of the referral petitions:
Of about 25,400 signatures reviewed by the South Dakota Tobacco Free Kids Network, nearly 40 percent were found to be invalid, the group contends.
Read it here. KELO land had something to say about it too. Too bad they were wrong:
Thursday was a historic day in South Dakota. For the first time a group is challenging a petition to put an issue on a statewide ballot. Supporters of a statewide smoke free law filed paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office claiming opponents did not collect enough signatures to put a smoking ban on the 2010 ballot.
Read that here. Sorry guys. You’re wrong. It was tried back in the 1980’s. Petition invalidation has been tired before (my dad was hired as the investigative firm to break a ballot initiative petition) and let me tell you this - it is prohibitively expensive to try to prove. It can involve hundreds, if not thousands of hours of independent investigators reviewing each and every petition, and a ton of court time.
Back then, as it was fought out in court, because of the expense, the plaintiffs eventually gave up. (Dad thought they had the petition broken, but he wasn’t paying the bills on it.)
It may be a new thing under the current law. But it certainly was done before.
And as difficult as it sounds, it appears as if the nanny staters are going to try to do it anyway.
My question - if they’re so secure in their position, what are they scared of?
What are they scared of?
KSFY - over 10,000 people anticipated at today’s rally against socialized medicine
Almost ten-thousand people are expected at the W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds today to attend a health care rally.
Those behind the rally say they want to inform you about socialized Obama administration.
At a brief press conference late speakers and organizers gathered to share their concerns about what a government-run health care system would mean for America
The rally is free to the public and runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, although organizers say the main events start at 12:30
Aberdeen American News joins the voices in favor of the Thune Exit plan.
The Aberdeen American News just added their voice to the chorus of grassroot level support for US Senator John Thune’s Government Ownership Exit Plan:
Legislation authored by Sen. John Thune has been endorsed by the nation’s largest business organization, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Thune’s Government Ownership Exit Plan, S 1242, would bar the government from purchasing majority stakes in any new private companies and establishes a process for the eventual sale of the existing government portfolio, which includes banks, automakers and insurance companies.
and…
An exit plan for government-owned private companies and a recommended timetable for its implementation would have a positive impact on the marketplace. It would also go a long way toward debunking the notion that President Obama is following some top-secret master plan to consolidate his own power by imposing government control over the free enterprise system.
We commend the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in recognizing the good that would come from Sen. Thune’s legislation, and we urge his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to consider the merits of passing such a bill in the current session.
Simply the best. Former Republican Legislator donates 1 million.
Among many SD politicos, Harvey Krautschun is known as a man of incredible graciousness and honor. And it’s easy to see why:
Former South Dakota legislator Harvey Krautschun and his wife, Joy, both graduates of Black Hills State, have announced they are donating $1 million to the university in Spearfish.
The specifics of their legacy, through life insurance policies, are being worked on with school officials, Krautschun said Tuesday. He said they want to give the school some flexibility in disbursing the scholarship funding, although there will be a requirement to encourage academic performance.
Read it all here. I’d also be remiss in not mentioning a donation from the legislator I interned for at the legislature way back in 1988…
$50,000 from Jim Hood, Class of ‘69 and Kathy (Donahue), Class of ‘77, to establish the Kathleen G. Hood Elementary Education Scholarship Endowment. The scholarship will be awarded to a junior or senior elementary education major. Jim is a longtime attorney in Spearfish, and Kathy is an elementary school principal in Sundance, Wyo.
The thing is that neither one are of incredible wealth - they simply recognize the importance of education and wish to support it to the best of their abilities. Way to go!
Obama co-opting the Governors to promote nationalized health care?
From the New York Times, it looks like President Obama is telling the Governors, including our own, how to explain his nationalized health care program in terms that won’t tip people off that he’s promoting socialized medicine:
In a meeting last week with five governors — including Republicans who may be more sympathetic to health legislation than those on Capitol Hill — Mr. Obama privately urged them to serve as his emissaries to Congress. He even coached them on the language they should use with lawmakers, two of the governors said, advising them to avoid terms like “rationing” and “managed care,” which evoke bitter memories of the Clintons’ ill-fated health initiative.
and….
