Why are liberals so happy to raise your taxes? Because so many of them benefit directly from higher taxes - entitlements, government contracts, holdbacks, employment and just plain cash, or because higher taxes don’t affect them. They are either too rich or too poor to care. It’s the folks in the middle that end up carrying the load. The math is rather simple: Raise everyone’s taxes to 50% or more. Then, pour all that money into the pockets of those who don’t pay taxes or don’t pay their fair share. Or, maybe they make their entire livelihood from taxpayer dollars. It’s like winning the lottery for these people. They don’t care what the tax rate is because any money that’s realized is still a jackpot. And, if you’re politically connected, the government doesn’t expect you to work very hard to make that money.

If you make a few million with a well-placed phone call (can you spell B-I-D-E-N?) and then give up half in taxes, who cares? It’s the cost of doing business and it’s free money, anyway. In fact, it’s taxpayer money. More on that thesis: In early 2009, Andrew Wilkow, conservative talk radio guy, stated he could prove that a significant percentage of Obama’s ’stimulus’ spending would end up in various Kennedy family-owned enterprises. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Ted Kennedy’s or Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama would come cheaply. Further, Barack Obama netted million-dollar paydays for ghost-written books as an unknown Illinois legislator. Did all those books get sold through real booksellers at full price? And then there’s Al Gore. By creating panic over non-existent global warning, Gore amassed a $100 million fortune in less than 8 years. Finally, there’s the grand-daddy of all political hacks — Bill Clinton, who manages to snag outsized ‘consulting’ gigs that can net him $100 million in a year’s time. What’s certain here is that liberals can make a darn good buck at being ‘concerned’ and ‘compassionate’.

Liberals and liberal politicians spend taxpayer money with a zest and enthusiasm that takes your breath away, and for some of the stupidest reasons imaginable. The basic premise is simple - if you are incompetent, lazy, stupid, ignorant, irresponsible, incorrigible and/or immoral, you will be rewarded. If you live within your means, pay your taxes and take personal responsibility for your actions, you will be preyed upon. In fact, if you uphold the law and carry your own weight, the liberals consider you a stooge, a dupe, someone who deserves to be ripped off.

The secular progressives, the liberals and the out-and-out socialists have turned this country on its head. The strengths and virtues that made this country the single greatest expression of man’s intellectual and socia potential has been perverted into a culture of entitlement and a cesspool of personal excesses. Is America perfect, or was it ever perfect? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean one gives up the effort to better oneself or society. That’s what liberals want average Americans to do: give up on the American Dream and instead opt for the false hopes and promises of socialism. They want to create a dark, dreary utopia where only the liberal elite can have a chance at happiness and prosperity.

The mainstream media tried to hide it. The political pundits on the left and center talked around it. The lobbyists spun it. Joe Wilson was pilloried to create a diversion for it. But, there was no getting around this simple fact - President Obama hardened his stance on nationalizing healthcare and the ‘public option’. In his September 2009 address to Congress, he reiterated his commitment to ramming through a socialist agenda regardless of its consequences and despite the safeguards provided in the Constitution. Our President, the one who promised a transparent administration, careful and open review of pending laws, and bipartisan agreement on major issues, would fundamentally remake America if given half a chance. Even the Russians are alarmed.

Barack Obama is the champion, the chief enabler, the high priest of entitlement, pork barrel politics and class warfare. His address before Congress was divisive, corrosive and loaded with vitriol aimed at his perceived enemies and detractors. He obfuscated, embellished, bamboozled, misled, misrepresented, parsed and basically lied throughout the speech. While Republicans held up copies of plans that had been repeatedly ignored by Democrat legislators and the White House, Obama cooed and fluttered his eyelids, promising to look at any good idea placed before him. So much for hope and change.

