THE MOUNTAIN OBSERVER ON-LINE       

                                       ISSUES, PEOPLE, OBJECTS & POLICIES- CLOSE UP                              

                           Vol. 05                                          Issue 05                             Start June 01, 2005

A FREEWHEELING CONSERVATIVE COMMENTARY DEDICATED TO THE DEFENSE OF FREEDOM, THE NEXT GENERATION, AND THE WAY THINGS OUGHT TO BE.   TO UNDERSTAND THIS NEWSLETTER, IT IS NECESSARY THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO READ AND TO THINK.

Updated occasionally on this website when I decide to do it.                               

 J. E. Sohmer   Jefferson, CO  Flyover country, where the air is thin, the heavens bright, and the hunting and fishing are good.

 Serious Considerations:             

06/30/05  As Mexican police nail 2 Iraqis attempting illegal entry across our southern border, and China instructs us not to interfere with their negotiations to buy a major American oil firm, the link between our trade policies and our national security is further underscored.  Mexican police did not act out of altruism; the message of popular American impatience is beginning to soak in.  The Chinese do not yet recognize popular American impatience, and we need to fix that.  My friends, Walmart, and the America shopper, are not the problem.  Trade policies that are managed by Elites in Washington that steer the general economic climate is where the problems lay, and where the fixes must occur.  It is not in our interest to shut down international trade.  It is in our interest to discipline a level playing field, including the security of our own borders, and our own energy resources.  With China especially, the hour is getting late.   JES

06/30/05  The United States Supreme Court ends its term with a series of appalling decisions, most recently on the subject of the 10 Commandments in and around Courtrooms.  More accurately, in this particular matter, rather than a decision, we find equivocation suggesting intellectual guilt.  I am encouraged that the transgressions of this bunch of judicial pretenders, and their acolytes in Congress, are becoming so apparent that public pressure for reform, or what ever it takes, are within sight.  This nonsense cannot be allowed to continue.  JES

06/24/05 In 2006 West Virginia's favorite Klansman Senator Robert Byrd can be taken out.  Support this highly qualified challenger:

                Lewis for Senate, Inc.                Phone: (304) 692-1236
                416 Holland Avenue                   www.hiramlewis.com  
                Morgantown, WV 26501             HiramLewis4@HotMail.com       

06/23/05  In a 5/4 decision, the usual suspects in lock-step, the Supreme Court has managed to disable the 5th Amendment's clear protection of private property from a public taking for other than public use.  Mom and Pop, and houses of worship, are now clear targets of the big box developments and secular hatred.  The Republic cannot survive destruction of the the primacy of private property, the foundation of civil rights.  At some point a majority of the electorate will recognize the depth of the problem, perhaps too late for other than direct popular action.  Conservatives are uncomfortable with the implications, but best understand the malady, and the necessary corrections, and it will need to start with the Courts.  JES

06/23/05  This Congress, really the Senate, will go nowhere this year with Social Security reform, and the danger is that, in desperation for something to happen, compromises, to the proposals as originally outlined, will be offered that would be retro to the original purpose.  The President's original proposals were sensible recommendations to set the stage for a long term repair of a real problem.  Had the President's plan been in place 30 years ago, I have no doubt that today I would be a millionaire.   I think, however, upon reflection, that the Mountain Observer needs to withdraw its support for the whole idea, suggesting that the President's ideas are insufficient, while at the same time praising his courage for getting the discussion on the table.

It is now my belief that we need to move the discussion directly to the heart of the problem, which is the very existence of the Social Security system in the first place.  Like income taxes, the only real fix is complete elimination of the program.  Here, I think, is what needs to be done:

1). From the general treasury, which is where all current receipts go, and disappear, on date certain establish and recognize a vested account for each individual contributor, past and present.  That account would include employee's contributions only, plus 8% simple interest from the point of original accrual.  Parallel accounts for employer contributions should also be established.  All employee participants in the system should then be given the choice of a single one time cash out, with no further obligation on the part of the government.  Employer participants would be similarly reimbursed as matching employees exercised this option.  Those employees choosing not to participate would be free to continue with the existing system.

