Obama versus Paul

H/t Donald Meinshausen on Facebook

Obama Investigation Petition Breaks 3,265 Signatures

The petition I circulated on Thursday now has3,266 signatures. There is still time to sign it at:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Federal-Elections-Commssion/

It reads:

The signers of this petition request the Federal Elections Commission and Mr. Donald McGahan, FEC chairman, to take responsibility to verify the eligibility of Mr. Barack H. Obama to be President of the United States. Mr. Obama has refused to produce a physical certified, stamped copy of his birth certificate. An electronically-displayed image displayed by his official campaign website has been alleged to be a forgery. We request that the FEC require Mr. Obama to authorize the FEC to obtain an official copy of his birth certificate and if he does not produce the authorization that the FEC reject his registration as a presidential candidate; that the FEC not monitor his campaign finances during the primary or election; that votes cast for Mr. Obama and reported by the states' boards of elections not be recorded and displayed by the FEC; and that Mr. Obama be considered in violation of 2 USC 437g for filing a false statement on FEC Form 2, as specified on that form.

Conservative Bolters Should Listen to Jerry Molen

Jeremy E. Sarber and Friends (h/t Contrairimairi) has posted an essay by Jerry Molen, who notes:

"Most people aren’t even aware that the Democrats ruled Washington for over 40 years. It wasn’t until 1994 when the so called Gingrich Revolution changed that for a short period of time. Nor do people realize that it was the Dem’s that created the failed policies of the many entitlement programs that are falling apart right before our eyes. Please do not think I find the Republicans blameless in all this."

Jerry notes a paradox:

"Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last fifty years….and they are still poor."

No kidding. The fact is, almost everyone is poorer because of the Progressive(Republican)/social democrat (Democratic) alliance.

Jerry has a few predictions about what Barack Hussein Obama would do as president:

1. Strict new gun laws will be enacted even though he promised he would not.
2. The phrase “In God We Trust” will be removed from all currency.
3. He will back away from his pledge to Israel and leave them to the wolves of Islam.
4. Hillary Clinton will be named to the Supreme Court.
5. Tax rates will return to their highest levels in 30 years.
6. The capital gains tax will be at least double current levels.
7. Retired Army General Wesley Clark will be named Secretary of Defense.
8. The borders will be ‘basically open’ to all comers. Especially those from the Middle East and South America.
9. Amnesty will be granted to all illegals now in the U.S.
10. The war in Iraq will be brought to an abrupt end and the results will be tragic and the consequences to our military will be devastating.

Letter To Donald McGahan and Federal Election Commission Requesting Obama Investigation

I have mailed the following letter following conversations with Contrairimairi and others who have suggested an FEC investigation of the Obama birth information. Currently, it does not appear that any one government office has taken responsibility for verification of a candidate's eligibility to be president, and part of this inquiry is to force the FEC to clarify who is responsible.

PO Box 130
West Shokan, New York 12494
mlangbert@hvc.rr.com
http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com
August 6, 2008

Mr. Donald F. McGahn, II, Chairman
Federal Election Commission
999 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20463

Dear Mr. McGahan:

I would like to file a formal complaint with the Federal Elections Commission requesting verification of the natural-born U.S. citizenship of Mr. Barack Obama, and revocation of the registration and recognition of Mr. Obama’s candidacy for president of the United States if that citizenship is not verified as described below within 7 days of the FEC receipt of this letter. Mr. Obama has not shown that he fulfills the Constitutional requirement for president, to be a “natural born citizen”, Article Two, Section 1.

The basis for this complaint is:

a) Mr. Obama’s refusal to produce a physical certified, stamped copy of his birth certificate, with the Hawaii file number visible, upon my previous repeated request and the requests of others.
b) Significant analysis of the electronically-displayed image displayed by Mr. Obama on his official campaign website as the certificate indicates forgery.
c) The electronically-displayed image displayed by Mr. Obama on his official campaign website has the Hawaii state birth certificate filing number blacked out, eliminating any objective information that links the image to an actual certificate on file (see http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/07/atlas-exclusive.html).

If Mr. Obama produces a certified, stamped copy of the original birth certificate with all information visible, I request as the complainant to see that document in person to examine its authenticity, including electronically, before the FEC finalizes its response; and the opportunity to verify the authenticity with the issuing state official. This process should require no more than two business days, and may take place in at the FEC office in Washington.