The Democrats want to nationalize the best-performing sector of the economy, citing increased costs and inequality of care. Yes indeed the “costs” have been increasing — and so have the available cures, remedies and options for the sick. Twenty years ago were was no such thing as angioplasty at any price. Today, it is a common lifesaving procedure. Twenty years ago no angioplasties were performed. Today, thousands are performed every day. This adds to the “cost” of healthcare, but it also puts productive Americans back to work. And once at work, they pay taxes. Angioplasties also cost less than bypass surgery, the only option available twenty years ago. In other words, the medical sector of the economy is growing, creating more jobs, more opportunities, more productive benefit to the nation as whole. Innovation drives new technology that saves more lives and returns those people to a productive life more quickly and with fewer side effects. It is for the most part market-driven even though it is highly regulated, heavily taxed and repeatedly preyed upon by the unscrupulous.

To criticize this growth would be equivalent to criticizing Ford Motor Company for selling more cars this year compared to last year. It would be like characterizing increased sales of new cars as increasing the cost of transportation to Americans. That is the specious argument that Democrats have made. They are lying to the American public, obscuring the fact that healthcare systems continue to improve in the efficient delivery of care to every American. The reason why the healthcare sector has grown is primarily because the volume and choice of medical services have grown - as should be the case with any healthy sector of the economy.

Our healthcare system is a technological wonder that cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the world. There is little reason to fear that China or India could somehow create a cheaper knockoff. Even if they could, it would benefit only their own people – if their governments allowed them to access that care. Top-quality healthcare can’t be imported or exported. Hundreds of thousands flock to the US for elective and cosmetic surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. They place themselves in the care of highly trained and highly motivated doctors, nurses, technicians and various healthcare specialists. The US is the epicenter of medical advances, drug development and treatment options. And yet, Obama and the Democrats are firmly resolved to destroy it.

Why destroy such a vital part of the economy? Because it stands in the way of making Democrats and Obama voterproof. If the Democrats were ever able to dispense healthcare the way they dispense political favors and government dollars, their dependents would never vote them out of office. By controlling your health, Democrats control your body and therefore control your life. Once you’re standing on line for daily medications, you’re nothing more than a serf. The Democrats can do with you what they wish. That appears to be their plan. They don’t care about innovation and they certainly don’t care about bringing the cost down otherwise they wouldn’t be talking about penalties and taxing medical benefits.

Think about it: How does taxing the average middle-class wage earner’s medical benefits lower that wage earner’s medical costs? How does it make health coverage better? The answer is it doesn’t do anything to benefit the middle-class wage earner, who’s going to end up paying for other peoples’ healthcare through higher insurance premiums, taxes on medical devices, taxes on employer-paid plans and taxes hidden in every layer of the healthcare delivery system.

And yes, Obama did lie: He will extend medical coverage to illegal aliens, except they won’t be illegal when the benefits kick in. In the few short months by when medical coverage is offered, Obama will have granted amnesty to those illegals. In the meanwhile, illegal aliens will continue to get their medical services paid for as they have been for decades - by municipalities, counties and states who in turn tax the rest of us. He’s using a very simple political calculus — those who benefit from government-run healthcare and pay nothing for it will outvote those who pay for their own private insurance AND government-run healthcare for others.

Obama’s plan calls for penalties if citizens don’t sign up for a public insurance plan. But, he never mentions those who can’t afford it, don’t work, don’t want to work or are incapable of working. What happens to them? In fact, the Congressional Budget Office calculated that after all is said and done, after the Obama administration has turned the entire healthcare industry into a government program, 25 million Americans may remain uninsured. What?! That was the entire reason this healthcare debate was ignited in the first place! What Obama is proposing would then create a huge new tax burden for middle-class Americans, destroy the most vital sector of our economy and still fail to provide healthcare for 25 million Americans. This is sheer insanity. Or is it? Maybe, this is a calculated move to grab power and install a socialist regime.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have flogged their respective Democrat legislators to fall in line behind a public option that is an out-and-out socialist power grab. Once enacted, it will give Democrats incredible power over the electorate, which could explain this manufactured crisis and the campaign of lies that envelopes healthcare legislation. Once these people have you under their control, it’s unlikely they will relinquish it without a struggle.

