Tag Archives: Socialism

SPEAKER Boehner to Dems: You’re Welcome.

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What will the incoming GOP majority in the House bring? Some on the Right are already worried that Republicans still don’t get it. Will the GOP be conservative, or will they ‘compromise,’  and sell-out to the Left?

If Speaker(!) Boehner’s letter to Senate Democrats is any indication, it would appear as though the GOP has adopted a ‘new tone.’ House Republicans have promised a vote to repeal Obamacare. In response, Senate Democrats publicly sent a letter to Speaker Boehner, promising to block a bill that would repeal the Left’s crowing achievement. Boehner’s response is exactly what is needed from the GOP:

Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer, Murray and Stabenow:

Thank you for reminding us – and the American people – of the backroom deal that you struck behind closed doors with ‘Big Pharma,’ resulting in bigger profits for the drug companies, and higher prescription drug costs for 33 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D, at a cost to the taxpayers of $42.6 billion.

The House is going to pass legislation to repeal that now. You’re welcome.

- Speaker-Designate John Boehner’s Press Office

The GOP is geared up for a serious fight for the soul of the country. Republicans were not elected because people were enamored with the Party brand. Rather, the voters wanted, and still want, a party that will stop Obama and the Democrats from imposing their socialist vision on the country.

Speaker Boehner’s letter sets the right tone; a fighting tone. The next two years have to be about repairing the damage Obama and his ilk have inflicted on the country. In that struggle there can be no compromise, no retreat and no surrender.

Are you better off than you were in 2008?

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During the final days of his campaign, Ronald Reagan asked voters to ask themselves if they were better off than they were four years ago. As we enter Barack Obama’s third year in office, Americans should ask themselves if they are better off than they were in 2008.

The Heritage Foundation published this incredible comparison of President Obama and President Reagan.

Socialism has never produced superior results to the free markets. The amount of money that America has wasted on worthless government programs is sickening – especially now that America’s national debt tops $14 trillion.

It won’t be long before the 2012 elections. Americans must reject the well intentioned promises of the statists and vote for freedom. Unless, of course, America is better off today than it was in 2008.

Time to Counteract “One-Sided” View of North Korea

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Two men, an American and a Russian were arguing. One said, in my country I can go to the White House walk to the president’s office and pound the desk and say “Mr. President! I don’t like how you’re running things in this country!”
The Russian said “I can do that too!”
“Really?”
“Yes! I can go to the Kremlin, walk into the General Secretary’s office and pound the desk and say, Mr. Secretary, I don’t like how Reagan is running his country!”

-Ronald Reagan

In 1921 Lincoln Steffens, a revered lion of the liberal media establishment, visited the Soviet Union. Following his visit, Steffens commented “I have seen the future, and it works.” Steffens was taken on a Potmekin Village tour, and he saw the future in totalitarian communism.

The Pyongyang Project, an ‘educational program,’ launched by American university students, which seeks to “counteract the ‘one-sided’ coverage of North Korea in the international media,” is a worthy heir to Steffens’ unprecedented level of naiveté.

Organizers of the venture claim that “the US and North Korea don’t have established relations, and talks are indirect at best. And what we believe is that there is a need for a grassroots level of engagement that we haven’t seen yet between citizens.”Furthermore, people brought to North Korea will “experience the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for themselves and try to see a different side of a country that’s a lot more dynamic than they may have anticipated.”

On tours of the worker’s paradise, visitors had the opportunity to visit the beautiful beaches of Wonsan. There, Pyongyang Project participants interacted with denizens of North Korea who just happened to be at the beach at the same time. One fellow traveler noted that although the people seemed malnourished, they were happy.

Of course, no trip to North Korea would be complete without attending the Airing Festival, where 100,000 North Koreans preform dances and gymnastics dedicated to Supreme Leader, Kim Il-sung.

The Pyongyang Project even visited the renowned Kim Il-sung University, which will now be offering a two month study abroad program, through the Pyongyang Project. At the university one American visitor did notice a few minor red flags:

At one point during a tour through a computer lab at Kim Il-sung University, students stared blank-faced into machines that were turned off, she said, adding that some rooms in the university even felt unused and smelled of fresh wood and paint.

