Free Republic

Bill O'Reilly is mad at me because I'm not mad enough about taxes. Last week on "The O'Reilly Factor", we talked about California's and New York's enormous budget deficits and planned tax increases. Those states would have big surpluses had they just grown their governments in pace with inflation. But of course they didn't. Now the politicians act like their current deficits are something imposed on them by the recession. But that's nonsense. They created the problem with their reckless spending. Let's look at the particulars. Had the government of New York state grown at the rate of population and...

The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago today. When it happened, I thought it would be the clear turning point: the left would admit it was wrong, if not clueless, about central planning. But it was I who was wrong. Congress legislates like the Wall never fell. There was one bad thing about the fall of the USSR: We lost a very visible bad example of big centralized government. With Washington now turning to central planning to “fix” healthcare, clean the environment, and “create” jobs, it’s helpful to have role models of failure. They remind citizens of the politicians’ arrogance....

Click on the link to view the video. It's about half-way down the page.

When an initial report by a government oversight board claimed President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan had already resulted in 30,000 jobs, the White House said that was evidence the stimulus was working. Now the Associated Press has reviewed the stimulus contracts and found, oops, the government exaggerated the job numbers. You always suspected your money was being flushed away. Now you have proof.

I worked in TV news for 30+ years, and this is one of the best peices I have ever seen. This is a MUST WATCH! Send the link to everyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9GMKK_fWKg

t's time for a change. Next month, I leave ABC News to start a weekly one-hour prime time show with Fox News. When I announced that on my blog, plenty of viewers said they were happy to have me leave. "Goodbye. You suck. You have found a much better home for your garbage reporting and backwards politics." "Congratulations on the move to the network intellectually suited to your quasi-libertarian corporate-apologist hackery!" Oh well, you can't please everyone. I don't expect that my libertarian beliefs will please everyone at Fox, either. Years ago, ABC hired me to do consumer reporting. When...

Worth watching

Amid all the conflicting reports on cable TV and the Internet as to whether or not the filmmakers who secretly taped two ACORN employees in Baltimore violated any law, let me add one historical fact that might bring a bit of clarity and context to the discusssion. The Baltimore State's Attorney's office has brought felony charges in the past for what was alleged to be essentially the same act as that committed by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the two who did the secret taping at ACORN.

Another libertarian-leaning journalist, John Stossel, is joining the Fox News – Fox Business cable lineup. Video links to John Stossel on gun control (it increases crime), the ethanol scam, and others.

Award-winning journalist John Stossel is joining FOX News Channel and FOX Business Network. Stossel, best known for his work as co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20," will anchor "Stossel," a weekly program on FOX Business Network, and make regular appearances on FOX News Channel, it was announced Thursday. The one-hour program will feature in-depth reports on domestic and international libertarian issues and will debut during the fourth quarter of this year in FBN's primetime lineup. Stossel and a panel of experts will explore a wide range of topics including civil liberties, the business of health care and Social Security. He will...

ABC anchor John Stossel, a libertarian whose work earned him fiercely loyal fans at the same time he caused headaches for the network, is jumping to Fox. He's trading a much bigger platform for the promise of more time on the air. Stossel will have a weekly show on the Fox Business Network, exploring libertarianism and consumer issues, and make frequent appearances on Fox News Channel, the network said on Thursday.

First on TVNewser: John Stossel, the longtime ABC News correspondent and co-anchor of "20/20," is leaving ABC to join Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. TVNewser has learned Stossel will host a weekly, one-hour program for the 2-year-old business channel. He's expected to signed a multi-year deal with Fox which will include regular appearances on Fox News Channel during daytime and primetime. He'll also host four, hour-long specials on Fox News, much like the business/consumer specials he'd hosted for years on ABC. Stossel, a libertarian, has been appearing on Fox News for years as a guest on shows including...

It's time for a change. In one month, I leave ABC News. In October, I will join the folks at Fox. I plan to do a one hour prime time show every week on FBN, the Fox Business Channel, and contribute to various existing programs on Fox News Channel. I’m grateful to ABC News for allowing me to do stories that challenged conventional wisdom, and occasionally enraged many of its viewers. But it’s said that everyone should change jobs every 7 years. I’ve been at ABC for 28 years ... In my new job, I want to dig into the...