If the certificate is not produced in 10 days and verified by the FEC and myself within another 5 days, this complaint requests the following four remedies:

1) Mr. Obama’s registration as a presidential candidate is rejected (as filed on FEC Form 2).
2) Mr. Obama’s campaign finances will not be monitored by the FEC as a candidate, during the primary or election.
3) Votes cast for Mr. Obama and reported by the states’ boards of elections will not be recorded and displayed by the FEC.
4) Mr. Obama will be considered in violation of 2 U.S.C. 437g, for filing a false statement on FEC Form 2, as specified on that form.

I ask for expedited formal response and resolution of this request, given that the national convention furthering the candidacy will occur in three weeks, and given that this document is easy to produce upon personal request of Mr. Obama to the Hawaii state government. Please note the FEC can request it directly, as qualifying under Hawaii Revised Statutes § 338-18 has having “a direct and tangible interest in the record.”

This request is made with the utmost respect for the presidential election process and the candidates involved, in the desire to resolve this question quickly and confirm their integrity. If a similar request is appropriate to be made to all presidential candidates by the FEC it must not slow down this specific request.

If the FEC decides it does not have jurisdiction in this matter, please respond within three business days of receipt of this complaint with the agency or governmental organization that is responsible for enforcing Article Two, Section One of the Constitution that requires natural-born citizenship for candidacy for the president of the United States. Please include the basis for such jurisdiction by that agency or organization. Please respond by email to: mlangbert@hvc.rr.com

Sincerely,


Mitchell Langbert
PO Box 130
203 Watson Hollow Road
West Shokan, New York 12494

Cc: Steven T. Walther, Vice Chairman
Cynthia L. Bauerly, Commissioner
Matthew S. Petersen, Commissioner
Caroline C. Hunter, Commissioner
Ellen L. Weintraub, Commissioner

Why Chris Matthews Loves Barack Obama

Chris Matthews studied economics at UNC Chapel Hill. As a result, Matthews agrees that there are 57 states.

Ron Paul in Exile--A Generation in Disgrace

Newsmax reports that Fox will exclude Ron Paul from the New Hampshire debate. I watch Fox News for television news except when in my health club, surrounded by progressive-liberals from nearby Woodstock, NY. Then I watch Turner Classic Movies. In addition to watching Fox, though, I support Ron Paul despite his views on Iraq. I support Paul because he is the only Republican candidate who believes in shrinking government and ending inflation. He is not the only Republican candidate who says that he will shrink government. Most of them do.

But the Republicans gained control in 1980 and have had control of the White House for 19 of the past 27 years. They have had control of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2006 and of the Senate from 1995 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2006. During that time, government spending has mushroomed and the departments of education and energy have been going strong. Which of the thousands of worthless government programs have the Republicans eliminated in the last ten years? I'm listening. I've heard the list is short. Very short. So short that it just went by, and I still haven't heard it.

As well, there has been a cornucopia of free credit, meaning counterfeit money, emanating from the Federal Reserve Bank since 1980. The exact amount is unclear because the M-3 statistic that includes foreign money has been eliminated. However, the past twenty-seven years has seen a 3.5% inflation rate if you exclude, as the Department of Labor did in the early 1980s, inflation in the value of home purchases. My friend has had to move from Queens because she cannot afford to purchase an apartment or house near New York City. Today, mostly millionaires live in Manhattan, once the nation's cultural center, but no longer because it is populated by non-English speaking peoples whose currency is sound. Creative cultural types have moved to North Carolina. Only the beneficiaries of the paper money bonanza can affored to live in Manhattan.

What is most astonishing about the crippling monetary expansion that has gone on during the past 27 years is that the public does not care. No cares that prices have gone up, that a dollar in 1979 is worth 38 cents today (excluding home purchases). No one seems to be aware that America cannot continue to be a great power with a currency that stands to be depreciated by 500% if chief dollar holders sell.

The effects of inflation in the past 27 years have been devastating, yet no one seems to mind. Certainly not the broadcasters on CNN, CBS, ABC or for that matter, Fox. We are a nation that, under Republican leadership, has given up our national purpose and independence for a flat screen TV and a cellular telephone. This generation of Americans is a disgrace.

Given America's suicidal pattern, where conservatives' main concern is immigration at a time when our money supply is owned by foreign governments, there has been only one candidate willing to question ReInflateoCrat (the "In" stands for Bloomberg Independent) monetary extremism, and that is Ron Paul. That Fox has excluded him from the debates suggests that there will be little serious debate of any kind in 2008.

