Continuing their war against free choice, Democrats are ramping up their crusade to save people from themselves, this time by bringing tobacco under the control of the FDA.

The House voted 326-102 Wednesday to approve legislation granting FDA authority over tobacco products, paving the way for the Senate to possibly consider the bill in the fall.

Lawmakers have tried for more than a decade to place tobacco products under FDA purview in an effort to stem smoking.

The bill has wide bipartisan support, but Republican leaders and the Bush administration oppose it. They assert FDA would not have the resources to take on a new responsibility and argue agency oversight would give the public the wrong impression that tobacco is safe.

The administration threatened to veto the bill Wednesday, arguing the bill would disproportionately tax low-income Americans. The measure would assess user fees from tobacco companies to raise an estimated $5 billion over 10 years to underwrite FDA’s efforts.

The debate turned heated when House Minority Leader Boehner, perhaps the House’s highest profile smoker, took the floor.

“Most of my colleagues know that I smoke,” he said. “I know that smoking is probably not good for my health. Most Americans know cigarettes are probably not good for their health. Do we need the government to tell us? Do we need to spend $5 billion of smokers’ money for the government to tell us?”

Summoning the self-righteous hot air of all the liberal crusaders in this nation’s history, Dingus responded by patting himself on the back for his noble purpose.

“This legislation is on the floor because people are killing themselves by smoking these evil cigarettes,” Dingell said.

“The distinguished gentleman, the minority leader, is going to be amongst the next to die,” said Dingell. Then with a wide smile, he added, “I am trying to save him, as the rest of us are, because he is committing suicide every time he puffs on one of those things.”

What exactly makes Dingus more qualified to evaluate the risk versus reward of Boehner’s smoking than Boehner himself?

Some might be wondering why Phillip Morris broke from the rest of the industry and supported this legislation. The easy answer might be that they saw the writing on the wall and sought to mitigate the extent of the damage. I believe the answer is something else.

These kinds of regulatory interventions in the name of consumer protection are nothing new. What apparently only Phillip Morris realized, however, is that after do-gooders get what they want, they lose interest. The regulatory bodies they created are then free to be co-opted by industry, where they are then used to prevent competition.

When the uproar began against the railroad industry, far thinking railroaders realized they could use the federal intervention to their advantage. After the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission they were able to do just that. Because no one understood the railroad industry more than railroaders, the more regulatory power was granted to the ICC over railroads the more their own bureaucrats were drawn from the industry itself. By the time trucking became a major threat to the railroad industry, ICC was perfectly placed to defend the railroads from competition. The Motor Carrier Act of 1935 gave the ICC authority to regulate truckers (to protect the railroads), which they used to severely limit the ability of new truckers to enter the industry.

The story of the ICC is hardly unique. Indeed, it represents the natural history of government intervention, as described by Milton Friedman:

A real of fancied evil leads to demands to do something about it. A political coalition forms consisting of sincere, high-minded reformers and equally sincere interested parties. The incompatible objectives of the members of the coalition (e.g., low prices to consumers and high prices to producers) are glossed over by fine rhetoric about “the public interest,” “fair competition,” and the like. The coalition succeeds in getting Congress (or a state legislature) to pass a law. The preamble to the law pays lip service to th rhetoric and the body of the law grants power to government officials to “do something.” The high-minded reformers experience a glow of triumph and turn their attention to new causes. The interested parties go to work to make sure that the power is used for their benefit. They generally succeed.

The history of the FDA itself meets this pattern. Reformers were concerned about the conditions at meat-packing plants. Special interests quickly hoped on board. Meat-packers were more than happy to have government certify the cleanliness of their product, and have taxpayers pay for the process.

Today’s FDA does far more harm than good. It prevents the creation and distribution of valuable new drugs, benefiting manufacturers who face limited competition once they’ve established themselves. Phillip Morris is apparently more forward-thinking than other tobacco companies and has learned from this history. They realize government can grant them far more power than the market ever would allow, and they know that high-minded reformers are the vehicle through which they can successfully grab this power.

That’s the attitude of the committee hosting the Democratic National Convention.

