Like President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she hasn’t been watching the Republican primary debates. But at least Clinton has an excuse for tuning out — she says she’s quitting government after the election no matter who wins.

“What could we do to persuade you to run for vice president?” a staffer asked at a State Department town hall meeting Thursday, referring to cyclical rumors and the wishful thinking of some supporters. “Oh, my goodness,” Clinton replied.

“I will certainly stay on until the president nominates someone and that transition can occur,” said Clinton, who has insisted repeatedly that she will be a one-term secretary. “But I think, after 20 years …of being on the high wire of American politics, and all of the challenges that come with that, it would probably be a good idea to just find out how tired I am.”

The famously workaholic secretary said she has “no idea” what she will do in the future, and doesn’t want to think about it because it might divert attention from today’s diplomatic tasks. The election, she said, is going to “suck up a lot of the attention from following areas that we think are so important,” including “trying to resolve frozen conflicts” and “trying to build up America’s reputation” in the world.

But that might be good thing, she said, because “maybe we can even get more done” if the rest of the country is fixated on the polls.

“It’s a little odd for me to be totally out of an election season,” Clinton said. “But, you know, I didn’t watch any of those debates.”

And what about that vice president question? Although friends and colleagues say neither she nor the White House is interested, Clinton took a pass.

“I am happy to work with Vice President Biden, who does an excellent job and is a huge advocate and support for this department,” she said.

Source: The Washington Post.

Jorge Posada is set to officially retire from Major League Baseball today, after 17 seasons with theYankees. While he wasn’t on the Red Sox, and we certainly rooted against him more often than not, 17 years is a long time, long enough for Posada to be part of our lives, too.

Posada first came up in 1995, but he wasn’t a full-time catcher with New York until he was 26 years old in 1998. He had split time with the club in the past, but the 1998 season, in which the Yankees won 114 games and the World Series, was the first of many successful campaigns for the Puerto Rican backstop.

Posada hit .268/.350/.475 to kick off his career as a starter, and not only improved, but kept at it for the next decade-plus. All told, Posada hit .273/.374/.474 with a 121 OPS+, 275 homers, and nearly 3,000 total bases. While his defense cut into his overall value throughout his career, that bat made him a pretty special catcher for a long time.

He’s not quite a Hall of Fame-caliber player, but Posada is one worth remembering. Ben Lindbergh covered Posada’s Hall of Fame case recently at Baseball Prospectus, and found it lacking in part due to that glove. There’s no shame in being not quite good enough for Cooperstown, though, as it’s not exactly a discussion just anyone gets into.

Yankees and Red Sox fans had a difficult time agreeing on Posada’s worth, given Boston’s own infatuation withJason Varitek during much of Posada’s career. With both backstops looking like they are done at the same time, we can sit back and reflect on the fact they were both valuable assets to their teams, and that the 2012 lineups of both the Red Sox and Yankees will feel a little odd without them, even if it’s for the best. As a Red Sox fan, you don’t have to like Posada, but his career was certainly one worthy of respect.

Source: Over The Monster.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

This debate was by far the most unique one yet. Unique doesn’t mean good however as it was also by far the worst debate. In reality, it wasn’t even a debate it was practically a dick sucking contest between the candidates. I don’t mean that to sound completely disrespectful to them but to have the unique format of a Lincoln-Douglas style debate and to select the two candidates who are nearly identical on policy is just fucking stupid.

Now to be fair, I’m not sure how this came to be and why only Gingrich and Cain were a part of this debate but for the sake of not boring the audience to death, the participants should of at least been at odds with each other somewhat. This just came across like two buddies agreeing with each other’s points and then adding their own two cents on top of it to help sell the idea to the public. I almost feel as if these two are in cahoots and plan on being running mates regardless of which of these two could get the nomination (assuming it won’t be Romney, Perry or Paul).

To start, this debate was poorly put together and it came off like an extremely bad public access talk show. The technical problems were horrendous and inexcusable. The microphones echoed for the first five-to-ten minutes and it took them forever to get that taken care of and when they did, Newt’s mic was then fucked up and spewing white noise which just pissed me off as it reminded me of that super shitty Michael Keaton movie where he got chased by CGI shadows.

They had to actually hand Gingrich a regular mic as they couldn’t get his shirt mic fixed and the replacement one had problems too! Jesus George Jetson Christ C-SPAN, just fire your fucking sound engineer already! Well, maybe it was the sound guy for the Texas Tea Party, I don’t know. Either way, that guy shouldn’t even be working a toll booth on the NAFTA Superhighway! Truth be told, I believe Herman Cain sabotaged Newt’s mic before the debate by sexually harassing it.

This debate was moderated but the moderators sucked ass. One of them was a congressman named Steven King. His name was spelled differently than the legendary writer but he did bring just as much horror. The other moderator’s name wasn’t even worth remembering as he was pretty much non-existent the entire night. Steven King however, forced us to sit through 8 minutes of his boring pro-Paul Ryan speech where he went through a bunch of Paul Ryan-esque slides that made me feel like I was in some shitty middle school economics class. Fuck that dude, just get to the debate.

So after the shitty economics presentation and the mic issues, we FINALLY get into the meat of the debate. Then again, I find myself distracted because now the sound coming out of the television is filled with a loud buzzing noise! Newt’s talking and I can’t pay attention because a thousand invisible bees are swarming around my head trying to turn it into a goddamned hive! Wait.. what did you say Newt? Well, I don’t know but Herman Cain responds to it with, “I completely agree but let me add this..” Fuck that man! That was exactly how the entire night went. It was like the world’s nicest rap battle!

In a nutshell, one guy would answer a question and the other would agree 95% of the time and just add in their talking points to help solidify their opponents argument. I swear to Jesus that these two guys have more mutual man love for one another than Antoine and Blaine from “In Living Color”. It’s as if they have already decided to run together and they are just using this facade of a “debate” to get their platform over to the public on this 90 minute forum that was essentially created by the Texas Tea Party to allow them to do so. This is all a ruse! Albeit a clever clever ruse.

I didn’t learn anything new from this debate because all they did is rehash the exact same talking points they’ve been pounding over our heads throughout all the previous debates. I was a bit disappointed that the subject of the Federal Reserve did not come up because that is one issue where their stances differ.

Newt wants to audit the fucker and Cain is a Fed insider that continually protects and defends the most tyrannical institution this country has ever done business with. I was secretly hoping Newt would call out Cain on it and the debate would’ve evolved into something with more substance. Nope, didn’t happen because it would’ve created a rift between the two debaters that are seemingly unified on the issues. I really want to see a Lincoln-Douglas styled debate featuring Cain and Ron Paul. Lets air some shit out! Fuck this 90 minute Cain-Gingrich 2012 infomercial!

Just for shits and giggles I’ll give you a brief rundown of what these guys were pimping out. Cain is for a loser pays law to help eliminate the high cost of health care. Both men support the Paul Ryan plan. Newt served Bill Gates’ dad. Both men are for optional personal retirement plans for youngsters who are being raped by Social Security, which they will never get. Cain mentions the 999 Plan, Newt says he won’t acknowledge it this debate. Newt supports the Green Bay Packers. Newt also just nails it every time he’s got the mic. It is worth noting that towards the end Newt got a pretty big standing O. The crowd was digging Gingrich.