“He’s the president of the United States; he does have to lead and he will,” said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota. “But he’s got to pick his spots.”
As lawmakers struggle to work out their differences, Mr. Obama is courting the governors, an effort that one White House official, speaking anonymously to discuss strategy, said began with last week’s meeting. In interviews, two governors — a Democrat, Christine Gregoire of Washington, and a Republican, Michael Rounds of South Dakota — both said Mr. Obama asked them to talk to members of Congress about their own innovative approaches to health reform. Both said he urged them to be careful about their language.
“I think he said what we have to do is not call it rationing, because clearly there is from H.M.O. days a concern about rationing,” Mr. Rounds said, adding that he sensed Mr. Obama was hoping to have “a bipartisan group of governors working directly with lawmakers to perhaps break a stalemate.”
Ms. Gregoire said the president reminded the governors that “Congress has a bad taste in its mouth from previous experience with managed care,” and suggested they avoid the term. Instead, he spoke of “evidence-based care,” the practice of using research to guide medical decisions. She said the president told them, “I need you to stick with me.”
Read it here. It’s interesting that we’re reading this about the Obama side of the discussion. Because on the Rounds’ side of things, this meeting was billed as:
Rounds opposes a federal effort to take over the industry, which puts him at odds with Obama’s plan to expand government’s role.
and…
“One of the the purposes of the talks out there is to get a feel for the direction this is headed and to provide input from South Dakota’s perspective,” said spokesman Joe Kafka in Pierre. Other staff members are with Rounds to meet Obama, including Kathi Mueller, a senior staff member who specializes on health issues.
Before we jump to judgement, I think we’ll just have to wait and see what the Governor chooses to advocate. If he’s going to be direct, or as Obama advocates - use terminology to obfuscate the truth.
What’s your opinion on this?
Oh, would you freaking resign already?
South Carolina’s Governor Sanford is truly an idiot who needs to resign. Right now.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he “crossed lines” with a handful of women other than his mistress — but never had sex with them.
The governor says he “never crossed the ultimate line” with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed Sanford’s once-promising political career.
During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he’s trying to fall back in love with his wife.
and…
In early 2009, after Jenny Sanford discovered the affair, the couple went into counseling. She has told The Associated Press that he asked her several times to visit the mistress and she refused.
But the governor claims he wanted to end the affair in person and, with his wife’s permission, went to New York with a “trusted spiritual adviser” serving as chaperone. The three went to church and dinner together and parted ways the same night.
But he visited Chapur again in Argentina on June 18, the trip that brought the whole affair to light.
People might be able to eventually get past a one time “oops,” but when there’s a pattern of transgressions, there’s a serious character flaw that’s evident.
He needs to resign. Right now.
Don’t forget the rally on Thursday!
Don’t forget the Rally on Thursday against socialized medicine -
~ Health Care Rally Speakers ~
Additional speakers not listed.
