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In The Taming of the American Crowd: From Stamp Riots to Shopping Sprees, I argue that unlike the kind of crowds that have surged across the pages of American history and unlike crowds in certain other parts of the world, today's American crowds seldom even figure in the news. We have crowds of shoppers, spectators, and travelers, but these are ill-prepared to act as one. Then, in April 2009, when Taming was well along in Monthly Review Press's publication process, some American crowds did begin to make the news. On April 15, thousands of angry Americans attended Tax Day "tea...

Synopsis: 6 Southern states will gain seats in the US House of Reps after 2010 census. Texas will gain the most. Link below

HONOLULU – Amid a federal investigation into an attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited with service men and women who were having dinner Friday afternoon at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii. The Obamas spent about half an hour in the mess hall shaking hands with Marines and their families as they ate traditional holiday fare of turkey, ham, stuffing, corn and broccoli. “Hi guys, Merry Christmas,” President Obama said as he entered the mess hall from a side door. The president and the first lady went from table to table, reaching roughly...

Hilarious news items from the future such as Hillary Captured and Barack Claims To Be Lost Imam fill the future news section of the game that this article reviews. With real T.V. Interviews and Radio clips of the founders, one by Breitbart TV, the man who exposed ACORN, the game is decidedly anti-Obama and anti-government and was created by a combination of Liberty loving Ron Paul Supporters and Conservatives.

Last week, during a bit of banter on Fox News, my colleague Jonah Goldberg reminded me of something I’d all but forgotten. Last September, during his address to Congress on health care, Barack Obama declared: “I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” Dream on. The monstrous mountain of toxic pustules sprouting from greasy boils metastasizing from malign carbuncles that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is not the last word in “health” “care” but the first. It ensures that this is all we’ll be talking about, now and...

Even 60 Minutes forecasts a major second crash. The fake Obama "bailout" with massive debt, printing money, "cap and tax," healthcare takeover, increasing the debt limit, giving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac another "open season" on taxpayer money ... are setting us up for even worse.

Check this entry: Naughty: Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), a vacuum for oil industry political contributions whose nonsensical denials of climate-change science in the face of vanishing ice sheets and decaying coral reefs make him Earth's Public Enemy No. 1. Nice: Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who are working diligently to craft a bipartisan climate bill despite obstructionism from the likes of Inhofe.

One might expect Democrats to be euphoric during this holiday season. After recapturing control of Congress in 2006, and last year taking back the White House by electing America's first African-American president, Democrats are now on the verge of passing a historic health care reform law. But instead of celebrating, they are bitterly divided. Former Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean and liberal bloggers are urging the Senate to defeat the health care bill. Many are criticizing President Barack Obama for compromising too much, saying the proposal doesn't go far enough, while more moderate and conservative Democrats are petrified the bill...

(Is Obama a star for the ages, or is he fading fast?) In February 2007, Barack Obama announced he would stand for the presidency of the United States in 2008. One year into that far-from-inevitable presidency, no figure has ever so thoroughly pulled toward himself the nation's political energy. He's a star alright. One of his most eager admirers, Bruce Springsteen, sang at the dawn of his own emergence years back: "I burst just like a supernova." But here's NASA's definition of a supernova: It's a stellar explosion, an incredibly luminous star, able to outshine a whole galaxy . ....

California's budget coffers are emptier than a politician's promise, but there may be a silver lining to the state's dark financial clouds: Fewer new laws. Legislators approved only 872 bills in their 2009 regular session, and just 632 have become or will become law by Jan. 1. While that may seem like a lot more new laws than we need, it's actually the fewest bills passed, and the fewest signed into law, in more than 40 years. In fact, according to legislative consultants, it's 131 fewer to become laws than last year; 393 fewer than 10 years ago, and a...

Don't everybody thank me at once. Here's the Saturday Night Live skit featuring Obama and Jintao.

