“Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.” – President Calvin Coolidge

The undeniable failure of progressives:

The spread of progressive ideology has plagued this great nation from the time Theodore Roosevelt had introduced progressivism in its rawest form to the United States. Progressive derives from the root word; progress, meaning to drive forward and ever-changing. To apply the word in political context it means to, fundamentally change the norm and past policies. As a general rule a Roosevelt progressive and a current progressive are unchanged. They strive to achieve the same goal and that is to transform and revolutionize the constitution, creating a living breathing entity. The constitution has been deemed “outdated” and non-relevant by progressive standards. They fight for strong government, entitlement programs and lack economic and social choice, which deviates from the true definition of freedom. Throughout history progressivism has failed, creating two of the most unmistakable failures of all time, the Great Depression and the Depression of the 1920’s.

Prior to the Great Depression the United States had seen an era that can be matched by no other time period in our history. The Roaring Twenties had not been christened the name “Roaring” for no particular reason. It was a time of economic and social prosperity. At this time President Calvin Coolidge had taken office following arguably one of the worst economies in the history of the United States. Prior to the Harding and Coolidge 20’s, Woodrow Wilson set the stage for many of the problems that overwhelmed the country. The abysmal policies succeeding World War I had crippled Germany; the Treaty of Versailles, and can be directly tied to the animosity of Hitler to spark another World War. Wilson’s policies had not only stifled the German economy but also the U.S. was procuring unprecedented debt that would subsequently lead to the first and sometimes forgotten depression. Unemployment had reached its highest margin to date starting at 11.8%; Wilson’s remedy entailed higher taxes and greater spending. Sound familiar? His failures while in office represented the essence of the progressive movement; the League of Nations, the “Progressive” income tax, universal healthcare, prohibition and The Federal Reserve. Freedom was not in the nature of President Wilson. “Government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin” – Woodrow Wilson

In contrast to Wilson, Coolidge had done just the opposite. Once Warren Harding had passed away, Calvin Coolidge took over a weak United States. His actions were on route to change U.S. history for the long run if proceeding Presidents had followed his path. A common misconception made by Republican candidates is that if we cut taxes and spend, the economy will prosper or vis-à-vis. This is simply not true, to create economic prosperity there must be action taken on both; cut spending and cut taxes. Coolidge had accomplished both and created an immediate boom within the economy. His strong opposition to progressivism characterized his successful presidency, by obtaining economic stability. To demonstrate the radical change post 1920, government spending had decreased over 50%, taxes had dropped from a staggering 77% to a minute 25%, and lastly unemployment had dropped to its lowest rate in peacetime history to 1.8%. Which led to what has been previously stated, the Roaring Twenties. This time period gave way to technological advances that revolutionized America such as in home telephones, cars, radios and the airplane.

Unfortunately Coolidge and his policies would be short lived after the death of his son, Herbert Hoover, who had been despised by Coolidge and labeled as unfit for office, took his place. Like Wilson and Roosevelt before him, Hoover took the progressive route and went in a fundamentally different direction, creating the second and more legendary depression.

With the economic crash of 2008 and the seemingly endless spiral into economic destabilization, one would think the American people would learn from history and past mistakes. Progressivism has no place in the U.S.; it breeds undoubted failure that is only realized once the damage has been amassed. We must band together and educate the unaware of the falsehoods that liberals and progressives feed through mass media outlets into the minds of the impressionable citizens. Give them true hope and change through economic freedom and limited government.

“It was an opportunity for the president to talk about his accomplishments over the last three years and to lay out his plans for the year ahead. And he missed on both counts,” the Florida Republican said, delivering the weekly GOP address. “You didn’t hear much talk about the success of his administration — and that’s because there isn’t much.”

Acknowledging that Obama inherited a significant national debt, high unemployment and a struggling economy, Rubio said the president’s policies have only exacerbated a bad situation.

“This president didn’t talk about his record for one simple reason: He doesn’t want you to know about it. But you do know about it, because you feel the failure of his leadership every single day of your life,” Rubio said.

Rubio, a Tea Party favorite, continued, “The bottom line is this president inherited a country with serious problems. He asked the Congress to give him the stimulus and Obamacare to fix it. The Democrats in Congress gave it to him. And not only did it not work, it made everything worse.”

Rubio said Obama plans to “divide us against each other, to pit Americans against other Americans in the hopes of generating enough votes to get re-elected.”

“He tells Americans worried about their jobs that the way to help them is to raise their bosses’ taxes,” Rubio said. “He tells those who are hurting that the only way they can be better off, is for others to be worse off. He tells all of us that the only way for some of us to climb up the economic ladder is for others to be pulled down.”

Rubio, who has not yet endorsed a GOP candidate for president even as the days tick closer to Florida’s Tuesday primary, said Obama is using “divisive rhetoric” to call for higher taxes on the rich.

“For the first time in my adult life, we have a president who’s asking us to abandon our economic heritage,” he said

We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.