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TWILA BRASE, RN, PHN, Public Health Nurse Twila Brase is president of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care (CCHC), a free-market, health care policy organization based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In 2000, the Minnesota Physician magazine selected her as one of “Minnesota’s 100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders.” Her organization’s efforts have led to the 2006 expiration of government- issued medical treatment directives, the governor’s 2008 veto of a “Baby DNA Warehouse” bill, informed consent requirements for access to medical data, the 2007 and 2008 defeat of the proposed Minnesota Health Insurance Exchange, and the 2009 defeat of legislation to repeal genetic privacy and informed consent rights over government storage and research on newborn DNA. |
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SALLY C. PIPES Sally C. Pipes is president and chief executive officer of the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank founded in 1979. An expert in the Canadian and American health systems, Ms. Pipes writes, speaks, debates and gives invited testimony on key health care issues facing America. She is the author of The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care a Citizen’s Guide and Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer, in addition to numerous op-eds, TV, and radio appearances. |
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DAVID A. NOEBEL David A. Noebel, president of Summit Ministries, has been a college professor, college president and candidate for the U.S. Congress. He is an author, editor, public speaker, and ordained minister. He is recognized as an expert on worldview analysis and the decline of morality and spirituality in Western Civilization. Noebel also serves as editor of the ministry’s publication The Journal, a monthly review of the news. He travels worldwide lecturing in high schools, universities, and churches. He is a member of the Council for National Policy, the National Association of Scholars, the American Philosophical Association, and the Society of Christian Philosophers. Noebel was a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He holds a B.A. from Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and a M.A. from the University of Tulsa. David and his wife Alice, live in Manitou Springs, Colorado. They have two children and five grandchildren. |
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JANE M. ORIENT, M.D., F.A.C.P. Jane M. Orient obtained her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974. She completed an internal medicine residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. She has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989. She is the author of YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Healthcare, Sutton’s Law (a novel about where the money is in medicine today), and the second and third editions of Sapira’s Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis. She is the editor of AAPS News, the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, and Civil Defense Perspectives, and is the managing editor of The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. |
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DR. ALLEN D. UNRUH Dr. Unruh has been in full time practice since 1970. He spear-headed the “Free Choice Initiative” while he was president of the SDCA to combat discriminatory practice in managed care. Dr. Unruh was on the Physician’s advisory council and appointed “Physician of the Year” by the National Republican Congressional Committee. A former candidate for the U.S. Congress, he’s been the State chairman for two candidates for President of the United States. Dr. Unruh is currently the National Chairman of the grassroots “Stop Government Controlled Health Care Campaign” throughout America. Dr. Unruh has been a featured speaker at the National Reclaiming America conference in St. Petersburg Fla. He is the author of “Why Government Health Care Doesn’t Work”, “If the Government Doesn’t Get off Our Backs, The Whole Country Will Need a Chiropractor” and “Laughter Is the Best Medicine.” He and his wife, Leslee, have formed a national “Speak Up” to address the cultural issues and speaking on Basic Americanism. |
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DR. R. BLAKE CURD
R. Blake Curd, M.D. is a Hand, Microvascular, and Orthopedic Surgeon in private practice at the Orthopedic Institute in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Dr. Curd is a tireless spokesman and advocate for a patient’s right to make the health care decisions they deem in their own best interest. He also has been intimately involved in the ongoing political debate about who should assist patients in these decisions-a physician/health care provider or the insurance industry and government. Dr. Curd is Chairman of the Board and President of Surgical Management Professionals (SMP.) SMP is a physician owned company that assists physicians in the design, build, management, and equity investment of physician owned ambulatory surgical centers and physician owned hospitals. Dr. Curd is currently the Treasurer of Physician Hospitals of America, the trade organization representing the physician owned hospital industry. PHA is a staunch advocate for the rights of physicians to control all aspects of health care delivery and is an ever-present advocate in Washington, DC. Dr. Curd is a frequent guest lecturer and speaks locally, regionally, and nationally on his profession of Hand and Microvascular Surgery. He has lectured and performed surgery on five continents. His expertise is also called on regularly to engage in the debate on healthcare reform, physician ownership in healthcare, and physician rights. Dr. Curd makes multiple trips to Washington DC each year to assist in advocating to Congress and the Administration in these areas. |
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Richard Baker In 2003, Richard baker founded Timely Medical Alternatives, an organization which he likens to a Freedom Train, sending thousands of Canadians to the U.S. for life saving surgical procedures. The very existence of this organization speaks volumes about the failure of socialized medicine. Richard has become one of the leading spokespeople for free-market reform of Canada’s dysfunctional, single payer healthcare system. As such, he is often called upon for media interviews and speaking engagements throughout North America. He has been interviewed by ABC TV’s 20/20 program, Dan Rather Reports, Jerry Agar on WABC radio, The Mike Gallagher Show, NPR Radio, and U.S. News & World Report. |
Find out more at teapartysd.com!
Where does the responsibility for the unemployment fund shortfall rest? One former legislator weighs in.
The Unemployment fund crisis in South Dakota is leaving only a few options. Double the surcharge, borrow from the federal government, expand benefits to get one-time Obama money, or a combination of all three:
What Labor’s forecast shows is the UI system will go broke this winter and need at least $6.6 million to get through December. Then it will fall $9 million deeper into the hole during the first quarter of 2010, as the surcharge revenue begins to flow in.