There is no such thing as ‘pure’ socialism. There are many different flavors of this flawed theory, there are many failed examples of its practical limitations and there are the horrors of imperfect, ill-conceived socialist states that litter recent history. Hitler claimed to be a socialist. So did Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and a whole host of murderers and thieves. They all operated from the same playbook, calling themselves ‘men of the people’, when in fact the welfare of ‘the people’ was never a consideration. They were thugs with limited vision operating a thug state. Central planning was a necessity because these thugs couldn’t comprehend much less control a real functioning economy or society. They had no intention of creating a socialist state. The platitudes and promises of a social nirvana were merely a means to an end – the opportunity to grab power. The thug state was concerned only with the continued existence of the thug state and the enrichment of thugs and their dependents - which is why Rahm Emmanuel is so important a figure in the Obama administration. The ludicrous and financially disastrous plans of one Barack Obama can’t be instituted in a democratic manner, simply because no informed, productive taxpayer would stand still for it. There are only two ways to install the Democratic Party’s socialist agenda – force it on the population or lie to them. Obama’s a careful player, so he’s opted for both.

But, Obama’s not alone in this ill-fated adventure. Leading Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have signed up for the charade. It’s difficult to know their underlying motives: are they true believers or just opportunists? If they’re true believers, we’re all in trouble, simply because the personal ignorance and blind ambition of these people will destroy us all. If they’re opportunists, they’re playing with fire. Graveyards are full of people who went along with Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Castro, thinking they could moderate the impulses of their leaders once they achieved power. It didn’t work out that way. Many Democrats are going along with the extreme leftist agenda because they hope it will make them voter-proof. Yes, that is the overarching goal of the Democratic Party – they want to hold power without accountability or recourse.

They are willing to sell their souls for a permanent hold on the levers of power without fully understanding that the monster they create will crush them underfoot as our democracy disintegrates into a thug state. This has happened time and again in recent history. America fought socialism for almost 100 years. Our greatest enemies were socialist states. We crept back from the brink of socialism not once, but twice, during the FDR and LBJ administrations. And here, at the dawn of a new millennium, our former enemies are shaking themselves free of the socialist yoke, while we, champions of the Free World, slip into darkness.

And even though history has plenty to teach us about the failures of socialism, our leaders and their toadies deliberately misinform and re-educate our citizens, so that they are ignorant of the incredible human suffering that awaits them when these idiots begin to experiment with our lives. Understand that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are purely corrupt by every definition of the word. The contempt and hatred that they, Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership hold for the average American is heart-stopping. For some bizarre reason, they want to punish us – take away our freedoms, destroy our optimism, kill the American spirit. They won’t stop until personal mobility is a thing of the past, social mobility is impossible and a rigid class structure is erected – with them at the top of the heap.

The Democrats are committed to cap and trade – an extraordinary tax scheme that will leave many Americans with the tough choice of heating their homes or having enough to eat. Cap and trade will enrich Al Gore and his Democrat cronies while it demolishes the manufacturing and energy sectors of economy. By the way, it will do absolutely nothing for the environment. It has nothing to do with the environment. Instead, it will give the federal government unprecedented power over the everyday lives of the citizens and create a protected energy monopoly for the politically connected.

The Democrats are committed to nationalized healthcare – another tax scheme that will have Americans standing in line for an aspirin, where treatment will be doled out to those with political connections and the ‘correct’ status. Illegal aliens, designated minorities and those who simply don’t want to work or pay for health insurance will be covered while productive taxpayers find themselves at the end of the line. It’s not that Democrats are particularly concerned about the welfare of illegals or the poor. It’s another power grab. By directing who gets medical treatment and who doesn’t, Democrats can make themselves voter-proof and recall-proof. Once national healthcare is instituted, they won’t waste time flexing their power.

The Democrats are committed to budget-busting government programs – and once a huge deficit is in place, they’ll demand that taxes be raised yet again. By taking more money away from productive taxpayers, the government is in effect taking away the taxpayers’ freedom. Working Americans, be they janitors or CEO’s, will have no say about how 60% of the money they earn is spent. In fact, Democrats want to leave us only with spending money – enough to get drunk or high. The rest of it they’ll be happy to ‘manage’ for us. Let’s not forget that excessive taxation is just another form of serfdom – we live only to fuel the excesses and whims of politicians, bureaucrats and their cronies, whether they are community organizers or Wall Street shysters.