2). My premise would be that over time, free market incentives would lead to a complete weaning away from the system, and that a process so organized would ease the obvious adjustments necessary to the general budgeting process of overall government operations, dragging the anchor of fiscal reality off the stern of the much larger problem of chronic Congressional appropriations irresponsibility.

Sooner or later, something of this nature needs to occur.  The politics, and timing of the situation, will determine whether or not this will happen within the context of our First Republic, or under the guidance of a loving and benevolent martial law.  Remember that Medicare/Medicaid, pension plans, Fannie May and municipal bonds heavily invested in hedge funds, and propped up by foreign ownership (read Chinese) of the federal debt, all stand in line at the government cashier's window.  Time could prove my ideas here too generous. 

Note: Full disclosure: I am about to receive my first check from Social Security, without apology.     Under law, I was forced into it, a John Locke social contract sort of thing, don't you know.   All I want is my money back, with interest, much less than that to which the government is currently obligated by law.   I would sign up tomorrow, for the sake of my grandchildren.   JES

06/21/05  Mr. President, regarding the matter of John Bolton's appointment to the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, it is time for you to simply seize the initiative, appoint him yourself on a "recess" status, and move on to the next order of business.  Like judges, employing a similar process.  Your "friends" in the Senate are disgusting, and incompetent, and it is time for you to eat some raw bear meat.   JES

06/21/05  Today a very curious book was released entitled "The Truth about Hillary", by one Edward Klein, himself a well documented "lefty".  Through sources, I was made aware of the general nature of the book's contents, including claims suspiciously actionable, a week, or so ago, and was immediately suspicious of the enterprise.  That Hillary is running for President in 2008 is the worst kept secret, today, in American politics.  This book goes into a couple of areas concerning Hillary that no Conservative would ever touch; politically, and legally, we just are not that stupid.  While I am always suspicious of conspiracy theories, the thought that was instantly raised in my own mind was simply this: What price does a lefty have to pay, or what reward was promised, for falling on ones own sword for Hillary?  Do Hillary, and her promoters in the "main stream" press, actually think today's increasingly savvy public is so stupid as to be taken in by the ruse of a faked conservative attack?  The Air America crowd will be persuaded, because they want to be, but Americans with more balanced perspectives will be insulted by the misrepresentation of motive about to ensue.  Edward Klein is no Conservative, and Hillary is no "victim".   Again, Democrats, and their press allies, continue to dig further in to their hole.  There are those who think this matter will hurt Conservatives; I suspect it will backfire on its authors.   We shall see.   JES

Current Reading Recommendation:

 MEN IN BLACK: HOW THE SUPREME COURT IS DESTROYING AMERICA

 MARK R. LEVIN                                                                                           

 REGNERY                                                     288 PGS                           $27.95

Serious Considerations:

06/19/05  U.S. Cuban policy has been really going nowhere for years, especially since Congress foreclosed on the option of assassination.  Leaving that issue aside for the moment, we have been left with the hope that since the end of the Cold War, and the end of Soviet support, that the Cubans would finally somehow cave in under the pressures of the embargo.  It hasn't worked, as many other countries around the world have picked up the slack.  Too many people, including resident Cuban exiles, have become invested, in various ways, in the status quo.  Meanwhile poor Cubans have suffered as the regime has not.  The Mountain Observer does not recommend any sudden reversal of the embargo policy, per say, but rather that we might consider selective exceptions.  Tease the monster into incremental self destruction, so to speak.  Selective lifting of restrictions so as to support people directly without enabling further government mischief.  For example, what might be the consequences if we suddenly lifted restrictions on the import of cigars?  JES

06/19/05  Congratulations to Republican Conservatives in the U.S. House of Representatives for prevailing on language, on June 17th, to either force a 46 item list of United Nations reforms to be accomplished by 09/31/07, or swallow a loss of half the U.S. dues.  Will the Senate concur?  By the way, where is John Bolton?  It is time for Bill Frist and John McCain, and all their so-far useless cohorts, to all get off their dead asses and do something right for the country: Support this House language and get John Bolton on the job.  One more thing: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, I don't give a damn about what you think about anything.  If you had any sense at all, you'd go back to Ghana.  JES

06/13/05  Michael Jackson: First comment on this website, and perhaps the last, only because of the implications for the larger culture.

