Congress Stands Its Ground

Image via WikipediaWe are witnessing an virtual university course on constitutional governance. The first such episode in any of our lifetimes. I, for one, say "Hurray, and it's about time"!

WASHINGTON -- Between 6 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Sunday, the nation began a constitutional course-correction. The current occupant's vanity and naivete -- a dangerous amalgam -- are causing the modern presidency to buckle beneath the weight of its pretenses. And Congress is reasserting its responsibilities.

At his Friday news conference-cum-tantrum, President Obama imperiously summoned congressional leaders to his presence: "I've told" them "I want them here at 11 a.m." By Saturday, his administration seemed to be cultivating chaos by suddenly postulating a new deadline: The debt-ceiling impasse must end before Asian markets opened Sunday evening Eastern time, lest the heavens fall.

Those markets opened; the heavens held. The faux deadline, reportedly invoked at a Saturday White House meeting by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who should resign, inevitably seeped into the media and invited overseas panic, thereby risking the nation's currency, for brief tactical advantage.

Amid these tawdry episodes, House Speaker John Boehner signaled constitutional sanity regained: "Congress will forge a responsible path forward." Congress. Obama has marginalized himself.

Inordinate self-regard is an occupational hazard of politics and part of the job description of the rhetorical presidency, this incessant tutor. Still, upon what meat doth this our current Caesar feed that he has grown so great that he presumes to command leaders of a coequal branch of government? He once boasted (June 3, 2008) that he could influence the oceans' rise; he must be disabused of comparable delusions about controlling Congress.

When he was a lecturer on constitutional law, he evidently skipped the separation of powers doctrine. But, then, because this doctrine impedes the progressives' goal of unleashing untrammeled government, they have long loathed it: Woodrow Wilson, the first president to criticize the American founding, considered the separation of powers the Constitution's "radical defect."

It has, however, rescued the nation from Obama's preference for a "clean" debt-ceiling increase that would ignore the onrushing debt tsunami. There are 87 reasons for Obama's temporary conversion of convenience to the cause of spending restraint -- the 87 House Republican freshmen. Their inflexibility astonishes and scandalizes Washington because it reflects the rarity of serene fidelity to campaign promises.

Obama -- a demagogue for an age of smooth surfaces; Huey Long with a better tailor -- pretended Friday to wonder whether Republicans "can say yes to anything." Well.

House Republicans said yes to "cut, cap and balance." Senate Democrats, who have not produced a budget in more than 800 days, vowed to work all weekend debating this. But Friday they voted to table it, thereby ducking a straightforward vote on the only debt-reduction plan on paper, the only plan debated, the only plan to receive Democratic votes.

Obama's last venture into public specificity was his February budget, which proposed accelerating the nation's descent into debt. It was rejected by the Senate 97-0.

Although histrionically impatient with Republicans' refusal to accept certain measures, Obama insists he will "not accept" a debt-ceiling deal that does not increase income taxes. Surely this is the meaning of his July 11 words: "I do not want, and will not accept, a deal in which ... I'm able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don't need."

To understand Republican distrust of him, consider, from the many examples of his paltering with the truth, his July 15 news conference, wherein he veered from the subject of the debt ceiling to say "I've got three trade deals ready to go" yet they are "being held up because some folks don't want to provide Trade Adjustment Assistance to people who may be displaced as a consequence of trade." The facts are:

TAA, which has existed since 1962, enjoys bipartisan support. The 2009 stimulus increased it, supposedly temporarily, and it did revert to pre-stimulus levels in February. Now, however, Democrats suddenly insist that TAA's stimulus levels be made permanent.

Obama's wee mendacity about TAA illustrates the large stakes of the debt debate, which is a proxy for an epochal argument about the nature of American governance. Obama's money gusher has driven federal spending from under 20 percent of GDP to almost 25 percent. Democrats consider this the new normal -- until it becomes the base from which they launch their next surge of statism.

This fact refutes those who loftily dismiss the debt-ceiling debate as much ado about not very much. And those who are loftily contemptuous of today's supposedly "dysfunctional" Washington have forgotten that the branches of government are supposed to be jealous rivals.
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This Will Not Stand: Newt On the Passage of Obamacare

Things to remember on this frightful day: This bill is as blatently unconstitutional as were the NRA and APL before it, respectively, which were struck down by the high court

First, Osama-care is an extra-constitutional violation of the 9th & 10th amendments. The 10th amendmentafter all, says this: that the " powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states by the constitution of the United States are reserved to the states or the people. "

Secondly, and more importantly in this case, is Osamacare's dependance on the commerce clause to justify it's individual mandate the we must all purchase governmant mandated insurance or face jail time. Here is the text, in part: (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States

This was meant to mean that individul states could not discriminate against each other in eeconomic ways such as tarriffs, taxation, and quotas etc...and certaibly NOT as a mechanism to allow for federal control over individuals actions and choices!

Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are progressive fascists who have simply shredded what remains of our federal system, and many states are preparing legislation to opt out of obamacare.

So either our Supreme court invalidates this illegal legislation, or a new States rights movement renders it moot. In any event, it will not stand...T

This will not stand.

No one should be confused about the outcome of Sunday's vote

This is not the end of the fight it is the beginning of the fight.

The American people spoke decisively against a big government, high tax, Washington knows best, pro trial lawyer centralized bureaucratic health system

In every recent poll the vast majority of Americans opposed this monstrosity

Speaker Pelosi knew the country was against the bill. That is why she kept her members trapped in Washington and forced a vote on Sunday.

She knew if she let the members go home their constituents would convince them to vote no.

The Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine combined the radicalism of Alinsky, the corruption of Springfield and the machine power politics of Chicago.

Sunday was a pressured, bought, intimidated vote worthy of Hugo Chavez but unworthy of the United States of America.

It is hard to imagine how much pressure they brought to bear on congressman Stupak to get him to accept a cynical, phony clearly illegal and unconstitutional executive order on abortion. The ruthlessness and inhumanity of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine was most clearly on display in their public humiliation of Stupak.

The real principles of the machine were articulated by Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings who was impeached and removed from the bench as a federal judge, before being elected to the House when he said ""There ain't no rules here, we're trying to accomplish something. . . .All this talk about rules. . . .When the deal goes down . . . we make 'em up as we go along."

It is hard for the American people to believe their leaders on the left are this bad.

