The Humble Libertarian original

By: Wes Messamore Remy crashes Sandra Fluke's Congressional testimony to demand a mandate for his cough drop addiction. "Remy: Cough Drops-The Mandate" is one of a series of collaborations between Remy and Reason.tv : Lyrics: Yeah and listen up peeps, you better check the deal We got another mandate we gone straight reveal And if you don't listen up, we be walking out Yeah you know cough drops what we talking about Take a look at this graph, you gonna holler with fear Cough drops costing me a hundred dollars a year I'm talking Halls, Ludens, to keep me alive It's like a dog-fighting ring, I need Vicks to survive It's preventative medicine, suppressing my cough? Word. I need a vote from each of you--oh, that's kind of awkward Cough drops are so tasty--how is it allowed? Yeah, this guy knows what I'm talking about. Cherry, honey lemon, or the mentho-lyptus Directly to my house's where I suggest you ship this They come in ...

By: Carl Wicklander The fallout from Rush Limbaugh’s comments about a Georgetown University law student may finally be settling. Conservatives like L. Brent Bozell III took the occasion to demonstrate that liberals have said worse things about conservatives than Rush said about this young woman. I’m loathe to sound like my second grade teacher, but one can’t help noticing many are using bad behavior to defend or at least look past other bad behavior. A few perceptive conservatives have noted that Rush shifted the narrative in the health care debate with his poor choice of words. By referring to a young woman as a “slut” and “prostitute” for testifying in favor of subsidized contraceptives Rush made the narrative about his words and not the atrocity of taxpayer-funded birth control pills or the abridgment of religious liberty. This is a fair point to make and is indeed perceptive. Rush’s words were distracting and not for the first time. It just so happened to backfire. I...

This Christmas season, to much fanfare, Walmart brought back their layaway program. For those Internet intellectuals among us too rich and separate from the ails of the working man to understand the incentives behind layaway plans, let me explain the concept. By purchasing an item on layaway, you select your item, put down a deposit and make regular payments until the item is fully paid off - without interest. Only then are you allowed to take the item home. ...wait, what? Yes, that's how layaway plans work. There is no "getting the item" early advantage as with a credit system. So, we are left with only 2 possible benefits for those participating. 1) Fear of the item running out of stock. Putting the item on layaway guarantees you securing the item once you are able to fully pay for it. However, unless the item in question is a hot Christmas toy, Walmart largely sells commodities. In the majority of scenarios, there is no real fear of the item going out of sto...

This video should be everywhere! Republicans watch as Romney tries to rewrite history to defend his socialist actions as Governor of Massachusetts. Is this the best Republicans can do to limit the size, role, and influence of government in 2012? Major tip of my hat to Right Klik , via: Left Coast Rebel Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

...that on the same night that Ron Paul called the subsidization of student loans a "total failure," Penn State University students with subsidized loans rioted over the firing of football coach Joe Paterno ? Carl Wicklander , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles Author's Page Website

Hypocrisy with a lot of zeroes on the end of it: "They are . . . not interested in asking millionaires and billionaires to pay a half a penny on the dollar for the sake of the future of our children and communities." That was the reaction of Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) upon the defeat Thursday evening of the bill he sponsored that paired an element of President Obama’s jobs plan — funding for the hiring of some first responders and hundreds of thousands of unionized teachers — with a surtax on those earning more than $1 million. Yet that same evening, Menendez and his fellow Democrats — as well as self-proclaimed socialist senator Bernie Sanders — voted unanimously to protect subsidies for millionaires’ mortgages. In fact it was another measure Menendez himself sponsored: an amendment to an appropriations bill that will allow Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration to back home loans as large as $729,750. With help from a handful of Republicans,...