After decades as a reporter and host on "20/20" and other ABC News shows, John Stossel is leaving the network for a multiyear deal with Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, according to TVNewser. Stossel reportedly is going to host a weekly show on Fox Business and a quartet of hourlong specials for Fox News. He's expected to make regular appearances on Fox News Channel during daytime and primetime

First on TVNewser: John Stossel, the longtime ABC News correspondent and co-anchor of "20/20," is leaving ABC to join Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. TVNewser has learned Stossel will host a weekly, one-hour program for the 2-year-old business channel. He's expected to signed a multi-year deal with Fox which will include regular appearances on Fox News Channel during daytime and primetime. He'll also host four, hour-long specials on Fox News, much like the business/consumer specials he'd hosted for years on ABC. Stossel, a libertarian, has been appearing on Fox News for years as a guest on shows including...

I wish President Obama would say to Congress: Members of Congress, I ask you to address our fiscal emergency. In 1964, President Johnson won a landslide victory -- quite similar to mine. His election also brought liberals into Congress. The next year, they created the first government-run health care plan: Medicare. They meant well, but unfortunately, this was the height of fiscal irresponsibility. I know Medicare is popular with the elderly. Of course it is. Everyone likes getting free things. But it is unsustainable. Retirees believe that their Medicare bills are paid from a "trust fund" that was created with...

John Stosel can always be counted on to make those on the left look silly without seeming to attack them. We should play this over and over for every idiot who wants Obama care.

"There will be death panels if we do nothing," Stossel said of Medicare, using the phrase that former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin made famous in relation to the health-reform bill, which does not directly affect Medicare.

"Choice, competition, reducing costs -- those are the things that I want to see accomplished in this health reform bill," President Obama told talk-show host Michael Smerconish last week. Choice and competition would be good. They would indeed reduce costs. If only the president meant it. Or understood it. In a free market, a business that is complacent about costs learns that its prices are too high when it sees lower-cost competitors winning over its customers. The market -- actually, the consumer -- holds businesses accountable and keeps them honest. No "public option" is needed. So the hope for reducing...

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s supporters promised that his election would allow America to “transcend race." Among the headlines: The Boston Globe: "Obama shows an ability to transcend race” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Obama's success suggests we can transcend race” But of course that hasn’t happened. Jonah Goldberg writes: It was Obama’s supporters who hinted, teased, promised, and prophesied that Obama would help America “transcend race.” But now, it is they who shrink from their own promised land… From Day 1, Obama’s supporters have tirelessly cultivated the idea that anything inconvenient for the first black president just might be terribly,...

False charges about Obamacare don't help. Like the end-of-life tempest. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin popularized the term "death panels." She said: "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care". The charge that the House and Senate health care bills would mandate end-of-life counseling -- hence "death panels" -- caught on. Rush Limbaugh, defending Palin's...

Here is video of ABC's John Stossel destroying Government Health Care with a report that reveals the shocking truth of what it would mean for Americans. He points out that Canadians wait an average of 23 hours when they go to an Emergency Room. A CT Scan takes a month to obtain there as well. Stossel points out it will lead to longer waiting times for everything and rationed care. The result: The reality is that people will die while they wait. He even shows a town in Canada that has a lottery to even get a family doctor! This...

ABC 20/20 Takes on Health Care Reform with John Stossel. He takes on the Canadian health care system.

Canadian Health Care: A Viable Model? John Stossel discovers some dead-serious drawbacks to socialized medicine.

Teaser at 7:15PM EST. (probably will come on last segment before 0 press conference at 8:00)

It's crazy for a group of mere mortals to try to design 15 percent of the U.S. economy. It's even crazier to do it by August. Yet that is what some members of Congress presume to do. They intend, as the New York Times puts it, "to reinvent the nation's health care system".Let that sink in. A handful of people who probably never even ran a small business actually think they can reinvent the health care system. Politicians and bureaucrats clearly have no idea how complicated markets are. Every day people make countless tradeoffs, in all areas of life, based...

JOHN Stossel is telling his own network "Give me a break!" after it pulled his health-case insurance segment off the air to give more time to the death of Michael Jackson.

Media types often have a habit of masking their true beliefs in their online blogs in attempt to maintain the fiction that they are "unbiased." One such blog that comes to mind is the Daily Nightly blog of Brian Williams in which he attempts (not always successfully) to hide his liberal bias to an extent that it comes off as quite inane. In fact, your humble correspondent has labeled the Williams blog as the Daily Dully. In stark contrast to the Williams ennui is the new John Stossel blog of ABC News, John Stossel's Take, which began less than two...