They are.

The American people will not allow a corrupt machine to dictate their future.

Together we will pledge to repeal this bill and start over

Together we will prove that this will not stand

2010 and 2012 will be among the most important elections in American history

These elections will allow us to save America from a leftwing machine of unparalleled corruption arrogance and cynicism

Sunday was one more step in the fight against a "Washington knows best" and "Washington should run everything" attitude.

Let us turn now to the Senate to continue this fight for real reform, for real self government, and for policies that create jobs, improve health outcomes, and increase freedom.

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Obama Declares: "Welcome to The USSA - Union of Soviet Socialist Amerika's

1.8 trillion $ - TRILLION! That's the amount the CCCP, er, democrats, propose to raise the federal debt limit by this week. A little perspective: This amount would dwarf the combined debt limit increases passed by all congresses over the entire 250 years of our republic combined.

Keep in mind that Obama (Osama?) has already spent more money in his first year than all presidents dating back to George Washington, combined, spent in all their 8 years in office! This on top of the fact that Osama has incurred the largest budget deficit in history in less than one year, again, totaling more than all budget deficits run up in the history of the United States, combined.

So what do do about it? Why, quadruple it of course, by adding the largest federal entitlement ever imagined (Osamacare) along with imposing socialist emission controls on all individuals and businesses, and then legislate penalties that would throw any who dare to dissent in prison.

The Constitution is no more. Limited government? Osama is a dangerous fanatic who has the US on the brink of becoming the USSA - Heil Osama!

"Every serious person should welcome the president's proposals to lift the dormant economy and reduce unemployment. Not because every serious person would agree with them but because they are a clear test of how a left-wing government would run the American economy.

If this works, hats off to them and we become France. If not, Americans may finally dump left-wing economics into the ash heap of history, starting next November and then in the next presidential election, which can't come soon enough.

The first purpose of the jobs proposals Mr. Obama announced Tuesday—TARP money for Main Street, tax credits for new hires, more infrastructure spending and the weird weatherization program—is to bail out Democratic incumbents. The underlying strength and resilience of the American economy may yet produce enough headline growth the next 11 months to slow the panic over employment levels by next fall.

No Democratic president, though, can just say, 'I'm doing this to save the Pelosi majority and to protect the state and local jobs of Andy Stern's dues payers and party regulars in the Service Employees International Union.' Mr. Obama's saving grace is that no matter how political his initiatives, the reasons he offers for what he's doing generally do describe what is at stake."
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Read The Bill?

We've all heard by now of the outcry against congressional representatives that don't even take the time to "read the bill!" This argument has struck me, although a staunch opponent of this fascistic government, as a populist argument at best, until now.



This bill needs reading by every informed citizen, and rereading to those less informed, in the home, at the school, in the town square, or in any venue we can collectively access.



This bill is codified totalitarianism, nothing less, nothing more. On this sad, frightening moment in the history of this once proud Constitutional Republic, hyperbole and simple recitation of fact have become one in the same.



This research was done by a practicing physician who then wrote to his Senator with his concerns. He is a great American who has done us all an invaluable service.

Here's the full Health Care bill being considered in the House...T http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h3200ih.pdf


Senator (name rescinded by author), As a practicing physician I have major concerns with the health care bill before Congress. I actually have read the bill and am shocked by the brazenness of the government's proposed involvement in the patient physician relationship. The very idea that the government will dictate and ration patient care is dangerous and certainly not helpful in designing a health care system that works for all. Every physician I work with agrees that we ! need to fix our health care system, but the proposed bills currently making their way through congress will be a disaster if passed.



I ask you respectfully and as a patriotic American to look at the following troubling lines that I have read in the bill. You cannot possibly believe that these proposals are in the best interests of the country and our fellow citizens.



- Page 22 of the HC Bill: Mandates that the Govt will audit books of all employers that self insure!!



- Page 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get.



- Page 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill: YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!!



- Page 42 of HC Bill:The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You have no choice!



- Page 50 Section 152 in HC bill: HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise



- Page 58 HC Bill: Govt will have real-time access to individuals finances & a National ID Healthcard will be issued!



- Page 59 HC Bill lines 21-24: Govt will have direct access to your banks accounts for elective funds transfer.



- Page 65 Sec 164: is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community organizations: (ACORN).



- Page 84 Sec 203 HC bill: Govt mandates ALL benefit packages for private HC plans in the Exchange.



- Page 85 Line 7 HC Bill: Specifications for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration your Healthcare!



- Page 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill: Govt mandates linguistic appropriate services. Example - Translation: illegal aliens.



- Page 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18: The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Govt HC plan.



- Page 85 Line 7 HC Bill: Specifications of Benefit Levels for Plans. AARP members - your Health care WILL be rationed.



- Page 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill: Medicaid Eligible Individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.



- Page 124 lines 24-25 HC: No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Govt Monopoly.



- Page 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill: Doctors/ American Medical Association - The Govt will tell YOU what you can make! (salary)



- Page 145 Line 15-17: An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE!



- Page 126 Lines 22-25: Employers MUST pay for HC for part time employees AND their families.



- Page 149 Lines 16-24: ANY Employer with payroll 401k & above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all payroll.



- Page 150 Lines 9-13: Business's with payroll btw 251k & 401k who doesn't provide public option pays 2-6% tax on all payroll.



- Page 167 Lines 18-23: ANY individual who doesn't have acceptable HC according to Govt will be taxed 2.5% of income.



- Page 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill: Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay)



- Page 195 HC Bill: Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans finances /personal records.



- Page 203 Line 14-15 HC: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax" Yes, it says that!



- Page 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill: Govt will reduce physician services for Medicaid Seniors, low income and poor are affected.



- Page 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill: Doctors, doesn't matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same!



- Page 253 Line 10-18: Govt sets value of Doctor's time, profession, judgment etc. Literally value of humans.



- Page 265 Sec 1131: Govt mandates & controls productivity for private HC industries.



- Page 268 Sec 1141: Federal Govt regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs.



- Page 272 SEC. 1145: TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS - Cancer patients - welcome to rationing!



- Page 280 Sec 1151: The Govt will penalize hospitals for whatever Govt deems preventable re-admissions.



- Page 298 Lines 9-11: Doctors, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a re-admission -Govt will penalize you.



