Category Archives: Private Property

Interminable Time On The Tarmac

Government, Political Economy, Private Property, Regulation, The State

Obama the idiot truly believes that nothing can work without his supervision. He had his stooge order the airlines “to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes get off the plane after three hours.” How nice.

The AP: “Under the new regulations, airlines operating domestic flights will be able only to keep passengers on board for three hours before they must be allowed to disembark a delayed flight. The regulation provides exceptions only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.”

[SNIP]

What do you imagine will be the unintended consequences of this little exercise? Since Obama’s handmaiden, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, has authorized the act of keeping people on the tarmac for three hours, such delays will become standard.

At least up until now, this conduct resulted in unflattering publicity and law suits.

Look, the way the already heavily-regulated airlines treat customers (and vice versa) is appalling. But the solution is not to be found in Obama’s bag of tricks.

Rather, “Only when an airline can undertake ‘curb-to-curb’ handling of its passengers will it stand both to reap the benefits that arise from providing superior service, as well as incur full liability for forsaking passenger safety. This is possible only in a privatized airport, where freedom of association and freedom of contract aren’t overridden or blurred by government, and where responsibility isn’t collectivized.” [“WHOSE PROPERTY IS IT ANYWAY?”]

Updated: Bachmann: Banks Gave Money To ACORN For Government Rating

Affirmative Action, Ann Coulter, Bush, Conservatism, Debt, Ethics, Private Property, Regulation, Republicans, Socialism, Welfare

Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, inadvertently traces the “Minority Housing Meltdown”: The community reinvestment Act” (CRA), a creation of the federal Frankenstein, compelled private banks to make home loans to individuals with poor credit. Since no bank wants to make bad loans, this legislation in effect threatens banks to so do. Unless the bank lends to those unworthy of credit, it will not be allowed to do interstate business or expand its operations.

But, the benevolent government also offers the errant banks redemption. In order to get a positive Community Reinvestment Act rating, a bank may give over cash or in-kind donations to ACORN. A bank can also partner with ACORN to make loans to the pool of poor they represent.

By the way, where are the media stories about Super Mom Bachman who has raised five kids and 23 foster children? Maybe when the morons are through belaboring Michele Obama’s biceps, they can tell us more about Bachmann. (Here you are welcome to improvise with your own clichés of improbability.)

Fast forward toward the end of the YouTube clip for the Bachmann interview.

Update (Oct. 16): No ACORN essay is complete without mention of Bush’s crucial role in the mortgage meltdown. I have not studied the NRO Kurtz piece, but somehow I doubt it gives Bush the “credit” he is due in the diversity depression.

In 2003, Norman Singleton wrote this:

“Today the House passed, by voice vote, the American Dream Downpayment Act (HR 1276). This new welfare program forces taxpayers to subsidize the downpayments of ‘low income’ Americans. This new welfare program is a Bush Administration priority and was sponsored by Katherine Harris. The GOP is already touting how this will help with their outreach to minorities.”

Read Ron Paul’s rapid-fire response to the Bush affirmative action mortgage program.

Unless our token conservatives pay their “respects” to Bush, author of the “ownership society,” reborn conservatives—NRO, Weekly Standard—should not be lauded.

And by the by, the many poisonous pundits should atone again and again for being wrong at the time, and misleading the masses for Benito Bush. On second thought, why don’t they just go away?!

Take “snake-oil merchants like Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal,” who is Fox’s new Philosopher King. Moore obfuscated about the bailout (while making the obligatory noises about the merits of the free market he flouts). And Moore’s previous book was entitled Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer. If that’s not an indictment, nothing is. ‘Bush’s bailout society’ is an instantiation of the principles upon which ‘Bush’s ownership society’ was founded: credit for those who are not creditworthy.”

The only pundit who was vocal about the Bush economics was Michele Malkin. Not party hack Ann Coulter.

[Thanks, Stephen; I have been rather ill, but I hope to be back at my WND perch next week with renewed verve.]

Heroic Homeowner Shot By His ‘Protectors’

Crime, Criminal Injustice, GUNS, Individual Rights, Private Property

Not once, but six times. “Police tried to ‘cover up’ last year’s mistaken shooting of a homeowner who’d been holding an intruder at gunpoint, a lawsuit against the city claims.” (Via The Phoenix New Times.)

“Tony Arambula, 35, was shot six times by Officer Brian Lilly — including twice after he fell to the ground — on September 17, 2008, just moments after Arambula rescued his family from a berserk man wielding a 9-millimeter handgun. Amazingly, Arambula survived, though doctors believe he’ll suffer pain and problems with his nearly amputated wrist for the rest of his life. … In the claim, Arambula demands at least $5.75 million to right the wrong.”

And my question to you is this: does being armed</a> increase the likelihood that the police will take you out?

Heroic Homeowner Shot By His ‘Protectors’

Crime, Criminal Injustice, GUNS, Individual Rights, Private Property

Not once, but six times. “Police tried to ‘cover up’ last year’s mistaken shooting of a homeowner who’d been holding an intruder at gunpoint, a lawsuit against the city claims.” (Via The Phoenix New Times.)

“Tony Arambula, 35, was shot six times by Officer Brian Lilly — including twice after he fell to the ground — on September 17, 2008, just moments after Arambula rescued his family from a berserk man wielding a 9-millimeter handgun. Amazingly, Arambula survived, though doctors believe he’ll suffer pain and problems with his nearly amputated wrist for the rest of his life. … In the claim, Arambula demands at least $5.75 million to right the wrong.”

And my question to you is this: does being armed increase the likelihood that the police will take you out?