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 bureaucrats and politicians at GM and the bureaucrats and politicians in DC are carefully and politely carving up the cadaver that was once GM. The autopsy is being performed in Washington behind closed doors, perhaps in the Rayburn building. The scenario could play out like this: While GM executives sit out in the hallway, UAW bosses sit in secret sessions with Congressional Democrats, pounding the table and demanding that they and their union members be compensated for delivering the vote. Democrat party leaders scratch their collective heads, trying to figure out a way to put money in the hands of unions without rewarding automotive execs for sub-par performance. This is no easy task, even for experienced enablers of parasitic behavior like those on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, the remaining GM execs are in a huddle trying to figure out how to save their jobs or cobble together a nice golden parachute that doesn’t draw too much attention from the media, the unions or the clowns in Congress. Rick Wagoner’s exit package will be closely scrutinized. They’ve already thrown white collar retirees to the wolves - the government will likely take over the non-union retiree pension programs and slash pension payments and benefits. The media won’t report on it.

President Obama has, in his infinite wisdom as Supreme Leader, appointed a leftist social scientist as the auto czar. Not a car guy. Not an engineer or a corporate finance guy, but a socialist academic who’s never held a real job in his life. Edward Montgomery has never had to deliver a product on time, on budget, with repeatable quality and show a profit – not even an ice cream cone. There is no evidence that Edward Montgomery has ever changed the oil in his car, much less displayed any knowledge of automobiles or the industry. Instead, Edward Montgomery will become the most powerful automotive executive in US history so that he can preside over the ‘equitable’ distribution of money to the UAW and skilled trade unions. He’s certainly not interested in having GM or Chrysler throw off a profit, because he probably doesn’t even understand how that happens. Therefore, GM’s new board of directors, hand-picked by Mr. Montgomery, will probably be composed of radical environmentalists, labor union representatives, academics, ‘victims’ of corporate excesses and ‘community’ leaders. GM will become very much like the old Soviet Union’s state-run enterprises - cranking out sub-par goods at outrageous prices. In fact, the Democrats can probably still find some old, disgruntled Soviet apparatchiks that can show them how best to milk the system for all it’s worth.

GM and possibly Chrysler will be forced to build cars designed by bureaucrats and social activists. These vehicles will make the infamous Soviet-era Trabant look stylish by comparison. Of course, most Americans won’t buy them, prefering to pay a carbon-credit tax on a real car made elsewhere — like Japan, Korea, India or China. The Obama administration will then give these unwanted GM cars away to undeserving wards of the state, who’ll leave them lying by the roadside once they have a flat tire. And the American taxpayer will be on the hook for this entire mess.

But, it’s too easy to blame Obama and the Democrats for the mess. After all, they’re just taking advantage of a situation they didn’t create. No, that happened on Rick Wagoner’s watch, along with an entire gang of GM exec’s that just plain didn’t do their job. The UAW’s attitude is understandable to a degree - they can’t save GM even if their members worked for free. It’s not the union’s fault that GM management wasn’t looking ahead, that it wasn’t nimble enough to create a car company that could roll with the punches like a Honda or Toyota. Yes, the car business has been cruel to everyone, but Toyota lost $2 billion in 2008, while GM lost something north of $40 billion. Both firms sell about the same number of vehicles.

GM points to ‘legacy’ costs such as retiree benefits. Toyota has similar costs. Its labor force is actually older than GM’s and Japan also mandates similar retirement benefits for unionized auto workers. The money is distributed differently, but the numbers are similar. The same is true for German autoworkers who receive 80% of their working salary during retirement. And yet, both the Japanese and German automakers are in better shape than GM.