The most memorable thing though, was when Cain asked Gingrich a question which basically implied that Newt was going to be the VP under POTUS Cain. The crowd laughed and Cain proved that he was the funnier of the two but America needs the best leader, not the funniest candidate.

I wish I could give you more analysis but as I said, they just recycled everything we’ve all already heard a dozen times. The moderation sucked because these three-to-five minute answers were just drawn out, boring and wasted too much time. We spent a half hour on an issue that should’ve only taken five-to-ten minutes. This debate style kind of sucks and I understand why it is archaic and no longer used. Then again, maybe it would’ve worked better if the candidates featured weren’t butt buddies. Who knows? In the end, I wasted 90 minutes of my life. At this point, I should’ve just known that it was going to be an ass parade.

I can only pray that if they ever do another 1-on-1 debate that they pick Rick Perry and Mitt Romney and shove those two hair models into the octagon. Wishful thinking I guess but damn it this is America and I want to see some blood!

Grading Scale:
Grade C: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Herman Cain
Grade I: Ron Paul
Grade I: Mitt Romeny
Grade I: Rick Perry
Grade I: Rick Santorum
Grade I: Michele Bachmann
Grade I: Jon Huntsman
Grade I: Gary Johnson

Here’s my favorite clip from the debate:

*Written by Rob Rimes.

1. Introduction:

This isn’t an attack on Herman Cain. I’m not going to be a complete dickhead to Mr. Cain as I was with Rick Perry in my article “American Psycho: The Ballad of Rick Perry“. However, as Herman Cain is leading in many polls and could legitimately win the Republican nomination if the primaries were held today, I do have to rip apart his platform and expose why this guy is not who we need running this country. Most of the reasons as to why you shouldn’t vote for Herman Cain should be blatantly obvious but yet, many of you still insist that he is the best choice out there. While he would be better than our current president Barack Obama and current Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney, Mr. Cain still isn’t worthy of the American throne and would ultimately perpetuate many of the problems we have right now.

Now I have met Herman Cain and have gotten to talk to him, albeit briefly. At that time I didn’t know much about him but there were rumors of him running for president so I felt that if he was in my neck of the woods, I’d have to go down to the event, shake his hand, get a picture with him and try to pick his brain on some things. As there was a large crowd lined up to kiss ass and praise this unproven potential candidate, I didn’t feel that it was the best time or place to air my grievances with the government in an effort to hear his solutions and ideas. I’d really need more time with him to fully discuss these things and I didn’t want to put him on the spot like that in front of hundreds of people. Knowing what I know about him now, I’d have no problem with it today. In fact, I’d have a camera with me.

Anyway, at the time, I did know that he was a staunch FairTax supporter and that alone had me initially interested in his campaign but then again so was Marco Rubio but he abandoned the issue once he got elected (I wrote about that in “Tea Flavored Kool-Aid, Part II: The Fall of Marco Rubio“). I left the event feeling like Herman was genuinely a good guy that cares for this country and I still believe this. However, I wasn’t aware of his association with the Federal Reserve at the time. If I was, my brief meet and greet with Mr. Cain would’ve been different. In fact, in his eyes, I would’ve just been one of those “ignorant” Paulites asking him “stupid” questions.

2. The Federal Reserve:

Now in regards to the Federal Reserve, Herman Cain has been a defender of their horrible and certifiably insane fiscal policies. Well, he has come out and talked some smack here and there about Ben Bernanke but truth is, if he were to give Bernanke props, he’d get booed off the stage and he knows this. Everyone hates Bernanke on the right. Now don’t get shit twisted, they don’t hate him because of Ron Paul taking him to school and spending a lot of his time trying to educate the masses on the tyranny of the Fed. Nope, people on the right hate Bernanke because Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly hate Bernanke. Many righties don’t understand why they hate him, they just know that they’re supposed to.

However, before Ben Bernanke, there was another just as tyrannical monetary dictator. That man was Alan Greenspan. Greenspan was Herman Cain’s boss when Mr. Cain worked for the Federal Reserve branch in Kansas City back in the 90′s. Recently when Cain was asked which past Fed chairman he would use as a model for a replacement for Bernanke, Cain without hesitation said, “Alan Greenspan”. Really homie? I guess the warning signs and economic lessons of history must’ve just passed this Super CEO by. Maybe Cain doesn’t realize that Bernanke is just the hellspawn of Greenspan. Maybe Cain doesn’t understand inflation. Then again, maybe Greenspan was one hell of a mentor and this Fed insider is going to bring about a Greenspan-style fiscal policy. No thanks bro, you can keep your Greenspan bullshit for your pizza parlor.

For those not educated on the horrendous shit that fucknut Greenspan gave us, here are a few examples. First, Greenspan was directly responsible for the housing bubble due to adjusting interest rates down to historic lows. He also contributed to the recession we’ve been dipping in and out of over the last few years. He recently dodged the bullet of responsibility on this when he blamed the recession on the Cold War. Yes, the fucking Cold War! Didn’t that end like over 20 years ago? Another thing that Greenspan gave us was trade deficits and bad economic policies that contributed to companies leaving the United States. Alan Greenspan was also the king of inflation. But yeah, this is who Herman Cain would use as a model for a new Federal Reserve chairman. This is who he selected without even putting any thought to the question. I guess those guys from the Federal Reserve have some sort of blood oath they all swear to. Suck my dick and I’ll suck yours.

Apart from just the Alan Greenspan issue, Cain has been overprotective about the Federal Reserve and has shown some pretty thin skin whenever the tyrannical and unconstitutional institution is criticized. First of all, I implore all of you to read “The Creature From Jekyll Island” by G. Edward Griffin if you haven’t yet; especially if you are going to vote for Herman Cain. You need to know the history of the Federal Reserve and how and why it was founded. For Cain to have been a part of it should raise some damn eyebrows and for him to defend it should raise those eyebrows even more. What is he trying to hide by continuously downplaying the issue and trying to divert everyone’s eyes elsewhere?

You see, Cain has criticized those who criticize the Fed, especially Ron Paul supporters. He refers to them as “ignorant” and their questioning him about it as “stupid”. He has been pretty vocal about his distaste for us crazy Paulites, as he calls us. He said that we would find nothing if we were to audit the Federal Reserve. Funny, because not too long after he made that statement we were able to get a partial audit. In that partial audit we discovered a lot of tyranny and some pretty questionable acts. For instance, the audit this past July revealed that the Fed gave out over $16 trillion dollars in secret bailouts! That’s pretty fucking profound and that’s just scratching the surface! Yet, Mr. Cain said we wouldn’t find anything. Well Mr. Fed Insider, here is a breakdown of the secret bailouts which can be found on page 131 of the GAO (Government Accountability Office) Audit:

Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
and many more including banks in Belgium

Herman Cain says the Federal Reserve has nothing to hide. As my Aunt Rita used to say when one of us kids was lying, “Mmmhmm.” If anything, this just proves that a full audit of the Federal Reserve is absolutely necessary. Abolishment of the Fed would be even better.

Herman Cain also believes the Federal Reserve to be constitutional. On the Rusty Humphries radio show he said:

First of all, it’s not unconstitutional. What happened was, in 1913 the Congress of the United States designated the authority of the Federal Reserve to be created. So how can that be unconstitutional? Congress has to pass the law, Congress has to pass the authority to do things and that is what they did. So it is not unconstitutional number one.

