In the interest of the rule of law, however, Rosamilia will have to veto Ordinance #1. The status of the ordinance after the veto is another controversy. The city Charter states that a six vote majority is required to overturn the mayor’s veto. Councilwoman Nina Nichols — the person who introduced Ordinance #1 — as well as Silverman, apparently believe that if an ordinance is voted on twice by a simple majority of five votes, then it passes. If this is correct, then it only takes five votes instead of the city Charter mandated six votes to overturn the veto of Rosamilia. The result will be a weakening of the office of the mayor. This cannot be allowed to happen.

St. Augustine condemned the “Libido Dominandi” or “the lust for power” or more literally the “lust to dominate” that drives politicians. That people who take pleasure in controlling other people would seek to be in government is no surprise. Like any other addict, those inflicted with the Libido Dominandi will lie and, as detailed above, apparently break the law to get their way.

The public comments portion of the city Council meeting revealed The Big Lies regarding Ordinance #1. First, among the state-paid lobbyists, sycophantic anti-smoking zealots, coerced schoolchildren, and exploiters of the infirm speaking in favor of the ordinance, was a man who praised Nichols for getting the ordinance introduced although it did not ban smoking “curb to curb” as originally intended — it was a good start. For those insisting that the partial ban isn’t a slippery slope, this man’s comments completely contradict that.

The second Big Lie was that the ordinance centered completely on the dangers of second hand smoke. The final ordinance as written included any tobacco product, which would include chewing tobacco or any other smokeless product. If I use chewing tobacco, does this harm any innocent bystander? Is the concern about second hand spit? Apparently for Councilman Kevin McGrath there was, he defended the ban on chaw calling it disgusting.

A third Big Lie is that the no smoking signage would be free. The signage isn’t free but is rather from the Capital District Tobacco-Free Coalition which is funded by a grant from the New York State Department of Health, as is their taxpayer-paid lobbyist Theresa Zubretsky, whose job is apparently to get this sort of thing put into law.

There are people in every government that wish they could have total control over the lives of other people. Throughout history, every government turns totalitarian without vigorous opposition by the citizenry. There has never been an exception. Act immediately to put the runaway city Council in check before they act upon their Libido Dominandi and introduce more nanny state legislation. Call Mayor Rosamilia to ensure he vetoes the illegal Ordinance #1 and rebuke the following Council people who supported this overreach of city government: Nina Nichols, Kevin McGrath, Lynn Kopka, Ken Zalewski, and Gary Galuski.

Kevin McCashion

Troy

Just in case you felt left out of the normal May Day/May 1st celebrations as a peaceful neighborhood pagan or member of the Bavarian Illuminati or Socialist or Communist Worker or as someone just plain living out the good old Nazi days, our ever inclusive Dear Leader has proclaimed May 1st to be “Loyalty Day“.

As Amerikans, we are all now encouraged to display the flag of the United States or pledging allegiance since – let’s see here – a Flag Day was not already in existence?

Hmmm.

Of course, as good public school students we all know the socialist origins of the Pledge of Allegiance with it’s Bellamy Salute, as popularized by Hitler and Mussolini.  Ah, nothing says freedom and limited Constitutional government like super-patriotic nationalism! Undoubtedly we will soon be re-instituting that snappy raised arm as we all say, “to the flag”?

If none of this makes sense to you, it’s ok.

As you take down the Maypole and shine up your hammer and sickle for next year, relax and listen to a good talk on how we got here, to The Fascist American State.

Check out this article in The Atlantic, which is normally a pro-war, pro-state rag – but gets it right this time. Expect the author of the honest article to be out of a job shortly.

Let’s have a look:

Last three non-incumbent winners all talked the same “peace” game to win:

1996 Bill Clinton was the peace candidate beat GHW Bush, very successful pro-war, pro-nation building candidate, lost due to a bad economy to peace candidate who talked peace and focused on the economy.

2000 George Bush – said we shouldn’t be nation building and should have a humble foreign policy (he lied about all that, but he got elected).

