So…now a cyberwar against conservatives has started.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/13/hackers-imperil-wilson-campaign-web-site/

<blockquote>Sources close to the South Carolina congressman charge that hackers have blitzed his campaign Web site JoeWilsonforCongress.com with a series of attacks that periodically shut down the page. </blockquote>

So…the lefty version of tolerance shows up, again.  And the press yawns, again.  And lefty disillusionment and hatred turns into something sinister, illegal, and, well, acceptable to Obama’s media.  How……unsurprising.  <sigh>

This “thing” is escalating.  Obama, Commander in Thief, calls us a bunch of names and says a bunch of untrue things.  We stand up for ourselves, our freedoms, show up en masse at town hall meetings and at Tea Parties, and then two words peel the onion back to it’s core (You Lie!).

The response is that some henchmen (while I’m certain acting alone) feel compelled to commit an act of domestic cyber terrorism….which is followed by….mostly silence.  The silence is a measure of how far we are into this battle.  The silence on Van Jones.  The silence on ACORN.  The silence is not new.  It’s the bias of non-reporting.  But the level of silence on these ever bigger stories is ominous.

Preparation

Earlier this morning, my wife left a reunion with some friends in Chicago to be home in by 2.  She was trying to make it in time for our family to make it to a 3:00PM Tea Party in Greenville, WI. The event had been published some time ago on Facebook.  While many Tea Parties were held on July 4, the organizers of this event felt a high-travel, high-family-event day like that would challenge most faimiles.  So, for whatever reason, July 19 was selected.

Well, they did pick an outstanding day.  The weather was an beautiful 75 degree, breezy, mostly sunny day.   Earlier in the day, I checked Facebook and found that only 53 folks had confirmed the event.  I was wondering if many were going to be there.  On a call from my wife on her way home, we decided to see how our 3-year-old’s nap went and make a decision to go somewhat last minute.

We decided to go…packed some gear…and rolled out about 2:40PM for the 15 minute drive.   We got to the event location…”Greenville Lions Park”…and found there to be 4 softball diamonds in the middle of large tournament.  Confused, we walked around a bit looking for the gathering.  I was concerned that maybe there was a scheduling snafu and the whole thing was a bust.  I found a local and asked if there were any other Greenville Lions parks. It turned out there was another Lion’s park about a mile farther south.  So we loaded the kids and headed out.

And that’s where things got interesting.

We found the entrance and were greeted by a row of cars parked on the grass all the way to the entrance (note the link above to see the park…picture is about before completion).  We followed the parking lot attendants who directed us to a spot.  The field was packed with cars.  I was still a bit incredulous.  My wife wasn’t.  She was confident the crowd was for the Tea Party.  As much as I wanted to believe it, I needed proof.  I wasn’t expecting the excitement from the April 15 party to to carry on so far, or so well.

Boy was I wrong.

We walked to the entrance and were bombarded by solicitors.  Americans for Prosperity, FoxPoliticsNews.net, and others handed us pamphlets, flyers, and cards.  At first I was taken aback by this, but then I realized these were active citizens participating in the political process. We continued on and found a spot in the outdoor amphitheater among the hundreds (or 1,500 by another count…a count of 2,000 wouldn’t surprise me, but can’t prove it better than the other number) of Tea Partiers.

WOW!!!  I was very wrong.  Lots of signs, lots of flags, lots of people of all ages.

The event itself was good.  Proud To Be An American and The National Anthem opened up the afternoon.  A couple of the even organizers followed up with some logistical points as wells as some points to rally the crowd.   Joe the Plumber was a keynote.  Other local conservatives/talk show hosts/etc. spoke as well.  A key highlight from Sam Wurzelbacher…don’t stop at attending a Tea Party…go home and call your represntatives…get politically active.  Several others made some nice points as well.  We left by 5 to get the kids dinner…speaches were still continuing.  However, some were slipping into self-promotion instead of on topics of tyrrany and freedom.

Summary

I learned a few things about events like this….

1. Be very clear about the location…the location turned out to be ambiguous.
2. If at all possible, schedule Tea Parties in kid-friendly locations.  There was a playset for the kids within earshot of the event.  Very helpful.
3. Keep the message on point.  The message at the April 15 party was powerful and heartfelt. Today, less so.

It was very encouraging to see the wide-ranging ages all out to support the Tea Party.  I think it’s time to turn it into more action.

Interestingly, there was also a Democrat rally for health care in Green Bay (30 minutes north) today organized by BO’s Organizing for America.  ”Dozens” showed up.  The contrast was striking.

