Tip Jar

3/06/2010

Two Cheers for American Exceptionalism


President Obama rejects American exceptionalism in a manner never before seen in an American commander in chief.

Via-The American

There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of American foreign policy in the post-9/11 era. The failures of the Bush administration’s democracy agenda are manifest, and the contribution of hubris and wishful thinking to its errors should not be underrated. Nevertheless, the latest vogue in reproaches against the exercise of U.S. power suffers from its own muddy-headed rationalizing. Its most conspicuous trait is its assault on American exceptionalism. Under this view, America’s sense of its unique democratic identity and mission is the root cause of the world’s evils. There is reason to believe that this idea, or something like it, has taken hold in the Obama White House.

During a European trip last year, President Obama was asked about his view of American influence in the world. “I believe in American exceptionalism,” he said, “just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Translation: We all cling to our parochial mythologies. No American president ever disowned so openly the singular achievement of the United States, namely, to arrange its national life so that its extraordinary power—military, political, and economic—would promote democratic ideals and institutions.

Critics of American exceptionalism indulge in a propagandistic treatment of U.S. engagement in the world. The late Howard Zinn made historical revisionism a booming business with sales of his popular textbook, A People’s History of the United States. A slightly more sophisticated version of the problem appears in the work of Boston University’s Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army veteran who lost a son in the war in Iraq. His book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, raises important caveats about American materialism and its influence on foreign policy. Yet for all his self-styled “realism,” Bacevich echoes a tired utopian theme: that U.S. foreign policy is a story of thinly disguised militarism, and that its claim to noble, liberating intentions is invalidated by its “penchant for consumption and self-indulgence.”

You have to circumvent a lot of American history to arrive in this sinkhole of self-flagellation. In reality, the most laudable acts of U.S. foreign policy—especially those involving the defense of democracy and human rights—are bound up with a belief in America’s exceptional role on the world stage.

Consider U.S. policy under President Harry Truman at the outset of the Cold War. In the summer of 1945, as World War II was coming to an end, the Soviet army occupied most of Central and Eastern Europe. As Stalin was tightening communism’s grip in the region, where was the United States, the supposedly restless and rapacious hegemon?

American forces were pulling out, leaving a handful of divisions in democratic zones of influence. Despite its decisive victory in Europe, its economic dominance, its overwhelming military advantage, the United States made a choice no other great power ever made in the history of international affairs: It demobilized its occupying armies. “The newspapers are full of the great movements of the American armies out of Europe,” complained British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a note to Truman. “Surely it is vital now to come to an understanding with Russia…before we weaken our armies mortally.”

Sensing American weakness, the Soviet Union launched a blockade of the city of Berlin on June 24, 1948. The Soviets shut down all rail and surface traffic that connected Western Germany with the Allied-controlled zones of the city. Stalin was prepared to starve the Berliners to death.

Truman’s response? Four days into the crisis, he told his cabinet he would not abandon the city. “We are going to stay. Period.” He viewed America’s defense of Berlin as the strategic key to the democratic future of Germany and the rest of Western Europe. As he later put it: “Berlin had become a symbol of America’s—and the West’s—dedication to the cause of freedom.” Truman proposed an airlift, a massive round-the-clock air transport to supply the citizens of West Berlin. Almost no one in his cabinet thought the plan could work. Most believed America should abandon the city to the Soviets.

Truman overruled them. Western pilots started landing almost minute by minute in Berlin, delivering 13,000 tons of food and fuel per day. They kept at it for 320 days. On May 12, 1949, the Soviet Union backed down; Stalin lifted the blockade. No one would accuse the American president of dithering.

President Obama, by contrast, after 94 agonizing days of internal debates, finally agreed with his top generals to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. And yet even as Obama approved the troop increase, he called for their withdrawal to begin in July 2011, a message that confused America’s allies. As distinguished historian Walter Russell Mead recently described it, the deliberation was “a case study in presidential schizophrenia.”

What helps explain the difference in presidential leadership? Truman’s view of American exceptionalism must rank high on the list, along with a thoroughly sober assessment of the global threat to democratic ideals:

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life … One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms. I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

Imperial ambition? Apocalyptic zeal? It was the Truman Doctrine that made possible the Marshall Plan, which rescued Western Europe from economic ruin. It was this view, more or less, that guided America’s foreign policy establishment during the Cold War. This is clear from NSC 68, the national security document that articulated the doctrine of containment. The theme of American exceptionalism is one of its dominant narratives: “In the absence of affirmative decision on our part, the rest of the free world is almost certain to become demoralized,” the authors warned. “Our friends will become more than a liability to us; they can eventually become a positive increment to Soviet power.”

Armed with an identical view of American exceptionalism, Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign in 1980, a year of political tremors in the Soviet Bloc. In August, the communist government in Poland faced a spontaneous workers’ revolution—unheard of in any Marxist country. Led by Lech Walesa, Polish workers of the Solidarity trade union staged a strike and challenged the party’s legitimacy. The Soviets accused them of “provocative behavior” and declared martial law. For months the free world watched to see if the Red Army would roll its tanks across the border. Reagan wrote in his diary at the time: “We can’t let this revolution against Communism fail without our offering a hand. We may never have an opportunity like this in our lifetime.”

When Reagan entered the White House in January 1981, he quickly gave voice to his convictions. He made this prediction: “The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and for the spread of civilization. The West won’t contain Communism, it will transcend Communism … It will dismiss [Communism] as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.”

Liberals howled. Sovietologists such as Stephen Cohen denounced Reagan’s abandonment of détente as “a pathological rather than a healthy response to the Soviet Union.” America’s misdeeds were on the same scale as those of the Soviets, many argued, and we had no business lecturing them about their “internal” affairs.

Reagan rejected this debased view of American democracy, and his beliefs made all the difference. He could discern Soviet weakness. He openly identified the United States with the democratic revolt in the communist world, beginning with Poland. On December 23, 1981, Reagan addressed the American people about the growing crisis: “For a thousand years, Christmas has been celebrated in Poland, a land of deep religious faith, but this Christmas brings little joy to the courageous Polish people. They have been betrayed by their own government.” The president then asked all Americans to light a candle in support of freedom in Poland

It was a potent symbolic act, and it helped make the Polish struggle America’s struggle. Reagan went beyond symbolism, however, and worked behind the scenes—with Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II—to aggressively support the Solidarity movement. It would not be long before Solidarity toppled the communist regime in Poland, the first crack in the Iron Curtain. Reagan had sensed the deep vulnerability of Soviet communism at a crisis moment—and exploited it. Make no mistake: The Reagan doctrine was rooted in an unshakable belief in America as the indispensable nation.

And what of Barack Obama? His rejection of American exceptionalism helps explain his floundering policy toward Iran. When tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets last summer to contest a rigged election, Team Obama was determined to avoid even the appearance of “meddling” in Iranian affairs. Then the bloodletting began, as the theocratic thugs in Tehran cracked down on the protestors. Since then, the president has remained mostly mute—even as peaceful demonstrators by the thousands have been arrested, tortured, raped, and executed.