The blame is to be shared equally by GM management and UAW/skilled trades union bosses. On the part of GM management, a chronic shortage of vision and leadership allowed the company’s bureaucracy to bungle forward, oblivious to the realities of the marketplace.  On the union side, the UAW and the skilled trades unions did their level best to create work rules that hampered productivity and ballooned the cost of tooling up for a new vehicle. They were adamant about preserving jobs in order to protect that flow of dues into union coffers. Too bad it backfired on them. GM’s senior management was too timid to confront the unions and demand more cooperation. Much like the state and federal government, union bosses could not grasp the fact that more productive union workers would make the car companies more profitable and they would in turn build more manufacturing plants. Those plants would need more workers. Instead, union bosses dug in their heels and insisted on increasingly unproductive work rules and procedures that hamstrung automakers and gobbled up available cash.

Why would the unions do such a thing? It would seem short-sighted and self-destructive. Because, union workers and union bosses were firsthand witnesses to the bad decision-making emanating from GM’s executive suites. Those decisions cost them jobs and opportunities. When a new product fails, like GM’s infamous Pontiac Aztec, management doesn’t get laid off or fired. Assembly line workers do. When GM’s board of directors approves investment in a new vehicle line, executives aren’t called on the carpet when it doesn’t sell. Instead, white collar and blue collar workers are asked to make sacrifices and the auto suppliers are told to cut their prices. The automotive industry as a whole has been making sacrifices for the better part of two decades. GM’s senior management has not.

So, when GM is on the ropes, executives shouldn’t expect too much help or sympathy from the UAW or the supplier base, even though the fate of both are closely tied to the failing giant. On the political front, GM has bellyached for years about the unfair trade advantages held by imported brands. Those arguments began to fall apart when imports set up manufacturing facilities in the US while GM continued to move jobs overseas.

It’s likely that GM will go the way of Hudson, Kaiser, Studebaker, Rambler and the venerable Hupmobile. There’s nothing griven in stone that says a corporation must live forever. Big corporations are like miniature civilizations. They possess their own culture, social pecking order, rules of etiquette, ways of doing things. And like any civilization, they have a birth, a period of vibrant growth, maturity and finally, a decline followed by death or dismemberment. Younger, more aggressive corporations feed on the remains. In the end, GM’s demise may give rise to smaller, nimbler carmakers that can remain competitive in the world markets. Propped up by government, GM will simply remain a huge and costly socialist experiment, draining the country of resources that could be put to better use. Steamships and the Pony Express are gone, along with buggy whips and hoop skirts. As unpleasant as it may be in the short term, maybe it’s time for GM to ride off into the sunset. In this case, the pieces will be of greater value than the sum of the parts.

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…

George Soros isn’t well known to most Americans. He should be. He’s very well known in Southeast Asia, where he’s been accused of currency manipulation and destroying the economies of Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia in the late 1990s. If that doesn’t jog your memory, or perhaps you’re too young, Mr. Soros was also responsible for breaking the Bank of England in 1992, creating a $30 billion hole in the British economy back when $30 billion was still a bunch of money. And, he and his cronies pocketed $2 billion for their two months’ work. Mr. Soros has dabbled in the currencies of many countries, large and small, across the globe. Eventually, as that country’s currency faltered, Mr. Soros would short the currency, which would create a collapse, followed by runaway inflation and economic devastation. Sort of like a fairy prince who brings good things to all people.

In the runup to that currency collapse, Mr. Soros would set up shop in his targeted country, usually through surrogates. He would get involved in the banking, economic, public policy and social issues of that targeted country, generously funding progressive causes. Mr. Soros preferred socialist countries because their economies and fiscal policies grew out of central planning - slow, predictable and easily outmaneuvered -like England. Dynamic, rapidly changing, free-market economies didn’t suit his particular form of predation. It was too difficult to predict when or if a currency should be shorted, or when to force a government into economic collapse with a manufactured crisis of confidence.

He’s made billions for himself, his cronies and a plethora of shadowy organizations strung around the world. Unfortunately, he’s been operating within the relative safety of the United States for the last 30 or so years, protected from retribution by other countries whose economies he’s been accused of destroying. About 10 years ago, he likely decided that America would be his next big pet project. Yep, it’s a real fixer-upper. But what are his intentions? Is this the Big One, the biggest short of all time? Is he going to destroy the biggest economy in the world to put another notch in his belt? Exactly why is he here in the first place, and why does he care so much about America, a place he detests and whose people he despises?

