United Liberty

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) is right on questioning the Federal Reserve and pushing for an audit, however, his recent comments saying Republicans want people to die because they oppose ObamaCare is absurd:

He took his comments further today, calling our current health system “holocaust”:

The Pittsburgh-Post Gazette’s Jack Kelly reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was not happy with the way Preisdent Obama handled the Iran issue last week:

Nicolas Sarkozy was furious with Barack Obama for his adolescent warbling about a world without nuclear weapons at a meeting Mr. Obama chaired of the United Nations Security Council last Thursday (9/24).

“We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth,” President Obama said.

What infuriated President Sarkozy was that at the time Mr. Obama said those words, Mr. Obama knew the mullahs in Iran had a secret nuclear weapons development site, and he didn’t call them on it.

‘President Obama dreams of a world without weapons…but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite,” Mr. Sarkozy said.

“Iran since 2005 has flouted five Security Council resolutions,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “North Korea has been defying Council resolutions since 1993.”

“What good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community?” he asked rhetorically. “More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe out a UN member state off the map.”

If the Security Council had imposed serious sanctions on the regimes which are flouting UN resolutions, the resolution Mr. Obama proposed about working toward nuclear disarmament wouldn’t have been so meaningless, Mr. Sarkozy implied.

Take a look at this graph from the folks at the Mercatus Center. You can read more about the graph here

H/T: Reason

The Supreme Court will hear another Second Amendment case (McDonald v. Chicago) to determine whether the Second Amendment applies at the state and local levels. The Court will hear the case after the first of the year, according to the Washington Post.

Alan Gura, who argued and won the Heller case, is the lead attorney and will, presumably, argue this case before the Court.

You can read background on the case over at SCOTUSblog.

Ron Paul was on The Daily show last night talking about his new book, End the Fed:

Two separate amendments for the government-run option, also called the “public option,” were shot down in the Senate Finance Committee this afternoon:

After five hours of debate, the Senate Finance Committee this afternoon voted down Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s proposal for a public option to compete with private insurers.

Though a majority of the committee’s Democrats supported it, the amendment was defeated overwhelmingly, 15-8. The proposal sought to create a public health insurance option that would set rates like Medicare does.

Democrats that voted against Rockfeller’s amendment were:

• Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
• Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE)
• Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND)
• Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
• Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL)

Sen. Chuck Schumer offered an amendment for a “market-responsive public option,” according to the article linked above. Schumer’s amendment was the “trigger” for a government-run option. It was defeated 13 to 10, with Nelson and Carper switching over.

Essentially, if the market didn’t meet certain statutory or regulatory (ie. government) demands over a certain period of time, the government-run option would kick-in.

Good news, but the Senate Finance Committee is still working and that means you have time to call your Senator and express your view that they work toward real free-market solutions.

Ludwig von Mises, widely regarded as the father of what is now called Austrian economics, was born 128 years ago today.

I’ve gotten slack on updating this, but after four weeks of college football, we have some emerging leaders in the United Liberty College Football Challenge.

Brad Warbiany of Liberty Papers fame is running away from the rest of the pack, even though his Purdue Boilermakers aren’t. Our own Matt Wittlief is in striking distince. Right behind him is Steve Handel, husband of Georgia’s Secretary of State and gubernatorial hopeful.

Here how it looks thus far:

1. bwarbiany (Brad Warbiany) - 581 points
2. Winning Ugly (Matt Wittlief) -  542
3. Bring It On (Steve Handel) - 541
4. JaseLiberty (Jason Pye) - 508
5. Marcus’ Picks (Marcus Adams) - 467
6. CarpeForem (Daniel N. Adams) - 447
7. rockjohnson98 (Brett Bittner) - 421
8. Liberty Dawgs (Tyler Burgess) - 410

We’ll do another update in a couple of weeks. The winner gets a $25 gift card to the resturant of their choice.

A plurality of Americans oppose sending more troops into Afghanistan, fearing it will turn into another Vietnam:

Americans are closely divided over whether the United States should send more troops to fight the war in Afghanistan, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Thirty-seven percent (37%) say yes to sending more troops, while 40% say no. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure.

[…]

Two-out-of-three Americans (66%) are now at least somewhat concerned that the war in Afghanistan will become another Vietnam for the United States. Thirty-eight percent (38%) are very concerned.

It’s unclear what the Obama Administration will do at this point.