Three Who Saved the West

Margaret Thatcher with Ronald Reagan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My thought has always been that Reagan, Churchill, and Thatcher were the greatest leaders of the 20th century. They revived moribund economies, social systems, and military retrenchment. Along with John Paul II these 3 defeated socialism, fascism, Nazism, communism, and progressivism. Now that socialism has returned, who will rise to the challenge? God bless you Margaret Thatcher...T

And now the last of them is gone. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II—three who won the Cold War and, it isn't too much to say, saved the West (at least for a while!)—are no longer with us. Their examples remain.

They knew what they believed but also knew they had to justify their beliefs, and that one could adjust prudently to circumstances without yielding on principle. They stood firm when in power, and they took risks to get there, challenging the conventional wisdom and the respective establishments of their nations or institutions. They were conservative but not nostalgic, and would counsel us today against excessive nostalgia for their deeds and their days. They would rather, I suspect, urge that we act in their spirit—what one might call a spirit of unapologetic but reformist conservatism.

Whittaker Chambers wrote at the end of his last letter to Bill Buckley, “Each age finds its own language for an eternal meaning.” So each age has to find its own leaders for an eternal task—the defense and renewal of civilization. The death of Margaret Thatcher is a healthy reminder to students of politics of the difficulty, the gravity, and also the nobility of this task.

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The GOP: Delusional, Schizophrenic or Just Plain Stupid?

This from Bernie Goldberg today: Couldn't have said it better myself. Doesn't anyone in the GOP remember Ronald Reagan and his conservatism?...T

Another day of political news reports. Another day of flip-flops, ridiculously late recognition of the obvious and disjointed and dispiriting dribble from the Grand Old Party. Geez…can they possibly be this mindless and out of touch? Yes, me thinks.

Where in the world to start? There’s enough material for a whole season’s worth of political sitcom episodes…perhaps titled Bozos and Bureaucrats.

I read RNC chairman Reince Priebus “wants to explore the possibility of choosing who actually asks the questions during the debates.” Imagine that. The equivocations in his statement turn one’s stomach.

But, perhaps we should be thankful Priebus stumbled upon a glaring flash of the obvious: the deck has been stacked again Republicans and Conservatives (note the distinction) in presidential debates for, oh, let’s give it thirty years or so.

Perhaps if Priebus remains in his current position another thirty years his growing observational acuity will reveal another revelation, something small, not really significant…like not going to political gunfights with down-filled pillows.

We have good ‘ol John Boehner, God love him. He didn’t trust Obama, but now he does. He once believed the massive deficit is a fatal affliction; now it threatens the country’s financial health no more than a hangnail. He vowed to repeal Obamacare, now he doesn’t. What am I missing here?

And, according to Erick Erickson, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and that stalwart defender of conservatism Mitch McConnell (just kidding) continue to talk the talk of Obamacare repeal, but, in reality are caving like the French Army in 1940.

John McCain and his sidekick Lindsey Graham are always good for a flashback…to the good old days of a permanent Republican minority in the Senate. Go along, get along and relish the positive press coverage for reaching across the aisle to the always reasonable and compromising Democrats.

But…it seems Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are getting a little frisky, not laying low in the bunker. The whacko birds are causing a little heartburn in the so called ‘world’s greatest deliberative body.’ John and Lindsey ain’t real happy about it.

Anybody wonder why four million Republicans sat out the 2012 election?

If you answered that question correctly, here’s another.

Does anyone not understand why that pesky talk of a third party just won’t go away?
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Congressional Supercommittee Is Super Divided - But has Time-Tested Solution at Hand!

"The Kennedy across-the-board tax rates in the 1960s. The Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s, followed by the broader and bipartisan tax reforms of 1986 that got rid of a number of tax breaks, exemptions and other loopholes in order to lower the rates, cutting the top marginal rate to 28 percent as Toomey would do now. And let's not forget the Republicans' pro-growth capital gains tax cut President Clinton signed in his second term that unleashed a wave of high tech capital investment that led to full employment and a budget surplus"

So we are apparently to see from this "Super Committee" a package of phony budget cuts and massive real time defence cuts, all because the democrats will agree to cut NOTHING after Osama has increased spending by 4 trillion $ in 3 years, more that all the previous administrations in US history, combined, from Washington through Bush.

The above quote demonstrates 2 things:

- 1: There is a time tested alternative that would work, as it always has, and would raise revenues, as the democrats demand, which also means ...

- 2 The democrats DON'T WANT REVENUE, they want to tear down those who have, in the name of fairness. Whatever happened to the concept of "a rising tide lifts all boats"?

Conclusion: It ain't gonna happen! Our best alternative for now is to let the sequestration occur, and next time, don't cave when time to raise the debt limit comes. When Romney or Newt is president, and we control the Senate, all this can be reversed...T

Sen. Pat Toomey, the GOP's fiercest anti-tax warrior, stunned the supercommittee when he proposed raising taxes to break the impasse over cutting the government's monster debt.

The freshman Pennsylvania Republican has impeccable conservative credentials. Before he ran for the Senate last year, he ran the Club for Growth, an anti-tax, pro business political action committee that supported GOP House and Senate candidates who fought tax hikes, even knocking off some pro-tax Republican incumbents in party primaries.