The democracy movement in Iran represents not only the possibility of regime change, but the best hope for keeping the mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet President Obama, lacking confidence in America’s moral leadership, remains a spectator of events. A wiser statesman, upon receiving his Nobel Peace Prize, might have used the moment to identify the cause of Iran’s dissidents with America’s cause. He might have said: “I’m not worthy to receive this honor. But the Iranian people, bleeding and dying on the streets of Tehran for the cause of freedom, are more than worthy. Americans share in their fight against tyranny and extremism. We stand with them in their suffering, and I accept this award on their behalf.”

Of course, the concept of American exceptionalism is not without its problems. The idea lends itself to American arrogance and exploitation. Unchecked by political realism, it can shut down diplomacy and rationalize badly conceived conflicts.

The fact remains, however, that America’s achievements in the cause of freedom owe a large debt to this belief in the exceptional character of its democratic culture. American virtue is always mixed with vices, its noblest aims always tainted by self-interest; such is the nature of human life and human societies. America’s democratic example does not shine like John Winthrop’s biblical “city on a hill”—ever pure, steady, and bright. But it is visible, nonetheless. The great and grievous flaw of America’s critics is to despise this light, to confuse it with darkness. A left-wing blogger expressed their gloomy outlook: “The only city on a hill we resemble today is Mordor!” Here is the cry of the embittered utopian: Let him remain in the sanctuary, where his mischief is contained. Let others, flawed in character yet humane in purpose, do the hard work that only statesmen can do.

Joseph Loconte is a lecturer in politics at the King’s College in New York City and a contributing editor to THE AMERICAN. His most recent book is The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm.






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Democrat-Media Complex Accuses Tea Partiers of Being On… the Other Side



Via- Big Journalism

Dr. Gina Loudon

The Mainstream Media’s (MSM’s) latest sport is to try to accuse the Tea Party activists of being Republican hacks. The reality is that their spin is demonstrative again, of their Pavlovian simplicity and lack of vision for their own agenda.

In truth, were the Democrats to give up their agenda of bigger government, more debt, and more spending, some Tea Partiers would return to the party of their grandparents. Sadly, it appears more likely that donkeys will fly than turn from their statist tack. For now, donkeys aren’t flying, and the Republicans have an opportunity to garner the support of the Tea Party if they play their cards right.

Tea Partiers will admit that the Republican agenda is much more closely aligned with theirs than the Democrats, even if they are not ready to be pigeonholed with that label. Most Tea Partiers say that under certain conditions, they might be Republicans, but for now, they are happy “looking in” and demanding changes.

The Tea Party is validated and emboldened when the MSM whines about their rallies and demands. They are enjoying their own sport of watching the MSM frantically rushing to resuscitate a dying agenda of one-world government, socialized medicine, and elimination of state and national sovereignty. Their shrill protestations embolden Tea Partiers to fight another day, while confirming their worst suspicions about the MSM’s true agenda. The fierce individualist American Spirit has awoken from its nap and is ready for action! The MSM might be dismayed to learn that they are the very noise that awakened the giant. They dared Conservatives to show their faces, and they did!

So what will the MSM have to show for their little game of “truth or dare” with the Tea Party? Nothing. Their party gains nothing. They certainly have not improved their ratings, or credibility. Their jobs have gone away. At the end of the day all they will be able to say is, “look, see, we told you they were Republicans!”

So…what?

Instead of daring and cajoling, they should be spending their time drawing upon those in the Tea Party who espouse the old Democrat values of Kennedy, Moynihan, Sam Nunn, and others. Or are they so ideologically left (socialist) that they won’t even admit the game is over when they have clearly lost?

They might want to examine the failures of their tactics and take a new approach, before they are entirely discredited by the new army of journalists who understand the Conservatism in the electorate. A little honesty; a little “my bad”; a little “I am listening”– would do wonders for those who have enjoyed a free run in the media for decades, hiding their socialist agenda behind a thin veil of “journalism.”

Pavlov’s psychological studies predicted that behaviors would be repeated long after the previous rewards ceased, if the rewards were reinforced for long enough beforehand. For years, the MSM could smack down the right and the right retreated. The MSM does not appear to understand the new dynamic or psychological curve ball the right has thrown their way.

Tea Partiers have defined their goals of small government, less spending, and lowering debt. For the Republicans, that is a small pivot. For the Democrats, it’s a complete turn around. Blue Dogs like Evan Bayh of Indiana are recognizing that but the Democrat Party leaders seem to be missing the point.

Tea Partiers are asking Republicans to pivot show fidelity to their own platform and the tenets of the U.S. Constitution. Tea Partiers are asking the Republicans to stop shoving “RINOs” – Republicans In Name Only — down their throats. Tea Partiers are asking to be part of the system that chooses candidates before the primary. Sounds simple enough. Republicans are starting to listen to the Tea Party, and it’s high time they did so.

The day after the election, Democrats and their MSM allies will wake up saying, “see, we told you all those Tea Partiers were Republican hacks.” The Republicans will wake up saying, “we best represented their values, and vowed to return to our platform and Constitution.” The Tea Partiers will wake up and say, “Mission accomplished. Now, let’s hold them accountable.”

The MSM looks shrill to the point of silly. Challenging Tea Party activists to “admit” they are going to vote Republican is like challenging Big Labor to admit they lean left. The difference is the independence of the Tea Party, who will individually think for themselves, and not be told how to vote. Republican leaders are optimistic, and I see no donkeys flying, in the near future.


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"Dreams Of Our Fathers"



"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. "



Thomas Paine
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Alice in Medical Care: Part IV


Via-The Patriot Post


By Thomas Sowell

Some years ago, one of my favorite doctors retired. On my last visit to his office, he took some time to explain to me why he was retiring early and in good health.

Being a doctor was becoming more of a hassle as the years went by, he said, and also less fulfilling. It was becoming more of a hassle because of the increasing paperwork, and it was less fulfilling because of the way patients came to him.

He was currently being asked to Xerox lots of records from his files, in order to be reimbursed for another patient he was treating. He said it just wasn't worth it. Whoever was paying-- it might have been an insurance company or the government-- would either pay him or not, he said, but he wasn't going to jump through all those hoops.

My doctor said that doctor-patient relationships were not the same as they had been when he entered the profession. Back then, people came to him because someone had recommended him to them, but now increasing numbers of people were sent to him because they had some group insurance plan that included his group.

He said that the mutual confidence that was part of the doctor-patient relationship was not the same with people who came to his office only because his name was on some list of eligible physicians.

The loss of one doctor-- even a very good doctor-- may not seem very important in the grand scheme of heady medical care "reform" and glittering phrases about "universal health care." But making the medical profession more of a hassle for doctors risks losing more doctors, while increasing the demand for treatment.

A study published in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Law & Economics showed that a rise in the cost of medical liability insurance led to more reductions of hours of medical service supplied by older doctors than among younger doctors.

Younger doctors, more recently out of medical school and often with huge debts to pay off for the cost of that expensive training, may have no choice but to continue working as hard as possible to try to recoup that huge investment of money and time.

Younger doctors will probably continue working, even if bureaucrats load them down with increasing amounts of paperwork and the government continues to lower reimbursements for Medicare, Medicaid and-- heaven help us-- the new proposed "universal health care" legislation that is supposed to "bring down the cost of medical care."

The confusion between lowering costs and refusing to pay the costs can have a real impact on the supply of doctors. The real costs of medical care include both the financial conditions and the working conditions that will insure a continuing supply of both the quantity and the quality of doctors required to maintain medical care standards for a growing number of patients.