We will look back on this week and realize that something changed. I have given numerous interviews wherein I espoused the benefits of thorough vetting during aggressive contested primary elections, but this week’s tactics aren’t what I meant. Those who claim allegiance to Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment should stop and think about where we are today. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, the fathers of the modern conservative movement, would be ashamed of us in this primary. Let me make clear that I have no problem with the routine rough and tumble of a heated campaign. As I said at the first Tea Party convention two years ago, I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.

I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as “facts” about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us – both the good and the bad.

We know that Newt fought in the trenches during the Reagan Revolution. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Newt was among a handful of Republican Congressman who would regularly take to the House floor to defend Reagan at a time when conservatives didn’t have Fox News or talk radio or conservative blogs to give any balance to the liberal mainstream media. Newt actually came at Reagan’s administration “from the right” to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future. But this week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan and isn’t conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race. (I know, it makes no sense, and the GOP establishment hopes you won’t stop and think about this nonsense. Mark Levin and others have shown the ridiculousness of this.) To add insult to injury, this “anti-Reagan” claim was made by a candidate who admitted to not even supporting or voting for Reagan. He actually was against the Reagan movement, donated to liberal candidates, and said he didn’t want to go back to the Reagan days. You can’t change history. We know that Newt Gingrich brought the Reagan Revolution into the 1990s. We know it because none other than Nancy Reagan herself announced this when she presented Newt with an award, telling us, “The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century.  Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.” As Rush and others pointed out, if Nancy Reagan had ever thought that Newt was in any way an opponent of her beloved husband, she would never have even appeared on a stage with him, let alone presented him with an award and said such kind things about him. Nor would Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, have chosen to endorse Newt in this primary race. There are no two greater keepers of the Reagan legacy than Nancy and Michael Reagan. What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst.

But this whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on.

Read the rest here.

The fast food juggernaut used ammonium hydroxide — an additive typically found in household cleaning products to kill bacteria — in its U.S. meat. Oliver calls it “pink slime.”

On his show “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” Oliver said that the beef producers use the additive on beef that’s normally made into dog food and wash it until it’s able to be eaten by humans.

McDonald’s denies that Oliver had anything to do with it, saying that it the decision “was not related to any particular event but rather to support our effort to align our global beef raw material standards.”

So, what’s this mean for McDonald’s?

It’s making changes to its supply chain. The reason McDonald’s U.S. meat has ammonium hydroxide in it is that its beef supplier, Beef Products Inc., uses it. Now, the chain has decided to “remove BPI products from the McDonald’s system.”

McDonald’s doesn’t use the additive in its meat in many other countries, such as Canada and the U.K.. Arch-rival Burger King and Taco Bell earlier caved to Oliver’s campaign too, and seem to have transitioned well.

A big question for McDonald’s massive consumer base is: Will the burgers taste the same? They should, but hopefully they will contain higher-quality meat.

Finally figured it out ….

The Daily saw a couple of prototypes that looked to be made by hardware partner Asus. Microsoft confirmed to The Daily that the prototypes were real.

Microsoft said last November that it is building Kinect support into Windows that would be able to see objects as close as 40 centimeters away. But it sounded like the actual Kinect device would still be separate, and plugged in with a USB cable.

cnsnews

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that the cuts in defense proposed by President Barack Obaama will create “risks” in America’s “capability to respond” to threats.

“The risks come with the fact that, you know, we will have a smaller force,” Panetta said a t a Pentagon briefing. “As we said, it’s larger than we had prior to 9/11, but obviously it will be a smaller force, and when you have [a] smaller force there are risks associated with that in terms of our capability to respond.”

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed Panetta’s assessment, while pointing out that when the admnistration’s cuts in defense are implemented there will be risk that the U.S. military will not be able to do as much as quickly as it can do now

The force structure shifts I’ve outlined today entail some risk to be sure, but to manage that risk we will ensure that we can mobilize, surge, and adapt our force to meet the requirements of an uncertain future,” Panetta said.

“To that end, the Army will retain more mid-level, mid-grade officers, and NCOs [non-commissioned officers]–these are the guys who have the experience–and they will maintain them even as their overall strength decreases to ensure that we have the structure and experienced leaders necessary to re-grow the force quickly if we have to,” he said

read the rest at cnsnews

“That’s the economy we want. An economy built on American manufacturing, with more good jobs and more products made here in the United States of America,” he also said.

If you really must, our wizard of smart made this video for you … hey you paid for the giant penis bird to fly out there so you may want to watch it anyway … the video is here.

Here is a message for you voters, don’t vote for simpletons who talk like this … or your economy will look like this.

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: “I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’ In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?”

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the “pollutant” carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Readers may recall this story from 2008 from where the mayor even refused to bring out salting/snowplowing for fear of environmental damage to Puget Sound.

Two feet of snow has never before been seen in Seattle, it dwarfs the SUV in the photo.

Photo by: Jackie Nichols Gladish of FEMA

:^)