From pregnancy discrimination laws to doing less for senior citizens, from farming endangered animals to letting athletes do steroids, John Stossel brings us his take on tough subjects in an hour-long report, “You Can’t Even Talk About It,” airing on “20/20,” FRIDAY, MAY 8 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. Reports include:America Needs to Do Less for Its Senior Citizens...The Best Way to Save Many Endangered Species Is to Eat Them.... Rescuing Risk Takers

Did you go to preschool? When I was growing up, few kids did. But now there is a new movement that says every child in America should have a chance to start school before kindergarten -- at taxpayer expense. It's part of President Obama's massive spending plans. His "stimulus" bill includes an Early Learning Challenge Grant to encourage states to "Develop a cutting-edge plan to raise the quality of your early learning programs" (http://tinyurl.com/cv6s23). It's a popular idea. Sixty-seven percent of Americans favor universal pre-K funded by the government. But I doubt that most Americans have thought it through. Mia...

I'm sick of hearing that America is no longer a land of opportunity. Even before the current recession, politicians and pundits were constantly wringing their hands about the "demise of the middle class." "Middle class families are struggling," President Barack Obama kept saying on the campaign trail. Lou Dobbs hammers away at this night after night: "What's left of our middle class may be on the verge of collapse." And author Barbara Ehrenreich won fame by claiming that it's almost impossible for an entry-level worker to make it in America. She wrote "Nickel and Dimed," a book that describes her...

John Stossel looks at the logic behind the bailout/stimulus culture our government is pushing. It's frustrating that the few sane voices in the mainstream media are drowned out by the propogandists.

For John Stossel fans -- looks like it'll cover bailout stuff but maybe also libertarian whining about illegal immigration and marijuana legalization enough to get freepers raging. Nevertheless, looking forward to it.

How will we know if President Obama's must-have "stimulus" program succeeds? Politicians grab credit for everything, so we should come up with a way to measure success. Obama said, "I expect to be judged by results." Let's oblige him. It won't be easy. Obama promises to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs, but if the unemployment rate is unchanged in four years, do we credit Obama for saving 3.5 million jobs that would have been lost? If new jobs are created, should stimulus get the credit? If the gain is in the government sector or in areas fed by taxpayer...

Washington never changes, no matter who's in power. Give a gang of politicians a chance to spend our money, and they will spend it -- the more the better. An economic downturn is hog heaven; for now they have a justification to spend big time: "economic stimulus." Anything and everything can be proposed as long as it can be said to "inject money into the economy" and "create jobs." Does $819 billion sound like too much? Au contraire. It may not be enough. Ask Paul Krugman and the other Keynesians. The danger, they say, lies in spending too little. Not...

A college diploma is supposed to be the ticket to the good life. Colleges and politicians tell students, "Your life will be much better if you go to college. On average during your lifetime you will earn a million dollars more if you get a bachelor's degree." Barack Obama, stumping on the campaign trail, said, "We expect all our children not only to graduate high school, but to graduate college." Rachele Percel heard the promises. She borrowed big to pay about $24,000 a year to attend Rivier College in New Hampshire. She got a degree in human development. "I...

Glenn Beck interviews John Stossel on the subject.

Bernard Madoff, who stands accused of bilking sophisticated investors out of $50 billion, is reported to have told two of his executives that his business was "a giant Ponzi scheme." Perpetrators of Ponzi schemes lead clients to believe their money is invested and that their profits are the fruits of the money manager's savvy. But in fact, the "profits" are merely revenue provided by the next group of dupes. Eventually, when no more new dupes can be found, the scheme crashes. Political leaders say Madoff's alleged crimes show what's wrong with the country. President-elect Obama said the "massive fraud that...

Righteous indignation over allegations about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s “pay to play” brazenness camouflages the corruption inherent in all government.

(John) Stossel says, ''Give me a break,'' politicians' ''fixes'' often have unintended consequences that are worse than the original problem. Do we really need a president to plan our lives, to direct us? Or does most of life work best when you are in charge?