Really dude? So with that logic, we should just accept all laws created by Congress whether tyrannical or not. So really, based off of your own point-of-view, you should shut the fuck up about Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and your confusing stance on abortion among many other issues. Cain is like a character from an Orwell novel.

3. TARP:

All this brings me to my next issue, which is the fact that Herman Cain supported the TARP bailouts. Yeah, that sounds like something a Fed insider would do. In fact he said that he supported it but didn’t know how they were going to implement it. M’kay, so to me, that sounds completely ignorant. He supported it without knowing the whole picture. Then after it turned to shit, which was obvious, even back then, to those who understand free market economics, he says he didn’t like it. So Herman Cain is essentially and unknowingly admitting that he is not only not a free market guy, as he has claimed, but that he doesn’t have the foresight to recognize the disastrous effects of this sort of fiscal policy. But hey! Now he’s got some economic advisors to guide him! If only Herman Cain would’ve absorbed Milton Friedman’s prophetic wisdom in his “Free To Choose” series. Hell, dude could’ve read anything from the heavyweights of the Austrian School and learned that this sort of policy would only lead us down a path of fiscal insanity.

However, I believe Cain knew what he was supporting. In fact, here’s a quote from an article he himself wrote in 2008 when supporting the big bank bailouts:

Earth to taxpayers! Owning stocks in banks is not nationalization of the banking industry. It’s trying to solve a problem…

Wake up people! Owning a part of the major banks in America is not a bad thing. We could make a profit while solving a problem…

The ownership by the taxpayers is going to be relatively small and nowhere near the amount needed to be called nationalization. So what’s the problem?

Now don’t tell Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but if this works, and I believe it will, the Bush Administration will have gotten this one right.”

*rolls eyes. Here’s some more:

..the free market purists want you to believe that this is the end of Capitalism that we know it.

..the treasury has changed tactics and will buy equity positions called preferred stocks, which gives us taxpayers an ownership stake in their success for a limited period of time.

Preferred stock means that we get paid a dividend before any other stockholders…when they make a profit. You got a problem with that?

The free market purists objection to this is that it smacks at government control of banking industry, which is called nationalization. They are correct.

He recognized that it was nationalization of the banking industry, yet he still supported it. He recently came out in a debate and owned up to it, not that he could hide from it. Looking at it objectively though, being that he is a Republican presidential candidate and knowing that his voter base hated the bailouts, wouldn’t he come out and talk smack about them now? Where I sit, this is a bigger issue than all the Romneycare bullshit that sucks up so much debate time and hatred from the righties.

By the way, while on the subject of Romneycare, Herman Cain supported Mitt Romney for president last round in 2008. So does that make Cain cool with Romneycare? Well, he had to have been down with it at some point, right?

4. The 999 Plan and the FairTax:

Herman Cain got a lot of notoriety and Tea Party love due to his very passionate and very vocal support of the FairTax. He was one of the loudest voices championing in probably the best form of tax reform this country could ever have. In fact, when the debates started, he was front and center pimping out the FairTax every chance he could get. Somewhere along the line that shifted and he no longer mentioned the FairTax. Now he was talking about his 999 Plan, which was another style of tax reform that he claims simplifies every thing. It calls for 9% corporate tax, 9% income tax and 9% national sales tax (which doesn’t exclude state and local sales taxes added on top).

The 9% national sales tax is basically the FairTax (which by itself would be roughly 23%). The big difference here is that the FairTax calls for a repeal of the 16th Amendment, which would kill the income tax because the FairTax would be its replacement. The 999 Plan does not call for a repeal of the 16th Amendment.

Now many Cain supporters that are also FairTax supporters still seem to be on this guy’s dick, which puzzles me. He’s abandoned their pet issue in favor of his own plan. Many of these people consider 999 to be a stepping stone to get to the FairTax, including nationally syndicated radio talk show host, ‘The FairTax Book’ author and Cain’s BFF Neal Boortz. I think this assessment by Cain Brains is complete bullshit for several reasons.

The fact that the 999 Plan doesn’t call for a repeal of the 16th Amendment is completely careless and horrible. Not to be a negative Nancy here but say 999 is implemented and the 16th Amendment is not repealed, we would be stuck with the current tax code on top of this new 999 Plan. So we would have the current income tax, corporate tax and all other taxes on top of a 9% flat tax, a 9% corporate tax and a 9% national sales tax also on top of all local and state taxes. How could this plan even be developed without taking this into consideration? If Cain understands the FairTax, which he has proven that he does, how could he be so careless with his 999 Plan?

The FairTax and Flat Tax movements have always been somewhat at odds as the FairTaxers know that the Flat Tax will just lead us back to this point economically. You see, we already have a flat tax, it was implemented in the Reagan era. However, after decades of congressional meddling, we now have an out of control insane income tax system. You see, the flat tax can be tweaked and modified to the point that its whole existence is damn near pointless. Cain knows this, yet he includes it as one-third of his plan. It has proven to be a failure long-term. People just ignore history or just don’t know that we’ve been down this road already. To include a flat tax and essentially the FairTax (sales or consumption tax) in the same tax reform plan is fucking ridiculous.

Now one issue that everyone criticizing this plan brings up, is that what is to prevent 9-9-9 from becoming 15-15-15 or 23-23-23? The answer is “nothing”. There is nothing in the plan that will prevent congressional meddling and as we all know, as history has always proven, some people are just going to toy with it and we will be stuck up shit’s creek without not just a paddle but no boat as well. The fact of the matter is, trading a giant leviathan for three baby leviathans is never a good deal. The village may be safe from destruction for a little while but eventually the beasts will grow and the damage will be catastrophic!

Now the whole idea of this being a stepping stone is laughable. The reality of the situation is that Cain has abandoned the FairTax issue. I know that none of you FairTaxers out there want to believe it, especially since you’ve sent this guy a check already but that’s the truth. We’ve got ourselves another Marco Rubio here. The passion of the average FairTax supporter is dangerous because earning the love of the movement can bring a candidate to the dance. This is just another case of that. There is no way that 999 is a stepping stone. When has a stepping stone ever worked in Washington? Not only that, but both the 999 Plan and the FairTax are HUGE tax reforms. Does Cain think he will be able to accomplish two huge tax reforms in his presidency? That’s beyond fucking absurd.

First of all, most people already hate this 999 Plan to begin with, so good luck with that. But even if he were to pass it, he’d then have to convince everyone that the FairTax is better. Dude, no one is going to believe you at that point because you gave us a plan that you weren’t confident with and obviously weren’t even sold on. And if he is sold on the 999 Plan, then he’s not going to give us the FairTax. It’s a pretty easy assessment if you ask me. To think it is a stepping stone doesn’t make a lick of sense! Truth be told, if you really are looking for the FairTax candidate, get the fuck off of the Cain Train and get on the Gary Johnson Cruise Ship. He’s the only true FairTax supporter in this race now.