Today he was found innocent by a jury of his peers, a fact to be accepted and respected.  I have not followed the details of this matter because I am not a voyeur of such things, and frankly, find the whole matter disgusting.  So having glanced occasionally at the popular press, always very hazardous, I was mildly surprised at the jury's verdict.  Reflecting briefly on it all, I would make the following points:

                -The jury found him "not guilty", not "innocent", presumably under the judge's directions to the jury per California law.  One wonders how the jury would have come down on this point had they been left unconstrained.

                - I am personally familiar with Santa Maria, CA.  Given the quality of evidence presented, and the quality of the prosecution's presentation, perhaps the jury did they right thing under the law.  Certainly we are left with no choice but to accept that.

                - In the larger culture, the wrong conclusions are likely to be drawn.  The fact of the matter is that Michael Jackson is a weirdo, and parents should keep their kids away from him.  The mainstream press can be expected to encourage exactly the opposite. 

                - Thankfully, the entire matter is now over, and we can get back to more important matters, like the broader subversion of our culture from within by those who seem to regard George W. Bush as a greater menace than IslamicFascists.  So it goes.  JES

Wall Street & Main St

06/10/05  I believe Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan is absolutely correct with his concerns about the real estate market  ( see LFMOWEB 238 LETTER 05-04 05/22/05 ), to which one might add derivatives.  In addition to highly inflated valuations in certain markets, he is properly concerned about some bazaar lending practices and the low interest rates relative to the quality of the valuations.  Both buyers and lenders are playing craps, and eventually this bubble will burst.  In the context of my comments 06/09/05, what I see here is a huge bet by some lenders that they will be able to eventually foreclose, and a huge bet by some buyers that future inflation will work in their favor. I think eventually they'll all get burned.  The Chairman's recently expressed confusion on this matter is premised on market rationality, historically sound, his error in the current context.  What we are dealing with here is a 90's redo of hyper speculation, not investment.  Many bankers have become casino operators, covered by the FDIC and the Small Business Administration (taxpayers).   Lots of people no longer respect the dollar, un-backed paper.  Sooner or later you will see what I mean.  As water always finds its way down hill, market rationality will re-assert itself.  JES

Serious Considerations:

06/10/05  The President joins Prime Minister Tony Blair in the idea of giving billions more in aid to Africa, absent any enforceable requirement of reform.  The affairs and depredations of Africans, in the absence of security threats to the United States, is the business of Africans, not the American taxpayer.  Charitable aid and assistance directly to those in need, and there are millions, is a worthy endeavor on a voluntary basis, privately offered.  Once again, our President's instinct of good intentions is running ahead of the charter of his office and Conservative principles, and indeed is re-enforcing the individuals and institutions in Africa that are the cause of the mayhem.   Mr. President, you are acting as a Liberal "do-gooder", and the consequences will be the same.  So it goes with all Republicans harboring the wish of reconciliation with lefties as retirement dawns.  Notice that this instinct rarely works in reverse, evidence of the decades long institutionalization of leftist collectivism.  Conservatives can claim victory at the point when these default instincts are reversed.  JES

