My thoughts on the Boston Marathon bombing and the house searches in Watertown. All I’m asking is to respect people’s constitutional rights. Everyone has the right to privacy and the right to a fair trial. Innocent until proven guilty is how it’s suppose to work.

My thoughts are with the families that were affected by the tragedy. So sad.

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Some politicians and pundits are telling us that the sequester will be the END OF THE WORLD. *Yawn* The sequester isn’t even cutting real spending…. this video explains what sequestration really is.

Some “experts” say that women should pee their pants or puke to avoid rape. Are they serious? Guns are better. Don’t pee your pants; make your wannabe rapist pee his pants.

President Obama proposed a $9 federal minimum wage in his State of the Union address. Here is why that is a terrible idea. It will increase unemployment and the cost of the minimum wage will be passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices.

There are many reasons to be opposed to the VAWA– domestic violence should not be an issue handed by the federal government. There is no real proof that it has prevented domestic violence and it promotes ugly stereotypes about men and women. Radical feminists portray men as violent predators and women as helpless victims– shame on them. About 40 percent of victims of domestic violence are men.

Original sponsors of the bill assumingly called it the “Violence against Women Act” in order to pressure their colleagues into voting for it. Supporters of the VAWA attempt to politically hurt those opposed to it by painting them as anti-woman or somehow in favor of violence against women. Clearly, domestic violence— whether it is against a woman or man—is tragic and no one in their right mind supports it.

This is the kind of dishonest tactics used by Washington insiders to pass terrible bills. They give pieces of legislation deceptive titles so that they can chastise any reasonable opponents. A case in point being the so-called No Child Left Behind Act, supporters accused all opponents of wanting to leave children behind in the classroom even though the massive bill was fundamentally flawed. 

Like the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act, there are many reasons to oppose the VAWA. First, domestic violence was already prosecuted in every state prior to the passing of the VAWA. Why do we need a federal law for something that was already illegal in all 50 states? Isn’t that redundant? 

The VAWA made domestic violence a federal crime but it is not an issue that should be handled by the federal government because it is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Like other wrongdoings such as murder and theft, it is properly handled on the state and local level, in accordance with the 10th amendment. 

The VAWA cost a lot of dough—$660 million, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates— for a duplicative law that has shown no real evidence of reducing domestic violence.

What exactly counts as domestic violence? The newest version of the VAWA, S.47, contains very vague and broad definitions of domestic violence. A man that raises his voice at his partner, calls her an offensive name, stalks her, causes her any emotional distress, or simply just annoys her can potentially be prosecuted under the VAWA. Calling your spouse a mean name is not advised or polite, but it isn’t the same thing as violence towards her.

Violence against anyone is bad —that shouldn’t even need to be said. Unfortunately, the VAWA reinforces ugly stereotypes about men and women. Supporters of the law portray men as natural predators that are never on the other side of domestic violence. However, in a 2010 national survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it was found that 40% of the victims of domestic violence are men and half of all partner violence is mutual. 

Supporters of the VAWA portray women as helpless victims—this is the kind of attitude that is setting women back. Thank goodness that there are many strong and independent women, including the female members of the Independent Women’s Forum, who believe that there are real reasons to oppose the VAWA.

President Obama has nominated his Chief of Staff, Jack Lew, to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary. If Jack Lew is confirmed by the Senate, it would be bad news for the U.S. economy. Lew is just another tax-hiking, big-spending beltway insider that is just as bad as Timothy Geithner. Listed below are the top ten reasons to oppose Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary:

1. Jack Lew Played a Key Role in Fiscal Cliff Negotiations

Jack Lew acts as a prime negotiator for Obama behind the scenes. Most recently, he negotiated the disastrous fiscal cliff deal that contained tax hikes, corporate welfare, and no spending cuts. Most Americans saw their payroll taxes increase because of the terrible deal that was crafted behind closed doors.

2. Jack Lew Worked for Citigroup

Jack Lew is the former chief operating officer of Citigroup’s Alternative Investments unit—the group that invested in and profited off the housing and financial collapse. He was there when the bank nearly imploded and lost aroundfive hundred million in one quarter in 2008 as the bank’s bets turned south.

3. Jack Lew Has Ties With Corporate Welfare

After Citigroup received a $45 billion dollar taxpayer bailout from the Treasury Department, he received a $945,000 bonus from the bank in 2009. President Obama has even called the Wall Street bonuses “obscene” and referred to recipients as “fat cats who are getting awarded for their failure.” 

4. Jack Lew Has Confessed That He is Not a Financial Expert

During Lew’s previous Senate confirmation hearing, Senator Bernie Sanders asked whether deregulation contributed significantly to the financial collapse. Lew answered: “I don’t consider myself an expert in some of these aspects of the financial industry.” He then recommended that Senate Sanders speak to someone who understands the financial industry better: “I would defer to others who are more expert about the industry to try and parse it better than that.”

5. Jack Lew Drafted Health Care Reform under Clinton

From February 1993 to October 1994, Jack Lew served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton. He was responsible for drafting the overly bureaucratic and costly “HillaryCare” health care reform legislation that would have declined the quality of health care.