Imagine you had never seen a skating rink. I tell you, "I'm going to invite 100 people down to strap blades to their feet and race around as they like." You say, "That's insane! Someone must coordinate all those people." Yet we know that the skaters' actions are coordinated, though not through central planning. There are predictable and understandable rules, but within them, people are free. In promoting my interest in avoiding a collision with you, I also promote your interest in avoiding a collision with me. Economics Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek called it spontaneous order. The market system is...

The bailout passed! Too bad. When so many politicians speak with one voice in support of the biggest act of government intervention in the economy in generations, I cringe. Everybody talked about the "freeze" in the credit markets, but why, I wonder, were the cable news programs that repeated the credit-freeze mantra pausing for commercials from companies trying to lend me money? Ditech and LendingTree still hawk mortgages at under 6 percent. Some credit freeze. Economist Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute looked at the credit numbers kept by the Federal Reserve. He writes: "Although certain financial institutions are undeniably...

COMPLAINTS ABOUT racism still dominate media discussion of the disparity between black and white success. Comedian Chris Rock tells white audiences, "None of ya would change places with me! And I'm rich! That's how good it is to be white!" I assumed that the success of Barack Obama, as well as thousands of other black Americans and dark-skinned immigrants -- many of whom thrive despite language problems -- demonstrates that America today is largely a colorblind meritocracy. But a white campus lecturer, Tim Wise, gets tremendous applause from students by saying things like, "[W]hite supremacy and privilege continue to skew...

It's amazing how ideas with no merit become popular merely because they sound good. Most every politician and pundit says "energy independence" is a great idea. Presidents have promised it for 35 years. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were self-sufficient, protected from high prices, supply disruptions and political machinations? The hitch is that even if the United States were energy independent, it would be protected from none of those things. To think otherwise is to misunderstand basic economics and the global marketplace. To be for "energy independence" is to be against trade. But trade makes us as safe. Crop...

In this column I often take a skeptical look at liberal scare-mongering about global warming and cancer threats from pesticides, Teflon frying pans, plastic bottles, cell phones, etc. The liberal scaremongers' solution is always: more government. But conservatives scare people, too. When I was growing up, most everyone agreed that it would be a terrible thing if young people were exposed to sex. It must be kept out of sight. When an obviously pregnant Lucille Ball appeared on "I Love Lucy," it was a controversial television breakthrough. Yet the word "pregnant" was never uttered. Simply saying the word was taboo....

'It's been described as the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. And it brings with it grave dangers for all American families," said Martin Bashir on "Nightline." "Recession looms ..." On the "Today" show June 20, David Faber referred to "the recession ... these tough economic times." Yet that very day first-quarter gross domestic product was revised upward again to 1%. America is not in recession, and who knows — maybe we'll be less likely to have one if my compatriots would just chill. A recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth. We haven't even...

"It's been described as the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. And it brings with it grave dangers for all American families ... ," said Martin Bashir on "Nightline." "Recession looms .... " On the "Today" show June 20, David Faber referred to "the recession ... these tough economic times." Yet that very day first-quarter GDP was revised upward again to 1 percent. America is not in recession, and who knows -- maybe we'll be less likely to have one if my compatriots would just chill. A recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth. We...

"I believe there needs to be a thorough and complete investigation of speculators to find out whether speculation has been going on and, if so, how much it has affected the price of a barrel of oil. There's a lot of things out there that need a lot more transparency and, consequently, oversight." Those are the words of presidential candidate John McCain. This man is the Republican? There's more. "I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they've made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate...

The other day, reading the New York Post's popular Page Six gossip page, I was surprised to find a picture of me, followed by the lines: "ABC'S John Stossel wants the government to stop interfering with your right to get high. The crowd went silent at his call to legalize hard drugs". I had attended a Marijuana Policy Project event celebrating the New York State Assembly's passage of a medical-marijuana bill. (The bill hasn't passed the Senate.) I told the audience I thought it pathetic that the mere half passage of a bill to allow sick people to try a...

Friday's 20/20 aired a piece on liberal columnist Arianna Huffington in which ABC host John Stossel got to challenge Huffington's views on issues like welfare, OSHA regulations, and the "lunatic fringe" of the Republican party. When Stossel took her to task for living in a $7 million home that is "burning more carbon than 100 people in the Third World" even while she is part of the "war on global warming," Huffington responded: "There is no question that the fact that I'm living in a big house, I occasionally travel on private planes, all those things are a contradiction. I'm...