Toomey's move was denounced by the Democrats who refused play his game, saying his plan didn't do enough to raise revenues. It also opened up a deeply divisive split in his own party.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the Republican co-chair of the supercommittee, has sided with Toomey, as have other Republicans, including party leaders. But dozens of members see his plan as a betrayal of the GOP's position against raising taxes at any time, especially in the middle of a weak, high unemployment economy.

Rep. Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina, who calls Hensarling one of his mentors, gathered more than 70 signatures from House Republicans this week on a fire-breathing letter to the panel's leadership that called any tax increases "irresponsible and dangerous to the health of the United States."

But the headlines and the stories about Toomey's tax plan leave out a critical component. While it would cap a number of itemized deductions that taxpayers take, thus raising their taxes, it would also offset those increases by lowering the income tax rates across the board.

Under Toomey's plan, all of the income tax rates would be reduced by as much as 20 percent -- lowering the top rate from 35 percent to 28 percent. The 10 percent bottom tax rate, created under President George W. Bush's 2001 tax cut law, would drop to 8 percent.

The details of these deduction caps are not clear right now and, as a chief analyst of a major business lobbying group told me this week, "the devil is in the details."

Overall, Toomey's plan would reportedly raise $400 billion in additional tax revenue, though an estimated $110 billion of that would be derived from higher economic growth and increased employment.

Supercommittee Democrats argue that his plan would hand huge tax cuts to the wealthy. But GOP aides say that most people in higher income brackets usually take many more deductions to lower their taxable income, so they would on average see their taxes go up.

President Obama and the Democrats are fixated on raising taxes on people who make more than $200,000, as well as small businesses who file as individual taxpayers, major corporations, and investors by raising their capital gains tax rate.

But these taxpayers pay the lion's share of all income taxes. Raise taxes on capital gains and you will get less venture capital investment and a weaker economy. Fewer Americans will sell assets they hold to plow their gains into higher performing, growth investments if the capgains tax rates take a bigger bite out of their profits.

Without knowing the full details of Toomey's plan, he is following a tried and true fiscal path to economic growth. We've had many recessions and downturns in the last five decades, and lowering the tax rates have always helped our economy recover and made it stronger than before.

The Kennedy across-the-board tax rates in the 1960s. The Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s, followed by the broader and bipartisan tax reforms of 1986 that got rid of a number of tax breaks, exemptions and other loopholes in order to lower the rates, cutting the top marginal rate to 28 percent as Toomey would do now.

And let's not forget the Republicans' pro-growth capital gains tax cut President Clinton signed in his second term that unleashed a wave of high tech capital investment that led to full employment and a budget surplus.

Even the Bush tax cuts in in 2001 and 2003 helped us get through several financial catastrophes, cut the deficit in half and produced a 4.7 percent unemployment rate in 2007 just before the subprime, home foreclosure scandal drove us into severe recession.

Still, it is hard to see this bitterly divided supercommittee producing a well thought out growth incentive plan under such a tight deadline, before Thanksgiving.

The driving force behind its creation in the federal debt limit battle was a series of annual budget deficits under Barack Obama's presidency that climbed to $1.5 trillion in his first year and hit $1.3 trillion this year. The total federal debt now stands at a whopping $15 trillion.

But the members of the supercommittee say they are no nearer to a deal now than when they began. They have agreed on a large number of spending cuts, but clearly the stumbling block remains the issue of taxes. Maybe the best course would be to set that issue aside for the time being, turning it over to the tax-writing panels of Congress, and concentrate on a plan to cut spending.

The supercommittee's mission is to cut at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. That comes out to a little over $100 billion a year out of a nearly $4 trillion annual budget that wastes more than that sum each and every year.

If they can't agree on even that amount in savings, then I say, let the automatic budget cuts -- triggered under the debt limit deal -- begin.
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NO WAY OBAMA WINS IN 2012

"As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said — outrageously and wrongly — about 9/11, “the chickens are coming home to roost.” The policies of this administration — the disastrous overspending, the irresponsible borrowing, the social experimentation — all are magnifying and amplifying the impact of the recession. Relief is not going to come anytime soon.

Instead, the true legacy of the Obama years is likely to be stagflation and an entire decade wiped out by his policies, budget and programs. Long after he is gone in 2013, we will still be repairing the damage of his terrible decisions."

More Jimmy Carter-esque comparisons keep rolling in. This one from Dick Morris flatly states that Obama has NO CHANCE of reelection in two years, and that "stagflation" (recession and inflation) will be Obama's legacy, as was it Jimmuh's in 1980...T

The combination of high oil and gasoline prices, rising food costs, higher health insurance premiums and the likelihood of future inflation has jarred consumer confidence, creating a major crisis for the Obama administration.

The collapse has been sudden and dramatic.

In December, the consumer confidence scale in the Rasmussen Poll stood at 81.7 percent. But in January, euphoria set in. Obama compromised on the George W. Bush tax cuts, the nation seemed to be coming together after the Giffords shooting and a Republican House sat poised to stop any new spending or social experimentation. On Jan. 11, the Rasmussen confidence index rose to 88.3.

Then reality dawned. Unemployment remained persistently high, economic growth was largely stagnant and partisan bickering resumed. The confidence level on Feb. 11 dropped to 84.5.

Then the bottom fell out. The daily Rasmussen polling reflected a drop day after day until, by March 11, the index had fallen to 73.1, its lowest level since it registered a 69 in July of 2009, in the depths of the recession.