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention has used the city’s gas pumps to fill up and apparently avoided paying state and federal fuel taxes.

The practice, which began four months ago, may have ended hours after its disclosure. An aide to Mayor John Hickenlooper released a statement Tuesday evening saying that Denver 2008 Host Committee members would pay market prices for fuel and would also be liable for all applicable taxes.

However, Public Works spokeswoman Christine Downs told City Council members just hours before that host committee members were fueling up at the city pumps. The city does not pay taxes on the fuel for its fleet, and Downs said the host committee would not either.

The disclosure brought immediate scrutiny. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said the practice “would seem” to be illegal and referred the matter to the state Department of Revenue.

Nonprofits, such as the host committee, are subject to state and federal gasoline taxes, according to the Department of Revenue.

Who cares what the rules are for non-profits? We’re democrats, we don’t have to obey the rules.

Consider this: does a campaign’s scrubbing of its website of all mentions of a candidate’s opposition to the surge mean that candidate never did oppose the surge? The Obama campaign seems to think so.

Over the weekend, as first reported by the New York Daily News, the Obama campaign website changed language from declaring “the surge is not working” to that which instead states: “despite the improved security situation, the Iraqi government has not stepped forward to lead the Iraqi people and to reach the genuine political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.”

An older Obama campaign “fact sheet” from Fall 2007 states more unequivocally that “THE SURGE IS NOT WORKING” since “the Iraqi government has not stepped up.”

George Orwell would be proud.

When Congress set up a number of benchmarks to measure the political progress in Iraq, democrats used the finding of success on only 8 of 18 counts as proof of failure.

“Today’s report from the president confirms what many had suspected — the war in Iraq is headed in a dangerous direction. The Iraqi government has not met the key political benchmarks it has set for itself and Iraqi security forces continue to lag well behind expectations. Our courageous troops continue to bear the burden for securing and rebuilding Iraq, while Iraq’s factions fight a deadly civil war,” Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement.

Now, however, 15 of 18 benchmarks have been met. Will democrats now apply the same standard and admit success? Fat chance. It seems the democrats intend to stubbornly play their violins right until their Titanic crashes into the ocean floor.

But McIntyre and other Democrats said only a few benchmarks has been actually met.

Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, said there is no military solution to the Iraq problem, no matter what White House said about the progress in Iraq.

At some point you’d almost think reality would at least force some honesty from the Obama campaign. He is, after all, supposed to be a new kind of politician, one who will bring Hope™ and Change™. But alas, intellectual honesty is probably too much to expect from a candidate that PowerLine convincingly suggests is the most dishonest in history.

Power Line reports on the following comment by an Obama spokesman:

This morning on MSNBC, Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, was asked about the success of the surge. He said: “We added 30,000 brave American troops, and violence is down, as everyone suspected it would be.”

Such a statement could only be made by someone who is either A) completely oblivious to reality or B) a liar.

Democrats, of course, suspected no such thing. Or if they did, they chose to blatantly lie about it and claim the surge would fail in order to continue their fervent war against Bush. Traveling back in time we have the following article to remind us where the Democrats actually stood:

In a strongly worded letter to President Bush, the Democratic leaders of Congress said Friday that they oppose any escalation, or “surge,” of U.S. troop strength in Iraq, as Bush is expected to propose next week.

Sending more American soldiers to Iraq will only endanger them, won’t bring stability and will only delay the day that Iraqis take responsibility for their own country, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

…But the Democratic leaders rejected the idea of a surge under any circumstances: “Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain. And it would undermine our efforts to get the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. We are well past the point of more troops for Iraq,” Reid and Pelosi wrote.

Gibbs’ idea of “everyone” does not even include his boss, Barack Obama, who features the following Senate floor speech regarding the surge on his website:

The President’s decision to move forward with this escalation anyway, despite all evidence and military advice to the contrary, is the terrible consequence of the decision to give him the broad, open-ended authority to wage this war back in 2002. Over 4 years later, we can’t revisit that decision or reverse some of the tragic outcomes, but what we can do is make sure we provide the kind of oversight and constraints on the President this time that we failed to do the last time.

