THE TOP FIVE, 1/20/12

Economic Illiteracy? Obama: Unemployment benefits create more jobs than Keystone pipeline
Anyone who believes that government can't create jobs is fooling himself. Every civil servant in America works at a government-created job. When government writes checks to the unemployed, the government creates a job for the person writing those checks, and for the administrators of the department supervising the writing of those checks, and for the postman who must deliver those checks. Moreover, when the unemployed cash their checks, they spend the cash on food, rent, clothing, gas, cigarettes, etc. etc. Jobs are created in the businesses that produce and market these products. The proper questions are: 1) How many jobs or potential jobs are destroyed in the private market when the government taxes individuals in order to payout unemployment benefits?; and 2) Do government-created jobs or private market-created jobs produce goods and services that best satisfy consumer demand?

Economic & Historical Illiteracy? Ron Paul: Tax Rates Should be Zero
I suggest Ron Paul critics, who suggest the candidate is insane because of his proposal that income tax rates go to zero, follow this link: Taxes.Yes, Virginia, there was a time in American history -- some say the most prosperous time in American history -- when the income tax did not exist. Ron Paul's candidacy is not attractive to economic or historical illiterates. It's very sad that some people are so married to the establishment's welfare state they can't imagine a country in which individuals get to keep the fruits of their labor and do with them as they please!

Foreign Policy Illiteracy? Opposing Imperialism Is Not Isolationism
Again, Paul critics need to take the blinders off and open their mind.

Media Illiteracy or Downright Lies?  
U.S. Media Working With War Profiteering MIC & Politicians To Hype People Up For War
AP Story On Paul’s First Class Flights Debunked – AP Flat Out Lied
All is not what it seems.

Monetary Illiteracy? Fed to Weigh Further Easing Amid Doubts About Recovery
Let's pump up the money supply and goose the economy just in time for the November elections. This could be a January surprise. Hardly political insanity. However, QE3 would be an actual instance of monetary insanity, i.e., doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Political Illiteracy? Pat Buchanan on Ron Paul
Pat has always seemed the adult in the room.

THE TOP FIVE, Friday the 13th

CREEPING FASCISM AT HOME I'm from the government and I'm here to keep you safe.
Obama Administration Reportedly Plans to Create Internet ID for All Americans (Libertarian News)
Homeland Security Is Monitoring The Drudge Report, The New York Times (The Atlantic Wire)

THE TOP FIVE (Recent News Items You May Have Missed)

Will Republicans Hand the Left a VAT Victory? - Mitt Romney won't rule out the possibility of imposing a tax that's the fast track to a European welfare state. (via Maggie's Farm) It's stories like this that will make it hard for me to vote for Mitt Romney under any circumstances. Will Romney enable what Obama and the Democrats couldn't do in a million years? Disgusting. 

A Warning from Canada for the GOP: Don’t Ignore the Grassroots (via Instapundit) Will history repeat itself? Canada had its version of Obama and Mitt Romney. The experience was not good, at least in the short run.

 

 

Rick Santorum's compassionate conservatism (from The Seattle Times) "We have met the enemy and he is us." (Or something like that.) Is Santorum the second coming of George W. Bush? This opinion peace is deja vu all over again. It sort of sounds like Santorum wants to install the Christian version of sharia law...or maybe it's just me.

 

 

Fun and games in our future?

 

 

 

Related Old News: Asymmetry at Sea What war with Iran in the Gulf could be like, from (The Atlantic) The quote to remember:

"Some of the promoters of a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities have sold the strike as a high-tech, airborne surgical attack. But a look at the naval environment indicates that like the Iraq invasion, what starts surgically could end very messily indeed."

THE TOP FIVE (Recent News Items You May Have Missed)

In chronological order...

Item#1 -- 12/26/2011, From Right Wing News: [Official] Statement from fmr. Ron Paul staffer [Ed Dondero] on Newsletters, Anti-Semitism
Money Quotes:

Is Ron Paul a “racist.” In short, No... ...Is Ron Paul an Anti-Semite? Absolutely No... ...Is Ron Paul a homo-phobe? Well, yes and no. He is not [at] all bigoted towards homosexuals...Again, let me stress. I would not categorize that as “homo-phobic,” but rather just unsettled by being around gays personally... ...Lew Rockwell and Burton Blumert were there too. We were greatly surprised by this. Nadia was eventually convicted of embezzlement and went to jail for 6 months, plus had to pay $140,000 in restitution to Ron...There were rumors at the time, and long thereafter, that Lew and Burt had pinned it all on Nadia, and that they had their own reasons for the “coup.” For years afterwards, Rockwell, and Blumert had complete control of Ron’s enterprises through Jean McIver and (former JBS/Jesse Helms fundraiser) David “James” Mertz of northern Virginia... ...Ron was “under the spell” of left-anarchist and Lew Rockwell associate Joe Becker at the time [immediately after 9/11/2001], who was our legislative director. Norm Singleton, another Lew Rockwell fanatic agreed with Joe.

Dondero continues, saying Paul is "Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general." Then, he describes a sentiment that many US Presidents have probably uttered in frustration -- and in PRIVATE! -- to stunned subordinates:

He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. He expressed this to me numerous times in our private conversations. His view is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs.

Item#2 -- 12/28/2011, From Libertarian Republican: It's now official: Gary Johnson to leave the GOP for the LP 
Who knows what this means. It might persuade Ron Paul not to leave the GOP if he fails to win the nomination. Bad for Obama. It might entice him to join Johnson on the Libertarian Party ticket. Good for Obama. 

Item#3 -- 12/28/2011, From Stop The Leftist Propaganda Machine: Marco Rubio, Kelly Ayotte, John McCain, Marsha Blackburn and several other Republicans co-sponsor SOPA bill with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
I don't quite understand why Marco Rubio would do this. Wikipedia has this to say about SOPA:

Proponents of the bill say it protects the intellectual property market and corresponding industry, jobs and revenue, and is necessary to bolster enforcement of copyright laws especially against foreign websites.^[5] Opponents say that it infringes on First Amendment rights, is Internet censorship,^[6] will cripple the Internet,^[7] and will threaten whistle-blowing and other free speech.^[8]

I haven't researched SOPA, but I should and will. Two gut-reactions? First, SOPA seeks to "regulate" the internet. Big mistake. I like the internet the way it is. Second, anything with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz' name on it cannot be good for anyone interesting in preserving property, freedom and peace.

Item#4 -- 12/29/2011, From Stop The Leftist Propaganda Machine: The problem with today’s Republican party – 55 percent view “progressive” as positive
Reforming the Republican Party from within will be no mean trick. Then again, 76% and 68% of Democrats and Independents respectively view "progressive" as positive. Pick your poison.

Item#5 -- 12/30/2011, From Daily Paul: Republican Liberty Caucus Endorses Ron Paul for President !
Renewed hope for anyone interested in bringing the Republican Party back to its roots.

Item#5 -- 12/31/2011, From Libertarian Republican: Bachmann plays the Drug Legalization card against Ron Paul
Bachmann has always impressed me as someone more interested in getting elected than in doing the right thing. This development brands her as either uninformed or deeply pragmatic. 

Item#5 -- 12/31/2011, From Daily Paul: HUGE: ANOTHER Mossad Chief Agrees With Ron Paul: Nuclear Armed Iran NOT Inevitably A Threat to Israel
For what it's worth.