The Democrats are stupid. They are confident that the American taxpayer can be worked harder, taxed more and stripped of even more personal freedoms. They think the golden goose can still lay a few more golden eggs. They’re wrong. There comes a tipping point when government and government unions fuse to become a juggernaut that responds to no authority but its own. Unfortunately, there are many in the Democratic Party working toward that end, intent on installing a thug state. They don’t even bother to hide it anymore because no one will challenge them.

Our fate lies not in the hands of Republicans, who are squeamish and weak-kneed when confronting this evil. They equivocate, vacillate and compromise instead of engaging in a fight for the very life of this country. No, the fate of this country rests with a very few moderate and conservative Democrats who may still be able to distract, delay and frustrate the efforts of the hard-core left. They alone can deflect the course of the socialist juggernaut. They are the swing vote, the skeptics and the very few honest brokers left in the Democratic Party. They and they alone can pull us back from the brink. Let them not waiver in their resolve.

While tea parties took place across the country, our local and national electronic media were airing really important, newsworthy items, such as: mouse droppings in hotel rooms, what a bed bug looks like, turkey killed by automobile, and outtakes from Dancing with the Stars.It’s not censorship per se. It’s over-amplification of the extraneous. Fill a fool’s head with useless information and the really important stuff is lost in the shuffle. On MSNBC, the anchors and commentators derided the protests, referringto them as ‘tea-bagging’ or as ‘GOP Tea Baggage’, in an attempt to insult the valid 1st Amendment rights of American citizens. Had it been militant gays or enraged blacks, MSNBC would have provided sober, sincere thematics and respectful language to describe their alleged grievances. Instead, they’re laughing in the faces of Americans who carry the freight for everyone in this land of ingrates. 

Hopefully, American exercise their right not to watch MSNBC, NBC, CNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS, so that they, along with the New York Times, the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune, will falter and ultimately fail. And once they do, the true agenda of the Democratic Party and its socialist backers will become more apparent.

The look on Nazi Pelosi’s face during the press conference she held after the House voted on Obama’s back-breaking new budget should have frightened more of us. It should have jolted the country awake, sent us into the streets to shout and scream that this can’t happen here. She was in ecstasy - a kind of raving mad ecstasy. She lit up like Adolf Hitler’s face when he was delivering one of those lengthy harangues where thousands stood in formation, flags flying and swastikas ablaze. Nazi Pelosi was beaming. Her greatest triumph was at hand - the utter devastation of the American way of life. It was a way of life that had personally rewarded her immensely. She and her husband, Paul Pelosi, have amassed more than $30 million in stocks and real estate - the fruits of capitalism. But, that kind of wealth is not for the rest of us. We are merely the proletariat: Unexceptional people facing a humdrum existence of paying taxes and paying bills. We’re scrabbling for a meager existence while our Speaker of the House pistol whips Air Force generals for being late with her Gulfstream jet.

Nazi Pelosi has been a political hack all her life. She realized early on that political power can make you as much money as true business prowess. And, you don’t risk any personal capital, either. Sort of like Hillary Clinton’s miraculous ‘options’ trade that netted her a hundred grand on a 1K bet. Or, maybe buying real estate that will be rezoned by your political cronies, netting you a fortune in short order. Liberal politicians who claim they’re happy to pay high taxes do so because they haven’t put any real effort or taken any risk in making that money. It’s like winning a lottery - no real skill involved.

But Nazi Pelosi is making a calculated bet that she can grow government to Soviet-era proportions and still retain enough positive economic activity to fund that government. That way, she can direct billions of dollars to pet projects and political cronies, enriching only those who buy into her warped vision. Unfortunately, she’s wrong, just like Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Arlen Specter, Patrick Leahy and the whole lot of them are wrong. They’ve pushed government spending over the line where it now destroys the entire economic system that keeps it all going.

More importantly, Nazi Pelosi is also trying to make the Democratic Party voter-proof so that no conservative backlash can remove Democrats from office at the voting booth in 2010 or 2012, and no Marxist legislation can be repealed. She and her Democratic co-conspirators are determined to slam shut the door of opportunity and economic freedom, forever barring the poor, the working class and the middle class from ever having a shot at real prosperity. There will be no more rags to riches stories in America unless you have political cover from the power elite.