5. Misuse of Campaign Funds:

One fucked up thing Herman Cain has done is misused campaign funds. In fact, he has used funds to enrich himself and his associates. The biggest example of this is that he used over $100,000 of donated money to buy copies of a booklet from a corporation called T.H.E. New Voice, Inc. Problem is, Herman Cain owns T.H.E. New Voice, Inc.! Essentially, he is spending campaign money to buy campaign materials from a company that he owns and profits from. Sorry homies but this is just shady as fuck. When criticized about the issue, Herman Cain said:

If they know Herman Cain, they wouldn’t even make such an assertion. How’s that for political correctness!

What a dick. The more this guy talks, the more it is pretty obvious that he is his own biggest fan. Sorry Herman, we DON’T know you because you jumped on the scene a few months ago and have no political track record other than a failed attempt at a senate run in 2004 and your tenure as Director of the Federal Reserve’s Kansas City branch which is wrapped in secrecy.

Cain has been using every campaign stop to sell and promote his new book “This is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House”. What a title! He’s pretty full of himself already thinking he’s a shoe-in for the American throne. But anyway, one has to question if he is in this to truly become president or to make a profit. If it is to be president, then he needs to stop setting up shop to collect a profit from his Cain Brains at his campaign events. He should be focused on putting all that money towards the campaign itself. Then again, he’s just using that to make a profit off of as well. Either way, Super CEO Mr. Cain has this whole money making scheme figured out.

Apart from his fancy literature, Cain has also profited a lot from speaking engagements while he has been on the campaign trail. This year alone, Herman Cain has already banked $250,000 from making personal appearances. Between this and all the other campaign abuse shenanigans, the Daily Mail points out:

Political pundits have compared the situation to that of Sarah Palin, who lost her vice presidential bid but made hefty pay checks afterwards due to speaking fees, book sales, and television rights.

The other, more sinister, comparison is to Jim Wright, the former Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives in the late 1980s who resigned in the wake of an ethics investigation looking into the connection between bulk purchases of his book and gifts from supporting groups.

Granted other candidates throughout history have been guilty of similar self-promotional bullshit but that doesn’t excuse it and there should at least be an investigation into it. Wouldn’t Mr. Cain be all over Barack Obama if the roles were reversed? Hell, any of the candidates on the Republican stage would be pointing the finger.

6. The Police State, the PATRIOT Act & War Powers:

If Herman Cain had his way, he’d be standing on the bridge of a Super Star Destroyer while his Imperial Stormtroopers pillaged Hoth in an effort to thwart those homegrown terrorists. Why would I make such a correlation between Mr. Cain and Darth Vader? Well, let me explain.

Recently, in an interview with The Atlantic,  Darth Cain came out and said that he had no problem with warrantless wiretaps on American citizens if it was being done for counter-terrorism. He also said that he supports the biggest tyranical monstrosity of all-time, the PATRIOT Act. Cain in defense of the PATRIOT Act said:

If 90 percent of a counter-terrorism law is sound we shouldn’t worry about the other ten percent.

Wow! Really? That’s pretty fucked up. Nope, no need to worry about this 10 percent of tyrannical bullshit because this other 90 percent seems okay! When asked about the domestic side of counter-terrorism, he said:

I’m a little troubled by police officers being able to go into a home without a warrant or a court order… But that being said, I would rather error on the side of detection.. ..I also believe that we’ve got to give our intelligence agencies the leeway in order to be able to protect us.

It was Ben Franklin who said:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Herman Cain must’ve never read that quote, which doesn’t surprise me considering he has continually misquoted the Declaration of Independence as the Constitution.

Cain also doesn’t necessarily disagree with the tyrannical TSA he just feels that they “lack common sense”. For the record, Cain also said that harsher drug laws were needed. Apparently Cain is not educated on prohibition, Constitutional law, individual rights, property rights or common sense. Sorry folks but Cain has adopted the views of a neocon on these issues.

When asked about what he thought on Obama and the use of war powers in regards to the Libyan situation, Cain said:

My thoughts are less on whether he has the authority to do what he’s doing than why is he doing what he’s doing. Clarity of what he’s doing and why is more important than whether or not he has the authority to do it.

M’kay, that’s just fucking scary! Cain doesn’t care what the law is! All that matters is “what’s the motivation”. These two sentences sum this guy up pretty well across the board. This pro-Constitution Tea Party conservative really could give two shits about the law. We don’t need another king that thinks he’s above the law that just acts on his gut.

7. The Super CEO & Lack of Experience:

People keep touting how great of a business man Herman Cain is and that he is this political outsider that is going to take Washington by storm, clean up the girdlock and make our country as fiscally efficient as America’s 9th largest pizza chain. That all sounds great but Cain Brains are overlooking reality and are just accepting Herman Cain’s business prowess at face value.

To start, you can’t say that the man has no political experience, he does. Whenever Cain says that he is a Washington outsider, he’s full of shit. To be a director of a branch of the Federal Reserve one has to play the political game. That is not a position for drones. Granted he had a boss in Alan Greenspan but he still had to work within the political system and have a pretty solid understanding of it to be able to effectively hold that job. To think that this is a non-political position is asinine. Also, he did run for senate and has had some political experience in that aspect. This is not his first campaign, he is not going into this blindly.

However, lets entertain the idea that Cain is an inexperienced outsider, as he claims that he truly is. Why would any of us want that? One of his famous overused catchphrases when asked about his lack of experience against experienced candidates is:

Well, all the people in Washington D.C. have held public office before. How’s that working out for ya?

Typically the Cain Brains cheer when they hear this catchphrase; I cringe. Does not having experience against those who do, who have been shitty with it, somehow make you a better choice? Besides, not everyone in D.C. with experience is bad. The people that rally behind this are just easily swayed by catchphrases and slogans and can’t separate reality from Cain’s charismatic schtick. It’s like the Bachmann Bunch cheering every time Michele rambles incoherently and then adds, “Let’s make Barack Obama a One! Term! President!”

Herman Cain professing that his lack of experience is why we should vote for him is like a blind guy telling us that he should drive the bus because the last few drivers who could see got us into a few accidents. But then again, Cain’s been working and lobbying in D.C. for decades. His staff just can’t come up with a good one-liner to express the truth effectively.

As for being this great CEO, a lot of information has come out as of late that makes these claims seem somewhat overinflated. Yes he did work for several big companies and helped turn some of them around and on paper that makes him look like a business genius. Regardless of if he was the genius or if he just had good people around him is a moot point, as being the CEO he gets the credit. Well, he also gets the credit for some of the questionable things that have risen to the surface in regards to his potentially shoddy management style.

Recently, the Atlanta Post and Mother Jones Magazine, ran articles that talked about how Cain, as well as his board of directors, were being sued by the employees of Aquila, an energy company in the Midwest. Mother Jones describes Cain’s tenure at Aquila:

..scrubbed from Cain’s official story is his long tenure as a director at a Midwest energy corporation named Aquila that, like the infamous Enron Corporation, recklessly dove into the wild west of energy trading and speculation—and ultimately screwed its employees out of tens of millions of dollars.

In 1992, Cain along with Aquila’s board of directors allegedly steered employees to take money out of their retirement funds and to move it into company stock. Granted they didn’t put a gun to the heads of their employees but this was still the product of these unethical schemers worried about their own personal bottom lines. After doing this, the company left its conservative business model behind and became more aggressive by carelessly engaging in risky energy trading. Money was lost and the employees who dumped their money into company stock were super pissed. Their lawsuit claims that Cain and the Aquila board of directors violated a 37-year-old federal law that states that employers must responsibly manage employees retirement programs. Cain has been asked about this, not by conservative pundits mind you, but he and his campaign refuse to comment on the issue.