Mr. Soros thinks America needs to be overhauled top to bottom, that its people need to be re-educated, its traditions are primeval, its institutions are hopelessly unsophisticated and that we’re all too damned fat. If it’s so bad here, why doesn’t he leave? He can easily afford to buy Lichtenstein.  Maybe he can crown himself king and live out his socialist-autocratic fantasies there and just leave us alone. But, he won’t. Instead, he funds manure-sprayers like moveon.org and a whole host of anti-American front organizations that do their best to destabilize the country and instill doubt in the whole American reason for being. There are plenty of places that could use the help of George Soros to pull the population out of the hellhole they call their daily existence. Zambia comes to mind. So do a dozen other countries that could do with a meddling do-gooder. Ah, but Mr. Soros (not his real name) may not be the do-gooder he would like us to think he is.

No, Mr. Soros may be dabbling in American politics and supporting the Marxist demagoguery of Barack Obama for only one reason. Once the US economy has been placed under the firm control of financial geniuses like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Charlie Rangel, aided and abetted by hundreds of well-meaning but hopelessly outclassed dunderheads at the Department of Treasury and the Department of Commerce, our economy will resemble that of 1950s Red China — easily manipulated and easily shorted. The biggest currency short of all time. But, what exactly does that mean to the average working American?

It means waking up early one morning in the next few months (that’s right, George is a busy little guy) and driving past a gas station that displays unleaded regular at $8.80 per gallon. John Q. Public will rub his eyes, thinking it was just a dream - until he drives past the next gas station with the same $8.80 per gallon price. Oh, by the way, that’s the cash price. The credit card price will be $9.70 per gallon. When John Q. Public stops at Dunkin’ Donuts, the small coffee will be $5.50 per cup. The car radio will be blaring the news of a massive currency devaluation that occurred when talks collapsed at midnight between the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world. What talks? None of the news media mentioned any talks. For days, the news media had instead been filled with glowing coverage of Barack Obama eating $100 per pound steak and sipping Dom Perignon with his Democratic stooges, skewering the Republicans for questioning the insanity of his pork barrel stimulus package. And George Soros was there, enjoying the moment.

George Soros hates America with a passion that would scare the snot out of your average New York City socialite. It’s a deep, virulent hatred that’s directed at everything average Americans think is even remotely important, and a few things that truly are, like religion, the flag and the right to drive that 10 year-old pickup truck anywhere you please. George wants the common man to be common - no distinction between one and the other, all eking out a meager existence in a modest little apartment, taking a bus or train to work. This while George and the rest of the liberal elite fly in private jets from palatial home to palatial home.

George has probably already set up his short play. Complex computer programs, twitchy currency traders and pre-arranged execution deals are in place, ready for the triggering events that will collapse the dollar. And when it happens, George will be on a yacht somewhere, or possibly a White House dinner, feigning innocence like a Mafia don attending a baptism during a mob hit he ordered. When the smoke clears and the wreckage becomes evident, George will smile. Mission accomplished.

Olympia Snow, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter are traitors to America. They joined the other traitors, that being the Democratic members of the Senate, to push through legislation that they know destroyed this great country. They did it for political expediency, for personal gain, for the benefit of friends, relatives and political allies, and they did it to intentionally insult and harm the greater number of Americans who still believe in the Constitution and the American promise. They did it to repudiate free-market capitalism, social mobility and self actualization. They did it to solidify the power of the liberal elite, to reward unions and government bureaucrats, to provide incredible wealth to political insiders.

President Obama promised open government, open transactions and elimination of earmarks. This trillion dollar spending bill (there is no real economic stimulus) was crafted behind closed doors without the participation of the minority party. There was no public review or public comment, and a 90-minute floor debate before the vote was pushed through. Over 1,000 pages was voted on in both the House and Senate without even a single reading by any member of Congress. This isn’t democracy. This is Stalinism. Obama promised 48 hours of review. It never happened. This man lied to all of us. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid lied to all of us. The Democrats threw out 100 years of procedure and safeguards to rush this monstrosity through both houses. The few Republicans who could have stalled this, Snow, Collins and Specter, decided to betray the core principles of the Republican Party and throw in their lot with the Marxists running this country. History will not be kind to them. 