The WSJ article Medicare Plans to Cut Specialists’ Payments points out the reality of a government improperly involved in business. Government Administrators get to decide the value of a service.

Payments to cardiologists would be trimmed by 11% overall, but certain procedures they perform would see steeper reductions. Alfred Bove, president of the American College of Cardiology, figured that cardiologists would receive 42% less for an echocardiogram and 24% less for a cardiac catheterization.

So…one magic wand later…stuff is cheeper. Huh?!? So what’s a rationale behind this?

Ted Epperly, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said the Medicare proposal would help reduce the income gap among doctors — specialists make two to five times as much as primary-care physicians — and attract more medical students to primary care. He called the change “long overdue.”

Funny, I thought that some procedures required more expertise, that supply/demand drove price, that markets infulenced price…guess I was wrong. I guess I need to adjust my thinking so we all make the same wage…forget universal minimum wage…let’s go right to a single wage for everyone!

Seriously, the real gold in the article is the comments. Check out the message from Grant Lynde. His opening quote: “This plan is at least Earth shaking to the medical industry, and is potentially disastrous and is built on fallacious arguments:”…to which he lays out 7 points. Here’s one that points out that even current government intervention is handcuffing him.

6) Capital expenses… look at the degree of the cuts. 20%, or more… in one swoop. Imagine any other business. You paid some capital expenses to upgrade your factory. Your customer then unilaterally tells you that you are going to earn 20% less per widget? Yes, in this economic downturn, a lot of other industries are feeling the same pinch (airlines, hotels, newspapers, you name it). But in health care, as a provider, I don’t have the opportunity to make up for this lost 20%. I simply cannot work more. Nor am I legally allowed to invest in complimentary businesses that could buffer me from this. On the other hand, my investors/banks/family members who have loaned me money expect to be paid. How?

Emphasis mine. He addresses salary, malpractice, school, hours, oncall support, etc. He loves his job and is thrilled by the “tough save”.

How is this guy now a source of funds, an ATM for a guy who didn’t work as hard or make the same sacrifices? I want the incentive for my doctor to be passion for the job. If the job pays well, or if that’s a motivation, that’s irrelevant to me. I do not want some person who is punching the clock, cause it’s the only job he could get, doing surgery. And yet, that’s the structure getting built. Where does passion get rewarded in a government beuracracy? I think the answer is that it’s “rewarded” primarily when you have a passion for power.

It just came to my attention that a case was just sent to the WI State Supreme Court challenging a state constitutional amendment which defines marriage.  Read a press release (PDF) from Wisconsin Family Council.  The amendment passed in November 2006 with overwhelming public support (better than 59%). 

I’m stunned.  The matter in my mind had been settled in 2006.  The people of my state agreed to a key traiditional value which is a foundation of this state’s, and this country’s, strength.  Also, as the release notes, the recent election of a progressive Chief Justice may contribute in this attempt to thwart my vote…my voice…my state’s solid stance on what is best for our kids.  

As I understand it, a ruling against the WI amendment does not automatically allow for arbitrary partners to “marry”.  However, it would open the door a whole lot wider for new action by the legislature or the courts.

…or that’s what we’re told to think.  As we RSers know, markets do work.  Check out this Forbes story (via Techdirt).

In summary, a banker basically sits out of the loan market…for 3 years.  In a lengthy article, Forbes notes 

Andy Beal, a 56-year-old, poker-playing college dropout, is a one-man toxic-asset eater–without a shred of government assistance. Beal plays his cards patiently. For three long years, from 2004 to 2007, he virtually stopped making or buying loans. While the credit markets were roaring and lenders were raking in billions, Beal shrank his bank’s assets because he thought the loans were going to blow up. He cut his staff in half and killed time playing backgammon or racing cars. He took long lunches with friends, carping to them about “stupid loans.” His odd behavior puzzled regulators, credit agencies and even his own board. They wondered why he was seemingly shutting the bank down, resisting the huge profits the nation’s big banks were making. One director asked him: “Are we a dinosaur?”

Now, while many of those banks struggle to dig out from under a mountain of bad debt, Beal is acquiring assets. He is buying bonds backed by commercial planes, IOUs to power plants in the South, a mortgage on an office building in Ohio, debt backed by a Houston refinery and home loans from Alaska to Florida. In the last 15 months Beal has put $5 billion to work, tripling Beal Bank’s assets to $7 billion, while such banks as Citigroup and Morgan Stanley shrink and gobble up billions in taxpayer bailouts. 