You see, between his desire to keep the Federal Reserve shrouded in secrecy on top of his questionable business actions and his verbal distaste of us “free market purists”, Mr. Cain is apparently a practitioner of corporatism not capitalism. Herman Cain is the living embodiment of what the Occupy Wall Street protestors are angry about, at least the smart ones who know why they are down there. This is why Herman Cain is so critical of the OWS protestors. After admitting that he didn’t have “all the facts” but suspected that the protests were orchestrated to distract from Obama policies, he told the protestors that if they aren’t rich, to “blame themselves”. While it can be said that there is some truth to that, you’re not going to gain any votes taking cheap shots at a whole movement.

You could blame Cain’s harsh words on his supposed inexperience but I really just think he has a hard time not putting his foot in his mouth. Cain needs to think before he speaks and that statement alone just alienated a huge segment of the country that he could’ve worked towards getting as supporters. What Cain should’ve done is gone down there like presidential candidate Gary Johnson did. Talk to the people, break some bread and discuss how we can come up with a solution. I mean, homie is a self-proclaimed “problem solver” or is that just another catchphrase?

Despite the conservative media’s claims, there are people down there with real concerns who want answers to real issues plaguing them. You can’t discredit an entire movement based off of an influx of idiots that have showed up to take the spotlight in interviews. Besides, it’s not like the media isn’t looking for idiots to showcase. Essentially, Fox News and other conservative media outlets are hypocrites that are doing exactly what they bitched about when the liberal media was looking for every excuse to discredit the Tea Party. But whatever, two wrongs make ratings.

8. Religious Intolerance:

One issue that irritates me about Herman Cain is that he has no respect for individual rights. Then again he probably thinks he does but his religious intolerance blinds him to reality. One example of this is when he said:

I believe that homosexuality is a sin because I am a Bible believing Christian. I know it’s a sin but I know that some people make that choice. It’s their choice. ..I believe it is a choice.

Wow dude, really? This is that typical Republican Evangelical bullshit that keeps the GOP in the stone-age and allows the Democrats to justifiably gain the support of gays, lesbians and other groups affected by this sort of bigoted intolerance. Herman Cain believes that homosexuality is a choice. Blind faith in such idiocy that has no scientific evidence to support it is well.. never mind, he is a faith driven man who disregards science. That’s not a shot at Christianity, it’s just a shot at this sort of right-wing stupidity.

If Cain believed in individual rights, he wouldn’t care about someone’s sexual orientation. What they do is no one else’s business and they are free to live in this society in any way they want, as long as what they do doesn’t infringe upon the rights of anyone else. Then again, people with Cain’s mindset feel that seeing two dudes holding hands in a park is an attack on them personally. How dare they infringe on his rights by being happy in front of him! On social issues Cain is no different than a guy like Rick Santorum or Pat Buchanan.

Cain also shows his intolerance with his incredible fear of Islam growing in the United States. Yes, we do not need Sharia Law in the U.S. but guys like Cain are so paranoid of it that they would have you believing that we are on the cusp of an Islamic revolution here in the United States. This sort of fear mongering breeds more hatred, more racism and more intolerance. Those truly affected by it are the Muslims that don’t practice the very rare extreme form of their religion. In effect, their religious freedom is hindered and criticized. Somehow the biggest offenders of this intolerance are Christians who disregard the fact that their religion also has an incredibly violent history that forced people to change wherever it staked its cross in the ground.

On the issue of abortion, Cain is all over the fucking place. He says he is “pro-life from conception.” When asked if he thinks that some form of abortion should be legal, he says “government shouldn’t be involved.” Then he says that “people shouldn’t be free to abort because if we don’t protect the sanctity of life from conception we will also start to play God relative to life at the end of life.” Uh huh.. what? Where does Cain stand on the death penalty? Well, he officially has no stance which means that he doesn’t believe his own words about playing God “at the end of life”. Cain says he is “pro-life period!” When asked if a woman is raped should she be allowed to abort the baby, Cain says, “That’s her choice. That is not government’s choice.” So then he is asked if abortion should be legal and Cain snaps back with “No!” WTF?! Anyone else confused?

9. Conclusion:

Now there are other issues with Cain besides all of this but this article is already pretty massive. The point is, after knowing all this, how could you vote for Herman Cain? He’s a pretty shitty candidate at the end of the day and he will only give us more of the same. Sure, he’d probably be better than Obama but that is not a reason to vote for him because frankly, he is not the best choice.

Truth is, if you have read this and still want to vote for him and want to continue to make excuses for all of these points, you are a part of the bigger problem. You shouldn’t vote for a candidate you have to make excuses for. No one is perfect but Cain is further away from perfect than some of the other choices out there. He is NOT going to pass the FairTax and hell, his 999 Plan is dead in the water right now. In fact, it is the sales tax part that has everyone up in arms. He’s considering changing the 9% sales tax to 9% of something else. The sales tax part is the FairTax part! If he omits it for something else or is even considering it, which he is, then he’s not really trying to bring the FairTax to the table. He’s sticking to his 999 Plan because it is a fucking catchphrase, nothing more.

When pressed by EVERYONE on how shitty the plan is, he can’t defend it. He gets visibly irritated and just says to go to his website and re-read it. This guy doesn’t have the confidence or the understanding to defend his magic plan and on top of that, his skin seems to be getting thinner and thinner on the subject. On a side note, the 999 Plan was created by his economic advisor who works for Wells Fargo and looks like a bald Ben Linus from ‘Lost’. Do you really want to trust a bald Ben Linus?

You see, Herman Cain is just charisma and catchphrases with little to no real substance. Voting for Herman Cain would be like voting for the WWE Intercontinental Champion. A few flashy words to fire up a crowd isn’t going to change the world let alone get us out of our current economic peril. Cain is a professional politician, contrary to what he claims, because he knows how to play the people, which is what he is doing. It has gotten to the point that I almost find it offensive. Unfortunately, too many people just can’t see beyond all of the colorful rhetoric. It kind of parallels Obama in a way.

All I’m saying is that you probably need to make a wiser decision. This “inexperienced” guy holding office is a scary thought. If you want more crony capitalism and a guy that admits he isn’t knowledgeable repeatedly and always turns to some secret advisor, then vote for Cain. Frankly, he is not presidential material; he is motivational speaker material. The problem is, too many have been duped by his over the top presence and are taken in with his message. The reality of the situation is that the message just isn’t clear and with Cain’s track record, could easily shift or change. You can’t rely on a guy that relies on his advisors to shape his gut reaction. Not that having advisors is a bad thing, but Cain’s let it be no secret, albeit inadvertently, that they are calling the shots. In the end, I think Cain just sees this as the start of a long-term business plan and that is unfortunate. This time next year he’ll probably be a co-host on ‘The Five’.

*Taken from the Raw Story. Video at link.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told supporters in Lancaster, South Carolina Tuesday that the Social Security retirement age had to be increased because “people are living too long.”

“Does anybody in this room believe that somebody that 62 years old is too old to work in America today?” Santorum asked. “Social Security was established for people who were too old to work and therefore they needed the support of the federal government.”