The false dawn of January has faded and the hard, cold reality of a likely second recession is setting in. But this recession is accompanied by the likelihood of inflation, a stagflation syndrome that will probably grip America for years. And which will likely take a manmade recession, on the order of 1979-82, to counter it.

Will Obama get reelected? No way! In the teeth of the economic catastrophe that is shaping up, his chances are doomed.

The tsunami in Japan, perhaps the greatest tragedy since 9/11, will further impede any prospect for economic growth. There will be a demand for spending to repair the devastation of the quake. But Japan is tied with China as the world’s second largest economy, generating 12 percent of the global GDP. With Japan neither producing nor buying for the foreseeable future, the drag on the global economy will be profound.

Worse, the Fed and the administration are out of tools to help. Interest rates are already at zero. Fiscal stimulus — the deficit — already consumes 40 percent of our total government outlays. The Fed is printing money at a ferocious rate under its qualitative easing (QE-2) program. What is left to do?

Only dramatic cuts in the federal deficit, a rollback of regulations that cripple small and community banks, a cancellation of future tax increase plans, a big reduction in federal spending, repeal of ObamaCare, freeing manufacturing from the prospect of carbon taxation and unleashing our domestic energy potential can solve our problems. But Obama is not about to undo his legacy of disaster for the American people.

And then there is the longer-term oil and gasoline crisis. Instability in the Middle East is going to mount, not recede. The chances of disruption in Saudi oil supplies and the possibility of an overthrow of the regime (triggered by the best efforts of Iran) will continue to force prices upward. The drag on the economy and the rising consumer discontent in the United States spell further problems for the Obama presidency.

As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said — outrageously and wrongly — about 9/11, “the chickens are coming home to roost.” The policies of this administration — the disastrous overspending, the irresponsible borrowing, the social experimentation — all are magnifying and amplifying the impact of the recession. Relief is not going to come anytime soon.

Instead, the true legacy of the Obama years is likely to be stagflation and an entire decade wiped out by his policies, budget and programs. Long after he is gone in 2013, we will still be repairing the damage of his terrible decisions.
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The Whiniest President Ever

Image via Wikipedia "President Obama gives off a sense of world-weariness and exhaustion with America’s leadership — and has earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. He reflects the deep vein of declinism running through the country’s elite, the same class of people who pronounced the presidency uninhabitable just as Ronald Reagan arrived to prove them wrong.

Today, as in the late 1970s, the job isn’t too big, nor is the country too powerful: The man is too small."

As has been posted numerous times on this site, as elsewhere, the comparisons to the feebly inept Jimmy Carter presidency are too glaring to ignore. The only question remaining becomes: Who shall step forward as our new Reagan, and restore our nation from the devastation of his predecessor, as did his namesake?...T

It was fashionable at the end of the 1970s, after a dreary parade of presidential failures punctuated by Jimmy Carter, to say the presidency had grown too unwieldy. The historian Barbara Tuchman spoke for all the academic and journalistic believers in the theory of the impossible presidency when she mused, “Maybe some form of plural executive is needed, such as they have in Switzerland.”

Ah, yes, the wonders of the plural executive. Why didn’t that occur to James Madison?

Pres. Barack Obama has belatedly joined the ranks of presidential fatalists. The job isn’t too complex necessarily; it’s too damn influential. According to the New York Times, Obama has been telling aides that it’d be easier to be president of China. No one hangs on Hu Jintao’s every word, or expects global leadership from a grasping, one-party state that has never been a beacon to the world.

In the history of presidential lamentations, this has to rank among the most pathetic. It brings to mind the affecting scene from The King’s Speech when Colin Firth, playing the stammering monarch-to-be, breaks down and weeps at the prospect of the crown being thrust upon him: “I’m not a king.” Except Barack Obama campaigned for two years straight to be president of the United States — and doesn’t stutter.

The proximate cause of Obama’s angst is the crisis in Libya. Obama announced that Moammar Qaddafi must go, and proceeded to do nothing that might give his words any bite. The administration is still agonizing over the no-fly zone, even as Qaddafi routs the rebels. The no-fly zone isn’t a panacea — realistically, it’d only be a way station to more robust military action. Perhaps the administration wants to rule it out. Fine. But decide already. If Obama wasn’t going to aid the rebels in any way — not even recognize their provisional government, not even arm them — he should have modulated his words accordingly.

Obama lacks executive flair. Talk to New Jersey governor Chris Christie and he will tell you at length how much he loves making decisions. It’s hard to imagine a Chris Christie enjoying life as a legislator. Obama came to the presidency after a political career spent marinating in senates, first in Illinois, then in Washington.

Osama bin Laden famously talked of the weak horse and the strong horse. Obama is the show horse. As a U.S. senator, he distinguished himself more by saying things than by passing legislation. In the White House, he has replicated his role as the non-legislating legislator on a grand scale. His successes have been as the leader of the Democrats in Congress, although even here, the word “leader” applies only loosely. He set the broad goals and gave the speeches; otherwise, he let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid run riot.

The stakes of Obama’s self-imposed passivity aren’t as dire as those of Pres. James Buchanan, who pleaded powerlessness as the country fell apart around him on the cusp of the Civil War. William Seward commented acerbically: “[He] shows conclusively that it is the duty of the president to execute the laws — unless somebody opposes him; and that no state has a right to go out of the Union — unless it wants to.” Nor has President Obama reached the depths of a Jimmy Carter, who literally disappeared in the run-up to his infamous 1979 “malaise” speech.