Although younger doctors may be trapped in a profession that some of them might not have entered if they had known in advance what all its pluses and minuses would turn out to be, there are two other important groups who are in a position to decide whether or not it is worth it.

Those who are old enough to have paid off their medical school debts long ago, and successful enough that they can afford to retire early, or to take jobs as medical consultants, can opt out of the whole elaborate third-party payment system and its problems. What the rising costs of medical liability insurance has already done for some, other hassles that bureaucracies and politicians create can have the same effect for others.

There is another group that doesn't have to put up with these hassles. These are young people who have reached the stage in their lives when they are choosing which profession to enter, and weighing the pluses and minuses before making their decisions.

Some of these young people might prefer becoming a doctor, other things being equal. But the heady schemes of government-controlled medicine, and the ever more bloated bureaucracies that these heady schemes will require, can make it very unlikely that other things will be equal in the medical profession.

Paying doctors less and hassling them more may be some people's idea of "lowering the cost of medical care," but it is instead refusing to pay the costs-- and taking the consequences.


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3/05/2010

Blue Plate Special


Via-Pajamas Media

Congressman Paul Ryan has had considerable success lately explaining the main problem with health care — and with “social democracy” — in general: it’s unsustainable. It’s an old message which has until recently taken a back seat to the idea that the welfare state was the wave of the future. OpenLeft argued that the hidden message of Star Trek was that in the future humanity would establish a socialist paradise. “The most familiar utopian socialist society would be that of the United Federation of Planets in the popular television series Star Trek – particularly that depicted in The Next Generation. There is no money, no want, no poverty, no crime, no disease or ignorance in human society; everyone works for the advancement of all humanity — as well as the rest of the Federation.”

And bizarre as it may seem, until recently many people would have agreed that socialism was the fate of mankind; that our capitalist world was but an unfortunate expedient, a necessary concession to knuckle draggers until in our enlightenment we could go out and prove our superiority to the Borg. Ryan’s great achievement was to start a hairline crack in that crystal vision; to point out that for utopia to exist we first have to afford it; and under socialism we can’t. Fortune calls Paul Ryan “Obama’s Adversary,” not just in the party politics sense, but memetically. He’s gently pointed out that Hope and Change might simply be a nightmare tricked out as a dream. But he’s made an even more radical assertion: that the world can have a future it doesn’t have to buy on credit.


Republicans aren’t the only ones suddenly taking notice of Ryan’s views on deficit reduction and government spending. During his now-famous appearance at the Republican congressional retreat in Baltimore earlier this year, the President singled out Ryan. …

Ryan got his chance to confront the President at the health-care summit Feb. 25. Seated across from Obama, Ryan addressed him directly with a six-minute, numbers-laden, wonkish analysis of the Senate bill that contradicted the administration’s pledge that the plan wouldn’t add to the mountainous deficit. … Obama steered the discussion away from Ryan’s numbers, and the White House hasn’t challenged his analysis.
The health care debate was the congressman’s great moment and the press is likely to pitch it as consequent to his own personal charisma, that fount from which all political success is believed to come. But it isn’t Ryan that bears watching so much as the sudden respectability of his message. Mario Continetti of the Weekly Standard describes him as a kind of anti-Obama in the sense that he yearns for a different heaven and fears a different hell. While “President Obama wants to reshape the American economy and welfare state so that it looks more like a Western European social democracy,” Ryan wants to build a future based on something people can actually afford, “and since fiscal policy is Ryan’s specialty, he’s become the GOP point man when it comes to entitlements and health care.” What the Congressman has on his side is arithmetic of money, which even Chris Matthews has to respect. Watch this exchange.


Matthews shrewdly asks Ryan why he thinks he can persuade voters that they can no longer have something for nothing when nobody else has before. And for a moment we catch a glimpse of a much more formidable Chris Matthews, a man who seems to have come to liberalism in part because he’s seen conservatism fail to sell. And the congressman’s riposte is simple: ‘Chris, it will sell now because the voters have no choice. The party’s over and sooner or later everyone who isn’t brain-dead has to see that.’ Entitlements have drained the treasury dry. An entire generation has blown its wad and doesn’t even have enough kids to borrow from. And as any who’s ever shaken his wallet and seen only old ATM receipts flutter out of it, the message is signally clear. Gotta get back to work.

The extraordinary impact of Ryan’s message really springs from the fact that it’s an idea whose time has come. Either that or the salesmen in political fantasy, though as good as ever, have finally sold their customers one thing too many, sent them running out into the street one last time under the spell of one of those late night shopping show pitches, intent on ordering the tenth combination potato peeler and bathroom scale only to find all their neighbors sleepwalking toward the center of the road looking open mouthed at the dawn coming up from of the dark edge of the city.


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3/04/2010

Dronism

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The pathetic god of Environmentalism



Via-American Thinker

By Larrey Anderson

Writing, or trying to write, about God is usually a bad idea. Either there is a God or there is not. If there is no God, then there is nothing to write about. (Sorry atheists -- but if you are right and God does not exist -- why bother spending so much time and energy on ... nothing?)

If there is a God... Let's start with a picture followed by a brief explanation:


I live in the Snake River Canyon. Its rugged beauty is terrifying. A philosopher's job is to try and stay open minded about all questions (including the existence of God) -- to love the truth above all else. But when I step out on my porch, and try to ponder the awesome power of the existence of a Being capable of producing layer upon layer of flowing lava and water carved granite and basalt that formed a 500 foot deep canyon over millions and millions of years, I feel derisory and puny. A Being that can create with such subtle delicacy, and such unimaginable potency, resides far beyond the reach of mere words.

Just thinking about a Creator with that kind of power frightens me. I am not capable of even communicating the dread that I feel contemplating such omnipotence. Nor am I foolish enough to attempt to describe the sort of deity that could produce the majestic (and forbidding) wonder of our world and the vast complexity of the universe.

So I leave writing about God alone -- with one exception. There is one god that I am certain does not exist. It is the god of the environmentalists: Mother Earth or Gaia or whatever other name they choose to call their deity.

Many writers have pointed out that the global warming scam, and environmentalism in general, is a religion or a cult. What has not been done is to examine the nature of the deity of the religion.

The "god" of the religion of environmentalism is pathetic. The environmentalists' god is weak, vulnerable. Their god depends on her followers to save her. Their god is no God. And, as we will see, this tells us something crucial about the religion of environmentalism.

Look at these pictures of their god. (There are dozens of paintings and posters. Take the time to examine some of them. Compare them with the initial photo in this essay of the Snake River canyon right outside my porch.)


The god of the environmentalists has three characteristics:


1) Their god is our planet, the Earth.


2) Their god is female. She is benign, protective, and, most important, vulnerable.


3) Their god is vulnerable because of the "pollution" (most specifically CO2 -- a naturally occurring chemical compound) produced by human beings and our modern industrial society. This defilement of the atmosphere has caused (notice the gender used in the description) "man-made global warming."

The "pledge of allegiance" to the earth, from the Oregon Country Fair, sums up all three of these characteristics:

As I have previously pointed out, the human need, to call upon the gods (whether male or female) to control the weather, to provide for a good harvest, and to protect us from the elements, is as old as human civilization.

What has changed is that environmentalists now look to science and government to save their god from the evils of mankind. Their god doesn't have the power to fix the climate -- so they will do it for her.

