JimmyGalt wrote: I thought the people on this website were freedom lovers. Guess I was wrong. If I want to hire a prostitute or gamble, it is my business. Stay out of my business. If you have a problem with welfare, that is a completely separate issue.- in response to Barney Frank’s Newest Banking Reform: Illegal Poker and a Ponzi Scheme
Dear Jimmy-
If you want to hire a prostitute or gamble you may do so wherever it is legal. If you think it should be legal everywhere then you can work to have the laws changed.
The story says nothing about actions that are legal. But you have to wonder about a congressman who is taking money from a company that is making money illegally.
Frank is the champion of legalized prostitution and gaming. He wants it legal so that the feds can regulate it, not because he believes in freedom.
MoreFreedom wrote: Ransom does liberty no favor by railing against poker and prostitution. While he charges Frank with peddling influence, he can say the same about most Republican candidates who peddle influence for the military industrial complex and war, and all business regulation by most politicians.- in response to Barney Frank’s Newest Banking Reform: Illegal Poker and a Ponzi Scheme
Dear More-
The military industrial complex? What a dated term.
I suppose by the military industrial complex you mean the people who are busy engaged in the constitutional requirement of providing for the common defense?
I might remind you that the military industrial complex provided freedom for Europe, Japan, South Korea, Iraq and Israel along with poker players, prostitutes, pension managers and message board posters.
You want gambling and prostitution to be legal? Fine; then change the laws. You can start in Iran. I’ll buy the plane ticket. But don’t expect the military industrial complex to bail you out while you enjoy all that Iranian freedom.
K.R. wrote: After Bill Clinton came out with his story that it isn't a good time to raise taxes on rich people a day or two ago, I got to thinking that maybe the big boys have decided that Obama will decide not to run in 2012, and they will move Hillary in to run instead. She is every bit as radical as Obama and her election would just continue Obama's goals. If this happens, don't be fooled by her. - in response to Obama Creates Chicago Solution to Chicago Problem at Solyndra
K.R.-
You are likely looking at the Michael Vicking of Barack Obama.
Don’t get me wrong. I think that what Michael Vick did to those dogs was horribly wrong. But jail time?
I have to agree with many blacks that if Vick had been a white quarterback, the chances of him doing jail time would have been considerably less. There are legitimate questions of law and justice in black society that conservatives would do well to address.
Obama certainly is a terrible president, but for Bill Clinton, as ex-president, to do the Tonya Harding move on Obama on taxes is without precedent. I doubt very much that Clinton would try that with a white president.
Who was the last president to move the top marginal rate to 39.6 percent as Obama proposes? Clinton of course. Clinton moved it from 31 percent. Where are the cries of hypocrisy? Do Democrats really think that they can take the black vote for granted if they oust Obama? Yes, they do.
A small group of self-appointed black leadership is willing to rent out the vote to whoever will keep that leadership in power.
If Democrats think though that victory is as easy as replacing Obama on the ballot with Hillary, then they should think again. Obama after all is the guy they elected to lead the party.
While I know that some GOP types are worried about a Hillary candidacy, I welcome it. I think it would provide a great opportunity to expose the race hypocrisy that is at the center of the Democrat Party.
Maybe then we can have a real discussion about who truly cares about black families.
Mark wrote: When I first saw the word "combine," I instantly thought of John Kass only to see his name a couple of paragraphs later. I subscribed to the Chicago Tribune through a special and John Kass columns are a big reason why. His reporting on the politics and corruption in Chicago gives a good insight into the operations in the White House with this current group. - in response to Obama Creates Chicago Solution to Chicago Problem at Solyndra
Dear Mark-
Well my roots go back to Mike Royko who covered that beat before John Kass did. Royko is one of the reasons why I became a writer in the first place. When I was in high school, I took a class on writing called “Roykonomics.”
Royko wrote daily columns, which kind of made him a blogger before blogging was even invented. In any event, it’s one of the reasons I write five days a week.
This Email, Hate Mail column is also a direct descendent of Royko’s mailbag columns.
Royko was a liberal, true- as was I back then- but I don’t think he’d recognize the Democrats of today.
I know Slats Grobnik wouldn’t.
Quite Reason wrote: Ransom makes no sense in this piece. He spends most of the article talking about the alleged corruption of Ray LaHood. He then tries to link this to Solyndra. While Solyndra used stimulus money it was funded under the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program. This was created During the Bush administration by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. DOE is headed by Steven Chu. LaHood (and Chicago) have nothing to do with Solyndra. - in response to Obama Creates Chicago Solution to Chicago Problem at Solyndra
Dear Quiet-
The Bush administration rejected the Solyndra application, as even the mainstream media is acknowledging.