- Page 317 L 13-20: PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Doctors what/how much they can own!



- Page 317-318 lines 21-25, 1-3: PROHIBITION on expansion- Govt is mandating hospitals cannot expand.



- Page 321 2-13: Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input is required. Can u say ACORN?!!



- Page 335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339: Govt mandates establishment of outcome based measures. HC the way they want. Rationing.



- Page 341 Lines 3-9: Govt has authority to disqualify Medicare Advance Plans, HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Govt plan.



- Page 354 Sec 1177: Govt will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people! Unbelievable!



- Page 379 Sec 1191: Govt creates more bureaucracy - Tele-health Advisory Comittee. Can you say HC by phone?



- Page 425 Lines 4-12: Govt mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life patients.



- Page 425 Lines 17-19: Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!



- Page 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3: Govt provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death. (assisted suicide)



- Page 427 Lines 15-24: Govt mandates program for orders for end of life. The Govt has a say in how your life ends.



- Page 429 Lines 1-9: An "advanced care planning consultant" will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates.



- Page 429 Lines 10-12: "advanced care consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOVT!



- Page 429 Lines 13-25: The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.



- Page 430 Lines 11-15: The Govt will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life!



- Page 469: Community Based Home Medical Services = Non profit organizations. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?



- Page 472 Lines 14-17: PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORIGINATION. 1 monthly payment 2 a community-based organization. Like ACORN?



- Page 489 Sec 1308: The Govt will cover Marriage & Family therapy. Which means they will insert Govt into your marriage.



- Page 494-498: Govt will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.



Senator, I guarantee that I personally will do everything possible to inform patients and my fellow physicians about the dangers of the proposed bills you and your colleagues are debating.



Furthermore, If you vote for a bill that enforces socialized medicine on the country and destroys the doctor/patient relationship, I will do everything in my power to make sure you lose your job in the next election.



Respectfully, Stephen E Fraser MD

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Liberal Fascism - A Conservative Slur no Longer

Separation of Powers - Federalism - Limited Government - The Rule of Law

These are the "Four Legs" upon which the pedestal of our liberties have stood these nearly 250 years. The rule of law is a concept dating all the way back to the edicts of the Roman Emperors, but enshrined in our modern world by English common law, informed and enlightened by natural law, and codified starting with the Magna Carta in 1215

The Constitution of the United States of America is the ultimate expression and synthesis of these four principles. It has indeed allowed for the sustenance of the greatest, most powerful, and freest nation in the history of this earth.

But what would happen if none cared any longer?

A good friend of mine opined today that Obama's health care proposals, among others, are fascist, and blatantly unconstitutional. Understanding fascism is complicated, but a lack of understanding the Constitution and our system of checks and balances is intellectual laziness, which I postulate is why we find ourselves in the situation of peril that exists today.

Constitution? Who the hell even cares that it exists anymore – certainly NOT when democrats are in power… Hell I wouldn't be surprised to see it “suspended” – after all, Woodrow Wilson did so! FDR did so!

Fascistic is exactly right: Jonah Goldberg (in "Liberal Fascism") explains, and I have added here that -

- Actually, the notion that fascism/Nazism and communism are polar opposites stems from the deeper truth that they are in fact kindred spirits. - Richard Pipes: “ Bolshevism and Fascism were heresies of socialism”. Both ideologies are reactionary in the sense that they try to recreate tribal (or feudal!) impulses. Communists champion class, Nazi’s race, Fascists the nation. All these ideologies, totalitarian impulses in the extreme, attract the same types of people! -

AND they are all of the same in another respect – they are all forms of IDENTITY politics. Get the rich, affirmative action, “save the planet” – all pseudonyms for fascistic, socialistic, Nazi, communist, totalitarian, Orwellian control

We are in deep trouble, and can only hope our founders were wiser even than we thought until now...T

The f-bomb of American politics is the word “fascist,” routinely hurled by the left at conservatives. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were smeared as incipient fascists, and George W. Bush now receives the honor, along with practically anyone to the right of Rosie O’Donnell on a college campus.

The operational meaning of the word “fascism” for most liberals who invoke it is usually “shut up.” It’s meant to bludgeon conservatives into silence. But many on the left also genuinely believe that there is something fascistic in the DNA of contemporary conservatism, as if Republican Party conventions would get their rightful treatment only if they were worshipfully filmed by Leni Riefenstahl.

In his brilliant new book Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg (a colleague of mine) demonstrates how the opposite is the case, that fascism was a movement of the left and that liberal heroes like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were products of what Goldberg calls “the fascist moment” in America early in the 20th century. How we think of the ideological spectrum — socialism to the left, fascism to the right — should be forever changed.

Benito Mussolini was a socialist and earned the title “Il Duce” as the leader of the socialists in Italy. When he founded the fascist party, its program called for implementing a minimum wage, expropriating property from landowners, repealing titles of nobility, creating state-run secular schools and imposing a progressive tax rate. Mussolini took socialism and turned it in a more populist and militaristic direction, but remained a modernizing, secular man of the left.

The Nazis too were socialists, “enemies, deadly enemies, of today’s capitalist economic system,” in the words of the party’s ideologist Gregor Strasser. The party’s platform sounded a lot like that of the Italian fascists. The Nazis wanted to chase conventional Christianity from public life and overturn tradition, replacing them with an all-powerful state. Both Hitler and Mussolini were revolutionaries, bitterly opposed to “reactionary” forces in their societies.

By what standard, then, are they considered conservatives who took things to extremes? The left points to their anti-Semitism and militarism. But anti-Semitism isn’t an inherently right-wing phenomenon — Stalin’s Russia was anti-Semitic. As for militarism, these regimes looked to it as a way to mobilize and organize society, something deeply anathema to the anti-statist tradition of postwar American conservatism.

On the other hand, the progressive movement of the early 20th century looked to Mussolini as an inspiration and shared intellectual roots with European fascism, including an appreciation of the “top-down socialism” of Otto von Bismarck. Goldberg eviscerates Woodrow Wilson as the closest we have ever had to a fascist president. Wilson and his supporters welcomed World War I as an opportunity to expand the state, instituting “war socialism” and a far-reaching crackdown on dissent.