The democrat's Supreme Court ruled abortion was legal throughout the United States despite state laws regulating individually by "inventing" (re-defining) a patient's "right to privacy" in medical terms. That is, by re-defining the natural "right to privacy" for matters between a doctor and patient as a reason for REMOVING a specific specially-selected form of medical treatment (abortion) from state regulation in Roe vs Wade by a narrow 5-4 vote on ideological lines, the socialists/democrats on the Supreme Court moved medicine from state control to national control. Well, more accurately, they moved it from state control into national "illegal to control"...

Sprott Asset Management has "pulled forward" something I intended to cover in my "year end review" Ticker but since he's put it out there I think I need to cover it now: As a thought experiment, we separated all the various US Treasury owners and asked our readers whether each group could afford to increase their 2009 treasury purchases by 200%. In the end, we surmised that most groups couldn’t, and prepared our readers for the worst. Almost seven months later, however, nothing particularly bad has happened on the US debt front. There have been no failed auctions, no sovereign...

Generic Congressional Vote Rasmussen Reports Republicans 44, Democrats 36 Republicans +8

KABUL -- The Taliban distributed a new video Friday of a U.S. soldier who was captured this summer in Afghanistan, with an offer to release him in a prisoner exchange.A spokesman for the international forces here denounced the video, but declined to comment on the possibility of an exchange or on efforts to rescue the captive.Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, an airborne infantryman from Ketchum, Idaho, was seized by Taliban-aligned militants on June 30. The military says he is the only American soldier who has been captured by insurgent forces during the war here.

Set in the 1940s, "A Christmas Story" depicts a series of family vignettes through the eyes of 9-year-old Ralphie Parker, who yearns for that gift of all gifts: the Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. This was boyhood before "bang-bang you're dead" was banned. Family life prior to "One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads," and Christmas without the ACLU. If children could choose their families, most would opt for the kind depicted in this film, where mother is a homemaker, father is a regular working stiff, and between them they have zero repertoire of psychobabble to rub together. Although...

A group of state and federal judges presiding over foreclosures are wiping away borrowers' mortgage debt, invalidating foreclosure sales and even barring some foreclosures outright. The decisions in recent months by a handful of judges in states including Massachusetts, New York and Texas mark a new phase in the judiciary's battle to stem the rising tide of foreclosures by punishing mortgage companies for paperwork mistakes and alleged mistreatment of borrowers. The number of judges taking such action remains small, and most foreclosures go through without a challenge. But the growing number of rulings against lenders' claims is raising questions among...

Just 29 percent of U.S. voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest level measured since early February, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. The percentage of voters who felt the country is heading in the right direction remained in the narrow range of 31 percent to 35 percent from July to early November. For the previous three weeks, however, confidence in the country’s current course has held steady at 30 percent. The majority of voters (65 percent) continue to believe the nation is heading down the wrong track. The latest finding...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Treasury said it would provide capital as needed to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years, effectively opening its checkbook to the government-controlled companies in a bid to reassure investors in their debt. Treasury also will end its purchases of the companies' mortgage-backed securities and terminate a never-used short-term liquidity facility set up for the firms and the Federal Home Loan Banks. And it moved to allow the companies to shrink their giant portfolios of mortgage securities more slowly, though it said it was still "committed to the principle" of reducing the portfolios....

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that Congress has the authority to mandate that people buy health insurance and that there is no constitutional limit on Congress’ power to enact such mandates, adding that this unlimited authority stemmed from the Commerce clause of the Constitution. And apparently 59 other Democrat senators agree with her. It is my understanding that the intent of the commerce clause is to assign the responsibility of regulating commerce (the transportation and trading of goods with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes) to the central government, taking the law-making responsibility for...

If this isn't proof of media bias, I don't know what is. Here we have the equivalent of finding out the moon landing was faked and I don't see any reports of this being a story of interest.

A lot has been made about the "public option" in early versions of the healthcare plan. Many feared that all would eventually be driven into government control of healthcare if a public option existed. But for all practical purposes, total government control of healthcare will have arrived with the current healthcare bill. Although the Obama team may have wanted it, the "public option" is not necessary for Obama to control the entire healthcare system. The healthcare bill is nothing but incentive after incentive to reduce many services and control the services that remain. If the general public really understood what...