But don’t look behind the curtain.

Of recent attacks on South Korea, the Pyongyang Project says:

There is a heightened level of political tension that exists, and one cannot rule out the possibility of additional actions that could lead to further tensions – but I don’t see it, honestly. It was an event that occurred that has proven to be isolated.

Besides, members of the Pyongyang Project were to busy last month, preparing a protest outside President Bush’s home because he’s a warmonger!

A hint to the Pyongyang Project organizers: the people on the beach just might have not have been there by chance. North Korea is a police state. The people were there because they were told to be there. They were happy because they were told to be happy. If they were not at the designated place at the designated time, or if they were unhappy, they would not have returned home.

North Korea’s GDP per capita is $1,800. $1,800 ranks North Korea 193rd in the world, just ahead of Chad, and right behind Gambia. Sudan is 6 spots ahead of North Korea.

North Koreans are taught that Kim Jong Il had a supernatural birth, invented the hamburger and is a fashion trendsetter. Additionally, in 1994 Dear Leader played his first and only round of golf and shot 38 under par on a regulation 18 hole course, replete with 5 hole in ones. His lone round of golf is 25 strokes better than any round in history.

O, and there is this picture:

which shows the thriving South’s electrical usage, compared to the desolate North’s. At least the NorKs are doing there part in the fight against anthropogenic global warming!

It is telling that liberals constantly lavish praise on totalitarian states. Liberals look to basket cases  like the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and California and see the future.

The reason most people have a “one-sided” view of North Korea is because the place is hell on earth. People live in abject destitution and die of starvation. Meanwhile, the certifiably insane rulers of the country live like Pharaohs. Promotion of the ‘successes’ of the totalitarian ruling claque is an asinine concept, even for university students.

Disastrous Changes to Healthcare – Effective Now

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Do you think that you will be better off in 2011 than you were in 2010? If you answered yes, you must not be a doctor, insurance company, or any sort of user/provider of healthcare.

On January 1, 2011, several new elements of Obamacare came into effect. These measures lay the groundwork for higher premiums and the eventual government takeover of healthcare.

Your HSA and FSA is a lot less valuable

In the past, you could purchase over the counter medical supplies – such as Advil, allergy pills, and cold medicine – using your Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Savings Account (FSA). No income tax was paid on the money that you saved in either of these accounts.

Thanks to Obamacare, you can no longer purchase over the counter medications using these accounts unless you get a doctor’s prescription.

This will have two big effects:

1. Increase the real cost of over the counter drugs because you cannot easily purchase them with pretax dollars

2. Waste doctors’ time and increase the price of health insurance because doctors will be asked to write prescriptions for over the counter drugs just for the tax benefits.

A Provision Now Limits How Insurance Companies Use your Premiums

This one is unbelievable – a game changer in the insurance business. This is a leap towards the government takeover of healthcare.

Insurance companies now are forced to spend at least 80% of the insurance premium on patients. If a company or group purchases a healthcare plan, this number jumps to 85%.

The remaining 15%-20% of your premium may be spent on advertising, sales, administrative salary, profit, etc..

This provision will have numerous effects – some of which are:

1. It will force insurance companies out of states where administrative costs are higher – simply because these states will be unprofitable.

2. It changes the insurance business model – typically your insurance company will take big profits from healthy patients (who consequently, don’t make large insurance claims) and lose money on customers who get sick. Obviously, insurance companies want their customers to stay healthy (fewer claims). Now, they need their customers to get sick to meet this government requirement.

This will drive ‘cadillac’ plans out of existence. Insurance companies have no benefit from high margin plans – the only way to increase profit is to cover more people (you can no longer increase margins). Plans will be designed to fit the needs of large groups of people - individually tailored plans designed to fit your specific needs are a thing of the past.

Claim service and doctor payments will all be affected too. Companies will reduce their administrative staff to the bare minimum (one of the few ways to affect profit margin). Be prepared to sit on hold for several hours only to talk to someone in India when you call your insurance company.