The bill is corrupt, misguided and destructive on so many levels that an entire book can be written about it. And yet, those Americans who will end up paying for this are silent. The producers aren’t protesting. They’re not flooding the offices of Democratic politicians with petitions, angry letters and emails. There’s nothing. Emboldened, the Democrats will advance their agenda until they hit opposition. The parasites are rejoicing. They actually believe they won’t have to pay for energy costs or their mortgages, or even work for a living anymore. Some are even asking our President for a new kitchen. This is what America has descended into - a populace so stupid, so self-absorbed that they have no idea what they’ve given away for a welfare check or a paltry $13 a week in handouts.

The Porkulus bill will be examined by historians in great detail — much more detail than the leftist Democrats who shoved it through Congress back in 2009. That was the year democracy died.

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.

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Think of parasites as an organizational pyramid or multilevel marketing enterprise. Maybe a better descriptor is Ponzi scheme. At the top of the pyramid are the liberal elite, the union bosses, trial lawyers, environmental gurus and political hacks that exhort Americans to sacrifice more, tighten their belts and stop complaining about higher taxes, loss of personal freedoms and economic opportunity.

At the bottom are the stupid schmucks that support and believe in the parasite elite, expecting to get something out of this whole pyramid scheme. They usually get the short end of the stick - a few handouts and some useless programs. The middle class gets stuck paying for handouts to the parasites, including the very top of the pyramid.

Let’s use trial lawyers as an example. When one of these parasites is advertising for slip and fall injuries or asbestos-related disease on television, they’re aiming at the bottom of the pyramid. They promise to get their clients big money awards with no fees and no risk. Obviously, they neglect to tell these poor folks, who indeed may have a legitimate claim, that they’ll receive just a small fraction of any award. The trial lawyers aren’t advertising to the upper middle class (aka the taxpayers). No self-respecting small business owner, corporate exec, doctor or professional would even consider representation by an ambulance-chaser. The trial lawyers aim their advertising at the poor, unemployed, hopeless and desperate. They are typically in financial trouble, uneducated and unfamiliar with how these legal parasites work their game. So, they end up signing away their rights in a class action suit or bundled case, and receive far less than they deserve. The trail lawyers, on the other hand, make millions, usually by overwhelming the court or the accused with hundreds of simultaneous claims. Just to the clear the docket, many judges will urge the accused to settle, even if they’re completely blameless.

Obviously, trial lawyers resist any legal reforms that would stop this gravy train. They invest heavily in the Democratic Party, donating millions. In fact, in most states, trial lawyers are the largest political donors. They have enormous influence.

Politicians work the system in a similar manner. They promise the poor, uneducated, hopeless or shiftless just about anything to get elected, knowing full well they can’t possibly deliver on those promises. Once in office, they create programs and laws that take money from working Americans and redistribute it to those who can’t or won’t provide for themselves. But, the government is incredibly inefficient in the redistribution of wealth. For every dollar collected in taxes, only 20 cents actually makes it to the person who needs it. The other 80 cents is used up by the government to ‘administer’ the redistribution. Wouldn’t we be better off with private charities doing this work? After all, even the least efficient private charity still delivers 70 cents of every donated dollar to the proper recipient.

Socialist politicians masquerading as Democrats don’t really want private charities to exist because they are competition. Instead, they want government to assume the roles of benefactor, parent, guidance counselor, personal financier, doctor and therapist in the name of ‘fairness’ and ‘compassion’. What’s really going on is that socialist politicians have been able to manipulate the poor and working class to their own advantage, creating a powerful voting bloc. That voting bloc is kept motivated by promises of even more government handouts at the expense of the ‘rich’, who truly don’t deserve their wealth no matter how hard they worked for it. By inciting class warfare, they keep themselves in office.