I cannot in good conscience support this escalation. It is a policy which has already been tried and a policy which has failed. Just this morning, I had veterans of the Iraq war visit my office to explain to me that this surge concept is, in fact, no different from what we have repeatedly tried, but with 20,000 troops, we will not in any imaginable way be able to accomplish any new progress.

But I guess these are “just words.”

Democrats have responded to rising oil prices as one would predict: not by seeking to alleviate the primary cause of price increases (a widening gap between growth in supply versus demand), but by finding a new boogeyman to justify increasing government involvement in and control over markets.

The evil-doer behind the conspiracy to hurt average people at the gas station? Oil speculators!

Obama vows to crack down on oil speculation

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama offered new steps on Sunday to crack down on speculation in oil markets, saying his plan would help rein in runaway fuel costs.

A jump in gasoline prices above $4 a gallon has spurred consumer anger and is a top theme in the race between Obama and his Republican rival in the November election, John McCain, who has proposed more U.S. offshore oil exploration as a way to boost energy supplies.

“I think everyone believes there’s too much speculation in the oil markets,” said New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, an Obama ally who announced the proposals in a conference call with reporters. “A lot of the price of oil, I think, people put at the doorstep of speculators bidding up and holding supplies off the market.”

Corzine said Obama’s plan aims to close the so-called Enron loophole, which exempts some energy speculators who trade electronically from U.S. regulation. It takes its name from the now-collapsed energy firm that benefited from the law.

Obama would require U.S. energy futures to trade on regulated exchanges. The campaign also said he backed legislation that would direct the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the top U.S. futures market regulator, to investigate proposals such as increasing margin requirements in the market.

In addition, the Illinois senator wants to see more transparency and oversight of institutional investors in commodities markets.

“Too much speculation!” cries Corzine. These people are vultures, preying on the misery of average Americans! Or are they? To listen to democrats, you wouldn’t even know speculators served a valuable economic purpose.

Speculators correct false prices in markets, allowing them to function more efficiently. This is not to say that prices are alway at the appropriate level in the short run. Irrational exuberance can drive prices to unjustifiable heights, as we’ve seen in both the 90’s tech-bubble and the recent housing-bubble. But both of these bubbles were popped, and price followed with sustained down periods.

Market critics often sight the alleged near-sightedness of capitalism. Speculators incorporate future considerations into the current price of goods. If a war is likely to break out in several oil producing countries, thereby disrupting supply, speculators who buy now, and thus increase current prices, in anticipation of selling when supplies are more scarce, give markets time to react to coming changes and encourage reductions in consumption. This behavior softens the blow of sudden changes in market conditions.

Whether or not the current prices are at the correct (most efficient) level remains to be seen, but central authorities don’t have the capacity to make that determination. People may want lower prices for themselves, but that doesn’t make such prices are the correct ones. Pressuring the market either through price controls or regulation to implement lower prices will result in greater inefficiencies such as shortages. If people really desire such prices, they should argue for increases in supply, not greater regulation or a disruption in the functioning of speculators.

“Tell me what company you keep and I’ll tell you what you are.” - Miguel de Cervantes

As their candidate is plagued by one shady association after the next, Obama supporters are quick to circle the wagons and claim that highlighting these connections amounts to “guilt by association”, and that it’s a dirty trick which distracts from the real issues. But that’s only because they know their man is GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY on all counts.

As Jim Gheraghty points out:

As Barack Obama’s campaign becomes defined by a series of embarrassments — his assessment of what small-town residents cling to, a mentor who believes the government created HIV, a friend of 20 years who takes to the pulpit and demands whites give up 401(k) accounts to atone for their ancestor’s racist sins, a wife who pledges to take away some people’s pie and give it to others, an associate who expresses no regret over planting a bomb in a Pentagon women’s bathroom, etc. — it seems mind-boggling that this candidate was once promoted as a healer, a unifier, and a groundbreaking, post-partisan leader.