This provision sets up an incredible moral hazard that should be unimaginable in America – the government telling a private company what its profit margin must be. If the company is charging too much, competitors will take advantage of the situation by offering lower prices. Perhaps the government should limit grocery store margins too – we all need food. This is the absurdity of big government.

3. The new model is impossible – companies can only use 15%-20% of their margins on advertising, administration, and profit – so they need as many customers as possible. Yet they need to spend more on advertising and administration to pay for all of the new customers. This will inevitably decrease profits and the number of companies participating in the health insurance market.

Don’t worry – once provisions like these eliminate all of the private insurance companies, I’m confident that President Obama and the Democrats will have a solution – government run healthcare.

If you don’t want the government running healthcare, there is only one option: REPEAL.

In Case You Missed it, Global Warming is a Hoax

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The UK’s MET Office foretasted a “mild winter” this year, after predicting a “barbecue summer” for 2009. The 2009 summer was frigid, and this year’s winter is shaping up to be one of the coldest on record.

Ten years ago, global warming ‘experts’ fretted that “snowfalls are just a thing of the past” in the UK. Dr. David Viner, from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research unit (CRU) lamented that “children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” That’s the same CRU that was exposed in climategate.

Well no need to worry, because yes, Virginia, there is snow on the ground in the UK. Reports of winter’s demise were highly exaggerated.

Global warming myth perpetuaters having been strikingly consistent in their faulty forecasts. On the other hand, meteorologist Piers Corbyn has been incredibly accurate in his long term predictions. Corbyn has been documented to be right nearly 85 per cent of the time. His predictions are catching on – farmers and other weather dependent businesses are looking to Corbyn’s predictions regularly.

Instead of endless government grants and experimental new theories, Corbyn uses a rather simple system:

He looks at the flow of particles from the Sun, and how they interact with the upper atmosphere, especially air currents such as the jet stream, and he looks at how the Moon and other factors influence those streaming particles.

He takes a snapshot of what the Sun is doing at any given moment, and then he looks back at the record to see when it last did something similar. Then he checks what the weather was like on Earth at the time – and he makes a prophecy.

The global warming crowd tells us that humans are raising global temperatures and this will lead to a catastrophe. They confidently make claims about the climate for the next 100+ years, and they cannot get the weather right tomorrow, next week, or next season.

A meteorologist with a laptop makes more accurate predictions. By looking at the sun, Piers Corbyn can accurately predict the weather, and climate trends. Who would have thought that the sun played an important role in temperatures in our solar system?

In case you missed it, GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX! Humans have zero effect on the climate, or close to that. Forget the sun, when volcanoes erupt they belch out more pollution than humanity can produce.

The AP made the Gulf of Mexico oil spill the story of the year. We were warned that the ecosystem would never recover. In a few months, the damage done by the oil spill is all but gone. Natural petroleum seepage puts more oil in the gulf every year than the spill did.

Humans are but a part of a very complicated ecosystem, and solar system. The power that humans have to seriously change this planet is massively overblown by  hysterical hypochondriacs on the Left.

Pathetic Pale Pastels Republicans

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After the most resounding electoral defeat in over half a century, the outgoing Democratic Party has successfully rammed through one hyper-partisan piece of legislation after the other.

The sad fact is that Senate Republicans have been complicit in allowing awful legislation to pass. Lindsey Graham, yes, that Lindsey Graham, actually excoriated his own party for caving in to the Democrats unnecessarily:

“When it’s all going to be said and done, Harry Reid has eaten our lunch,” Graham said on Fox News radio. “This has been a capitulation in two weeks of dramatic proportions of policies that wouldn’t have passed in the new Congress.”

Republican senators have broken with the party’s leaders on several key votes in order to advance some of President Obama’s top policies during the lame-duck. GOP members defected to pass a repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and have done likewise to secure likely ratification for the START Treaty. Some Republicans might allow a health bill for 9/11 first responders to move forward, while three Republicans voted to end debate on the DREAM Act, an ultimately unsuccessful immigration bill…

“I can understand the Democrats being afraid of the new Republicans; I can’t understand Republicans being afraid of the new Republicans,” Graham lamented on WTMA radio. “They’re not opportunities to take everything you couldn’t do for two years and jam it. It’s literally what they’re doing, across the board. And after a while, I stop blaming them, and I blame us.”