FDR picked up where Wilson left off. The crisis of the Great Depression was the occasion for reviving “war socialism.” The man who ran the National Recovery Administration was an open admirer of Mussolini, and the alphabet soup of New Deal agencies had their roots in World War I and the classic fascist impulse to mobilize society and put it on a war footing.

Goldberg sees the fascist exaltation of youth, glorification of violence, hatred of tradition and romance of “the street” in the New Left of the 1960s, still the subject of the fond memories for the liberal establishment in this country. Goldberg argues that “liberal fascism” — the phrase was coined by H. G. Wells, and he meant it positively — is a distant heir to European fascism. The liberal version is pacifist rather than militaristic and feminine rather than masculine in its orientation, but it also seeks to increase the power of the state and overcome tradition in sweeping crusades pursued with the moral fervor of war.

Goldberg’s keen intellectual history is, at bottom, a profound cautionary tale about the perils of state aggrandizement and of revolutionary movements. If nothing else, it should convince liberals that it’s time to find a new insult.
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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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An Insufficiency of Fear

- John McCain probably was eager to return to the Senate as an avatar of bipartisanship, a role he has enjoyed. It is, therefore, a measure of the recklessness of House Democrats that they caused the stimulus debate to revolve around a bill that McCain dismisses as "generational theft." -

"My Friends" as our feckless ex-presidential candidate would have prefaced: We are making the exact same mistake that LBJ and his fanatic leftist, Ivory tower dwelling, liberal control freaks made in the 60's, and for exactly the same wrongheaded reasons.

LBJ took advantage of the assassination of Kennedy to ram everything the left had wanted for a generation through congress. The direct result was 21% interest rates, 10% inflation, 10% unemployment, the "misery index", talk of amending the Constitution to provide for 2 presidents serving concurrently, gas lines as long as the eye could see because "the oil is all gone!", our enemies running rampant over U.S. interests worldwide, the Islamist revolution, surrender to Iran, and...Jimmy Carter...

Osama is using the current environment to foist the exact same socialist pap down our collective throats, and the result will be identical, if we are so lucky that it is not indeed even worse, to the point of a collective Waterloo that the author fears...T

WASHINGTON -- The president, convinced that the only thing America has to fear is an insufficiency of fear, has warned that "disaster" and "catastrophe" are the certain alternatives to swift passage of the stimulus legislation. One marvels at his certitude more than one envies his custody of this adventure.

Certitude of one flavor or another is never entirely out of fashion in Washington. Thirty years ago, some conservatives were certain that their tax cuts would be so stimulative that they would be completely self-financing. Today, some liberals are certain that the spending they favor -- on green jobs, infrastructure and everything else -- will completely pay for itself. For liberals, "stimulus spending" is a classification that no longer classifies: All spending is, they are certain, necessarily stimulative.

At Yale's 1962 commencement, President John Kennedy expressed Washington's recurring confidence in the ability to supplant politics with expertise. As is traditional, Kennedy deplored "traditional labels" and insisted that "differences today" involve not clashes of principles but only "matters of degree." Kennedy argued that "the practical management of a modern economy" is "basically an administrative or executive problem." Congress need not intrude. Because policy issues are "sophisticated and technical questions," demanding "technical answers, not political answers," laypersons could hardly participate in the debate.

In December 1965, John Maynard Keynes, although 19 years dead, was, as today, enjoying one of his recurring resurrections as vindicator of government management of the economy by manipulating "aggregate demand." Keynes' visage was on Time magazine's cover and the accompanying story said that happy days were here again and here to stay.

President Lyndon Johnson was embarked on building the Great Society, assisted by policymakers who, wrote Time, "have used Keynesian principles" to smooth the moderate business cycles and achieve price stability: "Washington's economic managers scaled these heights by their adherence to Keynes' central theme" that a modern economy can operate at "top efficiency" only with government "intervention and influence." So, "economists have descended in force from their ivory towers and now sit confidently at the elbow of almost every important leader in government and business, where they are increasingly called upon to forecast, plan and decide." Ten years later, the "misery index" -- the unemployment rate plus the inflation rate -- was 19.9, heading for 22 percent in 1980.

Today, again, we are told that "politics" has no place in the debate about the tripartite stimulus legislation, which is partly a stimulus, partly liberalism's agenda of social engineering, and partly the beginning of "remaking" the economy. Gary Wolfram of Hillsdale College notes that the size of the stimulus -- the House-Senate compromise bill is $789 billion -- is just slightly less than the amount of all U.S. currency in circulation, and is larger than the entire federal budget was until 1983. Yet it is said that in the debate about this encompassing legislation -- which concerns what government can and should do, and ultimately what kind of regime America shall have -- people should "transcend" (so says Larry Summers, the president's economic adviser) politics. What, then, would be left for political argument to be about?

It is said that the negligible Republican support for the stimulus legislation means that bipartisanship is dead. But what can "bipartisanship" mean concerning legislation that concerns almost everything?

John McCain probably was eager to return to the Senate as an avatar of bipartisanship, a role he has enjoyed. It is, therefore, a measure of the recklessness of House Democrats that they caused the stimulus debate to revolve around a bill that McCain dismisses as "generational theft."

The federal government, with its separation of powers and myriad blocking mechanisms, was not made for speed but for safety. This is particularly pertinent today because if $789 billion is spent ineffectively or destructively, government does not get to say "oops" and take a mulligan. Senate Republicans have slowed and altered the course of the "disaster! catastrophe!" stampede. Still, as Anthony Trollope wrote in one of his parliamentary novels, "The best carriage horses are those which can most steadily hold back against the coach as it trundles down the hill."

Not yet a third of the way through the president's "first 100 days," he and we should remember that it was not FDR's initial burst of activity in 1933 that put the phrase "100 days" into the Western lexicon. It was Napoleon's frenetic trajectory in 1815 that began with his escape from Elba and ended near the Belgian village of Waterloo.
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Martin Luther King's struggle was against Democrats

Fact - it is the Democrat party that is, has, and always will be the party of, by, and for racism, and has been since the days long ago of Andrew Jackson ( "Trail of Tears?!"). From the Confederacy, to segregation and Jim Crow, to today, when liberal Dem's "rent out" illegals to save a buck or two, they are utter and rank hypocrites, which goes hand in hand with their lack of intellectual seriousness on any issue of importance.

We must suppose that the price of representative democracy is the existence of one party that will cater to the ignorance of humanity, as counterpoint to another appealing to it's finer nature.