At the dawn of America’s global power, a bumptious Theodore Roosevelt raced to make America’s influence felt around the world — and earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. President Obama gives off a sense of world-weariness and exhaustion with America’s leadership — and has earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. He reflects the deep vein of declinism running through the country’s elite, the same class of people who pronounced the presidency uninhabitable just as Ronald Reagan arrived to prove them wrong.

Today, as in the late 1970s, the job isn’t too big, nor is the country too powerful: The man is too small.
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Milton Friedman - Free To Choose

Idea Channel TV - "Free To Choose" by Milton Friedman

The great Milton Friedman passed away 4 years ago, and he is sorely missed, as basic economic thruths are being stoood on their head evey day by the fascist Obama administration.

Thanks to IdeaChannel.tv, everyone can again view, for free, this classic exposition of free market economics, and what happens when they are ignored, "Free To Choose" which first aired in 1980 and propelled the election of Ronald Reagan, and the enactment of the Kemp-Roth tax cuts...T


In honor of Milton Friedman, we are streaming the ground-breaking Free To Choose series as it originally aired in 1980 as well as an updated 1990 version. If you missed the PBS premiere of "The Power of Choice" it is available here.
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FOX News Sunday - Limbaugh Assails Obama's 'Radical' Agenda, Predicts One-Term Presidency

Rush Limbaugh via last.fm

Rush Limbaugh assails the Obama administration for its economic "stimulus" (fascism funding bill) package, health care reform plan (fascist takeover of the US economy) and alleged uncertainty (unilateral, American hating, surrender to our enemies) over the way forward in Afghanistan - T


President Obama is pursuing a "radical" agenda that is putting the economy and national security in peril, talk show host Rush Limbaugh told "Fox News Sunday," giving the young president failing grades across the board and standing by his sustained criticism of the administration.

The conservative radio host assailed the administration for its economic stimulus package, health care reform plan and alleged uncertainty over the way forward in Afghanistan. In a wide-ranging interview, he called Obama a "child" driven by his "out-of-this-world ego."

And he predicted that Obama, who built a broad-based majority over Republican candidate John McCain a year ago, would not win a second term.

"I'm really, really worried. We've never seen this kind of radical leadership at such a high level of power in the country," Limbaugh said. "I don't think we're better off in any way it could be measured."

Limbaugh is one of the administration's fiercest critics and has often found himself in the White House crosshairs as a result. Top White House aides blasted Limbaugh earlier in the year for saying he wanted Obama to fail as president.

Months later, Limbaugh has only doubled down on his criticism.

"He's immature, he's inexperienced -- in over his head," Limbaugh said of the president. He repeated former Vice President Dick Cheney's charge that Obama is "dithering" on deciding a strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

And Limbaugh scoffed at the administration's claim that hundreds of thousands of jobs have been saved or created by February's economic stimulus package, saying the government has become the job engine -- not the private sector.

"I believe that the economy is under siege," he said.

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod, reacting to the interview Sunday, downplayed Limbaugh's comments, saying: "We'll let Mr. Limbaugh foment."

"I think it's a surreal day when you're getting lectures on humility from Rush Limbaugh. ... The fact is that he is an entertainer," Axelrod told CBS' "Face the Nation." "But I think the American people are well-served and believe they're well-served."

Limbaugh also blasted the Democrats' health care bills as a front that would steal money from American businesses and effect the partial takeover of the private sector.

"This is not about insuring the uninsured -- this is not about health care," Limbaugh said. "This is about stealing one-sixth of the U.S. private sector and putting it under the control of the federal government."

Limbaugh warned that the legislation currently being worked out in Congress would amount to massive encroachments on personal and private behavior, much of which would fall under the purview of the legislation.

"And when they get this health care bill -- if they do -- that's the easiest, fastest way for them to be able to regulate every aspect of human behavior, because it will all have some related cost to health care -- what you drive, what you eat, where you live, what you do -- and there will be penalties for violating regulation."

Limbaugh said these changes would have a drastic effect on the U.S.: "It's going to be the biggest snatch of freedom and liberty that has yet occurred in this country."

Though he criticized the Republican Party for lacking a clear leader or message that can unify Americans, Limbaugh nevertheless predicted anti-Democratic Party sentiment will propel Republicans to victory in 2010.

"I know that there is an eruption waiting to happen at the ballot box," he said.

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GOP Should Run Against the Power of the Center

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The argument has been frustrating.

We have the Colin Powell types demanding we draw and quarter the Rush Limbaugh's and abandon conservatism. It's just not fashionable, you see! We should just manage big government better than the democrooks.

Then there are the purists. Preferably start a new party, but at the very least, kick all the RINO's and McCain's to the curb! The republicans are worse than the democrats and must all lose, so that we can then win.

I've always thought both of these schools of thought were self defeating, for yes, we need to stand for limited government and constitutional jurisprudence, but there will never be enough of us to form a lasting majority. We must get better at teaching, explaining, and finding thoughtful, principled candidates, as well as finding some answer to the leftist, statist media monopoly that feeds the cancer of socialism that has befallen us. Reagan is the prototype. Idealistic, educated, dedicated to a purpose, not to a career, and yet appealing to centrists and democrats because he could explain conservatism in simple ways that people are instinctively drawn to and can't ignore.