Al Gore has stated

"The Earth has a fever and just like when your child has a fever, maybe that's a
warning of something seriously wrong."

Mother earth is like a sick child. The god of the environmentalists is a helpless victim. It is up to politicians and scientists to redeem her and to save her.

There is no doubt about the religious element that prophet of global warming brings to the table. CBS news said of Gore, when he was promoting his film "An Inconvenient Truth"

His slideshows are tailored to his audiences. For example, when he talks to evangelical Christians, he includes passages from the Bible.

Gore is trying to redefine this as a moral and spiritual issue. "We all share the exact same interest in doing the right thing on this. Who are we as human beings? Are we destined to destroy this place that we call home, planet earth? I can't believe that that's our destiny. It is not our destiny. But we have to awaken to the moral duty that we have to do the right thing and get out of this silly political game-playing about it. This is about survival," he said.

The left has given us a watered down version of Christianity in the complementary concepts of multiculturalism and diversity. It is clear that the left is also using the eschatological underpinnings of Christianity to now sell the American people on the impending doom caused by man-made global warming.

Gore opened his 2009 book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis with this:

I'm offering you the choice of life or death. You can choose either blessings or curses. - Deuteronomy Chapter 30, Verse 19

Gore's hubris is so blatantly obvious that the passage needs no exegesis.

The God of the Jews is righteous and just. The Old Testament tells the simple story of what happens when God's commandments are followed and when they are disobeyed. The God of the Jews doesn't need any help. He is not a victim. He is the great "I am that I am." As Moses found out, that is all that we have been told (and probably all that we can understand) about God. That was the end of the discussion.


The Christian God is a God of love and forgiveness. But that does not mean that the Christian God is powerless and needs our assistance:
At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. Matthew 24:30 [Emphasis added.]

Not so with the pathetic god of the environmentalists. She is sick. She requires that we pass cap and trade legislation -- least she suffer even more.

The theological conclusion that follows from worshipping Mother Earth is that she is no god at all. She doesn't even have the power to defend herself from the CO2 that is emitted when we exhale.

The real gods of the environmentalists are the politicians and the scientists who believe that they can save the planet. Those who worship the environment should understand exactly who their gods are.

Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. He is the author of The Order of the Beloved, and the memoir Underground: Life and Survival in the Russian Black Market.



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3/03/2010

Toon




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NASA Chief Bolden Seeks 'Plan B' for the Space Agency


Via-WSJ

NASA chief Charles Bolden has asked senior managers to draw up an alternate plan for the space agency after members of Congress indicated they wanted to reject a White House proposal to hire private companies to ferry U.S. astronauts into orbit and beyond.

In an internal National Aeronautics and Space Administration memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Bolden ordered officials to map out "what a potential compromise might look like" to satisfy critics on Capitol Hill. By calling for an alternative plan, Mr. Bolden threatened to undercut White House efforts to get its proposed NASA budget through Congress.

The White House is seeking to cancel major existing programs intended to build a new generation of government spacecraft and rockets to carry astronauts into space.

Instead the administration wants to outsource some early missions to smaller companies, such as Orbital Sciences Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

Under the White House plan, large and small companies would also compete for NASA funds to devise longer-term "game-changing" leaps in space propulsion and other capabilities.

Congress has reacted coolly to the White House proposal, which could lead to thousands of job losses in places like Florida, Texas and elsewhere. Many of the targeted programs involve large contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Alliant Techsystems Inc.

The move to draft a compromise highlights behind-the-scenes maneuvering by NASA officials to save big chunks of existing programs now in jeopardy.

A space-agency spokesman said that while the administrator "is open to hearing ideas from any member of the NASA team," Mr. Bolden and the ageny "are fully committed to the President's budget" because it "sets the agency on a reinvigorated path of space exploration."

The NASA memo, dated March 2, came just a few days after Mr. Bolden faced a tough round of questioning in Congress over the White House plan.

The memo suggests the NASA chief and his team were more inclined to try to pacify lawmakers than wage a tough battle to end multibillion-dollar contracts signed under the previous administration. It was written by Michael Coats, director of the Johnson Space Center.

In an email, Mr. Coats told senior managers at other centers and program offices that Mr. Bolden "agreed to let us set up a 'Plan B' team" to come up with alternate budget and program priorities.

NASA's latest budget has been buffeted by stiff bipartisan opposition from House and Senate members, including Rep. Bart Gordon, the Tennessee Democrat who chairs the House Science and Technology Committee. The memo says Mr. Bolden is meeting with Rep. Gordon "in a couple of days and asked for a one pager with talking points before his meeting."

The memo doesn't mention any coordination with senior White House budget aides, or senior policy makers in the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy, who played major roles in devising the administration's position.

The memo says the team will work further to "flesh out" alternative approaches consistent with White House budget caps and report through Douglas Cook, the NASA official overseeing the Constellation program to return to the moon, which the White House wants to kill.

NASA managers recognize the fiscal challenges they face to retain big-ticket items. "Living within the budget is a huge issue," the memo said, "since it's doubtful we'll get more funding" than the White House requested.

On Capitol Hill and in interviews, Mr. Bolden has stressed that he envisions retaining only small portions of the hardware being developed under the Constellation program.

But in the memo, which went to NASA offices that have major roles in supervising parts of Constellation, Mr. Coats suggests any alternate plan to please Congress most likely will entail keeping large chunks of Constellation and its planned Orion capsule, designed to transport astronauts to the international space station and beyond.

The memo lists "a human spacecraft development effort," heavy-lift rocket development and "a launch vehicle test program" as important elements of any alternate NASA plan. All three are core Constellation objectives.

Mr. Coats wrote about quickly assembling a study team and told colleagues: "You can name it anything you want—I don't recommend Constellation or Orion."

On Wednesday, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said that "after a long period of underinvestment in new technology and unrealistic budgeting," the President's proposals chart a space exploration path "that is bold, ambitious, and, most importantly, achievable."

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Rand Paul vs.ignorance





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The Basement Boys



Via-Newsweek

The making of modern immaturity.

by George Will

Current economic hardships have had what is called in constitutional law a "disparate impact": The crisis has not afflicted everyone equally. Although women are a majority of the workforce, perhaps as many as 80 percent of jobs lost were held by men. This injury to men is particularly unfortunate because it may exacerbate, and be exacerbated by, a culture of immaturity among the many young men who are reluctant to grow up.

Increasingly, they are defecting from the meritocracy. Women now receive almost 58 percent of bachelor's degrees. This is why many colleges admit men with qualifications inferior to those of women applicants—which is one reason men have higher dropout rates. The Pew Research Center reports that 28 percent of wives between ages 30 and 44 have more education than their husbands, whereas only 19 percent of husbands in the same age group have more education than their wives. Twenty-three percent of men with some college education earn less than their wives. In law, medical, and doctoral programs, women are majorities or, if trends continue, will be.

In 1956, the median age of men marrying was 22.5. But between 1980 and 2004, the percentage of men reaching age 40 without marrying increased from 6 to 16.5. A recent study found that 55 percent of men 18 to 24 are living in their parents' homes, as are 13 percent of men 25 to 34, compared to 8 percent of women.