South Dakota can borrow from the federal unemployment trust fund on a zero-interest basis through 2010. The anticipated $15.6 million of loans would need to be repaid by the end of 2010 in order to avoid paying interest.
The council members formally voted Thursday to re-consider their earlier position. They will now take a new look at whether to pursue an additional $11.7 million available in one-time federal supplements.
South Dakota would need to expand some of its unemployment benefits, based on choices from a federal menu, in order to qualify.
Read Bob Mercer’s article here. Basically, it’s in a deep deep mess. But was it preventable? Should we have had the foresight to prevent these problems? One person seems to think so.
There’s a set of comments on this website firing up everyone on the Unemployment fund mess. Former Senate President Pro Tempore Lee Schoenbeck, a faithful reader and commenter of the SDWC who has been on the inside doesn’t mince many (any?) words in laying the blame for the mess at a certain office on the 2nd floor of the state capitol:
The real tragedy - from an honesty and integrity perspective (and I fully realize that these concepts don’t fit well in a political discussion) is that the Futures Fund diverted employers’ contributions from the unemployment fund under the theory that - while the funds were raised from employers for unemployment benefits - there were excess funds. 4 years ago when it became obvious that the fund was going broke, I tried to get the Rounds/Daugaard administration to stop siphoning off those funds and to put the employers money back where it was supposed to go. They refused to discuss this and opposed all of my efforts to fix the problem. The price of the liberal views of the Rounds/Daugaard administration on taxing working folks (and most employers are there working along side their employees in South Dakota) is that employers will be hit with a new tax. This could have and should have been avoided. The real question is whether we make the same mistake in the 2010 election that we made in 2002??
and..
The Future Fund is controlled by the Gov and is discretionary money that gets pumped into some good and some buddy deals. It was created by doing a simultaneous creation of the new tax while reducing the unemployment tax in the same amount, under the argument that the unemployment tax generated too much revenue. It is employer taxed dollars, taxed just like the unemployment fund, but diverted to this separate fund. Now that the unemployment fund is broke, the diversion should be reversed (it only was created by arguing that there were excess funds). It is wrong to keep the futures fund tax and then raise the unemployment tax, because if government had a memory it would be dishonest to keep a tax for funds that were no longer “excess” to the needs of the unemployment fund.
Aside from illustrating how Government will leave no pot of money untouched, Lee brings up a very valid point for legislators to consider this next session - and probably door #4 in solving the mess - at least temporarily moving money and the surcharge back out of the Futures Fund, back into the unemployment fund until it can handle itself again.
Because raising “unemployment taxes” on businesses when State Government might have been able to fix the problem at an earlier date is an unsatisfactory solution.
(P.S. - for an excellent review of the funding for the future fund, as well as some alternative mechanisms for funding it, read this 2006 report by SD economist Ralph Brown.)
I keep saying…. We have to suffer through the next Jimmy Carter before we can appreciate the next Ronald Reagan
This kind of stuff should scare the pants off of us. Because it looks as if we’re doomed to repeat the “Jimmy Carter” economic past, but worse, under an Obama administration. From the Wall Street Journal:
Here we stand more than a year into a grave economic crisis with a projected budget deficit of 13% of GDP. That’s more than twice the size of the next largest deficit since World War II. And this projected deficit is the culmination of a year when the federal government, at taxpayers’ expense, acquired enormous stakes in the banking, auto, mortgage, health-care and insurance industries.
With the crisis, the ill-conceived government reactions, and the ensuing economic downturn, the unfunded liabilities of federal programs — such as Social Security, civil-service and military pensions, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, Medicare and Medicaid — are over the $100 trillion mark. With U.S. GDP and federal tax receipts at about $14 trillion and $2.4 trillion respectively, such a debt all but guarantees higher interest rates, massive tax increases, and partial default on government promises.
But as bad as the fiscal picture is, panic-driven monetary policies portend to have even more dire consequences. We can expect rapidly rising prices and much, much higher interest rates over the next four or five years, and a concomitant deleterious impact on output and employment not unlike the late 1970s.