John M. Dobson's "The Origins and Structures of the Major Political Parties"

From John M. Dobson, Politics in the Gilded Age: A New Perspective on Reform. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972, p. 37

"The leadership of both national parties during the last third of the nineteenth century consisted of alliances of bosses and local leaders. The parties lacked the central focus that had characterized Jefferson's Republicans and Jackson's Democrats. The most influential party leaders were those who devoted their attention to state politics rather than the Presidency. The series of lackluster Presidential contenders the Republicans nominated after 1872 did not represent an over-all weakness in the party so much as the strength of the regional bosses. Whether the party's Presidential campaign ended in victory or defeat, it did not radically alter the soundly functioning Republican machines throughout the nation.

"A partisan's attitudes on certain issues did more to define his political position than did his party designation. How, then did the parties manage to retain their members? No single leader attracted followers on a national basis, and, as Chapter 2 will show, after a time no single issue aligned the parties either. The persistence of the parties, then depended upon widespread and overpowering loyalty to an abstraction. Ironically, this loyalty appeared to be growing stronger at a time when the parties were becoming more and more similar in their stands. Many of the short-lived third parties formed to support a particular principle announced their position in their names--e.g., the Greenback, Free-Silver and Prohibition parties. None of these could abandon the basic principle for which it had been named, but the deliberately obscure Democratic and Republican titles could stand for little or nothing."

Paper Pushers Dominate Campaign Contributions

OpenSecrets.org lists useful data on campaign contributions for the 2008 campaign. I copied information for Obama, Clinton, Huckabee, Giuliani and Paul into the table below. Lawyers prefer the Democrats. They lead the list of donors for both Obama and Clinton, come in fourth for Romney (not shown), second for Giuliani and eighth for Paul.

Retired people are the chief donors to Huckabee, second largest donors to Obama, third to Clinton, third to Giuliani, first to Romney (not shown) and first to Paul. Securities and investment professionals are third on Obama's list, second on Clinton's list, third on Huckabee's first on Giuliani's, second on Romney's (not shown) and seventh for Paul. Educators prefer the Democrats, and appear in Paul's top ten list but not the leading Republicans'.

Retirees and lawyers seem to lead the list. People who work in manufacturing, technology and retail can expect government to exploit them in the years to come.

Ranks of Donors to Presidential Candidates


Rank / Obama / Clinton / Huckabee / Giuliani / Paul

1 / Lawyers / Lawyers / Retired / Sec. & Inv./ Retired
2 / Retired / Sec. & Inv. / Real Estate / Lawyers / Computers
3 / Sec. & Inv. / Retired / Sec. & Inv. / Retired / Misc. Bus.
4 / Misc. Bus. / Real Estate / Health / Real Estate/ Health
5 / Real Estate / Bus. Services / Lawyers / Misc. Fin. / Real Es.
6 / Entertainment / Misc. Bus. / Misc. Finance / Bus. Serv. / Fin
7 / Education / Entertainment / Misc. Bus. / Misc. Bus. / Sec.
8 / Bus. Services / Health / Business Serv. /Health / Lawyers
9 / Health / Education / Manufacturing / Comm. Banks / Educ.
10 / Fin. / Fin. / Civil Servants / Oil and Gas / Bus.Serv.

The Jacksonian Party versus Michael Bloomberg

The June 19 and 20 New York Sun carried two stories about Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg is leaving the Republican Party and becoming an independent. This has fueled speculation about his running for president. Moreover, Josh Gerstein notes that Mayor Bloomberg accuses the presidential candidates of being shallow. I'm somewhat puzzled, because Mayor Bloomberg's six years in New York City have been as shallow as a sidwalk puddle on 42nd and Vanderbilt.

The Mayor has spent the past six years kowtowing to the city's power brokers. He has busied himself with restaurant menus, west side football stadiums and a long range vision statement that mimics the failed ideas of Robert Moses. While he has harassed small business, he has catered to billionaire developers. During his tenure, city government has been bloated, New York City's taxes inflated, and the divisions between rich and poor sharp as ever.

If Mayor Bloomberg were elected president, real estate prices in Peoria would follow New York's. Private use eminent domain would mushroom. Developers could blight Peoria with tasteless super-projects. European multi-millionaires would dominate Peoria's condo market. Native Peorians would have to move to Mexico. Apartments would be too expensive.