Wall Street & Main St

06/09/05  By his own admission, The Chairman of the Federal Reserve is confused about how come long term market rates remain low in spite of the Fed's efforts to boost short term rates.   Mr. Chairman, let me put it to you this way: If I won massive amounts of money in a lottery today and was faced with the choice between taking it all now, taking it in the shorts on taxes, as opposed to deferred payment with the opportunity for better tax treatment, what do you think I would do?  I would take the money now and run, not out of a sense of instant gratification, but rather a lack of confidence in the reliability of future payouts in the future.  I would suggest that many people would do the same thing, for the same reason.  And it isn't all about taxes, either.  It's about spending, public and private, and vast over commitment.  I would suggest to you sir, that the quite talk among real people on main street, and in the fields and factories, is that the dollar isn't worth a damned thing looking forward.  You think this opinion ought to drive up long term rates.  I say the opposite: Who in their right mind is willing to lend money to a deadbeat at any promise of return?  You, and the Fed, are attempting to push a wet noodle.   The real problem is fiscal, and in the lap of Congress and irresponsible state governments.  Under these circumstances, who in their right mind would want to lend money to government sink holes?  Dear Mr. Greenspan, with all due respect, it appears sometimes that you are in danger of confusing yourself with God.   Real interest rates will be what they will be.  Once upon a time we paid attention to the message of the markets.   JES

Serious Considerations:

06/08/05  Today the Senate confirmed California judge Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by a vote of 56 to 43, an enormous victory for Conservatives.   A real judge has been advanced, and the sham "deal" over filibusters by Senate "moderates" will now proceed to collapse as a continued procession of real judges continue to march through the process if Bill Frist has pulled his pants on.  The "deal" will collapse because, when cornered, Democrats, under current Senate rules, will run right straight back to the filibuster for cover.  To fix this problem, it will be necessary for Republicans to re-align the Senate rules to conform with the Constitution.  The Constitution specifies certain instances requiring a super majority vote, and approval of a President's nomination of judges is not on the list.  Having been allowed the opportunity to offer their "advice", the next step is to execute their "consent", with an up or down vote by the entire chamber.  That is what the Constitution says.   Democrats are all exercised about a peculiar extra-constitutional claim of "checks and balances", attempting to graft on to the American system the logic of proportional representation, very French, don't you know. Those exercised about the minority status of Democrats should be reminded that, under the Constitution, the remedy for this horror is for Democrats to win elections.  You commielibs need to understand that the route to power is winning elections, and right now you are not doing so well.  Those who win elections, exercise power.  That's the way it works. 

Meanwhile, in the matter of Judge Brown, Democrats have demonstrated the utter hypocrisy of their claim of concern for minorities.   Janice Rogers Brown has no need of preferential assistance, and would detest its application.   She is who she is on the basis of personal merit and accomplishment, race and gender unrelated and incidental.  Others of her assigned victim status are, perhaps, watching all this with interest.   She has "earned her own stripes", and we Conservatives want her on the bench.  That is all.   JES

06/04/05  French Prime Minister Jocko Shearock's world is collapsing around him.  His EU partner in crime German Chancellor Gearhard Showturd, Social Democrat (soft marxist), is himself in trouble, requiring him to call for new elections this Fall.  Reportedly, the more "conservative" oriented CDU/FDP coalition is leading in the polls.  Quoting Wolfgang Schaeuble, deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in a healthy burst of nationalism, "We always told France, 'Don't make us choose between you and the United States, because we probably won't choose you,' "  This, of course, in the context of those who do not reject European Union outright, but who rather view such prospects as best advanced from a perspective more analogous our old Articles of Confederation.  In the modern European context, this makes more sense.  Americans should keep a close eye on the German elections, perhaps the stalking horse of a return to the outside possibility of European sanity.  The fundamental problems remain.  JES

06/04/05  Perhaps you have noticed that I have said nothing lately about all the charges of prisoner abuse in Guantanamo and elsewhere.  That is because I choose not to dignify the assertions of those whose interests are not factually concerned with prisoner abuse, but rather with a further attempt to subvert the Bush Administration's correct and proper response to International Islamic-Fascist Terrorism.    People who cannot see through this smokescreen are either fools or complicit, or both.  JES