And Obama sees Lincoln in the mirror? Lincoln?! Shame on you sir, shame!...T


The police chief of Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights era was a Democrat. A member of the Ku Klux Klan, Eugene "Bull" Connor had been a Democrat state legislator and a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention.

In 1963, police under Connor's command attacked several thousand African-American schoolchildren who were demonstrating peacefully for their civil rights. At the time, it should be noted, he was the Democratic National Committeeman for Alabama. Connor's men used high-pressure hoses, clubs and dogs in their assault, and then jailed nearly a thousand children. A year after attacking the children, Connor was elected, as a Democrat, to statewide office.

How did it come to be that African-Americans in Alabama were so oppressed?

In 1901, the Alabama Democratic Party called for a convention to write a new state constitution that would prohibit African-Americans from voting. Despite vocal opposition from Booker T. Washington and other Republican civil rights activists, the Democrat scam succeeded.

Democrats dominated Alabama's 1901 constitutional convention, and its chairman was a Democrat. In his opening address, he said:

"If we would have white supremacy, we must establish it by law -- not by force or fraud... The negro is descended from a race lowest in intelligence and moral precepts of all the races of men."

Alabama's African-American citizens would not vote in appreciable numbers again until the 1950s. It was a Republican federal judge, Frank Johnson, who in 1956 ruled in favor of Rosa Parks and who in 1965 ordered the Democrat governor, George Wallace, to permit Martin Luther King's voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

At the 2000 Republican National Convention, Condoleezza Rice said:

"The first Republican I knew was my father, and he is still the Republican I most admire. He joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I."

And, as Republicans celebrate Martin Luther King Day, they should remember that his struggle was against Democrats.
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Exit Bush, Shoes Flying

"The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgement of how much he got right"

Absolutely sums it up! President Bush will be fondly remembered in the history books, as Truman was. He will get there much quicker though. As described below, the process has already begun. What is the fanatical left going to say now, eh?!...T

Except for Richard Nixon, no president since Harry Truman leaves office more unloved than George W. Bush. Truman's rehabilitation took decades. Bush's will come sooner. Indeed, it has already begun. The chief revisionist? Barack Obama.

Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds -- the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition. It's not just the retention of such key figures as Secretary of Defense Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the last year. It's the continuity of policy.

It is the repeated pledge to conduct a withdrawal from Iraq that does not destabilize its new democracy and that, as Vice President-elect Joe Biden said just this week in Baghdad, adheres to the Bush-negotiated status of forces agreement that envisions a U.S. withdrawal over three years, not the 16-month timetable on which Obama campaigned.

It is the great care Obama is taking in not pre-emptively abandoning the anti-terror infrastructure that the Bush administration leaves behind. While still a candidate, Obama voted for the expanded presidential wiretapping (FISA) powers that Bush had fervently pursued. And while Obama opposes waterboarding (already banned, by the way, by Bush's CIA in 2006), he declined George Stephanopoulos' invitation (on ABC's "This Week") to outlaw all interrogation not permitted by the Army Field Manual. Explained Obama: "Dick Cheney's advice was good, which is let's make sure we know everything that's being done," i.e., before throwing out methods simply because Obama campaigned against them.

Obama still disagrees with Cheney's view of the acceptability of some of these techniques. But citing as sage the advice offered by "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history" (according to Joe Biden) -- advice paraphrased by Obama as "we shouldn't be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric" -- is a startlingly early sign of a newly respectful consideration of the Bush-Cheney legacy.

Not from any change of heart. But from simple reality. The beauty of democratic rotations of power is that when the opposition takes office, cheap criticism and calumny will no longer do. The Democrats now own Iraq. They own the war on al-Qaeda. And they own the panoply of anti-terror measures with which the Bush administration kept us safe these last seven years.

Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must now make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek -- Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney -- has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek's neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney's Vision of Power."

Obama will be loath to throw away the tools that have kept the homeland safe. Just as he will be loath to jeopardize the remarkable turnaround in American fortunes in Iraq.

Obama opposed the war. But the war is all but over. What remains is an Iraq turned from aggressive, hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States. No president would want to be responsible for undoing that success.

In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the U.S. and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size-10 shoes for his pains.

Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country.

Which is why I suspect Bush showed such equanimity during a private farewell interview at the White House a few weeks ago. He leaves behind the sinews of war, for the creation of which he has been so vilified but which will serve his successor -- and his country -- well over the coming years. The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgement of how much he got right.
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A Natural Succession

America has a rich tradition putting our most honored leaders on its currency.

George Washington, our nation's first president and leader of the American Revolution!

From Drop Box

Abe Lincoln, our most honorable leader, pulled our nation through it's darkest time!

From Drop Box

Alexander Hamilton, founding father, first secretary of the treasury and leader of the constitutional convention!

From Drop Box

Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory" fought the British in New Orleans!

From Drop Box

Ulysses Grant, Union army general, lead the North through the Civil War!

From Drop Box

Ben Franklin, Genius inventor, political theorist and leading author of the constitution.

From Drop Box

Barack Hussein Osama, corrupt community organizer and political machine hack

From Drop Box

- Thanks to James!...T

DC Dreaming

If only it were true...T

W Too Nice to be President?

A brief post mortem on the Bush presidency, and on the man himself: I urge you to read the full article, linked below. I won't post it all, because although I agree in principle, I do not agree with the authors points en toto. One thing is clear however: Bush fought back hard, and reaped the ensuing political benefits, through election day 2004. He ceased doing so afterwards, in dramatic fashion, and with devastating consequences, both for himself and his party.

We now have lost the historic chance to remake the Supreme Court in it's intended originalist function. This is just one of many tragedies that has befallen our nation, in large part because Mr. Bush chose to remain above the fray the last 4 years.

President Bush will be remembered in history for many great achievements ( keeping us safe for 8 years, winning 2 wars; liberating millions, and bringing freedom to the oppressed Arabic world; saving our economy in the aftermath of 9/11 - a vastly underestimated achievement - ). Unfortunately, his legacy also includes abandoning his party's intellectual underpinnings, thereby handing us over to the socialists' tender mercies...T

Conservatism needs a fresh start. It is losing arguments ... and it is losing elections. One person, more than any other (even more than John McCain), has caused this: President George W. Bush...