Read it and weep: Pennsylvanians on public assistance now have a new 'civil right' -- free cell phones. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to pay higher cell bills as a result. Recently, a federal government program called the Universal Service Fund came to the Keystone State and some residents are thrilled because it means they can enjoy 250 minutes a month and a handset for free, just because they don't have the money to pay for it. Through Assurance Wireless and SafeLink from Tracfone Wireless these folks get to reach out and touch someone while the cost of their service is paid for by everyone else. You see, the telecommunications companies are funding the Universal Service Fund to the tune of $4 billion a year because the feds said they have to and in order to recoup their money, the companies turn around and hike their fees to paying customers. But those of use paying for the free service for the poor, should be happy about this infuriating situation, says Gary Carter...

Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) making too much sense: Last week, the federal government utterly failed to produce the debt ceiling deal that the American people deserve. Instead, Republicans and Democrats came together, realized that real economic reforms would require politically difficult compromises, and agreed to do nothing except promise to work on it later. To excuse their failure, both sides made up scary claims about a coming “default” when, in fact, simple math shows that default was impossible. I joined 65 other House Republicans and 95 Democrats in voting “no.” In the end, the deal had the impact of a rounding error on our out-of-control budget. The federal government takes in around $6 billion a day and spends $10 billion. That means $4 billion per day is borrowed. Total enforceable cuts in this deal were $21 billion for all of next year. That’s less than one penny of cuts for every dollar of government spending — a small blip on a spending graph that slopes upward into per...

Not good. The Hill reports : Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), who has emerged as an outspoken conservative voice among GOP freshmen, cast a surprising vote last week against a bill to scrap part of the 2010 healthcare overhaul. The legislation would repeal $100 million in funding for the construction of school-based health centers. West was one of just four Republicans to vote against the measure, which passed 235-191. His lame excuse? West spokeswoman Angela Sachitano said in an email that the congressman “believes there are bigger funding issues to be focusing on right now including the numerous developments in the Middle East, concerning Pakistan and whether there is a link to [Osama bin Laden] and the recent unity agreement with the [Palestinian Authority] and Fatah and Hamas." He also questioned the House’s continued efforts to dismantle the healthcare law on a piecemeal basis, she said. “He voted to repeal Obamacare, and it was dead on arrival in the Senate,” Sachitano sa...

Michelle Malkin's got the goods: "Not that you needed any more evidence that New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is a flip-flopping charlatan, but here’s the latest. Today, he assails GOP proposals to raise the Medicare age and, by extension, the Social Security retirement age. (My column on the subject from earlier this month is here .) ... Funny. In 1996, Krugman had an entirely different view of long-term structural changes to federal entitlements, including raising the age of eligibility..." Read more at MichelleMalkin.com Hat tip: Memeorandum Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

What follows is a story by the Cato Institute's William G. Shipman that should really open your eyes about Social Security. Share this with as many people as possible. Don't even bother linking to this post; I don't even want the credit for passing this along. Just share the original article with as many people as you know after you read it yourself. We need to hear this about Social Security: Read the article at The Daily Caller . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Glen Allport has done it again with a clear and chilling look at America's Social Security nightmare and the underlying flaws of the "pay-as-you-go" system. Here's an excerpt: In plain language, there is no good reason for the unfolding Social Security nightmare. Yes, the Baby Boomers are retiring, but so what? It's a big group, but this same big group has been paying into Social Security their whole adult lives. It's not like the money hasn't been set aside or anything. Right? Of course, you know better: the money that should have been set aside wasn't. That is the entire Social Security problem in a nutshell. How did this happen? Government happened (as in, "Be careful not to step in the government"). Ringo's Law happened: "Everything government touches turns to crap." Give the rest a read over at Strike The Root . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

 Last month, when the conservative Republican Study Committee released its plan for $2.5 trillion in budget cuts over the next ten years, one enormous item of wasteful government spending was conspicuously missing — farm subsidies. Perhaps that reflects the fact that 24 of the RSC's 165 members sit on the House Agriculture Committee, the notorious overseer of farm-welfare programs. Total direct government farm payments to the districts of those 24 representatives alone costs taxpayers more than $1 billion per year. Numerous other RSC members hail from farm states, and therefore have a vested interest in protecting payments to their constituents. We are also seeing the usual quadrennial pilgrimage of supposedly fiscally conservative Republican presidential candidates to Iowa, where they swear eternal fealty to farm subsidies generally, but, even worse, to ethanol subsidies in particular. Perhaps the most revolting example of this spectacle was former House speaker Newt Gingrich...