“Now back in 1936 we probably did and that made sense. Why? Because life expectancy in 1936 was 61. It’s now 80… So you have a situation where things have changed, and for our young people it will even be longer. We keep gaining about a month every few years, we gain in life expectancy. And so the idea that we’re going to keep the Social Security program locked in on a 1937 actuarial chart makes no sense at all.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Washington Post.

The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is proposing to cut its workforce by 20 percent and to withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans because it believes it could provide benefits at a lower cost.

The layoffs would be achieved in part by breaking labor agreements, a proposal that drew swift fire from postal unions. The plan would require congressional approval but, if successful, could be precedent-setting, with possible ripple effects throughout government. It would also deliver a major blow to the nation’s labor movement.

In a notice informing employees of its proposals — with the headline “Financial crisis calls for significant actions” — the Postal Service said, “We will be insolvent next month due to significant declines in mail volume and retiree health benefit pre-funding costs imposed by Congress.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from Yahoo News.

A scary drop in stocks and commodities threatens to squeeze life out of an already faltering U.S. economy, with deal-making, investment in plants and equipment, and capital raising at risk of slowing down or freezing up.

This will likely further damage consumer confidence, already jarred by the toxic battle in Congress over the government’s debt ceiling and by high unemployment, and feed fears another recession is just around the corner.

Such market declines can create a vicious circle, where falling values in retirement and mutual funds hurt investors’ confidence and reduces their spending activity – in turn feeding into decisions by businesses to delay or cancel plans as the outlook for sales and profits dims.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from Starpulse.

Veteran singer Glen Campbell is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

The Rhinestone Cowboy hit-maker, 75, has been plagued by short-term memory loss for many years and six months ago, doctors confirmed he is suffering from the degenerative neurological disorder.

Campbell and his wife Kim have now gone public with the diagnosis ahead of a number of planned retirement shows later this year, revealing they don’t want fans to worry if he forgets his lines.

Kim tells People magazine, “Glen is still an awesome guitar player and singer. But if he flubs a lyric or gets confused on stage, I wouldn’t want people to think, ‘What’s the matter with him? Is he drunk?’”

Campbell adds, “I still love making music. And I still love performing for my fans. I’d like to thank them for sticking with me through thick and thin.”

*Taken from Statesman.

The financially troubled Postal Service is suspending its employer contribution to the Federal Employee Retirement System.

The agency said Wednesday it is acting to conserve cash as it continues to lose money. It was $8 billion in the red last year because of the combined effects of the recession and the switch of much mail business to the Internet. It faces the possibility of running short of money by the end of this fiscal year in September.

“This move underscores the need for Congress to make bold, quick and substantive reforms to the Postal Service. The USPS is hanging by a thread, along with 8 million private sector jobs that depend on the mail,” said Art Sackler, coordinator for the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, a group representing the private sector mailing industry.

The post office said it has informed the Office of Personnel Management that the $115 million retirement payment made every two weeks will be suspended effective Friday. The action is expected to free about $800 million in the current fiscal year. The post office’s FERS account currently has a surplus of $6.9 billion, the agency said.

CONTINUED..

*Written by Rob Rimes.

*This article is broken into five parts with each being released a few days apart. This is due to the size of the article. Here is PART I & PART II.

4. Stage Three – Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal:

“The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The above quote explains a lot about Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was the great experimenter and we were the guinea pigs. Hell, his tyranny through progressive policy was so broad that we are still little lab rats getting their balls shocked by the mad scientist and his disfigured sidekick. The architect of the New Deal brought forth a plague of entitlements and created a nation starving for a government that would take care of every facet of their sad lives. FDR kicked freedom in the dick and the people just took it. Why? Because they didn’t care. They were getting free shit and a helping hand. They no longer had to be self-reliant. Hell, they didn’t even have to make decisions anymore. The state would now take care of everything. Too bad people’s perception is vastly different from reality. When challenged, the weak pride-less masses just point the finger of blame at all the people trying to take the handouts away, not realizing that it is the myth of the “free lunch” that has got us where we are today. If anyone is really responsible for perpetuating the “free lunch myth” it is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Being a relative of progressive icon Theodore Roosevelt, FDR wanted nothing more than to fill the massive shoes worn by his blood-related hero. Being a disciple of Woodrow Wilson during his presidency, also added to the progressive disease coursing through FDR’s veins. He was born to privilege, had the connections and was driven enough to make his mark on the world. Interestingly, the Delano family fortune was born out of the Chinese opium trade. Well, at least the dirty blood money helped fund his political ambitions. Too bad for us he didn’t realize that he was a fucking hack when it came to economics. Maybe if he knew he wasn’t an economic genius, we could be in a very different place in this country. Maybe he would’ve found advisors who could’ve seen reality much more clearly.

FDR’s economic vision and understanding of finance was so awful that his good friend and Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of the Interior Franklin Lane concluded, “Roosevelt knows nothing about finance, but he doesn’t know he doesn’t know.” FDR’s own VP Henry Wallace stated, “I reached the conclusion that I would under no circumstances, ever have any business dealings with him.” About his education, career and work ethic, one of his college professors Jackson Reynolds said, “Franklin Roosevelt was not much of a student and nothing of a lawyer afterwards. He didn’t appear to have any aptitude for law, and made no effort to overcome that handicap by hard work. He was not a worker and he flunked.” The senior partner of the law firm FDR worked at referred to him as “utterly worthless”. Shit man, FDR was an economic idiot and a worthless mess, yet everyone worships this guy and his policies as genius! Well, let’s look at just how genius this nut-nugget was.

Frankie D started his presidency off with a fucking bang! His first hundred days is famously called “The First Hundred Days”. It was the kick-off to his New Deal policies and a major victory for securing the future of progressive tyranny and idiocy. Due to the economic peril the country faced in the midst of the Great Depression, the people demanded immediate action form their new POTUS with his big promises. FDR met with Congress for 100 straight days, where he proposed many new programs and Congress did little-to-nothing to stop any of theses great experiments from being implemented into American society.

The moronic view of the day, which is still the view in modern times, is that a good president must come to the table with a plethora of new programs to reign in the “change”. FDR started this with “The First Hundred Days”. He became the new standard that all future presidents would be compared to. Because of this, meddling with capitalism and liberty was deemed successful while letting the free market run it’s course, was the policy of lazy tyrants trying to maintain the evil status quo of the ruling class.

To start, the first thing FDR focused on was the banking reforms. FDR blamed the banks for causing the depression and did everything he could to dethrone them and strip them of their power. FDR closed every single bank in America and forced them to remain closed until he could pass new legislation! That legislation was known as the Emergency Banking Act or EBA. Essentially, it allowed the Federal Reserve the power to supply unlimited currency to the reopened banks: creating de facto 100 percent deposit insurance. So what are the pros? There are none. What are the cons? Well, the main one is that this law allowed the bureaucrats to take direct control over our banking system. True and honest capitalism was delivered a serious black eye.

The FDIC was created, albeit against Roosevelt’s wishes. However, without FDR’s progressive meddling of the banking system, Congress probably wouldn’t have been able to pass this special piece of banking reform. Although, money invested into a bank is protected by the FDIC, this law gave more tyrannical power to the government over the banking system. For instance, depositors no longer needed to have any reservations about investing with a bad bank, as their losses are protected. Secondly, the cost of doing business with a bank is more expensive with the FDIC in place. Also, the law forces banks to comply with a new government regulated standard for doing business: eliminating the free market. Also, the banks are the ones who fund the FDIC, therefore they are forced to pay for this insurance plan. Switch wealth for health and it’s like Obamacare for banks.