The Speaker doesn’t understand that she is playing with fire. Socialism and Marxism are flawed systems because they don’t have the checks and balances that our founding fathers spent nearly a decade perfecting and then memorializing in the Constitution. A huge centralized government will begin to overstep its bounds almost immediately. Wait a minute - that’s already happening. Barack Obama fired Rick Wagoner, the chairman of General Motors. And, Secretary Geithner is firing bank CEOs, even though banks want to give the TARP money back.  And now, a government that can’t even pave roads properly or safely dispose of our garbage wants to nationalize the healthcare industry. We will be standing in line for an aspirin. This is what Nazi Pelosi dreams of when she goes to sleep.

It’s only a matter of time before the government starts dictating how much money each of us deserves to make, how hard we should be working and what we get to keep for our efforts. Rest assured that the politically connected and the parasites will be well fed, well housed and driving around in government-supplied vehicles. Nazi Pelosi will make sure of that.

Nazi Pelosi would like to force you out of your comfortable suburban home and put you into multifamily housing. She wants to take away your SUV or pickup truck so that you can stand in the rain and wait for a bus. It’s more efficient, it’s more environmentally responsible, she’ll say. Ah, but who’s living in your old house? That would be government workers, contractors, political party apparatchiks, government ‘dependents’ and other beneficiaries of the Democratic vision. But certainly not you, because you don’t deserve it. But, you will still be paying for it.

In fact, Nazi Pelosi supports ‘unpegging’ the United States from its Constitution and recognizing ‘international’ law. There is no such thing. ‘International’ law is a political mishmash administered by the UN and amended whenever the political winds change. And that’s why Nazi Pelosi wants it to be the law of the land - there will be no more Bill of Rights, no contract law, no ethical grounding. Every legal matter will be a political calculation, a matter of situational ethics. We won’t be able to vote, assemble, have our voices heard. That’s what Nazi Pelosi dreams of. There will be no way back to the America of our mothers and fathers. The only functioning constitutional republic in human history will have disappeared. In its place will be a collapsing society that poses a threat to its own citizens while it menaces the world. Thank you for your vision, Nazi Pelosi.

The fact that Congress has even bothered to bring to a vote the matter of AIG bonuses should signal loudly that the Golden Age of Parasites has arrived. Senator Chris Dodd denies inserting language into the mystery-shrouded economic stimulus package that was so quickly passed by both houses of Congress. The White House denies prior knowledge of the bonuses, even though staffers admit to it. Treasury Secretary Geithner himself crafted some of the foundational language of the bailout arrangement while George W. Bush was still in office. And now, every congressional aide’s best friend, Barney Frank,  is screeching that a 90% tax on those bonuses is justifiable. The parasites can now take away anything from anyone. Screw contract law. Screw constitutional guarantees. Screw the Bill of Rights. They can take what they want when they want it with the full backing of an ocean of parasites that now comprises the voting public. Mobocracy has arrived, cheered on by the media.

It’s revealing that only 44 protesters showed up to take a bus tour of AIG executives’ homes, even though every one of them was paid by A.C.O.R.N. with our tax dollars to do so. A crushing mob of reporters and cameramen from around the world showed up to document the circus. At the same time, hundreds of tea parties were being staged around the country to protest the Democrats’ uncontrolled spending and yet nothing has been reported on this groundswell of conservative activism.

It’s difficult to fully explain the motives of TV network programming executives, editorial directors, news writers and reporters. Some of it can be characterized as pure envy and malice — the mainstream media have assumed a rather pompous and sanctimonius position on social justice and economic opportunity without really delving into the causal relationships driving the disparity in income and social advancement. But then, that’s too difficult. It would require getting an education beyond ‘journalism’ or ‘communications’ which is as useful and intellectually challenging as ballroom dancing or basket weaving. No insult intended to the latter. It might require reporters, editors, columnists, newsreaders, producers and all of the other unionized (that’s right, they’re unionized) media ‘professionals’ to actually work hard and think before they open their yaps. It’s much easier to descend into pure envy and malice - the stock in trade of unions in this country. Hey, it worked for the unions.