Much like the trial lawyers who promise big cash awards and instead grab most of it for themselves, politicians promise the poor and working class handouts and special privileges, knowing they can’t deliver. Instead, that money is absorbed by the politicians’ real constituency - huge government bureaucracies, the labor unions representing them and politically connected government contractors who are themselves unionized or generously underwrite liberal causes. There is one other, very important beneficiary of the redistribution game - activist organizations that directly engage with the poor, the disenfranchised and working poor or pretend to represent them in some way. Many, like the ACLU and A.C.O.R.N., receive direct government funding so that they can continue to foment class hatred and despair among millions of Americans, instilling in them a sense of entitlement instead of a sense of empowerment.

But it’s not just the poor and working class Americans who look to government handouts. Wall Street has snagged billions in taxpayer money to prop up billionaires and a culture of entitlement. Unlike the millions of poor and working poor that have only one vote to cast, the relatively small number of Wall Street honchos and financiers write big campaign donation checks. They buy their political clout, just like trial lawyers. Ask Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. When the Wall Street people overstep their bounds, when they truly screw up, these cobras lean on the American taxpayer. And the American taxpayer is completely unaware that the government, steered by politicians, dispenses money based on political considerations above all else. So, if billions are handed out to the poor, millions of poor each get a couple bucks. If billions are handed out on Wall Street, millions of bucks go to just a few people. The top of the parasite pyramid generally gets the same amount of money as the bottom of the pyramid - it’s just spread out among fewer people. And they have no problem taking it. After all, it’s free!

The events in Washington DC are a chilling indicator of just how badly average Americans misunderstand their current predicament. Amidst the applause, the outpouring of joy and nonsensical optimism lies an astounding depth of ignorance as to the motives and intent of the Anointed One and his retinue. The self-reinforcing cycle of bad education and badly educated Americans allows socialists to usurp our economic freedoms. It blinds most Americans to the true motives of a Democratic Party that has abandoned democracy for the unbridled power of a socialist regime. Laura Ingraham’s radio show featured clips of typical Obama fans expressing (or attempting to) their rationale for supporting this newly-minted president. Most of them couldn’t complete a sentence, much less coherently explain why they’re so infatuated with Mr. Obama. Their random utterances were nothing more than mindless parroting of Obama sound bites that had been repeated over and over by the mainstream media in the months running up to this coronation ceremony. They clearly don’t understand what they’ve voted for, who represents them and what will happen once Democrats make themselves voter-proof at every level of government.

Barack Obama knows exactly what he’s doing, as do all of his advisors and departmental nominees. The only person along for the ride is the Gaffemeister himself, the honorable Joe Biden, ably assisted by his wife, whose only priority in life appears to be the endless refinancing of his real estate holdings. And, of course, keeping his son and relatives out of the media spotlight.

As the celebs and rock stars pour into the capital to spend thousands of dollars on overpriced event tickets, limos and hotel suites, the proletariat fill the streets, cheering on the passing of free-market economics and equal opportunity. The TV anchors and print propagandists are beside themselves in apoplectic, eye-twitching ecstacy. But no one in the mainstream media asked how this will all shake out - not in the months since the election and certainly not in the last few days. 

How will the overtly leftist campaign promises of Barack Obama be transformed into government policy and legislation? How will Obama, ably assisted by Nancy Pelosi and Hary Reid, shred the Constitution and destroy everything that makes America different, and therefore, better? It will be obvious. It will be plain and straightforward, and the Republicans will be aghast at how easily a republic can be dismantled and replaced with a totalitarian system. With unbelieving eyes, they will see legislation passed in Congress and signed into law at the White House, confirmed by the Supreme Court and put into action by the bureaucracy. Every last bridge back to a free society and a free market will be set ablaze. And, it will be saluted with great fanfare by the media cabal, academics and the liberal elite. It will be cause for a celebration. Freedom will be snuffed out with guitar riffs and wild applause.