In addition to the previous forms of economic tyranny, FDR suspended the gold standard. Executive Order 6102 forced American citizens to turn their gold over to the government! Americans owning gold, whether they liked it or not, had to exchange it for the existing fixed price in U.S. dollars. Also, FDR’s progressive administration would no longer allow gold to be considered valid legal tender. The United States government would no longer pay gold on demand for the dollar. FDR destroyed the gold standard and made paper money worthless. Granted the gold standard was later reinstated, it was eventually destroyed once and for all by Richard Nixon in 1971. Just keep in mind that it was FDR that first attempted to kill the dollar. In his defense, he had the best of intentions.

Probably the biggest part of “The First Hundred Days” was all the farm and rural programs established by FDR. The biggest of these programs was the Agricultural Adjustment Act which created the Agricultural Adjustment Agency or the AAA. This law restricted agricultural production, giving the government supreme power over the land and everything that grows out of it. There they go pissing on capitalism again!

Anyway, they did this by paying subsidies to farmers to prevent them from using parts of their land and to entice them to kill off excess livestock. The government was trying to forcibly raise the value of crops by eliminating the crop surplus. Therefore, large portions of farmland remained barren. Farmers who did not comply to these new government regulations were thrown off of their land and sent into the downward spiral of unemployment during the Great Depression. There was a massive eviction of tenants from cotton plantations, who were forced to try and stay afloat on a sinking ship.

The AAA was created mainly due to the effects created by the post-World War I farm crisis. Many economists believe that much of the fault of that crisis was due to the progressive legislation of the Wilsonian era. Also, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff created countless retaliatory tariffs that forced Europeans to turn their backs on American farm exports. This is why tariffs are fucking stupid.

FDR during “The First Hundred Days” also established the Reforestation Relief Act. This law established the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC. FDR must’ve loved alliteration, not mention initialism. The CCC provided immediate work for 250,000 young men in reforestation, road construction and the development of national parks. Of course, this was all paid for by tax dollars: tax dollars during the Great Depression. Just like today, the lefties loved spending lots of money that wasn’t theirs during hard times.

After that, Frankie D created the Federal Emergency Relief Act or FERA. This piece of progressive legislation was responsible for the horrible gory deaths of a large group of our nation’s veterans. Over 400 veterans were a part of the CCC and FERA programs were sent to the Florida Keys to build bridges and roads to help connect Key West and the rest of the Keys to Miami. Unfortunately, these heroes were sent there during hurricane season. Their conditions were also so bad, that they were living in tents on the Key West coastline with little food to eat and barely any supplies. Also, there was no plan of escape set in place, in case the veterans ran into trouble. Even though the leader of the camp sent letters to Washington, requesting places for refuge to be built as well as an escape plan via railroad to be established, his letters went unanswered.

In August of that year, a hurricane hit the veterans’ camp full force! There was nowhere to run and nowhere to go. Large waves destroyed the camp and the debris from the raging hours-long storm dismembered and killed 256 men! One survivor said, “I saw bodies with tree stumps smashed through their chests – heads blown off – twisted arms and legs torn off by flying timber that cut like big knives.” TIME Magazine referred to the incident as a “slaughter worse than war.”

Next up is the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority or TVA, which was created to construct dams and hydroelectric power plants along the Tennessee Valley in an effort to bring electricity to people who previously didn’t have it. It allowed these people to receive electricity cheaply as well as fertilizer. Sounds great, but it was a massive project that only benefitted 2 percent of the U.S. population. It was the other 98 percent that paid the biggest price in the development of the TVA.

In addition to that, the long-term effects of the dam has been incredibly negative. Sure, it was great for a little while but the area that benefits from the existence of the TVA has fallen significantly behind the rest of the country economically. William Chandler in his book “The Myth of TVA” states, “Among the nine states of the southeastern United States, there has been essentially an inverse relationship between income per capita and the extent to which the state was served by TVA.” You see, subsidized power made the people in that region dependent. They had no incentive to venture out into the cities and make a better living. There was a lot of industrial development in the non-TVA states that created new businesses and new opportunities and eventually, due to a lack of governmental meddling, cheaper electricity for those areas. In the end, who benefitted? The region controlled by the government’s good intentions or the region the government left alone?

FDR then created the Federal Securities Act, which was the first law to give government control over stocks and bonds. This law stripped the states of their power in regards to regulating the offer and sale of securities. Many deemed this extension of the federal government’s control to be unconstitutional. Then again, isn’t most of the New Deal?

On the last day of FDR’s “The First Hundred Days” he established the Public Works Administration or PWA and the National Recovery Administration or NRA.

The PWA was created with the intention of reviving industry in America through large scale construction projects of dams, bridges and other public works. It was also created to give jobs to hundreds of thousands of people and to stabilize purchasing power. While seemingly looking good on paper, the PWA spent $6 billion in tax dollars in its short existence. Adjusted for inflation, that is precisely $100 billion today.

The NRA was established to eliminate cut-throat competition. To do so, it worked to bring industry, labor and government together to create codes of fair practices. It also tried to reach its goals by setting “fair” prices. This was a slap to capitalism’s face! The NRA set minimum wage rates as well as the maximum hours an employee could work. Because of all this insanity, the Supreme Court deemed the NRA as unconstitutional. However, the NRA lived on as parts of it were in the National Labor Relations Act that passed later in 1935. Even with the Supreme Court’s ruling however, the damage had already been done in just a short time, as there was a massive surge in the growth and power of unions.

The NRA and National Labor Relations Act created a lot of problems apart from just the union issue. They created a system where the majority in an industry had government approval to force their entire industry, even those who didn’t want to comply, to not be able to sell there prices below a set price. It also allowed the majority to set the wage rates, the hours worked and how much a factory could expand. In the middle of the Great Depression, companies could prevent their competition from exploding with economic growth! This was insanity! The NRA was supposed to eliminate cut-throat competition and in reality, it was eliminating the growth of each and every industry as a whole. When the winners and losers are hand-picked, everyone loses.

One story of the NRA I found in Burton Folsom, Jr.’s book “New Deal or Raw Deal?” talks about a man named Jacob Maged. Jacob had been pressing suits for his customers for over twenty years. He remained competitive with larger tailors due to his ability to offer low prices and quality work. The NRA demanded that the price to press suits must not be lower than 40 cents. Even though he was warned several times, Maged refused to charge his customer more than 35 cents. Jacob Maged was thrown into jail and slapped with a $100 fine! There were more than 500 NRA codes that people had to comply with or be faced with similar penalties.

That was a lot of tyranny to cover and that was just “The First Hundred Days” in FDR’s reign! That’s less than a third of a year in a four year term. He was elected to four terms! Everything I covered here just covers roughly 1/48th of his entire presidency! That’s like 2 percent! I can’t go through everything with a fine toothed comb but there are other major progressive programs that I want to shine a light on.

He did close out his first year with a positive, FDR repealed prohibition. I do have to thank him somewhat, otherwise I’d be risking jail time for every single drop of bourbon I throw down my gullet.