Mr. Barone has hit on a perfect message to which we can only hope the GOP is listening!...T

"So I think Republicans today should be less interested in moving toward the center and more interested in running against the center. Here I mean a different "center" -- not a midpoint on an opinion spectrum, but rather the centralized government institutions being created and strengthened every day. This is a center that is taking over functions fulfilled in a decentralized way by private individuals, firms and markets.

...To govern is to choose, as John F. Kennedy said, and those in charge of these new centralized institutions are making choices that inevitably favor some and hurt others. Unsurprisingly, the politically well connected tend to get the favors. Banks forced to take government money are now blocked from paying it back and in the meantime must direct funds where the government wants them to go...when government gets this intertwined with the private sector, when it makes decisions not based on neutral economic criteria but by what is at best guesswork about the allocation and valuation of vast amounts of capital, bailout favoritism and crony capitalism are inevitable.

...It's arguably good policy as well as good politics to run against this over-powerful center. Bailout favoritism and crony capitalism not only misallocate economic resources, they also sap faith in the fairness of our institutions. After World War II, Democrats wanted to retain wartime high taxes, pro-union labor laws, and wage and price controls -- all manipulatable for political benefit by political insiders. Republicans ran in 1946 on the theme of "Had enough?" and won big enough majorities to lower taxes, revise labor laws and abolish controls.

The 1946 Republicans didn't move to the center. They ran against the power of the center and permanently redefined where the center of the political spectrum was. That's a path today's Republicans might want to consider.
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Daniel Hannan Speaks! Outcry against Obama agenda heard around the world

How sad is it that it takes the Prime Minister of an former communist country, the Czech Republic, to point out that we are following the road to socialism, which is the road to ruin? Isn't that the duty of the er, republican party? What am I missing here?

With that being said, this man, Daniel Hannan, an MP in the United Kingdom, and an member of the European parliament (MEP), say what they should be saying! He says it, though, with greater force, intellect, and clarity than anyone this author has heard since Ronald Reagan...T

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EU leader condemns US ‘road to hell’

Franklin D. Roosevelt (via last.fm)

Two things here: One, it's not just "right wingers" who believe Obama is giving us worldwide socialism - it's much of the rest of the world, too!

The other, second point is that he is right. Roosevelt DID cause the great depression to last for over a decade! GDP was no larger in 1940 than it was in 1930. Anyone who had money would have been a fool to invest it when FDR was taking %90 of all cash in the system!

Also, no, Financial Times, it's NOT just "a view held by a small handful of right wing economists" that FDR is to blame - unless you include Milton Friedman and thousands of mainstream economists worldwide!...T

European Union hopes for a new era in relations with the US were thrown into chaos on Wednesday when the holder of the EU presidency condemned American remedies for the global recession as “the road to hell”...

“The US Treasury secretary talks about permanent action and we, at our spring council, were quite alarmed at that . . . The US is repeating mistakes from the 1930s, such as wide-ranging stimuluses, protectionist tendencies and appeals, the Buy American campaign, and so on,” he told a European parliament session in Strasbourg. “All these steps, their combination and their permanency, are the road to hell.”

Other leaders of EU member states, including Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, disagree with US calls for big fiscal stimuli to battle the recession. But they have couched their opposition in more diplomatic language than Mr Topolanek’s.

Mr Obama has vigorously opposed the view that the Great Depression was caused by too much spending, rather than too little, a view held by a small handful of rightwing economists.
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The Welfare Issue is Alive, Alive!

Welcome back 70's style welfare! What's next? gas lines? unilateral surrender to our enemies? massive runaway inflation?

That's right, the "stimulus" bill has repealed welfare reform argues Mickey Kaus, in high dudgeon! No more penalties for states that repeal time limits. Since without these, the states have incentive to continue welfare indefinitely due to the massive infusion of $$ they get from the federal government in return, welfare reform is now, in effect, dead.

All this without a debate, in the middle of the night. And they next want to corrupt the census used to apportion congressional seats? And then to legally shut down conservative speech with the fairness doctrine? Obama is a radical socialist, case closed. Shame, shame on the drive by press for covering up the true nature of this radical leftist takeover of America...T


RONALD REAGAN started it, Bill Clinton finished it and last week Barack Obama was accused of engineering its destruction. One of the few undisputed triumphs of American government of the past 20 years – the sweeping welfare reform programme that sent millions of dole claimants back to work – has been plunged into jeopardy by billions of dollars in state handouts included in the president’s controversial economic stimulus package

...Douglas Besharov, author of a big study on welfare reform, said the stimulus bill passed by Congress and the Senate in separate votes on Friday would "unravel" most of the 1996 reforms that led to a 65% reduction in welfare caseloads and prompted the British and several other governments to consider similar measures.

...A reemerging "welfare" issue is a potential killer, in other words, for Obama's big remaining plans, especially health care. If Dems seem determined to reinstate dependency--or at the least blind to the dangers of dependency--voters aren't going to trust them to spend trillions on universal health insurance and fortified pensions. It's hard to believe Obama doesn't realize this.
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HOW TO BEAT THE PORKULUS PACKAGE

Exactly right. We know this is factual from our experiences in the 1970's, before the Fed adopted Milton Friedman's Monetarist theories, and reduced the money supply - effectively ending inflation for almost 30 years now. And Osama wants to return to this?