It’s only a matter of time before everybody in America begins clamoring for a bailout. At the height of the crisis in September of 2007, it made sense to pump money into the credit markets to keep the economy from grinding to a halt. Problem was, banks started using those taxpayer funds for just about every purpose except lending. On top of that, investment banks and securities brokers demanded to be chartered as bank holding companies so that they, too could get a little bailout boogie. The TARP fund was gamed and compromised within hours of the very first fund transfer. Treasury Secretary Paulson tried a mid-course correction and a head fake, only to find that the momentum he’d whipped up in Washington also meant that this runaway beer truck he created was impossible to stop and impossible to steer. It’s no doubt that Paulson was dismayed and angered by the actions of self-serving bank executives. That initial $700 billion went over the guardrail, never to be seen again. But, the banking sector’s behaviour created a wave of me-too bailout supplicants. And so, the bailout boogie began.

Not all of Wall Street was hurting, but they received funds anyway. Hank Greenberg’s monster, AIG, didn’t need a nickel. The insurance holding company could have been auctioned off in pieces, since each individual piece was a free-standing, self-sufficient and profitable enterprise, with the US government acting as receiver and funding day to day operations until the entire enterprise had been sold at a profit. This is something the government actually knows how to do. It happens in bankruptcy court every day of the week. Instead, taxpayer funds are given directly to the executives who created the mess in the first place. No one gets a pay cut, no one has their stock options taken away, no one is fired. Instead, they make a mocking ’sacrifice’ by not taking oversized bonuses that they didn’t deserve in the first place. This is absurd. It encourages parasitic behaviour and it emboldens other people to scheme and game the system.

And so, the gravy train is pulling into the station. Every purported victim, every charlatan and schemer, every influence peddler and power broker, is busy lining up to get their ‘fair share’ of the taxpayers’ personal net worth. Yes, that’s precisely what they’re doing - they are stealing the personal net worth of the upper middle class, which pays 80% of all taxes collected. Aided and abetted by politicians and bureaucrats, Americans are going to find a huge number of players doing the bailout boogie. It will quickly spread beyond carmakers, insurers and homeowners, and it probably won’t stop until the government goes broke or the dollar is worthless. We’ve crossed over the hump, that dividing line, between pretending that our government has some fiscal control and just throwing all common sense out of the window.

Political pundits and TV newsreaders make much of ‘crony capitalism’ - as if all capitalism is based on monopolistic tendencies. The mainstream media will usually characterize this as conspiratorial corporate collusion aimed at hapless consumers. Monopolies or price-fixing never last because they’re inherently inefficient and unmanageable in a dynamic free-market system. One needs only to look at OPEC, an openly conspiratorial and monopolistic bunch. Whenever OPEC oil ministers agree to set market prices at an artificially high benchmark it only takes a couple of weeks before one of their own is exceeding their production quota or lowering their prices. Despite all their machinations, they can’t control the price of oil. It’s market forces and human nature at work - good, bad or indifferent.

Typically, ‘crony capitalism’ involves government intervention or collusion, because the ‘cronies’ involved are usually government officials, elected or otherwise. Free-market capitalism by its very nature wouldn’t tolerate an unfair advantage, because market forces and competition would undermine the enteprise with an unfair or unethical advantage. This was true when our own government got involved in the corrupt practice of handing out special charters to politically connected individuals who would then form steamboat, railway, subway or trucking lines. These government-sponsored businesses were inherently inefficient and unprofitable not only because of the amount of bribery and graft involved, but because workers and management didn’t apply themselves, confident that their government charter protected their incomes. This is as true today as it was in the 1840s, when crony capitalism first began to appear. Compare Northern Suffolk Railways, a profitable private-sector operator, to Amtrak, a government-controlled operator that costs taxpayers millions each year. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, both government-chartered lenders, were subject to corruption and political gamesmanship that triggered the mortgage meltdown.

Pure capitalism has little in common with crony capitalism. In fact, crony capitalism is more closely aligned with socialism, where the government owns businesses outright. When government gets involved in business, those businesses will be run with the vision, energy and efficiency of government itself. In other words, it will be a disaster. Which doesn’t provide us much hope now that government is part-owner of banks, broker-dealers, insurance companies and carmakers.