Also, to close out his last year, he established the National Labor Board which was legally able to enforce the right of collective bargaining. He created the Civil Works Administration or CWA. The CWA’s purpose was to employ four million people. The CWA failed and closed down in 4 months. He then marched into Congress just after New Year’s and asked for $10.5 billion to help support recovery programs. They gave it to him.

In his second year, he brought us the Gold Reserve Act, the Farm Mortgage Refinancing Act, the Civil Works Emergency Relief Federation, the Crop Loan Act, the Jones-Connally Farm Relief Act, the Cotton Control Act, the Jones-Costigan Act, the Securities Exchange Act, the Corporate Bankruptcy Act, the Farm Mortgage Foreclosure Act, the Silver Purchase Act, the National Labor Relations Board, the National Housing Act, the Federal Housing Administration or FHA, the Taylor Grazing Act, the Tobacco Control Act and the Federal Farm Bankruptcy Act. Are you starting to see who the Godfather of big government is yet?

Kicking off 1935, Roosevelt introduced us to the Second New Deal. He pledged to deliver aid to the aged, the ill, the unemployed and pretty much everyone else. He promised better housing. He promised tax reform. He promised the world.

The first big creation to come out of 1935 was the Works Progress Administration or WPA. The WPA was considered to be the largest and most ambitious agency created under the New Deal. It’s purpose was to employ millions. It’s focus was on public works projects as well as the arts. It also created programs within itself to do community work, such as building local parks, feeding starving children among various other things. This all sounds fine and dandy but the cost of this agency was immense! It also came with a plethora of unintended consequences.

One major consequence that federal relief created, was that those who had trouble finding employment, no longer bothered to try. Big Brother was taking care of them and living off of the State was much easier than fighting thousands of others for one job. The Founding Fathers, most notably James Madison, warned about this. Madison once said, “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. What are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine?”

One thing the WPA did, was it created a sense of being taken care of by the Democrats. Local officials in the WPA circus were all part of the Democratic Party. The Republicans of the day accused FDR of using WPA jobs as political patronage. By offering jobs and assistance through the progressive WPA, the Democrats would receive the political support of those benefitting from the programs. Whether it was designed for this is debatable, but no one can deny the fact that those benefitting from progressive policies would make sure that when the time came, they’d do everything within their power to keep those policies in place.

Roosevelt then went on to start the Resettlement Administration or RA, which gave money to families wanting to relocate and start a “better” life elsewhere. He also created the Rural Electrification Administration, the National Labor Relations Act which was a reconfigured version of the diabolical NRA, the Banking Act of 1935, the Public Utilities Act and the Revenue Act. Nothing was as big and monstrous though, as the Social Security Act: the crown jewel of the New Deal.

All one has to do to see the long-term negative effects of the Social Security Act is look around. It is one of the most discussed issues in politics today, over 75 years later! The problem with this huge and vital part of the New Deal just can’t be summed up in a few sentences. This piece of legislation is practically the heart of the progressive beast. The worst thing about it though, has to be the fact that it has created a huge sense of entitlement and reliance on the State.

People seem to have developed the misconception that they no longer need to prepare for the future and plan their own retirement. Many people believe that Social Security is there to protect them and provide for them when they reach the age of retirement. Fact is, Social Security was originally established as a way to supplement one’s own retirement, not to be the sole source of income.

Social Security has also spawned the concept that the federal government can and will take care of us no matter what happens. Those with this helpless and idiotic mentality don’t seem to understand that it is tax dollars that pay for this program. Even if they get that, they seemingly believe that tax dollars are unlimited and if things start to get tight, the rich should pay more to support them. Essentially, those who do not plan and manage their finances correctly, expect those that do to take care of them. That’s like if Student Alpha gets nothing but “A’s” on their report card and Student Beta gets mostly “C’s” and “D’s”, then Student Alpha should give some of his good grades to Student Beta. Maybe Student Beta should just stop partying so hard and take their future a bit more seriously. I’m not ignoring the fact that there are those in impoverished situations, but if there is a will there is a way. It’s the progressive state that has stripped this self-reliance away from the masses.

The Social Security Trust Fund has created a horrible sense of entitlement for bureaucrats even. The temptation for this “free” money is so great that the Beltway Suits find ways to borrow and borrow from it in an effort to fund their pork-laced projects. This leaves behind an unlimited number of I.O.U.’s which have all sucked liberty’s wallet dry and left us with worthless legislation.

The biggest issue with Social Security, is that it is now paid for by those who will never get the chance to benefit from it. I am in my early 30′s as I write this and I pay a huge amount into Social Security. Problem is, I will never see it. The Social Security program is so fucked, that our great grandparents have created a system of borrowing and spending that stuck us with the bill before we were even born. This trend has not stopped there however, it continues every time Congress is in session with every new law they pass that costs money. This progressive mentality has become the way things are done in Washington. We can all thank FDR for starting this caravan of thievery.

We now live in a country where people spend more than they have, don’t take into account the x-factors of life and don’t have the ability to handle their own business when shit eventually hits the fan. People are just like the federal government. They want it all but no one wants to pay for it. Fact is, we ALL pay for it!

If people tried not to pay their share, FDR had a tool to use against them, that tool was the IRS. He did not create the agency but he used it in a tyrannical way, to collect more money for his programs and to threaten the enemies and critics of his policies. The first victim was Louisiana Governor Huey Long. Long continually criticized the New Deal for its “socialist programs”. FDR tried many ways of demonizing and eliminating Long as a threat but none of his methods worked until he turned to the IRS. The IRS indicted Long and many of the people in his administration. Granted Long had some serious skeletons in his closet and was guilty, but the actions of the president were tyrannical nonetheless. With his successful dissection of Huey Long, FDR marveled at how well the IRS could work as a weapon against those who did not fall in line behind him.

Now everything I’ve discussed here is all from Frankie D’s first term. He had three more terms! The majority of the New Deal was done during the first term but it doesn’t mean that he didn’t continue with progressive programs and special projects that have added to our financial crisis today. Truth is, FDR created so much damage that it is almost impossible to go through each piece of legislation and analyze it. Frankly, that would take up at least a few books. One could probably write about it for the rest of their life.

FDR’s legacy is regarded as a great one in American history. As you can see, that is far from the truth. The harsh reality is that he destroyed everything our Founding Fathers fought for and believed in. He was an enemy of liberty and a champion of tyranny. He created a state of children needing their nanny to make all their decisions for them. Long gone was the great American ideal, that we didn’t need anyone to make us great, we could rely on ourselves and persevere against all odds. We were a nation that rose to the top of the food chain within a century or so. FDR traded that all in though because the smug progressive attitude is that they know what we need better than we do. I say “fuck that.” If they were so smart, they wouldn’t have dug this goddamned hole we’re in now.

At least Woodrow Wilson felt a sense of remorse for some of his tyrannical and idiotic ways. FDR on the other hand, died a proud man with a proud legacy that in retrospect, has done more to dismantle freedom than most other presidents. However, FDR was not the last, there were others after him who took his lead and ran with a strong progressive agenda. The next one to look at is Lyndon Baines Johnson.

5. Stage Four – Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society:

“I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world.” – Lyndon Baines Johnson

This article is continued in PART IV