Mike Stivic, a.k.a. Meathead, the liberal graduate student in All in the Family, reflected society's belief in the cultural superiority of youth, but he was a leading indicator of something else: He lived in his father-in-law Archie Bunker's home. What are today's "basement boys" doing down there? Perhaps watching Friends and Seinfeld reruns about a culture of extended youth utterly unlike the world of young adults in previous generations.

Gary Cross, a Penn State University historian, wonders, "Where have all the men gone?" His book, Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity, argues that "the culture of the boy-men today is less a life stage than a lifestyle." If you wonder what has become of manliness, he says, note the differences between Cary Grant and Hugh Grant, the former, dapper and debonair, the latter, a perpetually befuddled boy.

Permissive parenting, Cross says, made children less submissive, and the decline of deference coincided with the rise of consumer and media cultures celebrating the indefinite retention of the tastes and habits of childhood. The opening of careers to talented women has coincided with the attenuation of male role models in popular culture: In 1959, there were 27 Westerns on prime-time television glamorizing male responsibility.

Cross says the large-scale entry of women into the workforce made many men feel marginalized, especially when men were simultaneously bombarded by new parenting theories, which cast fathers as their children's pals, or worse: In 1945, Parents magazine said a father should "keep yourself huggable" but show a son the "respect" owed a "business associate."

All this led to "ambiguity and confusion about what fathers were to do in the postwar home and, even more, about what it meant to grow up male." Playboy magazine, a harbinger of perpetual adolescence, sold trinkets for would-be social dropouts: "Join the beat generation! Buy a beat generation tieclasp." Think about that.

Although Cross, an aging academic boomer, was a student leftist, he believes that 1960s radicalism became "a retreat into childish tantrums" symptomatic "of how permissive parents infantilized the boomer generation." And the boomers' children? Consider the television commercials for the restaurant chain called Dave & Buster's, which seems to be, ironically, a Chuck E. Cheese's for adults—a place for young adults, especially men, to drink beer and play electronic games and exemplify youth not as a stage of life but as a perpetual refuge from adulthood.

At the 2006 Super Bowl, the Rolling Stones sang "Satisfaction," a song older than the Super Bowl. At this year's game, another long-of-tooth act, the Who, continued the commerce of catering to baby boomers' limitless appetite for nostalgia. "My generation's obsession with youth and its memories," Cross writes, "stands out in the history of human vanity."

Last November, when Tiger Woods's misadventures became public, his agent said: "Let's please give the kid a break." The kid was then 33. He is now 34 but, no doubt, still a kid. The puerile anthem of a current Pepsi commercial is drearily prophetic: "Forever young."

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3/02/2010

The revolt of the common man



Although they were not yet called Houses by the reign of Edward III the English Parliament had evolved into two separate entities. In reality it consisted of three distinct classes within English society. The two most powerful groups in the Kingdom, the church represented by the priests who were subject to the dictates of the Pope and thus met separately from the Kings council of Barons who advised the King, this became the House of Lords.

What was to become the other house of parliament was made up of knights of the shires and burghers and representatives of the boroughs throughout the country. These knights and borough representatives met separately from the Lords, being of lesser social status, waiting to be called to Court in order that they might petition the King about any grievances they might have as representatives of their respective districts. This group were patronizingly known as the Commons thus the eventual name in the House of Parliament.

Near the end of his once glorious reign, Edward III had fallen upon hard times having lost nearly all the gains England had made during what would later be known as the Hundred Years War with France. This made him royally hard up for cash. To add to his financial woes he had taken on a young mistress. As goldbricking young mistresses are wont to do throughout the ages she was spending the Royal income lavishly upon herself.

As they met in session in their far less fashionable digs in London Town the Common men decided that this year would be different. They were tired of raising and paying taxes which were being wasted by not only the King's mistress, which was bad enough, but also the King's ministers who were having a fine time over at the palace. So they vowed that they would collect no new taxes for the King until changes were made.

Finally summoned to the court to submit their petitions for redress of grievances of which they had plenty, this time instead of sending a spokesman and a small committee as was the custom, the entire contingent of Common men trooped on over to the Painted Chamber to confront the Barons and the King.

Their Speaker informed the shocked Barons, Clergy and the sick King represented by his son, that they were displeased at how their tax monies was being spent. They further informed the elites of the Kingdom that no further monies would be forthcoming until certain ministers were brought to account for their inadequacies and waste.

For the next few weeks the Common men held court (so to speak) finding certain ministers as well as the King's mistress guilty of wanton waste they dismissed them from the court. Since the time of William the Conqueror of Normandy, Norman French had been spoken in the English court. These accusations and dismissals by the Common men towards the ministers and the young floozy, were to become known by the Norman French word ampeschement which meant embarrassment, but spoken in English became impeachment.

Thus it was that exactly 400 years prior to our Declaration of Independence, in the year 1376, what became know in English history as "The Good Parliament" staged the first tax revolt by the Common Man against Big Government.

History has a habit of repeating itself.



Via-Jer
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Obama — Too Little, Too Late



by Victor Davis Hanson

The United States may very well owe a crushing $20 trillion by 2020. And thus President Obama last week named a bipartisan commission to find ways to address our national debt.

Such a Periclean response might sound sincere and worthwhile. But it comes 13 months into this administration — and only after Obama added nearly $1.5 trillion in new borrowing in 2009. And by the time the new deficit commission submits its recommendations at the end of this year, the current 2010 budget will have put us out another $1.5 trillion.

The president not that long ago ran on the theme of fiscal sobriety. During the 2008 campaign, he took advantage of the public anger over the Bush deficits that had climbed to an aggregate of $2.5 trillion over eight years. Now, though, he looks to trump Bush's eight-year record of red ink in his first two years.

Obama also just invited the Republican opposition to a summit at the White House to iron out differences over his stalled healthcare legislation. Such a "let bygones, be bygones" group discussion likewise sounds like a good idea — given the climbing cost of health insurance and the millions who cannot afford it.

But the problem again is that such outreach comes too little too late — more than a year after Obama began his unilateral effort to have the government assume much of the nation's healthcare system. A year ago — with a supermajority in the Senate and basking in the swell of the November 2008 election — Obama didn't worry much over the lack of Republican input.

Instead, in partisan mode, he issued a series of deadlines for his party to ram through his own preferred reforms — first by the August 2009 vacation, then by the Thanksgiving recess, then by the Christmas break, and so on.

A couple of fence-sitting Democratic legislators, who alone could block passage, were to be bought off with awards of multimillion-dollar earmarks. Meanwhile, the president himself reportedly ridiculed angry tea party protestors as "the teabag, anti-government people." He, it appeared, did not worry too much about the opposition.

Recently, a petulant Obama blasted Washington partisan politics, the media and congressional inaction. In his January State of the Union address, Obama deplored "the partisanship and the shouting and the pettiness" by "politicians (who) tear each other down instead of lifting this country up" and "TV pundits (who) reduce serious debates into silly arguments."

Other administration supporters lamented the Republican resort to the filibuster.

But once again, 13 months ago, the upbeat president had little bad to say about one-party governance, pundits and politics. And there was no criticism of the filibuster — which in early 2009 was considered irrelevant anyway, given Obama's supermajority in the Senate.

So what's behind Obama sudden embrace of statesmanship?