When Lindsey Graham is faulting the GOP for caving in to the Democrats…

The fact that the Democrats have completely ignored the will of the people and pursued their radical agenda is to be expected. That Republicans have repeatedly capitulated is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, there are still too many Republicans who want to go along to get along. They have no real belief in reform. In fact, some Republicans actually fear and disdain the reform movement. The elitists within the party still look down on the ‘uncouth’ Tea Party.

Because President Obama pursued such a radical agenda in his first two years in office, the GOP wilderness years were cut short. While it was of the utmost importance to block the Democrats, the Republicans quick return to power has allowed some of the deadwood to stay in place.

In 2010 the Tea Party movement stayed within the Republican Party. The energy that they provided launched the GOP to victory. If the Grand Old Party wants to keep the movement together, elected officials better realize that the time for compromises, in which Republicans acquiesce to Democrats is over. Now is the time for bold, conservative leadership.

UK Riots: A Glimpse into the Future

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By a vote of 323 to 302 the British parliament voted to increase student fees from £3,290 to £9,000. The vote was an acknowledgment of reality. Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister and ardent socialist, branded opponents of the plan “dreamers,” claiming that he has to deal with “the way the world is.”

In reaction to fee hikes, British students waged a violent protest, physically attacking the Royal Family, destroying private and government property, and asaulting police officers. The following pictures of the riots are from the UK Daily Mail:

Meanwhile, in France workers conducted a violent strike because the government dared to raise the retirement age by two years – from 60 to 62.

In Greece, civil servants and students joined forces to riot over new austerity measures put in place after the deadbeat country was bailed out. In the mêlée at least three people were killed.

This is the end of the socialist path. Margaret Thatcher used to say “the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Europe has run out of other people’s money. Countries that have enjoyed grandiose welfare states are insolvent. The Iberian peninsula is next on the chopping block, with both Spain and Portugal poised to go bust.

The trouble is, generations (at least 2) of people have become dependent on the welfare state. They trust that the government will be there to take care of them. They have been raised to believe that the insidious rich, defined as anyone that makes more than you, will be cut down to size in the interest of “fairness.” With more people retiring, and fewer young people to pick up the slack, welfare programs have become insolvent.

The problem of insolvency, and of a dependent class, is not unique to Europe. California and Illinois face $25 billion and $15 billion deficits. In fact, Illinois’ credit rating is weaker than that of Iceland (which went bankrupt in 2008) and only slightly higher than that of Iraq. New York, New Jersey, Michigan and other heavily Democratic states are in similarly tenuous positions.

Of course, there is also the federal government, running enormous deficits, and unable to fund entitlements like: Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, Obamacare and so on. People have put money and trust in a government that has squandered both.

The issue is, what can be cut? Politicians do not like taking away entitlements. While it may be necessary, there will always be class warriors who promise that the ‘rich,’ or “economic royalists” will have to take on their “fair share” of the cost of government. “Fair share” invariably translates to the entire cost.

With nearly half of all people on the receiving end of the government dole, the case for limited government can be difficult to make. What interest does someone who is a net beneficiary have in reducing the size of the state? That is the situation in Europe. If class warrior Obama has his way, that will be the case in the united States and the results will be equally as miserable.

You reap what you sow.

A Message to Garcia

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A Message to Garcia was written in 1899 by Elbert Hubbard. The pamphlet, and later book, sold over 40 million copies, was made into two movies, and for a time, “taking a message to Garcia” was a commonly used expression, meaning to undertake a difficult task. Over 100 years later, the lesson in A Message to Garcia is as pertinent as ever. It should be required reading for all conservatives. For that reason, I have posted the entire original pamphlet:
In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.

What to do!

Some one said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.”

Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by the name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.

The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?” By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- “Carry a message to Garcia!”

General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.

No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call.

Summon any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio”.