George W. Bush is undoubtedly a sincere man. He is, in all probability, a good man. His dramatic conversion to Christianity indicates that he, at least at this point in his life, is a man of high moral principles. He is compassionate. And therein lies the problem: President Bush was too compassionate to be a good president...

A few conservatives saw this coming. I remember cringing at Bush's promise for "compassionate conservatism" and at these lines from his first Inaugural Address:

"Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness."

President Bush really believed this -- and probably still does. His opposition on the left, however, never has believed it and never will. President Bush "misunderestimated" the ruthlessness of his political opposition. And the Democrats spent eight years running circles around him. As a result, conservatism will probably spend the next eight years paying for Bush's naïveté.

The reason we will pay is because partisan politics, in spite of what President Bush and Senator McCain believe or would have us believe, is not a quest for civility, or respect, or fair dealing, or forgiveness. Partisan politics is the pursuit, acquisition, and the use of power.

Our Founding Fathers were well aware of this cold hard political fact. They were not congenial in their descriptions of the process:

"The inference to which we are brought is that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects."
[Federalist Papers, Number 10, Madison. Emphasis in original.]

Our Constitution was not written to ensure forgiveness. It was written to prevent any one political faction from obtaining too much power.

The founders did not demand or expect cooperation and compromise between competing political ideologies -- they wanted and expected wide-eyed and vocal competition:

"To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectiveness." [Federalist Papers, Number 1, Hamilton.]

Any politician who claims that politics is or can become a cooperative and civil process is either gullible (Bush) or is deliberately trying to deceive his constituency (Obama).
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Can Democrats Get to 60 by Winning Senate Races in Alaska, Minnesota, and Georgia?

Whoa - I spoke too soon. They are blatantly stealing Minnesota; the Alaska numbers strongly suggest massive, unprecedented fraud; and even Georgia could fall if the leftists can focus all their resources on it (most states STILL have overwhelmingly democrookic local organizations, even after all these decades). Oregon fell the day after the election, so the socialists currently stand at 57, not 56.

IF they get 60 votes - the America you and I have known our entire lives will be gone for a generation, at the very least. Say hello to Union thugocracy, and goodbye to Rush Limbaugh. Say hello to socialist medicine, and goodbye to our role in the world as guarantor of world peace.

Thank God Ronald Reagan didn't live to see this day. Pray for one small victory that could save our nation. Pray for Saxby Chambliss in Georgia...T

In my column written the day after the election, I wrote that the Democrats had fallen short of the 60 seats they need to stop a filibuster in the Senate. I may have spoken too soon. In Alaska, Democrat Mark Begich has taken the lead over Republican incumbent Ted Stevens in the early counting of absentee, early, and challenged votes. At last count, Begich was 814 votes ahead. Begich had a big lead in those tallies—evidence of the effectiveness of the Obama campaign, which was targeting Alaska until John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate. But the counting may not entirely favor Democrats. Not until next week will ballots from Anchorage be counted, and Anchorage typically is more Republican than the rest of the state.

Meanwhile, we await the final count from Minnesota, where Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is only 206 votes ahead of Democrat Al Franken. A good place to keep up with that is the Powerline blog. And here are some other links, from Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic. And on December 2, Georgia will have a runoff election because Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss got 49.8 percent of the vote on November 4, just short of the 50 percent required to win without a runoff. The Obama campaign has kept its offices busy working on this project, although it's not clear whether Obama, who didn't campaign much for other Democrats this year, will personally campaign. The Obama campaign did a terrific job of increasing black turnout in Georgia, and so a victory for Democrat Jim Martin is a lively possibility.

The results in these three races could make an enormous difference in public policy. With 60 votes in the Senate, Democrats will probably pass the card check bill designed to abolish secret ballots in unionization elections. The likely result: a sharp rise in the 8 percent of private-sector employees represented by unions. We can see the difference this can make by looking at another issue that's being debated: the Detroit Three auto bailout backed by Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders (the subject of my forthcoming Creators Syndicate column). Why are the Detroit Three in such trouble? Well, the lavish healthcare benefits negotiated by the companies and the United Auto Workers mean that total compensation paid workers by the Detroit Three is 52 percent higher than Toyota's and 132 percent above the U.S. manufacturing average. Is this what we want for large swaths of the private-sector economy?
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How to Block the Liberal Agenda

The important number to take away from this election was not Osama's electoral total. No, it is the number 56. That is the maximum number of senate seats the democrooks can achieve after recounts and runoffs, realistically. They have no chance at 60 at all.

This effectively means we can block card check, fairness doctrine (hush Rush), and the most radical leftist "reforms" these thieves have planned for us. A warning though - watch to see if Osama tries to impose "hush Rush" through administrative action.

Things aren't yet as bad as they seem...T

Washington, meet Barack Obama. Barack Obama, remeet the Republican senators who are now going to help define your presidency.

Democrats won big on Tuesday but not big enough. The voters' rebuke of the GOP was brutal, though not so cruel as to hand Mr. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the 60 votes they needed to grease a sweeping agenda. The GOP still owns a filibuster, and that is as big a factor in this new "era" as is our president-elect.

Democrats, who now officially own 55 seats, are still salivating over that distant 60. But Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is holding on, and Georgia's Saxby Chambliss is positioned to win a run-off. Norm Coleman in Minnesota is in for an ugly recount, but he starts with a lead. If Mr. Reid goes postal on the McCain-supporting Joe Lieberman, Republicans could also find themselves with occasional help from the liberated Connecticuter.

These numbers aren't an accident, but instead say something about America's interest in a check on the Democratic majority. Mr. Obama won Oregon by 15 percentage points, yet thousands of his own supporters pulled the lever for Republican Gordon Smith, who lost narrowly. In Minnesota Mr. Obama won by 10, yet Mr. Coleman leads. Alaskans appear to have voted for a felon in part to deny the left a supermajority.

The biggest Republican victory this week was in fact that of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose considerable tactical skills will now be in even greater demand. Democrats have a healthy fear of Mr. McConnell's abilities, one reason Chuck Schumer chose to divert $6 million into the long-shot Kentucky race, rather than keep it in say, Minnesota, where his boy Al Franken is now losing.