This "Porkulus" package is a disgrace. A TRILLION dollars worth of midnight basketball and Gore-bal warming research?! He truly is Jimmuh recast! We shall see if the republicans have learned their lesson - or if they will remain in the wilderness for another 40 years...T

The same way Republicans beat it when Bill Clinton proposed a modest $35 billion stimulus in the teeth of the 1992-1993 recession. The GOP nit picked each spending item and highlighted midnight basketball courts and swimming pools that were funded in the package. Clinton, for his part, didn’t really care what the money was being spent on, he wanted to be sure it was spent to give the economy a boost before he cut spending and raised taxes to balance the budget. So the president accomodated all of the pet projects of Democratic lawmakers. The resulting publicity made the package radioactive.

Republicans should feature each element of the package — just as they have highlighted the contraception and global The package is losing support almost daily. According to Rasmussen, only 42% of Americans now support it. The key is for the Republicans to attack its specific line items to show how overblown it really is.

And it is terribly important to beat, or at least cut back the stimulus legislation. What we allocate in deficit spending and “refundable” tax cuts (i.e. welfare) today we will pay for in inflation tomorrow.

In the seven years beetween 2000 and 2007, the money supply rose from $600 billion to $800 billion. In 2008, alone, it more than doubled from $800 billion to $1.7 trillion! We cannot sustain this level of increase in the money supply without having way too much money chasing way too few goods and services, sending prices up into double digit inflation. While the economy is in shell shock, at the moment, we face deflation. But once it begins to come back and the dollars come out of hiding, we will find the resulting inflation intractible and very difficult to cure.
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College Students: Terror is, like, the New Communism

Like, like, like! Marcia Marcia Marcia! Another whole generation that has lost the lessons of the 70's and 80's (and 30's and 40's). Appeasement NEVER works. Thank you, leftist college profs/aged 60's radicals!...T

"These poor souls have no memorial. Least of all at an American university."

I spoke for a few minutes to the 20-year-old woman seated across the aisle from me.


She: What brings you to Denver?"

Me: I am giving a speech.

She: What do you do?

Me: I'm a radio talk show host.

She: Who did you vote for?

Me: McCain

She: Why?

Me: Smaller government and the war on terror.

She: Terror is the new communism.

Me: Communism killed about a hundred million people. And who do you think attacked and killed 3,000 of us on Sept. 11?

She: The government.

For the record, as I believe this to be essential to understanding this young woman's views, she is a student attending the University of California Santa Barbara.

Truth is she had to be a student at a major university. She would never have come up with "Terror is the new Communism" on her own. It is a moral obscenity that one has to learn.

Of course, there is an irony to this statement. Meant in the opposite way she meant it, I could largely assent to the proposition that terror is the new communism. Communism was an enslaving and murderous threat in its time and the Jihadism is such a threat in our lifetime.

But that is not how this young woman meant the statement. As she has learned history and the contemporary world, communism was a bogeyman in its time and terror is a bogeyman in our time.

When I told her that communism had killed 100 million people, I could not tell if she even processed the words. It was as if had I uttered a series of nonsense syllables. She either didn't believe me or didn't care.

On the assumption that I had met a person with a normal conscience, the only rational explanation for her non-reaction is that she didn't believe me and regarded what I said as right-wing propaganda (just as the belief in that Islamist terror threatens us).

In her belief that neither communism nor terror were/are real threats, I suspect this young woman represents many college students. If one wants to understand what left-wing dominance in university social sciences departments produces, one merely had to meet this young woman.

At most universities, communism is a non-evil, indeed, largely a non-issue. The most enslaving and murderous movement in history is almost never taught as such. When communism is mentioned at all, it is usually solely in order to show how vile anti-communists were. Thus, as little as students may know about McCarthyism, most students far more readily identify it with evil than they do communism. Indeed, more could probably identify Joseph McCarthy than Joseph Stalin.

Nor is this a matter of students not being taught to label anything as evil. They have no problem labeling Nazism, Fascism, George W. Bush, slavery, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and tobacco companies as evil. It's just that they won't label communism as such.

Does one in 10.000 students know of the communist terror-famine that took about 6 million Ukarainian lives. How many know about the communist Pol Pot, who butchered nearly one-third of his fellow Cambodians? Or how many innocents were murdered in the Gulag Archipelago (or could even identify it)? Or that China's communist tyrant Mao Zedong killed about 60 million of his fellow Chinese? Or that Communist North Korea is essentially a concentration camp in the guise of a country?

The answer to all these questions is very few.

And that, quite frankly, breaks my heart. I am currently reading "Mao: The Secret Life," almost universally regarded, even in the mainstream media, as the most important book on Mao ever written.

According to the authors, in 1930-31 alone, Mao and his gang developed 120 types of torture for use on innocent people he wanted to force into phony confessions so as to rule by terror. They included burning the vaginas of wives of opponents and pulling wires through men's penises, which were then attached to their ears and plucked.

These poor souls have no memorial. Least of all at an American university.
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Limbaugh Responds to Obama

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

Yes, the modus operandi of the Chicago radical leftists back to the days of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss! Terrific insights from Rush penned by Byron York here. He is the only one since Reagan that really "Get's It" - that government IS the problem, not the answer to the problem!