A year ago, a newly elected President Obama enjoyed a 68 percent public approval rating. There were substantial Democratic majorities in both houses of the Congress. Presidential press conferences were little more than media lovefests. Apparently there was no need to reach out, when a bold, new liberal agenda for the country seemed a sure thing.

But now? Obama consistently polls below 50 percent. The Senate supermajority was lost with the stunning win of Republican Scott Brown in liberal Massachusetts. A grassroots conservative tea-party movement helped put Republican governors in Virginia and New Jersey. And polls show that the November 2010 elections might result in the largest Democratic setback in a generation, with possible losses of both houses of Congress.

Pundits of both parties now fault Obama's style of governance. Public protests express disapproval over out-of-control federal spending and borrowing, and the idea of state-run healthcare.

So fairly or not, it seems like a panicked President Obama is abruptly scrambling to do what he should have done over a year ago.

But the problem is that a now jaded public believes that Obama is changing both course and tone not because he wants to for the country, but because he is forced to for his own survival.

In other words, the "hope and change" of last year's messiah has devolved into this year's "whatever it takes" of a cynic.
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On Eagle’s Wings


Via-The American Standard


A local celebrity aims to oust a freshman Democrat in New Jersey.

BY Jonathan V. Last

Jon Runyan is no-nonsense. Just what you would expect of a former NFL offensive lineman. When he was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2000, he didn’t take up the celebrity life. He bought a 23-acre farm in nearby Mount Laurel, New Jersey. When a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter came calling and asked him what he planned to do with the cows on his land, Runyan replied: “I’m going to raise them as beef cows and have them slaughtered.”

Runyan and his wife, Loretta, have three children. They attend a local Quaker school where Loretta became friendly with another mother, Dawn Addiego, a Republican state assembly-woman. Last November, Addiego asked Loretta if she thought Runyan might be interested in running for Congress from Jersey’s 3rd District. Loretta said she’d pass the idea on to her husband, which is how Jon Runyan, 36 and only recently retired from professional football, comes to be the GOP’s best chance for a congressional pickup in New Jersey.

New Jersey’s 3rd District is traditionally Republican, but has been competitive in recent years. Al Gore took the district 54 to 43 in 2000; George W. Bush edged John Kerry 51-49. In 2008, Barack Obama took the 3rd by 5 percentage points, far behind the 15-point margin by which he carried the state as a whole. With Republican Jim Saxton—who had been in Congress since 1984—retiring, the Obama wave was enough to carry Democrat John Adler to victory.

Adler had spent 20 years climbing the ladder of South Jersey politics, first as a town councilman, then with a failed run at Saxton’s seat in 1990, and finally as a state senator. In 2008, the Harvard-educated, Cherry Hill lawyer outspent his Republican opponent nearly 3-to-1 and captured the vacant seat by about the same margin as Obama carried the district.

The 3rd District is the kind of marginal seat that can be vulnerable when times are bad for the party in power. That times are bad became clear in November’s gubernatorial election, when Republican Chris Christie carried the district by 20 points—a 25-point swing against the Democrats. Adler quickly tried to limit his vulnerability. While he voted with Obama on the stimulus and cap and trade, he defected on the health care vote after Christie won in November. Hoping to scare off a top-tier opponent, Adler raised $1.67 million in 2009, adding to his reputation as a fundraiser. (In 2008, he raised more money than any nonincumbent congressional candidate in the country.)


Runyan first publicly hinted that he might be interested in the race three days after the House voted on health care. Within days, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) began shopping opposition research to the media, eventually placing a story in The Hill about Runyan not having voted in four elections between 2000 and 2008. In January, the morning after Runyan returned home from his final NFL game (he played a valedictory season with the San Diego Chargers), the Philadelphia Inquirer ran another DCCC dump, about tax deductions Runyan has taken on part of his property.

It was a pretty nasty introduction to politics—especially for a guy who hadn’t even secured the county parties’ endorsements for his run. The 6′7″, 330-pound Runyan took it in stride. “Everyone asks, ‘Are you prepared for this,’ ” he laughs. “But when you think about the environment I’ve lived in during the last 14 years, the sports world isn’t a very positive world in itself. You have to have a thick skin and you have to deal with a lot of people talking bad about you a lot of the time.”

The eldest of three children, Runyan grew up in Flint, Michigan, where his father worked as a machinist for GM for 30 years. A high school standout in both basketball and football, he was recruited to play hoops for Michigan State, but decided to take a football scholarship to the University of Michigan instead. After finishing his degree (in kinesiology) he was drafted in the fourth round by the Houston Oilers in 1996. Four years later, he signed with Philadelphia.


His lunch-pail approach to football made him a local hero. Over nine seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, he was as much of a star as a lineman can be. Which in the Philadelphia area is actually quite a lot. In a town hostile to golden boys, Runyan piled up the kind of achievements that Philly fans care about: He started 213 consecutive games and amassed more playoff appearances than any other concurrent player in the league, including stars such as Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. In 2007, he played most of the season with a tailbone injury so painful that he couldn’t sit during crosscountry flights. Even so, he finished that season without committing a single penalty. And Runyan was no choir boy. In 2006, Sports Illustrated polled 361 NFL players, asking them to name the dirtiest player in the league. Runyan finished second. For Eagles fans this was a feature not a bug.

The GOP establishment is lining up behind Runyan. Last week the other major candidate withdrew from the primary race, saying that Runyan had the best chance to beat Adler. Runyan is likely to face only a token challenge from maverick Republican Justin Murphy in the June primary. From there he’ll have a five-month sprint to his showdown with Adler.

The fundamentals of the race are as favorable as any Republican will see in New Jersey, and Runyan adds name-recognition, outsider status, and an ability to self-finance to the equation. Still, November is a long way off. State party chair Jay Webber says that while he expects the race to be extremely competitive, “You’ve got to respect incumbency and you’ve got to respect Adler’s financial ability.” Matt Friedman, who covers the 3rd District for the nonpartisan website PolitickerNJ.com, cautions, “I would not underestimate [Adler]. He’s tacked so far to the right in his freshman term that he’s really a centrist. .  .  . But he’s in trouble. He’s definitely in trouble.” Charlie Cook has downgraded the race from likely Democratic hold to leans Democrat, and that was before Runyan emerged as the almost-certain nominee.

The main question is what kind of candidate Runyan will be. He is not a commanding presence in the mold of Steve Largent or Heath Shuler. The politician he resembles most is another New Jersayan seemingly without artifice: Chris Christie. Like the newly elected governor, Runyan is not a culture warrior and his conservatism seems largely pragmatic. The issues he cares about most are taxes and government expansion. “The way government is growing and spending,” he says, “I don’t believe that’s the way you’re going to fix our problems.” Asked what political figure he admires, he in fact names Christie.


As important as what Runyan is, however, is what he isn’t. He isn’t tied to any Republican legacy. He isn’t a polished political product. And he isn’t a career pol who’s spent his adult life angling for a gig in Washington. His campaign manager Chris Russell says, “I don’t think that Jon’s a guy, if he’s elected, that you’re going to see go down to Washington for 20 years.” Asked if he could see himself settling in D.C. for the long haul, Runyan explains, “Given the way the system is, you’re going to need some seniority to get things done, but by no means do I intend to spend my whole life down there. The system was intended for people to come from various different parts of life .  .  . and to not necessarily make a career out of it.”