Let’s face it: You guys voted in one of the most corrupt administrations in the history of the presidency when you sent a whole bunch of Chicago guys to the White House as reformers. How did you think this was going to end?
Liberals like you are going to have to deal with that reality for the next twenty years if what I think is about to happen, happens.
I’m pretty sure you’re screwed.
Busterkeaton wrote: Privatizing Social Security for younger people? OK, how do you replace the money you take out of the system to put into the younger people's accounts? What's the cost? A trillion? At the very time the baby boomers are retiring. Do we still want to let people gamble their Social Security accounts in the stock market? All I have to do is look at my 401(k) to know that's not such a good idea. - in response to My Secret Chart Shows the End is Nigh for Obama
Dear Buster-
How do you replace the money that the system has already taken out of the Social Security trust fund that can’t be replaced? Only through taxes, that’s how.
How come public employees, like school teachers and firefighters and policemen and every union worker, gets a pension that is invested in stock and bond markets that you call gambling?
The biggest problem with Social Security is that the government has no incentive to actively get the best return. Do you know why? Because they loan themselves the money.
From Time Magazine 1939 on Social Security “reform”:
[L]ast week came a fresh round of ammunition from Liberal Economist John T. Flynn. Writing in Harper's on "The Social Security 'Reserve' Swindle,” plain-talking Mr. Flynn declared:
"Obviously the government cannot pay adequate pensions if it insists on 'borrowing' most of the old age taxes and spending them to support the government. The whole thing is a disguised tax levied upon the lowest income groups under the pretense of old age pension premiums. No government would dare support itself out of a payroll tax if it honestly proclaimed its purpose.”
Carl wrote: John, you're right. But when's the right time to buy - 6 months before the election? Now? - in response to My Secret Chart Shows the End is Nigh for Obama
Dear Carl-
Now, if you can stomach it. Most people can’t stomach it. You’ll never get in at the bottom and you’ll never sell at the top. But in between you can make very good money.
There is an old saying in the market: “Most people don’t make money in the market, they just borrow from the institutions for a while.”
To make money, you have to be willing to buy things when others don’t want them. And you have to be willing to sell things when everyone is buying them.
You buy gold when it’s $400 oz; oil when it’s $10 bbl; real estate when it’s trading at a twenty year low; and stocks when everyone thinks that Armageddon is upon us. It may take a year or even two to be right however.
Then again, I could be wrong. But I’ve never seen anyone bet successfully on Armageddon.
Mac wrote: Dear Mr. Ransom...Party titles, and their principles, shift over time. President Abraham Lincoln was liberal and Republican. . - in response to The Billionaires Who Run Obama's America
Dear Mac-
You get an “F” in history. If the grade scale went lower than “F” your grade would be adjusted downward. Do yourself a favor and read a book for crying out loud; don’t just make up things.
Lincoln was not a “liberal.” Prior to joining the brand-new Republican Party, Lincoln was an old-line Whig; that is, he was a conservative.
In fact, it was the liberal interpretation of the Dred Scott decision by an activist Democrat judge that dissolved the Whig Party and hastened the creation of the GOP.
It was Democrats from the south, not conservative Republicans, who beat up and killed civil rights workers. Republicans worked for civil rights. Read more: The Democratic Party Owes Blacks An Apology
Sandy wrote: I have seen what you write about. Somehow you can not describe things like I can. First off you did not describe communism. That is what you are looking at with Obama. So an Archaeologist has to remind a reporter where to look. The end of the discussion is we have him by the shorthairs. An Artchaeologist, had to tell a reporter where to look. So John the only thing different, is the feces you are digging up still smell, So when you can not pin this on him, get back to me. Journalists have a good perception of themselves. They are not Archaeologists. Go look in the mirror. - in response to My Secret Chart Shows the End is Nigh for Obama
Dear Sandy-
Huh?
ranson.is.a.moron@dittoheads.com wrote: Ransom is a moron! You are such a moron! - in response to My Secret Chart Shows the End is Nigh for Obama
Dear Moron,
There are many reasons why I might be moron.
For example, I’m probably a moron for thinking that the Bears have a shot at the Super Bowl this year; I’m a moron for thinking that government will get smaller; I’m a moron for buying the occasional lottery ticket; and I’m a moron for participating in local politics at home where I live.
But I can live with all that.
But what makes me different from you is that I didn’t vote for Barack Obama like you did.
I don’t know how you live with yourself.
That’s it for this week.
V/r,
JR
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