We can only hope that he, as Byron speculates, does become the leader of our party of last resort, and not the likes of our feckless congressional leaders...T

According to an account in the New York Post, President Barack Obama yesterday told Republican leaders, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done." With George W. Bush now off the stage, it may be that Obama and some of his fellow Democrats view Limbaugh, and not John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, or any other elected official, as the true leader of the Republican opposition. This morning I asked Rush for his thoughts on all this, and here is his response:

"There are two things going on here. One prong of the Great Unifier's plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters and supporters by making the argument about me and not about his plan. He is hoping that these Republicans will also publicly denounce me and thus marginalize me. And who knows? Are ideological and philosophical ties enough to keep the GOP loyal to their voters? Meanwhile, the effort to foist all blame for this mess on the private sector continues unabated when most of the blame for this current debacle can be laid at the feet of the Congress and a couple of former presidents. And there is a strategic reason for this."

Secondly, here is a combo quote from the meeting:

"If we don't get this done we (the Democrats) could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can't let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That's how things don't get done in this town."

To make the argument about me instead of his plan makes sense from his perspective. Obama's plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR's New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule, and it would also simultaneously seriously damage any hope of future tax cuts. It would allow a majority of American voters to guarantee no taxes for themselves going forward. It would burden the private sector and put the public sector in permanent and firm control of the economy. Put simply, I believe his stimulus is aimed at re-establishing "eternal" power for the Democrat Party rather than stimulating the economy because anyone with a brain knows this is NOT how you stimulate the economy. If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of this TRILLION dollar debacle.

Obama was angry that Merrill Lynch used $1.2 million of TARP money to remodel an executive suite. Excuse me, but didn't Merrill have to hire a decorator and contractor? Didn't they have to buy the new furnishings? What's the difference in that and Merrill loaning that money to a decorator, contractor and goods supplier to remodel Warren Buffet's office? Either way, stimulus in the private sector occurs. Are we really at the point where the bad PR of Merrill getting a redecorated office in the process is reason to smear them? How much money will the Obamas spend redecorating the White House residence? Whose money will be spent? I have no problem with the Obamas redoing the place. It is tradition. 600 private jets flown by rich Democrats flew into the Inauguration. That's fine but the auto execs using theirs is a crime? In both instances, the people on those jets arrived in Washington wanting something from Washington, not just good will.

If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of the trillion dollar debacle.

One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama's ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy's Rules for Radicals:

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

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Keynesian Economics - Wrong Then, Wrong Now!

Economics 101 time ladies and gentlemen - this was all disproved by Milton Friedman in the 70's and tested out in the 60's with JFK's tax cuts, and in the 80's with Reagan's. This theory was also proved in the negative by Hoover's and FDR's contractionist policies in the 30's and 40's!

Now we're going to make the same disastrous mistakes all over again? Thank you B. Insane Osama!...T

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Ageless Observations

We'll need these if the "Age of Obama" comes to pass (gag)...T

AGELESS OBSERVATIONS

'If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.' -Mark Twain Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress . . . But then I repeat myself. -Mark Twain I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.-Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. - George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-G Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. -Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -P. J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. -Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases : If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -Ronald Reagan (1986)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. -Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free! -P. J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. -Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you! -Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. -Mark Twain (1866 )

Talk is cheap . . . except when Congress does it. -Unknown

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. -Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class . . . save Congress. -Mark Twain What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. -Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -Thomas Jefferson

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The Energy Revolt of 2008?

I've argued so many times now that Barack Osama is the reincarnation of Jimmy Carter that it's old news these days ("Windfall profits" tax? come on!). I can't ignore though, the similarities between today and the late 70's (aside from the music, jeez, if I hear one more Foreigner song I'm gonna heave!).

Now these similarities have just become, well, weird: Perhaps the Gipper himself will make one last siren call from the great beyond. Unilateral surrender to our enemies? Been there, done that. Save gas and rescue our nation by wearing a sweater? Er, I mean pumping up your tires? Been there, done that. America won't elect a quasi-communistic, anti capitalist, America loathing liberal wussy again; no way, no how. Anything is possible now, even a McCain landslide...T

Larry Kudlow makes an interesting suggestion in his article on NRO:

As Sen. John McCain and the GOP leadership nationalize the drill, drill, drill message, the Republican party might conceivably be riding a summer political rally. The question of offshore drilling, along with expanded domestic energy production, has suddenly become the biggest political and economic wedge issue of this election....There is a voter revolt going on, and it reminds me of the anti-tax rebellion that lifted Ronald Reagan into office twenty-eight years ago. Is the conventional wisdom about to be swept away?...

Without even realizing it, the GOP drilling offensive has become a new contract with America. And it appears to be working. The public is putting aside global warming and choosing instead new-energy production, a stronger economy, and more job creation. Voters want growth, not austerity. They want Ronald Reagan, not Thomas Malthus. And by resisting this grassroots call, the Democratic party is digging itself into one of the biggest political dry holes in history.

I've had the contrarian instinct for a while that global warming had peaked (both substantively and politically) as an issue. Al Gore's Nobel Prize felt like a pretty good contrarian indicator. And now the drilling issue is beginning to feel a little like tax cuts thirty years ago--key to, and emblematic of, a pro-growth, populist/capitalist/anti-declinist agenda. Obama's tire gauge is reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's sweater. And leave aside the tax revolt analogy; it's worth remembering that energy itself was an issue in 1980. Reagan took what seemed at first a politically dicey drill/deregulate position, and ended up clobbering Carter and being vindicated by the policy of deregulation.