Runyan and the 3rd District are a good reminder of the consequences of presidential failure. Seemingly safe districts come into play. And individuals who might be otherwise engaged—say, doing color commentary for the NFL—suddenly become formidable candidates.

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3/01/2010

Samba Pa Ti - Santana (Live in Mexico)



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So Lucky to be an American

Via-ossqss



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I Told You So


Obama’s shortcomings were eminently foreseeable, says one of McCain's most prominent Democratic backers. Lynn Forester de Rothschild on how the president's fake bipartisanship could never hide his true leftist agenda.

Via-Daily Beast

by Lynn Forester de Rothschild


The failures of the Obama presidency were clearly telegraphed by the Obama candidacy. I hate to say it, but I told you so.

Back in September 2008, as a lifelong Democratic Party loyalist and activist, I backed John McCain; I told The New York Times, “I love my country more than my party.” Supporting a Republican was the last thing I expected to be doing in the fall of 2008. But I knew it was my only choice, given the decision by the Democratic Party establishment to reject 18 million voters in favor of the inexperienced and ideological Barack Obama.

After watching President Obama in office for more than a year, it is clear to me that, during the campaign, we already knew what kind of president he would become.

The health-care summit vividly demonstrated Mr. Obama’s fake bipartisanship. When he was a candidate, we celebrated when he said, “We are not red or blue states. We are the United States of America.” But candidate Obama had no record of bipartisan behavior. Ironically, the one time that Obama entered into a bipartisan effort was with, of all people, John McCain. He reached across the aisle to draft ethics reform legislation with Senator McCain. But when Obama returned to the Democratic establishment with a bill that did not meet their favor, he backed away fast. It was candidate McCain who had worked productively and regularly with Democrats, like with Russ Feingold on campaign-finance reform and Ted Kennedy on immigration. The record told me more than the rhetoric about which candidate would honestly respect the other side and reach across the aisle to find the best solutions for America.

Perhaps the biggest fabrication of the Obama candidacy was his claim of being a centrist. Sure, he made promises during the campaign that pleased moderates. He promised “the elimination of capital gains taxes for small business,” a $3,000 refundable tax credit to existing businesses for every additional employee hired through 2010, removal of penalties for early withdrawal of 401(k) savings during the recession, and no administration jobs for lobbyists. Perhaps the best of all was the promise he made in the Mississippi presidential debate when he said, “We need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.” They were specific, sensible promises—ones that enabled him to mislead the electorate about his real plans for America.

Again, I chose to look beyond the rhetoric to the record. At the time, it was obvious that a candidate who won the primary because of the left would be beholden to the left, no matter what promises he made to get elected. It was also obvious to ask what kind of president would have voted “present” on 129 difficult votes while in the Illinois State Senate. He was always thinking about how to keep every constituency happy; how to maintain his viability for the White House. In The Audacity of Hope, he criticized Bill Clinton for giving too much respect to Ronald Reagan. He asked the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist Democratic group, to remove his name from their lists.

So if he wasn’t going to be a centrist Democrat in the tradition of Bill Clinton, what did Barack Obama want from his presidency, should he be elected? He told us from the beginning. It was a stunning agenda, but it seemed innocuous, even inspiring, during the campaign. Standing on the steps of the old Illinois State Capitol, announcing his candidacy for president, Obama declared he was running “not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation.” Suddenly now everyone is worried he is trying to transform America. He had said so all along. His is an effort to make a bigger, more intrusive and more costly government. His hope is, and has always been, to turn the country into a nation that looks more like a European social democracy. He ignores that the roots of our strength have always been small government and a dynamic private sector, fostered by both Democrats and Republicans. His cynical use of centrist language as a tool to get elected does not change the fact of his true objectives for America. It is telling that under Obama’s presidency, according to Sunday’s CNN Poll, 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans see the federal government as a threat to the rights of Americans.

Our central problem is that the combination of his grandiloquence and the September 2008 financial crisis led to his election. Now, the only way to stop him in the next three years is through voter pressure on Congress. One course is to follow Massachusetts and just elect any Republican. But both parties lack courageous leaders who will fight for the values and policies of the middle. We need a movement of the militant middle; millions of voters who support the sensible policies from both parties. This would give Democrats political cover to stand up to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid and Republicans the backbone to acknowledge that the country must progress in order to be strong. Most Americans see a false choice between a smaller government and a progressive country. We must have both. It is our only hope.

Lady de Rothschild is chief executive of E.L. Rothschild LLC, a private investment company. She is a director of the Estee Lauder Cos. and The Economist Newspaper Ltd.




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Skeptic's Corner: Maybe Gore Still Needs to Thaw


Skeptic's Corner: Maybe Gore Still Needs to Thaw


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Obama Fatigue


Via-VDH Private Papers

by Victor Davis Hanson

Every President starts to wear on the public. But the omnipresent Obama has become wearisome in record time. Why?

1) Money. There is none. Every time the President talks of another billion for this, and trillion for that, the people sigh: “We don’t have it; he’s going to borrow it.” Unemployment is near 10%, so borrowing nearly $2 trillion each year makes more sense to Keynesian economists than to voters who don’t find hope by maxing out their credit cards when they lose their jobs.

Obama is weirdly oblivious to number crunching — as is true of many who have never been self-employed or had to scramble without a public salary. Yet even Hillary is now whining that her foreign policy is frozen by the fact of mounting American debt. Obama is the stereotypical great-aunt that sweeps into the Christmas dinner casually boasting about what she is going to do for this niece and that nephew, while most roll their eyes with the understanding that her credit cards are long ago maxed out — and more likely she will be hitting up relatives for loans. Americans don’t like magnanimity with other people’s money.

2) Style. Great orators get better in their rhetoric, not worse. It turns out that the people risked a blank slate in Obama in part because in his teleprompted hope-and-change orations, he sounded fresh and mellifluous. Voters assumed he would wear well. But in nonstop interviews, press conferences, and conversations, the impromptu President seems no more comfortable than was an ad hoc George Bush. And just as liberals were turned off by Bush’s cowboyisms, so too conservatives are tired of Obama’s professorial, condescending sermons.

After a year, the people are tired of all the “let me be perfectly clear” psycho-drama; the “make no mistake about” pseudo-tough man pose; the straw man “I reject the false choice that some would…”, and the narcissistic “I have ordered…..my team…to”. The boilerplate is now recognizable even to the Washington Press corps. But as important, it dovetails with more disturbing propensities: there are the periodic signs of inanity like “Cinco de Quatro” and “Corpse Men”; the constant fudging on the truth of multibillion dollar new programs really “saving” money; and the surreal bowing to dictators and emperors, with the relish of turning our misdemeanors into felonies and our enemies’ felonies into benefactions.

3) Laureate Warmaking. Utopians cannot get away with quadrupling the number of targeted killings in Pakistan and Waziristan against suspected terrorists and their wives. Twangy Texans who believe that we are at “war” against non-uniformed enemy combatants logically order Predator assassinations against what they see as a ruthless, bloodthirsty radical Islamic “enemy” in a “them or us” fight to the finish. But, again, not so Noble Peace Laureates, who want terrorists to be Mirandized, the architects of 9/11 to be tried in civilian courts in New York, and CIA interrogators to be investigated for waterboarding known mass murderers.