But the primary reason that media outlets are effectively propaganda machines for the Left is that they’ve been intentionally been purposed to do so. Much like the contagion of leftist thinking that has demolished independent thought on college campuses, the Left has worked hard to spread its infection into the field of journalism. It’s an aggressive form of journalism, where the ‘reporter’ or ‘anchor’ insert themselves into the story, insult or attack their subject, then apply ‘context’ and ‘analysis’ that follows the party line. The strategy has worked extraordinarily well. Ask Sarah Palin. Where there are gaps in the all-out assault on American principles and ideals and those who uphold them, George Soros fills in with hundreds of bloggers funded through his many front organizations. 

Democratic politicians, media boobs and their wealthy patrons are playing with fire. They don’t understand that if the mob gets loose, at some point they too, will become targets. Even Karl Marx understood this. Obama and the Democrats think they can control mob impulses and turn them to their political advantage, much like Mussolini or Hitler did early on in their despicable regimes. History has proven them wrong. Either the actions of the mob descend into utter madness, or the politicians attempting to control the mob become dictators. This should not be America’s fate.

Barack Obama has dedicated himself to destroying this country. He’s attacking the very ideals and institutions that have made this country the greatest in the history of mankind. He’s taken upon himself the grim task of gutting the Constitution, the system of checks and balances, and a free-market economy that’s the envy of the world. Why would he do this? Because he’s not familiar with the America most Americans live in. His father was Kenyan - an alcoholic womanizer who visited this country once or twice. His American mother was an ultra-liberal that flitted about the globe, dragging her young son with her as she attempted to ‘find’ herself. He spent his formative years in Indonesia attending a Muslim school. Barack Obama had no grounding in what being an American truly is, what it means, and what’s important to Americans.

Barack Obama is an exemplary orator. Too bad that what he’s spewing is pure Marxist dogma. And yet, the stupid and the gullible sop it up, quivering in joy when they hear him speak, misunderstanding his true intentions and the ‘plans’ he has for America. Even black Americans who voted for Obama had better pay attention now. If they thought their lot in life was somehow diminished during the Bush administration, just wait until Obama is done with them. The Messiah will alter their America, too. And they won’t recognize it when he’s finished.

Well-educated, well-spoken and well-dressed, Obama the demagogue told everyone what they wanted to hear. But, he was very plain and straightforward about his vision for a Marxist utopia - except nobody really listened. Now, he’s making good on his promise to ‘re-make’ America, uproot its traditions and reason for being. No, he’s not going to create some sort of Euro-style socialist state. He’s going for the throat - a full-on Marxist takeover, complete with his promised ‘internal security force’ the size of our military. Why would the Anointed One, the Great Visionary, need an internal security force composed mostly of our poorly educated and gullible students, except to create another Hitler Youth or Red Guard to impose the will of Obama and the Democratic Party on us all? It’s a frightening prospect.

The media & entertainment clowns continue to cheer him on. The conservatives continue to question his motives and methods, but they’re largely outshouted. And so, Obama goes about his business - stampeding the stupid into giving him the imprimatur to take away all of our economic freedoms. And without economic freedom, the ability to keep what you earn guaranteed by our Constitution, the freedom to vote or voice your opinion is nearly useless. No one will hear you complaining when you’re standing in a breadline.

Obama is using the banking crisis to ram through a Marxist agenda - government control of energy, healthcare and capital formation. He’s lying about his true intent, cloaking this outrageous power grab as a means to moderate the economic downturn. Creating a ‘green’ economy with unproven technology and government subsidies is not a free-standing, self-sufficient economy. Bankrupting coal producers, coal-fired energy generation, oil companies and auto companies is not going to create a rebound. Confiscating healthcare and turning it into a political weapon will not cause prosperity to materialize. And certainly, adding a huge new tax burden on economic activity will not create jobs.