This isn’t a court of law, this is the court of public opinion. Candidates can must be judged by the company they keep. It’s the same company they’ll be keeping in cabinet positions, as diplomatic representatives to our enemies and allies, and as - heaven help us - nominees for judgeships in the high courts.

Charles Johnson at LGF has spent considerable time and energy documenting the various malcontent, seditious, racist and antisemitic groups which have gravitated to the Obamessiah. Presumably because they see him as the mainstream candidate most sympathetic to their various derangements. The list, what he terms the 57 Flavors of Crazy, is extensive and damning.

Some more “interesting” blogs at the official Barack Obama campaign web site:

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | NEW BLACK PANTHER PARTY

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Mishal Al-Johar’s Blog: How Barack Obama Learned to Love Israel

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Socialists for Obama: An open letter to our next president Barack Obama

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Marxists/Socialists/Communists for Obama

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | ZIONISM IS THE MAIN CAUSE OF ANTISEMITISM

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | The People of Palestine Need a Bill of Rights too …: The Israel Lobby: Bad for The World

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Joe Ruwe’s Blog: Haiku for Dick Cheney

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Why does Sen. Obama have to deny his culture to be popular in the U.S.?: Aren’t the Nation of Islam Followers American too?

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | miracle blog: Louis Farrakhan, Barack Obama and America

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Abdur-Rahim Kashif’s Blog: Vice President Keith Ellison

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Wilma’s Blog: Hillary is not a monster; She is a powerful Illuminist Witch!

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Peace Class K-12

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Maulayna Bilal’s Blog: Why shouldn’t Iran have nuclear weapons?

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Ripples of Hope - In Memory of RFK: Whom Among Whitey Will Vote for Obama?

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Akido Busandi’s Blog: May God Have Mercy on Apostates

Yes, four years of this, pretty please. The excuse is that these people are fringe elements rather than his power base. And that with all his millions of campaign dollars and record sized campaign staff, Obama can’t be expected to police his own website. If under these circumstances he is unable to manage a website, it raises serious questions whether the federal budget and the totality of the executive branch will be sufficient for him to manage the third largest country on the planet. At any rate, these people see something in Obama that resonates with them, which is extra frightening considering Obama currently has a six point lead over the next worst candidate and notably less liberal John McCain.

Just today, another Barack associate has been stowed securely beneath the bus. James Johnson, one of the people chosen by Obama to search out a suitable running mate - an apparently thankless task which is considered merely tangentially related to Obama’s campaign - has stepped down amid accusations of shady mortgage deals. How a person can resign from the Obama campaign without having ever been a part of it remains unclear. No doubt, this wasn’t the James Johnson that Barry knew, but merely an impostor whose company Obama tolerated for one or two or twenty years or so.

The picture of what kind of change we’re in store for under an Obama administration is becoming more and more clear. Hopefully this November, the American electorate is feeling charitable toward itself and tells Obama to keep the change.

Keep the Change, Obama!!!

Democrats will seize any opportunistic attack they can, regardless of how their own policies contradict their rhetoric. In the latest example of liberal double-speak, several Democrats Senators are simultaneously attacking the President for increasing the deficit while decrying budget cuts.

Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), and Robert Casey (Pa.) said Wednesday that Americans are paying record interest on a national debt that will reach $10 trillion by the end of this year. But they said President Bush’s budget, to be released on Monday, must not cut funding for a host of federal programs, including health care, Section 8 housing, homelessness assistance, and community development block grants.

“For seven years, Congress and the American people have heard the president give the State of the Union address filled with lofty rhetoric and promising pledges,” Murray said at a press conference.

“And for seven years we’ve wondered if we’ve heard him right when he turned around a few weeks later and gave us a budget filled with dramatic cuts in programs that all our American families depend on,” she added. Listen to Audio

Murray blasted the president for what she said was Bush’s failure to match his budget proposal with the realities facing American families today.

“Talk is cheap,” Murray said. “We are asking the president to put real dollars behind his words in the budget he sends to us next Monday.”

These people should be laughed out of office. That they can display such a cognitive disconnect without any such fear says everything that needs to be said about the usefulness of modern news, which won’t honestly report on such disingenuous arguments.