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey likened the Senate's passage Thursday of landmark health care reform legislation to the first chapter of a book. The next, much shorter chapter will be completed possibly as early as January, after Senate and House conferees work out the differences between each chamber's version of the bill and the final legislation is signed into law by President Barack Obama. But the succeeding chapters of health care reform, much like the history of the Social Security and Medicare programs, could take years, even decades to write, Mr. Casey said. "Some of the things we thought would work...

NEW YORK – The government has handed its ATM card to beleaguered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Treasury Department said Thursday it removed the $400 billion financial cap on the money it will provide to keep the companies afloat. Already, taxpayers have shelled out $111 billion to the pair, and a senior Treasury official said losses are not expected to exceed the government's estimate this summer of $170 billion over 10 years. Treasury Department officials said it will now use a flexible formula to ensure the two agencies can stand behind the billions of dollars in mortgage-backed...

Barack Obama-bashing has become rather fashionable of late in Washington. Republicans have been deriding him as a big government, big spender who kowtowed too often to foreign leaders. In the autumn the frustrated Left began accusing the President of betraying the base of his support by, among other sell-outs, allowing the health care bill to be drastically weakened. In recent weeks many among the capital's powerful commentariat have turned on the man they had lionised on his way to the White House. Was he tough enough? Had he taken on too much? Where had the magic gone? All of a...

The Queen's Christmas Message was a sombre one today at the end of a year dominated by the war in Afghanistan and deep economic gloom. "Each year that passes seems to have its own character," she said. "Some leave us with a feeling of satisfaction, others are best forgotten." She described 2009 as "a difficult year for many, in particular those facing the continuing effects of the economic downturn." The Queen, who is the titular head of the Armed Forces, expressed her sadness at the casualties suffered by British forces fighting in Helmand Province of Afghanistan. "I am sure that...

WASHINGTON — The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association filed a petition Dec. 23 in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent greenhouse gas (GHG) “endangerment finding” rule. The endangerment finding does not in and of itself regulate greenhouse gases, but it is a step in the process for GHG regulation under the Clean Air Act. The rule provides the foundation for EPA for the first time to regulate GHGs from small and large sources throughout the economy, including farms, hospitals, office buildings and schools. Not science-based The cattlemen’s association claims EPA’s finding is not based on...

The new health-care legislation that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A different version of health-care reform passed the House last month. There will most likely be a "conference committee" of both chambers named to work out a compromise. But if the Democrats in the House can muster enough votes, they could simply agree on the Senate version -- thereby ensuring quick action to enact the legislation before the president's State of the Union address Jan. 20.

Huge Bonuses for Failed Fannie, Freddie Mortgage Chiefs AP/The Australian The two chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could get paid up to $6 million each for 2009, despite the companies' dismal performance this year, which cost US taxpayers more than $100 billion. Fannie's CEO, Michael Williams, and Freddie's CEO, Charles "Ed" Haldeman Jr, each will receive $900,000 in salary, $3.1 million in deferred payments next year and another $2 million if they meet certain performance goals, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. The pay packages were approved by the Treasury Department and the...

The Senate’s passage of a massive health-care reform bill yesterday morning was greeted by partisan applause by Democrats, but President Obama noted that “we now have to take up the last and most important step and reach an agreement on a final reform bill that I can sign into law.” We don’t expect reconciling the House and Senate versions will prove all that difficult, but another aspect of Obamacare that deserves closer examination is whether it passes constitutional muster. Republican senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina and John Ensign of Nevada this week offered an amendment stating Congress lacks power...

In nearly its final act of the year, the U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a $290 billion increase in the nation's borrowing limit, a move that sets up a contentious debate about the federal government's largesse early in 2010. The additional $290 billion in borrowing ability lifts the total public debt the federal government can hold to around $12.4 trillion and will allow the government to keep borrowing through February. The House passed the measure last week. The Senate vote was 60-39, and was almost exclusively along party lines. Generally a vote on raising the debt limit requires only a...