 6. Jack Lew Designed AmeriCorps

As a special assistant to President Clinton, Jack Lew helped design the deeply flawed AmeriCorps national service program that costs taxpayers over $1 billion annually. While AmeriCorps is often touted as a volunteer program, all individuals are paid with taxpayer dollars to “volunteer” for government-approved service programs.

7. Jack Lew Drafted Obama’s Massive Budget

As director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jack Lew helped draft Obama’s budget that notoriously received zero votes in the Senate. He dishonestly said that the budget would not add to the debt. However, the Congressional Budget Office found that the budget would add nearly $10 trillionto the national debt over the next decade.

8. Jack Lew Makes Misleading Excuses to Why the Senate Has Not Passed a Budget

The Senate has neglected its basic duty by not passing a budget in nearly four years. When asked about the Senate’s failure to pass a budget on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Lew incorrectly claimed that, “you can’t pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes.” False—it only takes 51 votes to pass a budget.

9. Jack Lew Played a Significant Role in 2011 Debt Ceiling Negotiations

He played a significant role in the failed 2011 debt ceiling negotiations – which resulted in a credit downgrade, a $2 trillion debt hike, and spending cuts that were promised but never materialized. This was a bad deal for Americans that was crafted behind closed doors.

10. Jack Lew Advocates Raising Income Taxes

As director of the Office of Management and Budget, he created a budget that would raise taxes on the top 2 percent of incomes. Raising taxes is never a good idea—especially in these tough economic times. Jack Lew is just another beltway-insider engaged in class warfare against working Americans.

Click here to call your senators and tell them to vote NO during Jack Lew’s confirmation hearing!

Please visit NotJackLew.com!

The debt ceiling debate reached a new level of absurdity when some pundits began tossing around the idea of a $1 trillion coin. Instead of advocating for spending cuts to avoid hitting the $16.4 trillion debt limit, proponents of the one trillion dollar coin believe that the Federal Reserve just needs to create more money. They want the U.S. Treasury to mint a platinum coin, declare it worth $1 trillion, and then deposit it in the Federal Reserve, which will then credit the Treasury’s bank account with one trillion dollars.

Voilà! The federal government has another trillion dollars to spend.

Many have asked, “can they actually do that?” Well, the U.S. Treasury has rejectedthe idea—so it won’t mint any trillion dollar coins. The politically divisive plan would generate too much bad press for the current administration for it to ever happen. But I welcome the discussion about the one trillion dollar coin because it has sparked a broader debate on the Federal Reserve’s funny money.

Some were shocked to find out that minting a one trillion dollar coin does not require $1 trillion worth of platinum. That would be impossible as it would require over 17,000 tons of platinum, which is more than all of the platinum ever mined. The U.S. Treasury could mint a coin with the tiniest amount of platinum and then stamp $1 trillion on it. Or $2 trillion. Or $100 trillion.

How is this even possible? Austrian economist Robert Murphy writes that: 
 

The Federal Reserve has the power to buy whatever assets it wants at whatever price it wants. In principle, Treasury Secretary Geithner could sell a paperclip to the Fed for $2 trillion. The Fed would simply write a check made out to the Treasury, drawn on the Fed itself.

When the Treasury deposited this check with its own bank — which just so happens to be the Fed — then its own “checking account” balance would go up by $2 trillion. [Emphasis mine.]

Why stop at a $1 trillion coin? Why isn’t Paul Krugman advocating a $16 trillion coin? Deep down, I hope, advocates of the coin gimmick realize that rampant inflation would significantly devalue the dollar and cause the prices of goods and services to skyrocket.

But here’s the interesting thing: the Federal Reserve doesn’t even need any platinum coins or material goods to print more money. It simply prints money out of thin air all the time and there is no limit on how much it can print. Since the financial crisis hit in 2008, the Federal Reserve has created more than two trillion dollars. Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff explains that the Fed has done the one trillion dollar coin trick before—just without the coin:

Indeed, over the past five years, the Treasury has, in effect, done its $1 trillion coin trick twice.

Come again?

Well, substitute a $2 trillion piece of paper called a Treasury bond for the platinum coin.  Suppose the Treasury prints up such a piece of paper and hands it to the Fed and the Fed puts $2 trillion into its account.  No difference right, except for the lack of platinum.

It makes you wonder why such outrage about the trillion dollar coin in the mainstream press—but not a lot of outrage about our current monetary policy. Professor Kolikoff goes on to say:

In 2007, the monetary base – the amount of money our government printed in its entire 231 years of existence totaled $800 billion.  Today it totals $2.8 trillion.  And it increased by this amount via the process just described – the Treasury’s effective minting out of thin air two $1 trillion platinum coins.

Perhaps we owe the advocates of the trillion dollar coin a thank you for highlighting the problems with our current monetary problem. More people are now aware that the Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air– the dollar is not backed by anything, it only has value because the government says so.

Enough with the fake funny money… is it time to End the Fed? Let us know in the comments below.