Mr. McConnell's strength has been putting up a principled opposition, without earning the reputation for Tom Daschle-like obstruction. And from the sounds of his opening statement this week, his game plan is the same, only with higher stakes. Mr. McConnell "stands ready" to hear Mr. Obama's "ideas for implementing his campaign promises of cutting taxes, increasing energy security, reducing spending and easing the burden of an immense and growing national debt." Note he is not standing ready to negotiate on eliminating union secret ballots, nationalizing health care, enacting a climate program, or over-regulating the financial industry.

Nevertheless, Mr. Reid is closer to 60 votes than he was before, and he is already strategizing about which Republicans to pick off on specific issues. At the top of every list is Maine's Olympia Snowe. Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter is up for re-election in 2010. Susan Collins and Mr. Coleman (should he return) will also be targets. And Mr. McConnell will have already lost those battles for which he was dependent on a veto, such as more funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

Then again, the minority leader has several things going for him. Congressional Democrats will overreach, as they are already doing. (House liberal Henry Waxman is moving to unseat fellow House liberal John Dingell -- who he doesn't find liberal enough -- from the Energy and Commerce committee.) This means tension with a President Obama, who may not be so eager to throw out his "bipartisan" image on Day One. Republicans can sit back to watch that fight.

Democrats also can't depend on President Bush to save them from themselves. All but one of Mr. Reid's 51 caucus members voted last year to proceed with legislation eliminating union secret ballots, and all 50 knew it would never become law. Mr. McConnell has his own list of vulnerable Democrats who he -- with the help of the business community -- will remind of the electoral consequences of enacting a measure hated by 80% of the country, according to polls. Maybe Nebraska's Ben Nelson, who hails from a right-to-work state, will vote to allow his constituents to be bullied by union thugs. Or, when it comes down to it, maybe not.

Mr. Obama and his party are meanwhile now the sole political proprietors of a major financial crisis. Revenues will contract, even as Mr. Obama promises tax cuts. That alone may temper ambitions on issues like health care, which Democrats may now have to approach piecemeal. But also expect to see the GOP rediscover a devotion to fiscal responsibility. Any Democratic proposal, for anything, will elicit howls of "deficit spending." Some Republicans are actually looking forward to January.

And let's not forget that the left has spent eight years helpfully showing Republicans how they might make life difficult. Democrats have insisted a filibuster for judicial and cabinet positions is "essential" and that a president "must" consult with the opposition. Mr. Obama himself voted to filibuster Bush picks. They don't call these things "precedents" for nothing. Democrats have also highlighted procedural tools that the right could now use to slow Senate business to a slug's pace.

So yes, it is a new day in Washington. Just don't go thinking it will be an easy one.
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President Bush's resignation speech

Whatever our feelings about this president, it's obvious to all of us that his job, never easy, is today a crucible of frustration, vituperation, condemnation, lowered public approval and even downright opposition from some in his own party. I'm thinking that, though he has not uttered words like these, there are times President Bush might very much want to: (ps - thanks to the author!...T)

Normally, I start these things out by saying, "My fellow Americans."

Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore.

I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not fellow Americans any longer.
I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: There's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

The reason I'm quitting is simple: I'm fed up with you people.

I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world – or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damn lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners, including record numbers of minority homeowners. And while we're mentioning m minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.

Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels, and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

We face real threats in the world. Don't give me this "blood for oil" thing. If I were trading blood for oil, I would've already seized Iraq's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this "Bush Lied; People Died" crap either. If I were the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be "discovered." Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty.

Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official U.S. policy before I came into office. Some guy named Clinton established that policy. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the Cold War, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.

That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you, and the bastards are all over the globe.

You should be grateful they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since Sept. 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that. When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of "Survivor."

Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat's political campaign, well, dang it, you might just as well FedEx a grenade launcher to a jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.

In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch "American Idol."

I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.

I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.

So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford; I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.

Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting, too. That means Pelosi is your new president. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.

So that's it. God bless what's left of America. Some of you know what I mean. The rest of you, kiss off.

PS - You might want to start learning Farsi, and buy a Koran.

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The Real New Deal

Obama has been using the "Blue Eagle" of the new deal era NRA as his podium's seal up till this week, when even the sycophantic press turned against it. Let's take a look at the real legacy of the new deal, of it's attempts to impose fascist ideology on the USA, and it's attempts to hijack the US constitution. If not for WWII, FDR would have gone down in history as the worst president in the history of this nation...T

...The seal (of the Blue Eagle) was the public symbol for one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's greatest policy disasters. (This was the) emblem of the National Recovery Administration, FDR's attempt to beat the Depression by collectivizing the U.S. economy.

The NRA was the centerpiece of the "Hundred Days", FDR's whirlwind law-passing spree following his inauguration. It was the work of "brain trusters" Rexford G. Tugwell and Adolf Berle, adapted directly from Mussolini's "corporative" system.

The NRA attempted to "organize" the U.S. economy from the largest corporations to the smallest Mom n' Pop store. Businesses were encouraged to sign up with the proviso that they would be able to write their own rules for their industries, effectively turning them into cartels. Member businesses were allowed to place the Blue Eagle in their windows, along with the slogan "We Do Our Part".

Businesses were required to pay minimum wage, abandon child labor, and adapt wage and price controls. As for businesses that held out... well, the NRA was run by an ex-general, Hugh Johnson, who, to put it kindly, was not Colin Powell. Johnson took the Mussolini connection to heart, declaring all businesses not displaying the Blue Eagle to be "enemies of the people", and encouraging the public to boycott them, if not worse.

But it was even more dangerous for companies that signed up. Businessmen were jailed for breaking NRA rules, and goon squads roamed the streets of Manhattan looking for violators The story is told in detail in Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascim. The Secret History of the American Left and Amity Shlae's The Forgotten Man. A New History of the Great Depression. How this nonsense was supposed to end the Depression is anybody's guess. In short order, it ran afoul of the Supreme Court, which on May 27, 1935, found the NRA illegal in Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States, the so-called "sick chicken" case. The Court struck down the NRA as an unconstitutional extension of executive power. Roosevelt was forced to drastically modify his plans for the economy. (Not to mention waste the next two years on his notorious "court-packing"scheme.)

But the major point as far as the Obama campaign is concerned lies in the fact that the NRA -- along with all of FDR's collectivist policies -- was a complete failure. Centralization and planning gave the economy a brief kick, but one that lasted only months. By 1937 unemployment was higher than it had been when Roosevelt took office four years earlier. By the New Year's he was reduced to pleading to his cabinet, "Won't somebody tell me what to do?" It required WW II to pull the U.S. out of its tailspin.