WASHINGTON — Republican senators attacking the cost of a Democratic health care bill showed far different concerns six years ago, when they approved a major Medicare expansion that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits. The inconsistency — or hypocrisy, as some call it — has irked Democrats, who claim that their plan will pay for itself with higher taxes and spending cuts and cite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for support. By contrast, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House in 2003, they overcame Democratic opposition to add a deficit-financed prescription drug benefit to...

U.S. state and local governments face more than $530 billion in unfunded public pension liabilities and most do not have funds set aside to pay for them, a government report showed on Wednesday. U.S. As of June, state governments were on the hook for around $405 billion and 39 of the country's largest local governments must come up with around $130 billion for their other post employment benefits, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said. The report said unfunded state liabilities ranged from as low as $71 million in Arizona to $62 billion in California. Local government liabilities ranged from $15...

WASHINGTON -- With the front line of defense for unemployed Americans crumbling, the jobless are facing potentially reduced benefits, and businesses -- possibly higher taxes. So far, 25 states, including California, New York, Texas and Michigan, have run out of unemployment insurance money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government -- loans that are interest free. By 2011, 15 more states will have exhausted their jobless trust funds and need $90 billion in loans to keep handing out benefit checks, according to federal projections. The federal government, however, is already up to its eyeballs in red ink, finishing...

While the economy is likely to grow at a steady but unspectacular 3% pace in 2010, the prospects for significant job growth are dim and the unemployment rate could still be in the 10% neighborhood at this time next year, economists say. Above-trend growth "never felt so bad," wrote economists at JP Morgan Chase. "Growth will not be boomy. And growth will not go far in returning the economy to healthy levels of activity." Remember, the adult population grows by about 2 million a year, which means the economy needs to create about 1.3 million jobs every year to satisfy...

Imagine the outrage if any Republican President went on vacation during a recession and spent $4,000 a night on accommodations. On ABC’s Good Morning America Wednesday, correspondent Yunji de Nies seemed to suggest that President Obama’s family will be spending such an amount renting expensive living space at an estate house in Hawaii for a two-week Christmas vacation. De Nies: "Christmas trees here aren't cheap – neither is staying in this $8.9 million house, which runs $4,000 a night. The Obamas rented this one and the two next door for family and friends. When you spend that kind of money,...

Australian Cardinal George Pell rejects silence in the face of adversity. He has raised a cry to battle the global anti-discrimination laws that threaten religious freedom the world over. In a speech delivered to the Australian Christian lobby on November 20, 2009, he spelled out the details of his concerns. In his conclusion, he drew attention to Britain, where the situation is already far worse than in Australia, and to the United States, which is just beginning to experience the first effects of state-sponsored religious intolerance. There was no mention of Canada, no doubt because the Cardinal is unaware of...

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico accidentally blew up a building on December 16 with a Civil War-style cannon. According to an occurrence report [pdf], which was first reported by the Project on Government Oversight, the lab's Shock and Detonation Physics team was testing a large-bore powder gun when they heard a "loud unusual noise." About 20 minutes later, the researchers ventured out of their bunker to see what had happened. Upon further investigation of the facility’s Technical Area 15, the team discovered that Building 562 had been blown apart. Two doors were "propelled off the structure"...

As the passage of the bill that will start the process of nationalizing health care in America becomes almost inevitable, so, too, the process of undoing America's standing as The Last Best Hope of Earth will have begun. That description of America was not, as more than a few Americans on the left believe, made by some right-wing chauvinist. It was made by President Abraham Lincoln in an address to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862. The bigger the American government becomes, the more like other countries America becomes. Even a Democrat has to acknowledge the simple logic: America cannot at...