06/03/05  So "Deep Throat" was W. Mark Felt, one time 2nd in command of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover.  A lot of folks at high levels were playing fast and loose with the law, including W. Mark Felt.   Aroused by indignation about certain goings on within the Nixon Whitehouse, a top law enforcement officer could have imagined a more proper, and legal, way to proceed than as he did.  I was never a fan of Richard Nixon, who was not a Conservative, with a list of complaints familiar to Conservatives, however, as an American, I think one must give Richard Nixon credit for one thing: his role in the successful prosecution of Alger Hiss.    This, of course, was the primary basis for the hatred bestowed upon him by the Liberal Establishment, forever distorting the history of the times.  The litmus test of Alger Hiss to this day is a marker in the divide between the American Left and the American Right.  I point out this fact, not as a defense of Nixon's Watergate related activities, but as a suggestion of the need for context in understanding a complex period in our history.  I also remember well the genuine fear most Washington politicians had acquired of J. Edgar Hoover, who had been in his post as head of the FBI for so long that he seemed to "have the goods" on everybody, and believed to be willing to act on such information in an arbitrary way.    It is not unreasonable to surmise that W. Mark Felt's actions were a product of revenge against an Administration that had consciously named a new head of the FBI from outside the organization to replace Hoover, and not Mr. Felt.  It would now seem that Nixon deserves credit for his judgment on this matter too.

It is necessary to make one other point about Richard Nixon.  It has to do with the way he finally stepped down.  "I must put the interests of America first", not bad for a president otherwise headed for impeachment, to be compared with behavior in a more recent case of actual impeachment.  But  times are changing; how often today do we hear of honorable resignations?    In an age of moral relativism, you see. it is always somebody else's fault.    JES

06/03/05  The Senate continues to flail around under the mismanagement of Republicans and the intellectual and moral corruption of Liberals.  Congress as a whole is a broken institution, responsibility falling back to the voters themselves who nearly always deserve what they vote for.  Argued elsewhere on this website, many times, the long history of charter drift by US courts is traceable back to Congressional management failure.  As also with issues of fiscal irresponsibility, the people's representatives are failing their Constitutional responsibilities as the polis collapses gradually into havoc.  The healing must start at the bottom.  In America, it can.   JES

Wall Street & Main St

06/03/05  Flailing around in desperate attempts to discredit the President on grounds not intellectual, the Air America types continue their assault on the idea of private accounts for Social Security by trying to puff up the ghost of Enron and Ken Lay.  The private sector occasionally yields crooks, and they are pursued and prosecuted under the law.  The public sector has also been known, on occasion, to yield crooks and felons, actually a fairly long list.    Do the Air America types honestly wish to compare notes on this; private vs. public, Democrat vs. Republican, Liberal vs. Conservative?   I'm ready for that match up any day.  As for the great California energy crisis 3 years back, it had a lot less to do with Enron than it had to do with political and economic mismanagement of California's own affairs, by Californians.  As for the Social Security proposals of the Bush Administration, I know for a fact that had these modest proposals been in place 30 years ago, today I would be a millionaire, and I would not have to worry about my children and grandchildren.  Social Security will be reformed, sooner or later, on a formula that relocates responsibility back to individuals using the tools of the private sector.  It is the private sector that produces wealth.  The public sector confiscates it.  As certain realities sink in, folks are catching on.  JES

Serious Considerations:

06/01/05  Like the French voters, the Dutch Voters reject the European Union constitution, correctly fearful of being submerged by unaccountable bureaucrats running amok in a giant Statist whorehouse.   However, large Statist entities bear a striking resemblance to a great white shark being stuck with a pen knife, sort of like Ted Kennedy.  One does not bring a runaway coal train to a halt on a dime.  Watching all of this continue to unfold will be a great source of amusement, because the train is already off the tracks.  JES      

 Current Reading Recommendation:

 THE ANTI-CHOMSKY READER

  PETER COLLIER & DAVID HOROWITZ, ED                                              

  ENCOUNTER BOOKS                                        260 PGS                        $17.95

                                                                   God Bless America

                                                                   Jim                           

                                                                    American Nationalist Conservative

                                                                    Jefferson, CO 80456