Mike Masnick in the Techdirt blog sums it up well:

This guy — who actually saw what was going on, and prepared for it, now has to compete against those who screwed up and are being handed billions by the government.

Smart people are out there.  They will lead us out of this mess.   Government would do better to fund the smart people like this guy…and even better to get out of the guy’s way.

Check out this post…turns out to be a great example of why governements aren’t good at giving out our money.

A few years back, the government passed a bill to encourage “greener” transportation by providing tax credits for the use of alternative fuels

<snip>

The paper companies are wasting diesel fuel (remember, the whole point of this bill was to decrease the use of such fuels) by adding it to a process even though it’s entirely unnecessary, and then claiming the tax credit. And, boy, is it worth it. The top ten paper companies are likely to take in $8 billion dollars from this tax credit.

I’m betting we’ll repeat this again and again for our bailouts.  Business is smarter than government.  I don’t like the paper companies for “taking” the money.  Then again, they were within the law…so who is really to blame?

From the WSJ:

President Barack Obama Thursday nominated Robert Groves, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan, to be the next director of the Census Bureau

…continuing…

Mr. Groves, who served as associate director of statistical design at the Census Bureau from 1990 to 1992, is an expert on “sampling,” the practice of adjusting statistics in order to compensate for undercounting.

Elections do have consequences. What do we get with ACORN-style corruption + statistical sampling? A farce of epic proportions, and the tail is going to be very long.

According to Fox, current Commerce Secretary Gary Locke doesn’t plan to use sampling for the census. I’m calling BS on that statement. There is a little thing called a Supreme Court decision in the way which could help a little.

The Supreme Court later ruled in 1999 that the use of statistical sampling cannot be used to apportion House seats, but indicated that adjustments could be made to the population count when redrawing congressional boundaries.

Republicans are already coming out against it..

“The fight to protect the accuracy and independence of the 2010 census has just begun,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the top Republican on a House subcommittee overseeing the census. “President Obama has made clear that he intends to employ the political manipulation of census data for partisan gain.”

Let’s hope they keep it up. This is going to be a long battle to maintain any sort of integrity in the midst of a corrupt set of partisan community organizations like ACORN.

While everyone was watching GM get swallowed up by the state, actions were being taken to move our kids a step closer to being swallowed up as well.  

The GIVE Act passed the house, went to the Senate and was renamed the SERVE Act.  It’s on it’s way back to House to be accepted “as is” before heading to Obama.  I found couple summaries from Michelle Malkin here and here.  She describes it as “charity at the point of a gun.”  Well said.  

Some text from the Desert News:

The bill by Kennedy and Hatch would authorize spending $5.7 billion over five years to expand or create a variety of national service programs, including tripling the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 positions to 250,000. It has been seen as a sort of going-away honor for Kennedy.

Well, isn’t that touching.  Orin Hatch (R-UT) can be thanked for this so-called honor, and for this waste of my money and yours.   And this…

The legislation would increase the education reward for participants in national volunteer programs from $4,725 to $5,350 a year, and that will automatically increase with the maximum Pell grant in the future. Volunteers older than 55 could transfer the education reward to a child, foster child or grandchild.

So you can participate and get money…and even give it to your kids or grandkids.  Isn’t this a system of paid volunteerism?  Aren’t people paid to work otherwise known as employees?  Why volunteer for church when I can “volunteer” for ObamaCorps?

Rep Foxx (R-SC) gets honorable mention for this attempt:

One vigilant House member, GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx, successfully attached an amendment to the GIVE Act to bar National Service participants from engaging in political lobbying; endorsing or opposing legislation; organizing petitions, protests, boycotts or strikes; providing or promoting abortions or referrals; or influencing union organizing.

This included ACORN and Planned Parenthood in practice, but reports say it was eventually blocked.

Thankfully (as is, thank you Congress for not taking away my God-given freedoms), the requirement for our kids to participate was dropped from the Senate bill.  However, keep an eye on H.R.1444.  It exists “To establish the Congressional Commission on Civic Service to study methods of improving and promoting volunteerism and national service, and for other purposes.”  The commission is acting on these findings:

Congress finds the following:

(1) The social fabric of the United States is stronger if individuals in the United States are committed to protecting and serving our Nation by utilizing national service and volunteerism to overcome our civic challenges.

(2) A more engaged civic society will strengthen the Nation by bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and experiences to work on solutions to some of our Nation’s major challenges.

(3) Despite declines in civic health in the past 30 years, national service and volunteerism among the Nation’s youth are increasing, and existing national service and volunteer programs greatly enhance opportunities for youth to engage in civic activity.