If there is one thing to be said about this election cycle, it’s that the word ‘change’ has been used entirely too much. The most comical moment came when John Edwards attempted to erect a force field of change around himself and cast any criticisms of his ideas as nothing more than the evil forces of the status quo fighting against the holy warriors of change. Watch this bit of self-serving pandering for a refresher:

John Edwards is a mere tag along, hopping on the bandwagon to score political points in his desperate (and now failed) campaign. It is Barack Obama who has been at the forefront of the change movement and its onslaught against rationality. But an interesting thing has happened: the agent of change, the great black hope himself, is racking up endorsements from the old guard liberal establishment. First it was the Puffster, former Senate leader Tom Daschle. Now the agent of change has managed to find himself caught in the gravitational pull of Ted Kennedy.

The media will never call Obama on running an outsiders campaign while drawing the support of such old, entrenched liberals. Nevertheless, if Obama is getting in bed with Ted Kennedy then I have one piece of advice: bring scuba gear.

As we conservatives in the coming weeks scour over the candidates’ records, read the pundits’ analysis and strain to keep our eyes open during debate after debate after debate after debate trying to decide which candidate most deserves our support, we should take a moment to remind ourselves of why it is we associate with republicans to begin with. It’s important not to get caught up in the sort of tribal mentality that often sweeps over people when dealing with politics. Us versus them, because we’re us and they’re them. No. Your party affiliation should be a fully deliberate decision based on a hard look at what’s important to you in comparison to what the various parties have demonstrated is important to them. No party should ever be able to consider your vote a given regardless of their performance. With that said, the Democrats have just reaffirmed why they won’t be getting my party affiliation anytime before the next ice age if they keep up the way they are.

The dems are down to four in their race to the bottom, and they’re clawing each others’ eyes out to be the one who hits first. During ABCs New Hampshire debate Saturday, and this is to Charlie gibson’s credit, they were asked if the surge has worked, and further whether the progress we’re seeing now in Iraq would have happened had they gotten their way on pulling troops out last year. In responding, each and every one of them proved that they can’t handle the truth. Obama was the worst offender.

Obama claimed the decision by Sunnis in Iraq to embrace American forces was a response to the Democratic capture of Congress in the 2006 election. Sunnis in Anbar province “started to see, after the Democrats were elected in 2006, you know what?” They saw the likelihood of a withdrawal of U.S. troops and feared they “would be left very vulnerable to the Shias,” Obama said. So they joined the Americans.

This is a figment of Obama’s imagination. There’s no evidence for this explanation–quite the contrary. Even before the 2006 election, Sunnis had begun to turn against al Qaeda, their one-time ally
in the insurgency, and its brutal tactics. Their rebellion against al Qaeda even has a name, the Sunni Awakening. Desperate for help against al Qaeda terrorists that they turned to Americans.

Depends on the meaning of the word “was” I guess.

Bill Richardson was worse than Obama. Calling Iraq “a massive failure,” he made a string of inaccurate claims. He said there had been no reconciliation. Wrong. He said there had been no sharing of oil revenues. Wrong. He said the Iraq government had made no effort to train more security forces. Wrong. He said there was only a political solution in Iraq but not a military solution. The truth is, both are required.

This is willful ignorance.

John Edwards provided a whopper of his own. He said the withdrawal of British troops from southern Iraq caused “a significant reduction in violence.” In fact, it was the British presence–not the withdrawal–for so many months that had pacified that region.

By the way, the Iraqis are now administering that region on their own. Is that not exactly what success in this effort should look like? They could admit they were wrong and salvage some of their credibility. But no, they’d rather lie and hope no one checks them on it.

Hillary Clinton also refused to acknowledge any success in Iraq. She reaffirmed what she told General David Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, last September during a Senate hearing. Then, she said she had to “suspend disbelief” to accept Petraeus’s testimony that the surge was working.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of your politically convenient skepticism and hatred of the military.

Support these bastards I will not. Let the primaries commence! And let’s take back our country.

Find a transcript of the debate here if you missed it.

But remember folks, Bush is the divisive one who has coarsened the political discourse.