But then, Obama doesn’t really care if the economy recovers at all. The worse it gets, the more power he’ll accumulate and the further our great country will slide into the clutches of a failed ideology. To the Democrats that won’t matter in the least. They’ll always have the ‘rich’ and the Republicans to blame for anything and everything that goes wrong. And when it gets really tough, fellow Democrats can meet up with their President at the White House for a cocktail on Wednesday nights and dine on $100 per pound steak. Hey, it’s free, isn’t it? Go on, a second helping couldn’t hurt…

Last summer, George W. Bush and Hank Paulson rammed nearly a trillion dollars into the financial system, hoping to stabilize wobbly banks and brokers. Ben Bernancke printed another trillion dollars and injected them into a wobbly economy, hoping to stimulate lending and commerce. Six months later, Barack Obama presides over a so-called stimulus package, committing the government to another trillion dollars in questionable spending, only to follow it up a few days later with a seven hundred billion dollar mortgage package - the third of its kind in less than a year. On the floor of the House is another $700 billion ‘omnibus’ spending bill for the balance of 2009. And now, Obama proudly reveals a stupendous, back-breaking $8 trillion dollar federal budget for 2010 so laden with pork and special-interest handouts that it staggers the imagination.

And, true to form, neither Obama nor the Democrat-controlled Congress is inclined to illuminate the taxpayer on what exactly is in that budget. By the way, there are also ‘off the book’ spending that’s not even included in that budget, such as a planned cash infusion for GM and Chrysler, the recently turned up war in Afghanistan, and a vastly expanded internal security force inside our borders.

That’s $16 trillion dollars in less than a year and one-half, or our entire GDP for one year, consumed by profitless, pointless government spending. Add that sum to our incredible national debt of $44 trillion, and it spells impending cataclysm. This isn’t just reckless, it’s as if Obama and Democrats want to purposely run the country into the ground for some other purpose, perhaps to take total control. One shudders at the thought. But, nothing else seems to make sense. Why would a US president and a duly elected Congress attempt to evade all of the safeguards put in place by our founding fathers, except to create a socialist oligarchy? Democrats, in their short-sighted and stupid bid to make themselves voter-proof, have destroyed the checks and balance system of the Constitution. And, in so doing, they have destroyed the American republic, humankind’s oldest and most successful functioning free-market representative democracy. And, they’re celebrating its destruction with beef, champagne and applause.

According to Newsweek magazine, we’re all socialists now, and it’s a good thing. The mainstream media are celebrating the destruction of the world’s greatest country, its system of beliefs, it ideals and personal guarantees. They proudly trumpet the sad fact that we now join the ranks of ’sophisticated’ socialist states such as those in Western Europe. This, as the rest of the world struggles to throw off the chains of socialism where it exists. As president Obama waxes eloquently about impending doom, clueless citizens rejoice at the news that Congress has passed a monumental spending bill masquerading as relief for the economy. The morons who support Obama are shedding tears of joy, convinced that they no longer have to pay for their gasoline or make their mortgage payments. Obama will make that all go away. Hallelujah. Let’s dance in the streets.

The ‘economic stimulus’ package contains very litte in the way of economic stimuli, and lots in the way of future payoffs for organized labor and other government-centric constituencies. It goes a long way toward making Democrats voter-proof at every level of government, with generous handouts focused on those groups that can deliver Congressional votes two years from now and for Obama’s re-election bid four years out. But handouts, pork, growing government to 30% of GDP and the usual Democratic shenanigans aren’t the most troubling part of this legislation. It’s the darker, scarier stuff buried in the fine print.

Tom Daschle may not be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services, but his dreary vision of nationalized healthcare will be implemented to the letter. He advocates the establishment of a national policy review board that literally holds life and death power over every American, regardless of their insurance coverage. This is important - regardless of their insurance coverage. This review board will distributed ’scarce’ healthcare resources on a ‘fair and equitable’ basis whether you have insurance coverage or not. In other words, a small, unaccountable, unelected group of federal bureaucrats will now decide whether or not you get a badly needed heart bypass operation, even if you can afford to pay for it out of your own pocket. Oh, but there’s more: If you don’t fit their demographic of a ‘deserving’ recipient for that bypass, your insurance premium dollars are confiscated and used to pay for that other person’s more politically correct bypass. You, the working stiff who paid for all this, can just go and die.