2008 Barack Obama – said he would end wars, another anti-war candidate like Bush was in 2000 (he lied about that, but he got elected).

2012 so you think another pro-war, another “bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran” candidate can win a general election?????

That’s just unreality.

I guess if I brainwashed myself (or should I say ‘Bain-washed’ myself?) with multiple hours of Multiple Mitts employees: Rush, Hannity, Levin, Savage and then went home and Foxed my thoughts up with some O’Reilly and some more Hannity, I would be pretty confused myself.

The way this happens and will happen more over the next few months, of course, is to eliminate all other options, leaving the listener or viewer with only one logical choice: Mittens. This tactic is not unlike when Roger Ailes juxtaposed Hannity with Colmes, leading unthinking viewers to the conclusion that the opposite of Hannity is Colmes, rather than the opposite of Hannity being – sanity?

In just FY2011 we will have spent $122 billion dollars on the war in Afghanistan.

That is $334,246,575.34 per day.

Divided by the 50 states, because we are all about fairness, that is $2,440,000,000.00 per state.

This would mean Governor Cuomo, Maria Bartiromo, and all their well-connected friends could get together 3 times per year at The Egg, hand off $785 million in public money to private interests and take new pictures and credit for using your tax dollars to spend your state into improvement.

More people and programs could beg for their good graces, compromise their values, and make the campaign donations necessary to get their place at the pig trough or open the money sluice for their pet project.

There’s only one catch.

We need to have a President with the political will to end the disastrous war in Afghanistan.

The war on Afghanistan has been a boondoggle and money pit since 2001, with $459.8 billion going largely as war profits to defense contractors, successfully keeping their blood-soaked books in the black, with the real cost in terms of dead Afghanis and Americans and their shattered families being incalculable.

How many more traumatized veterans will our policies drive to suicide at home, and how many more suicide bombers have our 900 military bases in 140 countries – and inclination towards collateral murder – created overseas? Are these policies making us safer and more prosperous at home?

Indeed, a victory of sorts can be declared at least for the Afghani warlords and drug traffickers. In 2001 the repressive Taliban regime reduced opium production by 91%.  After American occupation, this has now been successfully reversed, with Afghanistan returning in 2007 to producing 92% of the world’s non-pharmaceutical-grade opiates. American intervention has also returned Afghanistan to its status as the world’s number one producer of hashish. Is this a policy that is making us safer and more prosperous at home?

Among the current crop of power-addicted presidential candidates with their war-filled rhetoric and support for policies of bombing bridges overseas while our own bridges collapse at home, there is only one that stands and speaks up for policies of sanity and a return to peace and the Constitution.

That candidate, of course, is not the Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House, regarded by many during the 2008 election as the second coming of the Prince of Peace. His policies of the last three years have shown where he stands, with more war in Afghanistan and Libya and Uganda and Pakistan and special operations raids in over 100 other countries, continued policies of torture and rendition, and new policies of assassination of citizens without the benefit of due process or trial.

The only candidate who can be trusted to end the crumbling American Empire before our total collapse into a totalitarian police state and restore it to our Constitutional roots as a Republic, is the same candidate that receives more donations from active duty military members that all other candidates of both parties combined – Ron Paul.

You’re not going to become a Ron Paul supporter if you just rely on mainstream television and talk radio to decide on how to view our place in the world and what solutions he can offer to put America back on the right track – a recent CBS moderated debate allowed him to speak for 90 seconds out of the entire first hour that was broadcast on TV.

You’re going to have to go online and google Ron Paul, or get together with your kids or grandkids to listen to a man who isn’t the most charismatic or glib, for whom words and explanations don’t necessarily come easy in the age of the soundbite, but who speaks the truth with more consistency and honesty than any other politician in recent memory.

To make an informed decision in the next election, you’re going to have to learn about the Constitution and the proper role of government, the private Federal Reserve and the evil process of inflation, what corporatism is, and about a foreign policy of peace rarely followed since both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson cautioned us to have peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations and entangling alliances with none.