Contrast Mayor Bloomberg's shallow ideas with those of blogger AJacksonian. In "Warnings of a Founding Generation" AJacksonian points out that Yates and Lansing were already concerned, back in 1787, that a federal government would be too powerful. This came to pass in the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, the 1914 Harrison Act, and similar laws which the Progressives advocated. This also came to pass, in AJacksonian's view, from the 1913 Sixteenth Amendment, which gave Congress the power to establish an income tax. It also came to pass via Public Law 62-5, which in 1913 set the number of elected Congressmen to 435. This, in AJacksonian's view, has led to special interest pandering. AJacksonian points out that Yates and Lansing's fears came to pass because of Wilsonian progressivism. The fear of narcotics as expressed in the Harrison Act was used to expand state power. The views of founders, such as the Federal Farmer, were that taxation and expansion of government would lead to corruption. Government cannot be representative because the members of Congress are too few in number. Gerrymandering has led to the decline of democracy. "Congress...no longer acts in the interests OF the Will of the People...Today we now have Congressional Representatives who are more interested in securing funds and power than they are in actually having good government or being a fair representative of the People of the Nation."

In one blog, I learn a considerable amount from AJacksonian. In six years of Mayor Bloomberg's mayoralty, I learn only that the second-rate can become very rich.

AJacksonian has founded a Jacksonian Party, and AJacksonian seems to be the only serious candidate out there.

Would a President Giuliani Cut Taxes?

Norma Segal and I have been debating the merits of Rudy Giuliani. I have some concerns about Rudy. Specifically, he tended to obsess on minor conflicts. For instance, there was a battle with the taxi drivers that I recall caused him to redirect all of the police one day to a taxi demonstration. This was a conflict that Giuliani precipitated, similar to his threatened law suit over a New York Magazine ad. Giuliani's anti-crime initiative of ticketing minor offenses was intrusive. I recall getting parking tickets for parking five feet instead of six feet from a hydrant on 87th Street, or something like that.

Steve Malanga of City Journal argues that:

"Giuliani changed the primary mission of the police department to preventing crime from happening rather than merely responding to it...William Bratton, reorganized the NYPD, emphasizing a street-crimes unit that moved around the city..."

But I have had a long conversation with several NYPD officers and executives who said that Giuliani did not support the police in substance and left the police department with low morale and in weak organizational shape.

I am skeptical that reductions in crime rates during the 1990s were due to anything other than demographic shifts. In particular, the aging of the baby boomers reduced the percentage of the population most likely to engage in violent crimes. Also, Mario Cuomo had invested in expensive prisons during the 1980s, and these likely kept felons off the streets. I think it is a stretch to attribute reduced crime rates in New York City to Mayor Giuliani.

Malanga agrees with Norma about Giuliani's tax policies. He argues that Giuliani is a "conservative" because he cut city spending by 1.6 percent his first year in office. He also contends that Giuliani:

"reduced or eliminated 23 taxes, including the sales tax on some clothing purchases, the tax on commercial rents everywhere outside of Manhattan’s major business districts, and various taxes on small businesses and self-employed New Yorkers."

In a city that suffers from taxphilia to the degree that New York does a 1.6 percent cut in spending is a major improvement. In the scheme of things it is small change given that New York's spending is out of line and that much of it goes into wasteful government operations and mismanagement.

On August 4, 2001 Marcia van Wagner of the Citizen's Budget Commission wrote the following letter to the New York Times.

"...The common perception that Mr. Giuliani has reined in spending results from misleading city budget reporting practices that omit increased spending on debt service and do not adjust for the transfer of one year's surplus to the next.

"Accurately reported, New York City spending grew 6 percent a year from fiscal year 1997 to 2001, while inflation averaged 2.3 percent. In a comparable period (1985 to 1989) under Mr. Koch, spending grew 6.7 percent a year while inflation averaged 4.5 percent.

"New Yorkers should not believe that the recent growth in the number of police officers and teachers was accomplished with budget restraint."

According to the New York City Independent Budget Office , the city's spending increased from $32.1 billion to $36.0 billion, or 12 percent from June 1996 to June 2000. During the same period the Consumer Price Index increased by nine percent, from 157.8 to 173.7. Thus, Mayor Giuliani did not cut spending during his last four years in office, although he did not increase it very much. There may be budget shenanagans that cause these numbers to be understated, as Ms. van Wagner argues. In any case, these numbers do not qualify Mayor Giuliani as a tax cutter or as a supporter of limited government. It is true that holding the line in tax-and-spend New York is an achievement.

Can a small government Republican emerge from tax-and-spend New York?

Regarding spending, Mayor Giuliani probably is better than President Bush. But he is not a standard bearer for reductions in the scope of government or free markets. If he aims to be, he needs to make a stronger case that he is.