This is not exaggeration nor hyperbole. Al Gore is not writing this article. The above-mentioned mechanism to ration and direct healthcare resources is in the economic stimulus package Congress just approved. The federal government now has direct control of your life, your health and therefore, your economic output. Why it’s there is anyone guess. But, that kind of monstrous legislation is why Obama and the Congressional Democrats are in such a big hurry to get it passed. By invoking the potential for calamity, by spreading fear and rattling the economy, Obama and his puppeteers will turn us away from a free-market democracy and put us firmly into the clutches of socialism. And, according to Newsweek, it’s a good thing…

During his candidacy and his first few days in office, Barack Obama has made both public and private comments regarding the use and cost of various forms of energy. He famously whispered that as president he would attempt to bankrupt the coal companies and the utilities dependent on coal for power generation. Quite recently, he said that $5 per gallon gasoline would be good for the country. Because he’s never held a real job,  commuted an hour to work, wrestled with the problems of a small business or assumed personal reponsibility for a profit/loss statement, Mr. Obama knows nothing about the realities of life here in these United States of America. He wasn’t concerned about helping Mother Earth when these comments were made. He was talking about controlling the lives of Americans through the availability, cost and appropriate use of energy. With the dollar nearly valueless, energy is now the new currency. By constricting supply, redirecting its flow or outlawing certain uses, Obama and his puppeteers can now control the entire US economy.

The carbon credit cap-and-trade scheme provides no direct benefit to the environment, the economy or the citizenry. It does, however, give the government dictatorial powers to control industrial output, personal mobility, even the flow of information. All of it requires energy. Starve a certain economic activity of energy, and it disappears. Provide cheap, abundant energy to another sector, and it will flourish. That’s called a planned economy. See Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Chavez. Even if the carbon credit tax scheme (yes, of course it raises taxes) doesn’t come to be, Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress have a dozen other means to achieve nearly identical results. Energy, like money, can be used to reward political allies and punish opponents. Energy, like money, evokes strong emotions of envy, entitlement and greed.

If you’ve ever watched one of those post-apocalyptic movies that hit theaters every now and then, you can’t help but notice that almost every film, energy is highly prized. Everyone fights over the available energy source, be it ancient fuel depot or swine flatulence, to stay alive or to impose their will over others. The leftist wing of the Democratic Party senses this. The private foundations and academic loonies have been touting this as the ultimate means of control for decades. But, how to get Americans to relinquish their standard of living and personal mobility - both possible only with cheap and abundant energy?

Enter the bogeyman - Al Gore, with an alarming vision of an environmental Armaggedon, replete with celebrity endorsements, Bruce Springsteen playing background music and thousands of militant morons flooding into the streets.  And so, Big Al and the environuts have trotted out their shameless scam of global warming to scare gullible Americans into scaling back their energy use and accepting the exhorbitant tax schemes that are being layered into energy costs. The environmental bogeyman frightens Americans into giving up their personal mobility, scaling back their standard of living and limiting their economic freedoms.

The media play along. In recent days, Exxon was again lambasted for its ‘obscene’ 2008 profits of $45 billion - a one time event. No one in the mainstream media bothered to report that over half of this profit was confiscated by the US government in the form of corporate income tax. Nor did they mention that Exxon actually collected nearly $300 billion in federal gasoline taxes for the government and turned it over within a few hours of collecting it. It costs Exxon lots of money to collect those taxes, do the reporting and transfer funds collected from thousands of gasoline stations and credit card issuers. Exxon was not reimbursed. The government expended no effort in collecting those taxes, other than to call the bank to see if they were deposited. And then, moments later, our government spent it. Out the door. Up in smoke. Never to be seen again. At some point, if voters allow it to happen, the government will take control of the oil and coal industries to ‘protect’ us from price gouging, when in fact it’s the hidden taxes in energy prices that are making them unaffordable to working Americans.  Once the means of production are controlled (Hugo Chavez playbook, p. 1), the government can impose its will as it sees fit. Whomsoever controls the levers of power, now controls each and every one of us.

So, when the brownouts start happening on a regular basis, when local radio stations featuring conservative talk show hosts are put on a limited broadcasting schedule to conserve power, and when your monthly electric bill is roughly equal to your mortgage payment, remember who started it all - Obama and his cronies in Congress. Their dreary utopia of equally shared misery is the best that socialists can offer.