While you may not agree with or understand everything you hear from Ron Paul initially, and while he ironically would ultimately oppose policies of redistribution of tax monies to benefit special interests, he is the only candidate who can be counted on to end the unnecessary wars and overseas spending – this will allow us to redirect our money and focus where it belongs, at home.

Open your mind and learn more about Ron Paul, it could benefit us all at least $334,246,575.34 per day.

Everyone should be nervous when they hear the phrase “tax reform.”

Think of it this way:

Tax Reform = Higher Taxes.

If we want more revenue for infrastructure – or anything else reasonable – it should come at the expense of other unnecessary and unconstitutional programs.

You need $150 billion for highways?

Close some bases, return some federal duties to the states, or take a day off from war.

Tax reform = more government and less money in your pocket.

Always.

Don’t be fooled.

So, Spicoli, here’s some additional homework from Lew Rockwell on the dangers of tax reform.

Learn It. Know It. Live It.

Lew Rockwell: The Tax-Reform Racket

This interview illustrates why Ron Paul is the greatest Congressman in American history and perhaps the last, best hope to stop our slide into becoming a third world fascist totalitarian police state.

Will America heed his call?

Ron Paul has been giving the same answers for a long time.

Here’s a good clip from 1983.

Paul speaks about the same issues in almost the same manner almost three decades later.

Paul has the right ideas because he has read the right books.

You can, too, at www.mises.org.

Neil’s paying, so keep reading.

The “Broken Window Fallacy” is one of the most persistent myths in any popular discussion of economic issues. Simply put, it is the notion that a broken window such as Neil’s is good because it gives the window guy a.k.a. glazier money who in turn can afford to buy shirts from a guy like me and take his family out to dinner, etc.  See, we all win.

So why not just break all the windows downtown and we will all be better off? This of course, is absurd, but this fallacy persists in popular discussions, in all manner of subtle ways and not so subtle ways in current government policies.

The least subtle example of the broken window fallacy is the case of war. How often have we heard that “war is good for the economy”? Or that “war ended the depression.”

War is never good for the economy, but rather, it is good for narrow special interests like Halliburton or General Electric. War destroys lives and property, but yet the myth persists. We always have to consider what would have been done with citizens’ lives, liberty, and property in lieu of squandering it on foreign intervention and murder.

The $5 phrase that economists use to describe this phenomenon and cause student’s eyes to glaze over is  “opportunity cost.” Frederic Bastiat originally wrote about the parable of the broken window in his 1850 essay, “That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen” and Henry Hazlitt expanded on it in his 1946 book Economics In One Lesson, both are worth making the time to read.

Once you get a good understanding of the fallacy of the broken window and how special interests benefit from government at the expense of everyone else, it is much easier to be on the alert for it in current discussions and to counter it in debates.  Every dollar spent by the government is necessarily taken from other productive uses in the economy. There are very few services that the government should be providing outside of defending the lives, liberty, and property of citizens.

Private initiative, the free market and the profit motive are responsible for much of the progress of civilization, like it or not. Government by comparison, is responsible for over 260 million civilian deaths in the 20th Century alone. Somehow, the risks associated with an unregulated toaster pales in comparison.

All of the hidden costs associated with government spending and legislation need to be considered and rarely are when discussing public works and hiring more government employees, government subsidies, minimum wages, rent control, building codes, green jobs, government imposed efficiency standards, tariffs and the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies, just to name a few.

Well, there you go Neil, we have made lemonade out of your shattered glass.

Enjoy!

Since “our guy” dropped out and actually went to work for Gibson, the grassroots were justifiably skeptical, especially since Gibson had recently parachuted in from the unconstitutional humanitarian aid effort in Haiti as the pick of the same establishment Republicans responsible for the election of Scott Murphy and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Gibson the candidate talked the talk on the Constitution during his campaign, has written on a Madisonian approach to civil-military relations, and came out in his first editorial calling for a constitutional declaration of war (of course it also – understandably – praised the efforts he helped lead in Haiti).