With the front line of defense for unemployed Americans crumbling, the jobless are facing potentially reduced benefits and businesses possibly higher taxes. With the front line of defense for unemployed Americans crumbling, the jobless are facing potentially reduced benefits, and businesses -- possibly higher taxes. So far, 25 states, including California, New York, Texas and Michigan, have run out of unemployment insurance money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government -- loans that are interest free. By 2011, 15 more states will have exhausted their jobless trust funds and need $90 billion in loans to keep handing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g3RjpEt5To

It has been an interesting time around the Washington, D.C., area these last few weeks. The District of Columbia City Council passed a law restricting the ability of Catholic Charities to continue its same level of social services to the city’s poor and homeless. The Baltimore City Council passed a bill subjecting crisis pregnancy centers to a $150-a-day fine for not posting signs stating what services they do not offer. Suburban Montgomery County Council is considering legislation to impose a $750-a-day fine (it is, after all, one of the richest areas in the United States) on pro-life pregnancy centers for...

The two chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could get paid as much as $6 million each for 2009, despite the companies’ dismal performance this year which cost taxpayers more than $100 billion. Fannie’s CEO, Michael Williams, and Freddie CEO Charles “Ed” Haldeman Jr. each will receive $900,000 in salary, $3.1 million in deferred payments next year and another $2 million if they meet certain performance goals, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The pay packages were approved by the Treasury Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol as an indictment of nineteenth century industrialization and economic social classes. The following is a modern take on the tale exploring a different issue. The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach...

The government has handed its ATM card to beleaguered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Treasury Department said Thursday it removed the $400 billion financial cap on the money it will provide to keep the companies afloat. Already, taxpayers have shelled out $111 billion to the pair, and a senior Treasury official said losses are not expected to exceed the government's estimate this summer of $170 billion over 10 years. Treasury Department officials said it will now use a flexible formula to ensure the two agencies can stand behind the billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities they sell...

Al Franken, the Democrat from Minnesota who won election to the Senate after a successful career as a comic and author, has begun to show the sharp-tongued side of his personality by ripping into GOP staffers behind the scenes.

President Barack Obama has nominated Mari Carmen Aponte to become the next ambassador of El Salvador, a decade after she was forced to withdrawal her name from consideration for a similar post following concerns about alleged ties to Cuba, Newsmax.com reports. A former FBI official told Fox News that Aponte’s 1998 nomination by president Clinton began receiving attention after the foreign relations panel questioned her about a past relationship with Roberto Tamayo, who was alleged to have "possible ties to the Cuban government" and made "repeated trips there." Current White House spokesman Tommy Vietor responded, "as has been previously reported,...

For taxpayers, health tab may not end It's impossible to accurately assess price tag December 25, 2009 TERRY SAVAGE savage@suntimes.com The new health-care legislation that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A different version of health-care reform passed the House last month. There will most likely be a "conference committee" of both chambers named to work out a compromise. But if the Democrats in the House can muster enough votes, they could simply agree on the Senate version -- thereby ensuring quick action to enact the legislation before the president's...

Restrictive smoking law takes effect Jan. 2December 19, 2009 10:00 PM Sue Book Sun Journal Staff Tar Heels and tobacco are typical tag words for North Carolina, but 2010 won’t be a smokin’ New Year in this state. After New Year’s Eve parties and a day to deal with hangovers, no legal smoke will be hanging in North Carolina restaurants and bars. A state smoking ban begins at 12:01 a.m. Jan. 2. Restaurants, bars and other establishments that fail to enforce it will be warned twice, and then fined $200 for each subsequent violation. Private, non-profit clubs that serve only...

Roy Rogers and his trusty steed Trigger may have come to the end of their "Happy Trails" - television's most famous horse is going on the auction block, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively. The beloved golden palomino's home, the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, has closed - doomed by bitter family feuding, greed, mounting debts and IRS demands. Trigger - stuffed in a familiar pose, rearing majestically on hind legs - will join Dale Evans' horse Buttermilk, their beloved German shepherd Bullet and other Rogers memorabilia in bidding that's expected to reach into the multimillions of dollars. Fans around the...