Perhaps the biggest media story of 2010 was the influence of Tea Party voters on the congressional landscape. The new congress comes to Capitol Hill with a mandate to end profligate spending and restore fiscal sanity, we are told. But when the House and Senate convene in January, the newly elected members will face tremendous pressure to maintain spending levels for entitlement programs. Even the most modest proposals to trim Social Security or Medicare spending will be met with howls of indignation and threats of voter revolt. Legislators who propose any kind of means testing or increased retirement ages can expect angry visits from senior citizen lobbyists ready to fund a candidate back home who supports the status quo. But millions of Americans now realize that the status quo is an illusion that will not last even another 10 or 20 years. The federal government cannot continue to spend a trillion dollars more than it collects in revenue each year, because we are...

An excellent video about our national debt and how to solve it. Hat tip to Young Americans for Liberty for an excellent find. About the video: "According to a recent poll, 74 percent of likely voters are extremely or very concerned about the current level of government spending. And 58 percent think the level of spending is unsustainable. Is the public right? Is Washington bankrupting America? Some facts from the video: Spending per household has risen over 40 percent in the last 10 years and is set to do so again in the next 10 pushing debt (and interest on the debt) to unprecedented levels. But that's just a result of PAST spending... Our government owes $106 trillion in FUTURE spending commitments - that cannot be paid for. We can solve it, but politicians will have to make tough choices. Increasing taxes can't do the trick ($106 trillion is equivalent to taking all of the taxable income from every American nine times over), nor is it fair to saddle taxpayers with a pr...

This short video explains how totally messed up the whole process was for getting this health care reconciliation bill passed. In the end no one will be able to say that Americans wanted this or that Congress was proud of it. Sad. Hat tip: Young Americans for Liberty

The health care reform passed this weekend with a reconciliation vote of 220 to 211. Support for the bill was strictly party line, with 220 Democratic votes. Opposition to the bill was bipartisan, with all 178 Republicans and 33 Democrats opposing the bill's passage. (source: House Clerk ) In response to the passage of H.R. 4872, the "Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010," ( full text here ) the Internet is abuzz with questions like " What does the health care bill mean to me? " which is a trending topic on Google, along with " new health care bill pros and cons ," " healthcare bill summary ," and " obama health care plan explained ." Oh now you're interested? You couldn't have bothered to search for these questions before the bill passed, and determine your opinion in time to make a difference in its passage? Hmm? Okay. Whatever. At least you're paying attention now. Let's break it d...

Just got this text a little earlier today from an old high school friend of mine: I've spent my entire morning sending Jim Cooper e-mails on behalf of me, my mother and my brother urging him to vote no on health care. That's the spirit. Kill that bill!

It emerged today (h.t. Memeorandum ) that "Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is confident she will be able to get the votes needed to pass sweeping health care legislation in the House, even if it threatens the political careers of some members of her party."

If libertarian economist Milton Friedman were alive today, and was invited to speak at President Obama's health care summit ( televised live today ), he might say something like this: Hat tip to the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy And if you haven't read it yet, you absolutely must read (and share!) the Cato Institute's article explaining exactly what the Democrats' health "reform" bill will do and why it is definitely hazardous to your health: Health Reformers' Worst Idea "His health-care overhaul adrift and increasingly unpopular, President Obama has invited Republicans to a televised summit today to discuss "all the best ideas that are out there." Odds are that Democrats will use the moment to exalt - and berate Republicans for blocking - one of their worst ideas: federal price controls on health insurance." Read the whole thing here .