About eight months ago, starting in early September 2008, the Bernanke Fed did an abrupt about-face and radically increased the monetary base — which is comprised of currency in circulation, member bank reserves held at the Fed, and vault cash — by a little less than $1 trillion. The Fed controls the monetary base 100% and does so by purchasing and selling assets in the open market. By such a radical move, the Fed signaled a 180-degree shift in its focus from an anti-inflation position to an anti-deflation position.
Live from Mitchell, it’s the Sibby Show!
It looks like Steve Sibson is taking “Sibby Online” on the road for the 4th of July. Or at least down the street to the county courthouse where he’s going to give a program on the humanist seculars:
My commentary on the Declaration of Independence, that is scheduled for 10AM July 4 at the Davison County Court House in Mitchell, will get into the Biblical principles used in the Declaration, and I will also bring out the Progressives movement who are out to destroy the Natural Law foundation and replace it with a “living” Darwinian state controlled system.
I think everyone recognizes that the founding of our country had a strong relationhship to the religious views of the founding fathers as well as those of the citizenry. But I think Steve kind of drifts away from coherence when he starts talking about “a Darwinian state controlled system.”
What was it he had mentioned previously? We have “a nearly complete Marxist based takeover of America by the fascist Progressive movement.” Yeah….. ok…
Do you think he’s also going to talk about “a new world order,” the abolishment of the federal reserve, and a cover up of the Oklahoma city bombing as well?
Live from the Davison County Courthouse in Mitchell on the 4th of July, it’s the Sibby Show!
Black Tie optional.
So are the black helicopters.
SD Unemployment fund in the hole. In a big way.
From KELOland:
State Labor Secretary Pam Roberts says South Dakota businesses will pay $36 million in surcharges next year to replenish the trust fund that pays benefits to unemployed workers.
Roberts says the surcharge will apply to all employers, and will be on top of the regular $26 million in unemployment taxes and interest expected to be received next year.
UGH. I can’t imagine how badly that’s going to hit employers during a period of economic downturn. Unemployment surcharges will cause fees to DOUBLE.
Herseth’s hubby sells home at a loss.
Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin apparently isn’t doing well in the housing market. Reports were recently filed that show she (I’m assuming actually her husband) sold property in Texas for a loss:
And Diaz-Balart is not alone among his Congressional colleagues. According to annual financial disclosure reports, a number of House lawmakers sold real estate at a loss in 2008.
The financial reports include only rental, business or other real estate that produces income and not personal homes. Under disclosure rules, Members are not required to report their primary residence or even vacation or other secondary homes, so long as no portion of those properties is rented out.
and….
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) also reported selling a Marshall, Texas, home for between $250,000 and $500,000 but did not list any income from the sale.
“I can confirm that there was not a profit on the sale of the home,” Herseth Sandlin spokesman Russ Levsen said. The home, which is owned by Herseth Sandlin’s husband, ex-Rep. Max Sandlin (D-Texas), is listed in Herseth Sandlin’s previous financial disclosure with a value of between $250,000 and $500,000, but no rental income is listed.
Although lawmakers are required to report profit from the sale of real estate that generates income, the financial reports do not require the disclosure of losses from property. Instead, lawmakers mark a box that indicates “none” in the income section and list the total amount of the sale in another section of the report.
Together with the wide ranges of values and transactions listed on the forms, the reports give almost no indication of a shortfall’s size when a Member loses money in a sale.
Obama wants universal health care coverage. So he can tax it.
Gee, isn’t that nice. It sounds more and more as if Obama plans on taxing health care benefits:
White House adviser David Axelrod said the administration wouldn’t rule out taxing some employees’ benefits to fund a health care agenda that has yet to take final form. The move would be a compromise with fellow Democrats, who are pushing the proposal as a way to pay for the massive undertaking without ballooning the federal deficit.
Read it here. (And weep)
They come in threes. First Farrah, Then Michael. Now, Billy.
From Yahoo News:
Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman known for his boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean, has died. He was 50.
Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m.
There were no signs of a break-in, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn’t answer any more questions about how Mays’ body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner’s office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.
We may now prepare for non-stop coverage of his passing on the shopping channel.