So what kind of campaign picks one of its party's greatest disasters for use as a symbol? Seeking a connection with Roosevelt is understandable, but why not the Roosevelt of the war years, rather than the bumbling and inept rookie president of the 30s? The answer is probably simple ignorance. In which case Obama is lucky that the media (similarly uninformed) missed the connection and spared him that much extra adverse commentary. But he's relying all too often on luck to ease the way for him.

The Hungarian-American historian John Lukacs (no relation to the Marxist theoretician Georg Lukacs) has warned us on several occasions to be careful how we select our symbols. Symbols, Lukacs tells us, mean something because we think they do, and they tend to have lives of their own. If we select one that reflects badly on us, or one whose meaning can betray us, it can have repercussions all out of proportion to the actual source. (Curiously, one of the examples Lukacs gives also involves an eagle: the double-headed imperial eagle that fell to the ground at Austro-Hungarian emperor Karl's coronation in1916. Two years later, the empire was extinct, and Karl was the emperor of nobody.)

In choosing an emblem of arrogance, incompetence, and failure for his "seal", Obama has told us a number of things about himself that he probably would rather we didn't know. We should heed the warning.
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Supreme Court Grants Terrorists U.S. Constitutional Rights

And Roosevelt, the messiah of the Left, imprisoned the ENTIRE west coast Japanese population for 4 years, without Habeus Corpus! Now, If there was a democrat in the presidency the court would never have reached this bizarre conclusion. Never in our history has a war been fought this way. Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus during the civil War, and totally ignored Supreme Court decisions with impunity.

Now do you know why we need McCain to keep B. Insane Osama out of the White House?...T

Legal Footsie

So the ACLU now files on behalf of Larry Craig. Not saying he was entrapped - no, but that we all have a right to sexual privacy in public bathrooms! Michael Dukakis must wish he was running this year, not back in "repressed" 1988...T

Conventional Wisdom

I'd like to see it. Not only is the current process undignified in the extreme, and certainly sophomoric, but it also often results in under qualified and sometimes demagogic candidates being nominated. Sometimes even pathologically unqualified candidates (Jimmy Carter, you know who you are!).

Let's do a quick fact check here. If Party conventions had been the norm the last 40 years, we would NOT have been forced to consider as nominee of their party (in order since the 1st example), George McGovern in 72, Jimmy Carter in 76 and again in 80, Michael Dukakis in 88 (possibly), certainly NOT Bill Clinton in 92, and likely not John Freaking Kerry in 2004. Now granted, these are all democrats, but in this year, 2008, the republicans stand a good chance of having a disastrous nominee, as do the democrats, thereby making 2008 potentially the worst presidential choice in modern American history...T

WASHINGTON -- With the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination charging each other with racial bigotry, I think it is safe to observe that 2008 will not be a progressive year in the Democratic Party. Increasingly the Clinton campaign puts me in mind of presidential campaigns waged by the late segregationist George Wallace. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton even has Wallace's surly style. Yet Wallace was rarely accused of lying. Hillary is caught lying every few days, and the lies are not even as clever as those of her mendacious husband, the sex maniac. Of course, when the fur ceases to fly over these racial charges, I think it will be clear that Hillary is not nearly the bigot Wallace was, but neither is she as nice a person. I cannot think of one of Governor Wallace's household pets disappearing under mysterious circumstances.

Moving over to the Republican race, none of the candidates has yet to charge another with racial bigotry. None has done oppositional research on an opponent's kindergarten records. And none has been caught raising campaign funds through a Chop Suey Connection. Yet, we have repeatedly heard the ugly charge of flip-floppery flung about wantonly, and it is not a reference to casual footwear but to casual dissembling on issues. In fact, every candidate still in the Republican race has been accused of flip-floppery, occasionally using multiple feet.

Thus far the 2008 campaign in both parties is very unsatisfactory. Something is missing, and, as I see it, that something is dignity. At this stage Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama come closest to displaying dignity; but even they fall short, owing to the environment in which they must operate, an environment shaped by a prima donna electorate and a press that encourages soap opera. Both are the consequence of idiotic state caucuses or state primaries, inflated into circuses by enormous sums of money, and all lacking in party discipline. It is time to return to nominating presidential candidates in national political conventions, the same kind of conventions that gave us Roosevelts and Eisenhower and the 1960 race between Kennedy and Nixon -- a very classy affair compared to today's infantile confrontations.

Today national conventions are a thing of the past because mid-20th century reformers accused them of being undemocratic. Actually, they were as democratic as today's caucuses and primaries. Moreover, they reduced the need for the vast fundraising operations that are our contemporary reformers' nightmare. Most of the delegates at national conventions were chosen democratically at their state conventions, where party platforms were pounded out and presidential nominees chosen. The enormous expense of media advertising and get-out-the-vote drives was unnecessary, as most of the participants were volunteers, loyal party members, or public-spirited citizens prevailed upon by neighbors to get involved as Democrats or Republicans.

What is more, seasoned politicians were influential every step of the way, right up to the convention. In the time of competitive national political conventions, presidential candidates still had to campaign throughout the nation but at far less expense. Then once the national convention was convened, they had to present themselves to each state delegation. Reformers inveighed against the spectacle of floor demonstrations, with delegates wearing silly hats and parading up the aisles, but such high jinks were harmless, far less expensive than today's vast media buys, and turned up presidential nominees far more impressive than today's poseurs.

Reading Arthur Schlesinger's Journals, I came across the now-deceased historian's observations of JFK at the 1960 Democratic national convention. Kennedy was in a pretty good position to win the nomination, but he had to present himself to state delegations nonetheless. He particularly disrelished visiting the segregationist Southerners, but he did so. He already had a sense of what they were like but now had an opportunity to review his estimates of them. They, in turn, got a sense of him. This was not an costly blitz through a primary state, accompanied by expensive and misleading media barrages and transient opportunities to embarrass his rivals. It was a serious meeting among Democrats who were deeply involved in governing their states. It was adult politics.

If our reformers really want to end the nightmare of $100 million primary campaigns and the trashiness of this primary season, they will bring us back to the good old days of national political conventions that really matter. I long to see candidates in silly hats rather than in silly situations.
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