(4) In addition to the benefits received by nonprofit organizations and society as a whole, volunteering and national service provide a variety of personal benefits and satisfaction and can lead to new paths of civic engagement, responsibility, and upward mobility.

I don’t know where these findings came from, but they are needs already well-met by our traditional system of churches and nonprofits.   A key section is here:

(5) The effect on the Nation, on those who serve, and on the families of those who serve, if all individuals in the United States were expected to perform national service or were required to perform a certain amount of national service.

I’m strongly against spending billions on ObamaCorps, but I’ll console myself that it’s voluntary.  This country certainly does not need “help” by our government in the form of required service.  

Get offa my lawn!!!! (h/t to peg_c.)

I was working in the basement and caught a story from Bill Moyers on PBS.  I can’t say I have much history watching him so I can’t comment much on his politics (although I have an impression of a pretty soft, non-confrontational interviewer).  This evening, he facilitated a discussion with William Greider.  I’ve never heard of Mr. Greider before the story so I’ll let Bill introduce him.  Exerpts were pulled from this transcript.

Perhaps no journalist better understands the intertwining twists and turns of government and money, the collision of capitalism and democracy, than William Greider. He wrote the definitive account of the Federal Reserve system, SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE. In the spirit of Thomas Paine he produced, WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE? Followed it with, THE SOUL OF CAPITALISM. And now, COME HOME, AMERICA: THE RISE AND FALL (AND REDEEMING PROMISE) OF OUR COUNTRY.

Mr Greider opens with some not-so-shocking-to-RS-followers comments.

I’m offering a breath of skepticism toward this grand transformation of government. I don’t want to be a cynic, but it feels more to me like trying to restore the old order that failed. And I mean by that these big mega banks that had been liberated by deregulation to do as they pleased and the other rules that were undermined. I think this President, and I’m a big fan of this President, but I think his first priority seems to be to recreate those institutions which, some of which are now insolvent, as healthy again.

(emphasis mine) ”A breath of skepticism”…well, that’s understated…but I’ll take it from any and all sources.  And AMEN! to that last part.  He and Geithner are propping up failed institutions to wrest control of them.  What caught my attention was Mr. Greider’s assertion that Obama and Geithner are dragging our country back to old ideas which failed miserably.  Change?  Hope?  Hardly!  This next part is not news…but I welcome hearing from a somewhere on PBS. 

President Obama and if the Democratic leaders in Congress follow along, he’ll put the Democratic Party on the wrong side of history. At this critical moment. What we ought to be seeking, the goal of reform, and government aid, is creating a new financial and banking system, of many more, thousands more, smaller, more diverse, regionally dispersed banks and investment firms. That’s first obligation is to serve the economy and serve society. Not the other way around. What the administration’s approach may be doing is consecrating too big to fail, for starters. Which, of course, everybody in government denied was the policy until the moment arrived. And secondly, and this will sound extreme to some people, but I came to it reluctantly. I fear what they’re doing, not intentionally, but in their design is setting the crown for a corporate state.

(emphasis mine)  Sounds…um….exactly the opposite of Obama’s words (imagine that).  For all the talk of redistributing the wealth, I think what he intends is to redistribute wealth from market winners to government-selected winners…to Democrat constituencies and massive, TooBigToFail companies that have a dangerous entanglement with government.  Mr Greider continues with

The corporate state is here. And I’d say, let’s not argue over that. The fact is, if the Congress goes down the road I see them going down, they will institutionalize the corporate state in a way that will be severely damaging to any possibility of restoring democracy. And I want people to grab their pitch forks, yes, and be unruly. Get in the streets. Be as noisy and as nonviolently provocative as you can be. And stop the politicians from going down that road. And let me add a lot of politicians need that to be able to stand up. Our President needs that to be able to stand up.

(emphasis mine) That last sentence is part of a pattern in the interview where Mr Greider wants to feign support for Obama…but also wants him to fail.  (As an aside, I’m getting tired of people feeling they have to qualify any pragmatic analysis of Obama’s policies.)  

Mr Greider closes with a bit of perspective….from the Depression era.

Here’s my take on the New Deal and the history of what actually happened. And it conveniently fits my deeper prejudices about the country and how progress is achieved in America. That is, people in the streets or churches or wherever found their voice and made it happen by agitating and informing the higher authorities.

Tea Parties, phone calls, mail, email…our elected representives aren’t paying attention and need to hear from us.  I don’t vouch for the entire article.  Mr Gredier trys his best to support Obama. But it’s yet another example where pesky details like facts and history keep getting in the way of TOTUS’ words.