Wishful thinking? Or the lessons of history?
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Rest in Peace, Ronald Reagan

It was four years ago, during another presidential campaign, and I believe it was in July of that year, that the greatest president of the 20th century passed away. The ceremonial rites were 10 days long, and even the candidates suspended their campaigns out of respect. Only 2 presidents have earned this respect, and the other was a man named Abraham Lincoln. I cried all day and night for all of these 10 days, and still do, every time I see this video, and remember that this man redeemed us all. God bless Ronald Reagan...T

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Peanut Envy: The latest absurdities to emerge from Jimmy Carter's big, smug mouth.

This is the article I've been awaiting for the last 17 years or so - ever since Jimmuh decided he had a chance at rehabilitating his image, at least in the press. This article, from an avowed life-long liberal, only hints at the dangerous incompetence we faced, almost destroying America in four short years, from 1976 to 1980. This is what liberal democrat, and Vietnam protester turned presidential candidate, Sen. Eugene McCarthy says about Jimmuh today:
"I once had quite an argument with the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who maintained adamantly that it had been right for him to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 for no other reason. 'Mr. Carter,' he said, 'quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had.' "
...................T

Almost always, when former President Jimmy Carter opens his big, smug mouth, he has already made the psychological mistake that is going to reduce his words to absurdity. When he told the press last week that the Bush administration had aroused antipathy around the world, he might have been uttering no more than a banality. But no, he had to try to invest it with a special signature flourish. So, he said instead:

I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including [those of] George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me.

Leave aside the sophomoric slackness that begins a broken-backed sentence with the words "as far as" and then cannot complete itself. "Worst in history," as the great statesman from Georgia has to know, has been the title for which he has himself been actively contending since 1976. I once had quite an argument with the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who maintained adamantly that it had been right for him to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 for no other reason. "Mr. Carter," he said, "quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had."

I still think Richard Nixon has to be the prime candidate here, but you will notice that Jimmy Carter evinces nostalgia for that period, too. Apparently, the Christmas bombing of Vietnam, the invasion of Cambodia, the subversion of democracy in Chile, the raising of illegal slush funds, and the attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee offices were assertions of America's "basic values." Leave aside Carter's newfound admiration for Ronald Reagan, who is now undergoing a more general historical revision thanks to the work of professors Diggins and Brinkley, and just concentrate for a moment on what he says about George Bush Sr. What did he say at the time? Many people in retrospect think Bush did a good job in assembling a large multinational coalition, under U.N. auspices, for the emancipation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. But Jimmy Carter used his prestige, at that uneasy moment, to make an open appeal to all governments not to join that coalition. He went public to oppose the settled policy of Congress and the declared resolutions of the United Nations and to denounce his own country as the warmonger. And, after all, why not? It was he who had created the conditions for the Gulf crisis in the first place—initially by fawning on the shah of Iran and then, when that option collapsed, by encouraging Saddam Hussein to invade Iran and by "tilting" American policy to his side. If I had done such a thing, I would take very good care to be modest when discussions of Middle Eastern crises came up. But here's the thing about self-righteous, born-again demagogues: Nothing they ever do, or did, can be attributed to anything but the very highest motives.

Here is a man who, in his latest book on the Israel-Palestine crisis, has found the elusive key to the problem. The mistake of Israel, he tells us (and tells us that he told the Israeli leadership) is to have moved away from God and the prophets and toward secularism. If you ever feel like a good laugh, just tell yourself that things would improve if only the Israeli government would be more Orthodox. Jimmy Carter will then turn his vacantly pious glare on you, as if to say that you just don't understand what it is to have a personal savior.

In the Carter years, the United States was an international laughingstock. This was not just because of the prevalence of his ghastly kin: the beer-sodden brother Billy, doing deals with Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi, and the grisly matriarch, Miz Lillian. It was not just because of the president's dire lectures on morality and salvation and his weird encounters with lethal rabbits and UFOs. It was not just because of the risible White House "Bible study" sessions run by Bert Lance and his other open-palmed Elmer Gantry pals from Georgia. It was because, whether in Afghanistan, Iran, or Iraq—still the source of so many of our woes—the Carter administration could not tell a friend from an enemy. His combination of naivete and cynicism—from open-mouthed shock at Leonid Brezhnev's occupation of Afghanistan to underhanded support for Saddam in his unsleeping campaign of megalomania—had terrible consequences that are with us still. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that every administration since has had to deal with the chaotic legacy of Carter's mind-boggling cowardice and incompetence.

The quotation with which I began comes from an interview that he gave last week to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He also went on the British Broadcasting Corporation to make spiteful and cheap remarks on the retirement of Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling him "loyal, blind, apparently subservient." Yes, that's right, Mr. Carter. Just the way to make friends and assert "America's basic values." Show us your peanut envy. Heap insults on a guest in Washington: a thrice-elected prime minister who was the first and strongest ally of the United States on the most awful day in its recent history. A man who was prepared to risk his own career to be counted as a friend. A man who was warning against the Taliban, against Slobodan Milosevic, and against Saddam Hussein when George Bush was only the governor of Texas. Leaders like that deserve a little respect even when they are wrong—but don't expect any generosity or courtesy from the purse-mouthed preacher man from Plains, who just purely knows he was right all along, and who, when that fails, can always point to the numberless godly victories that he won over the forces of evil.
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