Will the clerk quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task?

On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

Was I hired for that?

Don’t you mean Bismarck?

What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?

What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.

Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your “assistant” that Correggio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, “Never mind,” and go look it up yourself.

And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting “the bounce” Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to.

Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?

“You see that bookkeeper,” said the foreman to me in a large factory.

“Yes, what about him?”

“Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for.”

Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?

We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the “downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop” and the “homeless wanderer searching for honest employment,” & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with “help” that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away “help” that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.

It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia.

I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, “Take it yourself.”

Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.

Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless.

Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.

I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.

My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the “boss” is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets “laid off,” nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

THE END

MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A FRAUD!

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From the UK Times:

As the world meets in Cancun, Mexico for the latest round of United Nations talks on climate change, the influential academics called for much tougher measures to cut carbon emissions.

In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.

This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars.

Prof Anderson admitted it “would not be easy” to persuade people to reduce their consumption of goods

He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s.

This could mean a limit on electricity so people are forced to turn the heating down, turn off the lights and replace old electrical goods like huge fridges with more efficient models. Food that has travelled from abroad may be limited and goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.

“The Second World War and the concept of rationing is something we need to seriously consider if we are to address the scale of the problem we face,” he said.

MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A FRAUD! From Thomas Malthus to Paul Ehrlich, the Left has claimed that the sky is falling. In reality, human beings have not exhausted the earth’s resources, the population is not too big for the planet, and we do not control the weather.

Global warming is the latest environmentalist ploy being used by the Left to control every last facet of your life. Using junk science, the Left wants to tell you what food you can eat (and not eat), what utilities you can use and when, what cars you can drive, what light bulbs you can use, ad nauseam ad infinitum.

However, while the profits of scarcity dictate that the hoi polloi ought to live with less, how does the other half live? Americans for Prosperity released the following video, showing attendees of the aforementioned UN Climate Hoax Summit in Cancun, Mexico (alternate junket name: soon this will feel like spring break):

These anonymous bureaucrats have the gall to tell everyone else to live hand to mouth, while they go on vacations in Cancun (paid for by taxpayers (most likely American taxpayers, who cover an overwhelming percentage on the UN’s operating budget)). Why don’t they lead by example? In order to reduce carbon emissions, hows about canceling the next tropical socialist sojourn?

(H/T Hot Air)

Brilliance from the CBC

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Running a nation-wide advertising campaign telling people that you’re transparent: Priceless

Sun Media’s Brian Lilley reports:

Under attack for its lack of transparency and accountability, the CBC has taken out expensive ads in newspapers across Canada, promising Canadians that they will be up-front with information.A series of reports this week from QMI Agency have highlighted the CBC’s refusal to release information under the Access to Information Act, and their ongoing court battle with the Information Commissioner, an independent officer of Parliament over who gets to see those documents.

While the ad boasts of tens of thousands of pages released under Access to Information, it fails to mention that tens of thousands of pages have also been released with all relevant information removed, the result being either blank pages or pages covered in black marker.

The CBC continues to claim exemptions under sections designed to protect their journalistic activities or protect the government on issues vital to the economic interests of Canada. As a result, they refuse to answer simple questions such as how many trucks the state broadcaster owns.

[...]

The key phrase is “Documents of interest,” meaning CBC will decide what they release, and what they don’t, for the public to view.

A review of what has been posted on the CBC website shows that hundreds of access requests have been left off the site for now, including expense reports for CBC president Hubert Lacroix. The 110 blank pages supplied to QMI for expenses by board member Louise Lantagne, and the cost of honorariums provided to board members, are also missing.

Lilley also adds that because “CBC spends public dollars and is therefore accountable to the public. That should mean full accountability, including the cost of these ads.” He’s absolutely right. The CBC has a lot to offer as a broadcaster, and as a business (Lord knows to whom, however.) It’s quite simple though: If there was a market for what the CBC offered, it could hold its own in the free market. No private corporations could get away with witholding information like the CBC did. Heck, even the military has a hard time getting away with blacking out that many pages of important documents.

There may have been a time where the CBC was required, but that time has certainly passed.