Klaus Rohrich

Irreconcilable differences

America has reached a stage it hasn’t seen since the mid-1800s when the winds of war began to blow along the Mason-Dixon Line. While Barack Obama was elected with a clear majority of the voters, many erroneously believed that the candidate who campaigned from the left would govern from the centre. Many who voted for Obama are now surprised that his actual governance is to the left of his campaign rhetoric.

Tea parties: they just don’t get it

To be truthful, I don’t know if the so-called mainstream media covered the “tea party” tax protests that took place all across America yesterday. That’s because I have long ago stopped looking toward the MSM for truthful information. What I do know is the people toward whom these protest were directed haven’t got a clue as to what they are about, nor, it appears, do they have a place in their consciousness to put it.

Let’s boot the freebooters

It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We are currently reliving a problem that the US Marine Corps solved back in 1804, when Muslim pirates demanded extortion monies from American ships as they sailed past North Africa.

America: caught between Barack and a hard place

Given the tone of the Obama administration, America finds itself in a precarious position. On the one hand there is no shortage of situations that could present potential challenges to America’s interests and possibly, survival. These include a resurgently hostile Russia, a nuclear Iran, North Korean ICBM capability, Pakistan regressing into Taliban control, complete with a ready-to-fry nuclear arsenal, and an expansion of Chinese military capability that will easily surpass that of the United States.

Keep the lights on!

Tonight the environmental whackos are urging everyone to turn off their lights for one hour in celebration of “Earth Hour”, a contrived and largely ineffectual exercise that enables liberals to celebrate their self-loathing and assuage their inherent guilt. Earth Hour is yet another empty gesture on the part of individuals whose smugness quotient exceeds their intelligence quotient.

Canada wrong to exclude Galloway

I’m not crazy about British MP George Galloway’s support of Hezbollah and Hamas, but I’m even less crazy about the government of Canada denying Galloway entry into Canada for a four-city speaking engagement. Keeping Galloway (or William Ayers, for that matter) from delivering a lecture in Canada is a form of censorship we should be able to do without, as by inference it censors all Canadians and assumes they do not have the moral capability to discern good from evil.

Congress approves Obama Jugend

The US Senate voted yesterday to procedurally clear the way for President Obama’s National Service Corps. The bi-partisan vote approved a $6 billion scheme to increase the number of “community service” jobs in America from 75,000 to well over 250,000. Presumably under the direction of this cadre, the plan is designed to enlarge the number of Americans engaged in “community organizing” to about 7 million.

Enter the maximum wage

The Obama Administration, known for never letting a crisis go to waste, used the popular outrage over the $165 million in executive retention bonuses paid out by AIG, as the perfect segue to introduce the idea of imposing a maximum wage in the United States. Citing the “Arrogance, Incompetence and Greed” that purportedly represents the ethos of AIG and other Wall St. firms, Mr. Obama has had little trouble inciting incendiary hatred toward executives among America’s larger corporations.

The consummate demagogue

Demagogues tend to get their way by inflaming others’ prejudices and hatred. Hitler had the Jews, whom he used as scapegoats for all of Germany’s ills. Lenin fired up the masses by railing against capitalists. Mao Zedong blamed China’s woes on imperialists and their “running dog compradors”. In all cases the demagogue uses popular desires and prejudices, rather than reason to achieve his ends.

AIG should hire me

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is upset because AIG is unable to stop some $165 million in bonus payments to some of the insurance giant’s employees. When Mr. Geithner approached AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy about withholding the bonus payments because AIG had received $170 billion is US government aid, Mr. Liddy explained that the company was contractually obligated to make those payments and besides, they were needed to keep the company’s highly specialized staff in the company’s financial products division from seeking employment elsewhere.

Dalton McGuinty wants to screw you

Recently Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was musing about the possibility of introducing the so-called Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), which some provinces have adopted under the guise of simplifying and harmonizing the complex federal and provincial tax regimes. His reasons for taking “a good look” at Ontario adopting the HST ostensibly was to “simplify” the remittance process and to “save businesses money”.

David Miller’s Toronto: a money-sucking cesspool

As a former resident of the City of Toronto, nothing is more disheartening than to see the depths to which my once favourite city has descended. What used to be known as “Toronto the good” has turned into a dysfunctional quagmire of filth and anger. The socialist regime running the city since 2003 has managed to run it into the ground, all while raising the costs to taxpayers.

Feeding the flames of recession

Since the coronation of Barack Obama as Savior and Messiah it has become obvious that all the economic programs he is advocating are in fact social programs that will accomplish nothing, except prolong and deepen what might have been a relatively short recession.

Abrogating responsibility

I recently saw a commercial on television that began with the words, ”Smoking is a treatable medical condition.” Foolish me; I always thought that smoking was one of those bad habits in which people with little will power indulged. But then lately I’ve noticed that a lot of “bad” behavior is considered excusable for one reason or another.

More onerous legislation by Ontario’s Libs

In an effort to pull the wool over the eyes of all the rubes Ontario’s Liberals have to woo in order to stay in power, they are enacting legislation that will create higher costs in the guise of pursuing “green” policies. Who else but George Smitherman could table the province’s new Green Energy Act and keep a straight face while doing so? The bill has numerous provisions that will increase the costs to Ontarians dramatically, even while Smitherman is assuring them nothing could be further from the truth.

Hillary’s really big boo-boo

A week ago, I had the pleasure of attending a seminar with economist Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research. Beaulieu is one of the few economists who over a year ago predicted that the housing bubble would burst and bring about a deep recession, a prediction that has more than come true. His talk included comment on Barak Obama’s economic stimulus package, which he predicted would cause a lot more problems than it would solve. Beaulieu also lamented the fact that Hillary Clinton didn’t win her party’s nomination, because he said that Hillary is a known quantity and one could reasonably predict what her actions might be.

Dear Mr. President…

I am delighted that you have stepped up to the plate and taken it upon yourself to ensure that all Americans are taken care of. I heard you speaking with that unfortunate lady in Fort Myers, Florida, who had asked you for a car, a kitchen and a bathroom and noted with pleasure that you asked her to contact your assistants with the particulars of her request, so that you may help her. Bless your heart, Mr. President! At last someone in Washington who cares about the needs and wants of the common people.

What’s the rush?

More than a few pundits have pointed out that the president who ran on a platform of “hope and change” is availing himself of fear and hysteria to have his way. Mr. Obama’s admonition that immediate action on the economic stimulus package is required, lest the current crisis turns into a “catastrophe” betrays the fact that “hope and change” were mere rhetorical devices used to gain election, but when the pedal hits the metal it’s fear mongering and business as usual.

Republicans look better in opposition

It’s kind of heartwarming to see Republican Congressional Representatives calling the pork-glutted Democrats to account, both in terms of the effectiveness of their legislation as well as their rather lax standards of ethics. There were times during the last Congress that I believed the Republican Party had been taken over by unprincipled political hacks whose only interest was to stay in power. That’s probably the reason why government spending increased so dramatically, as those Republicans desperately sought to buy votes with taxpayers’ money.

Lies the IPCC will tell you

The recent announcement by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body charged with whipping up global hysteria over climate change, that “developing countries” would be exempt from emission cuts is proof that the idea of catastrophic climate change is a total scam that’s much more focused on improving economic conditions in the Third World than on combating climate change. The reasoning behind such a conclusion should be obvious, given that if the earth’s climate truly were on the verge of a total and catastrophic collapse, then no one would really care about whether or not developing countries should be exempted from carbon emissions.