Since you can never believe or put too much stock in what any politician says but rather you should always look at how he votes, it is with guarded optimism that we can call Gibson pretty much a Constitutionalist,  with the unfair metric being, of course, that my perspective from the “extreme radical right” on the Constitution is the correct one. Oh well.

So, in the first two months of votes, we see Chris Gibson bucking party leadership and voting against the unconstitutional Patriot Act which guts the 4th Amendment. Gibson found the unconstitutionality of the Patriot Act provisions so abhorrent, that he even voted against a simple rules vote, a big no-no in terms of opposition to his own party.

Gibson specifically made a point at the recent Brunswick Town Hall meeting to read both the 4th Amendment from his dog-eared and underlined copy of the Constitution and contrasted this with the illegal provisions of the Patriot Act which passed the House.

When I followed up with him by asking how, then, could he vote to continue spending on the clearly unconstitutional undeclared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he articulated his position on the pressing needs of national defense and commented on how there really was no interest in going back and doing right by the Constitution and the separation of powers as intended by the founders.

Therein lies the contradiction and where there is room for Gibson to improve.

Make no mistake about it, Gibson understands why the power to declare war lies with the Congress and ultimately in the hands of the people. The question is, what is he willing to do about it?

Well, Gibson will soon have his chance.

The United Nations, an organization designed by communists and with the purported goal of “world peace” has just declared war on Libya. Make no mistake about it, enforcing a no-fly zone begins with air strikes, an act of war, and is wholly unconstitutional without a congressional declaration.

This is Gibson’s dilemma.

Will he do what is right and oppose any action against Libya, a nation that has not presently attacked the United States?

Or will he continue with a fast and loose à la carte interpretation of the Constitution as evidenced by yesterday’s bizarre support for unconstitutional NPR funding and previous support for continued arts funding, both of which admittedly receive small but extremely unprincipled percentages from the Federal government in comparison with their private and corporate donors.

Gibson has had an excellent start in being his own man and much less of a “party guy” than Scott Murphy ever was or the useful (or useless?) idiot Paul Tonko is.  Despite his “radical” constitutional talk Gibson has voted with Boehner and Bachmann and the party whipping boys only 78% of the time so far, by comparison, Ron Paul is at 74% and the clueless Tonko votes 93% of the time with the Democrats. Campaign propaganda had Murphy voting with scary Nancy Pelosi 99% of the time.

The next true test of Gibson is going to be how he acts on Libya.

The Congress has willingly delegated too many powers to the Executive branch of government. Gibson knows this.  He also knows that our Republic is now an Empire, but should not be one. What is troublesome, however, is that he has had a shaky past in couching “humanitarian” military actions in terms of national self-defense.

There are endless excuses for humanitarian intervention around the world.  Many of the “craziest conspiracy guys” on the radical right knew as early as 2008 that when Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama was elected that the wars for Empire would continue under the guise of humanitarianism, just like Clinton’s aggression against Serbia – another unconstitutional deployment of the American military – and another one that Gibson took part in.

Unfortunately, government abuse and violence toward its own citizens is the norm, not the exception.  Government is the leading cause of death and mass murder throughout history. Even if one were to cite oil as a reason to get involved in Libya, America is even incompetent at going to war for oil, as witnessed by Iraqi oil contracts going to China and Russia. Who can argue that a government unfriendly to America won’t give it oil? Just look at Venezuela and the Citgo stations in every neighborhood.

The hour is near once again for Chris Gibson and the future of our Republic.

Any vote undermining any provision of the Constitution undermines the entire document. There is nothing to stop a weak Congress willing to ignore their Constitutional responsibilities for declaring war from passing legislation say, to restrict your freedom to practice the religion you want, how you want to, or to speak your mind, or express your beliefs in a manner you see fit.

Will our death by a thousand unconstitutional actions continue under Gibson’s watch?