So once you go down the path of our struggle against terrorists and jihadists as a criminal enterprise, with writs, trials, and prison sentences, then targeted killing and assassinating suspects, even from high in the sky, simply do not make sense. (Comparative morality argues that it is nicer to waterboard confessed mass murderers than to vaporize suspected terrorists.)

4) Saintly partisanship. Crass politicians can get away with the nuclear option or reconciliation. Hard-nosed Republicans Senators once threatened to go nuclear with 51 votes in the Senate to get judges confirmed in the manner that once outraged liberal politicos now are more than happy to ram through healthcare without 60 votes. But messiahs?

Obama once gave a sermon on the dangers of mere majority rule, when he was a backbencher in the Senate and a favorite of the hard left. “Majorities” in his refined mind were then a sign of rowdy tyrannical populism. So such a parliamentarian really cannot now threaten to use a bare majority to smash through health care, not when he has assured us that he is no Harry Reid or Barbara Boxer, but rather a “no more blue/red state” “healer.” The wages of hypocrisy are usually more costly than mindless partisanship. And the more Obama talks of bipartisanship and reaching out, the more the law professor seems to go out of his way to be petulant and trenchantly ‘my way or the highway.’

5). The “Bush Did It” whine is over. Why? Two reasons: 1) Obama has copied Bush on almost all the anti-terrorism protocols that worked, such as tribunals, renditions, Patriot Act, Iraq, Afghanistan, Predators, wiretaps and intercepts. And to the extent he has not — a trial for KSM in New York, a witch hunt against the former CIA interrogators, Miranda rights for the would-be Christmas Day bomber, proposed closing of Guantanamo — the people wonder what in the hell is this guy doing? 2) Obama turned Bush’s misdemeanors, like deficits, borrowing, and new government programs, into felonies. So in comparison, Bush doesn’t look quite so bad now: next time Obama plays the “Bush Did it” card, the public will think either “Thank God,” or “Yeah, but not as badly as you did”.

6). Race is a no-no. We have variously heard that opposition to Obama is based on: 1) right-wing, Tea-party know-nothing angst; 2) greedy Wall Street profit-making to ensure riches for the elite; 3) narrowly-minded partisanship of Republicans that only want power for themselves rather than what is good for America; 4) the clueless American people and their “broken” system that hasn’t yet fathomed what a rare chance they have with a prophet like Obama who can lift them out of their NASCAR ignorance. All of those tropes either did not resonate or backfired. Obama laughing about “tea-baggers”, his “fat cats” quip, his “partisans and Washington insiders,” and the notion that Americans will come to appreciate healthcare once he forces it upon them — all failed.

What is left? The race card. Some of his own supporters have played it; other losing politicians like Gov. Paterson tried it. Yet it is a prescription for turning failure into catastrophe. Every time Obama got near racial grievance-mongering — the Rev. Wright mess, the “typical white person” slur, the clingers speech, the Holder “cowards” outburst, the Skip Gates ‘stereotyping” whine — he sunk in the polls or had to backtrack big time. The population is so tired of racial chauvinism, so multiracial itself, so convinced that constant affirmation action bromides, entitlements and guilt will not ipsis factis remedy problems in the black community, that a charge of racism against the society that elected its first black president will simply boomerang.

Bottom Line?

Can Obama recover in the midterm elections? Compare the following ifs: if the economy grows by 5% (it could, given the massive government borrowing) in the third quarter and unemployment goes below 8% (not likely) in a natural cycle of rebound; if Obama kills or catches Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden (kills is the operative word); if the Democrats clean house of Dodd, Rangel, Pelosi, Reid, etc. and start using old time (are any left?) centrists as their public spokespeople; if Obama himself shows more humility, drops the “I”s and “me”s, weans himself off the teleprompter, quits all the bowing and apologizing, and Clinton-like starts talking about balanced budgets, well, then there is a chance of recovery. But note if he were to do that, he would not be Obama as he has been for nearly the last half-century. More likely, he’s going to Carterize it to the end, and end up at 85 writing op-ed responses why he really, really was a great president nearly forty years prior.


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American reliance on government at all-time high


Via-Washington Times

The so-called "Great Recession" has left Americans depending on the government dole like never before.

Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.

Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.

The figures show the devastating results of the massive job losses last year and indicate that the economic recovery that began last summer is tenuous and has a long way to go before many Americans resume life as normal, analysts said.

Economic growth typically depends on consumer spending, which is fed by wages, rents, interest and other forms of income. But the tentative revival of consumer spending in the second half of last year appears to have been fed largely by an extraordinary flood of government spending, as growth in other kinds of income has disappeared.

"Governmental support was critical in keeping the economy, particularly consumer spending, from completely collapsing during the crisis," said Harm Bandholz, an economist at Unicredit Markets. He said he is concerned that so much of the economic rebound is a result of government spending rather than a revival of private income and jobs. That situation is unsustainable, he said, because the government has had to borrow massively to prop up the economy and cannot continue that binge for long.

While wages and other job-related income fell by a record $206 billion last year to $7.84 trillion, transfer payments from the government such as unemployment checks and Social Security burgeoned by $231 billion to $2.1 trillion. Meanwhile, the amount of taxes that individual Americans paid plummeted by $325 billion to $2.1 trillion as a result of middle-class tax cuts and because nearly 6 million people were thrown out of work and are no longer paying payroll taxes.

Commerce economists said last year's unprecedented drop of $256 billion in private wages — the mainstay of consumers in ordinary times — was particularly dramatic, and was more than 40 times larger than the drop in wages during the entire 2001 recession.

Equally dramatic, a measure of income that closely tracks the ravages of the recession also plummeted by an unprecedented $384 billion. That measure excludes transfer payments and adjusts for inflation. It has stabilized at $9.1 trillion since the middle of last year, in a sign that the worst of the job and income losses are over.

While most of the government benefits — including Social Security, welfare, Medicaid, food stamps and regular unemployment benefits — are sent automatically to those who qualify, Congress is debating an extension of some benefits enacted as part of the stimulus package last year. Those include jobless benefits and health insurance subsidies for the unemployed.

The Senate on Friday failed to pass an extension of jobless benefits for up to 99 weeks for workers in states with high unemployment rates. Long-term jobless benefits expired Sunday, leaving many Americans dependent on those payments in limbo. With more than 8 million workers laid off during the recession, unemployment benefits have quadrupled from $34 billion in January 2008 to $124 billion at the end of last year.

"Millions of Americans are now relying on unemployment benefits as their only source of income other than food stamps," said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute. "They are unable to find work because there are more than six job seekers for every opening. There is literally nothing that most of these workers can do to get a job today. Unemployment benefits are often the only way they can make ends meet for their families and keep a roof over their heads."

The proposed extension in long-term jobless aid was held up Friday by Sen. Jim Bunning, Kentucky Republican, who objected that it added $10 billion to the budget deficit. As a result of record U.S. government borrowing, total debt in the United States has soared to an all-time high of 370 percent of yearly economic output, far exceeding its peak of 300 percent during the Great Depression.

"If we cant find $10 billion somewhere for a bill that everybody in this body supports, we will never pay for anything," Mr. Bunning said.

Democrats vowed to renew the unemployment aid this week to minimize disruption for more than 1 million jobless people who would begin to exhaust their extended benefits on Monday.

"The simple fact of the matter is that this is an emergency situation and should be treated as such," said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat. "The most vulnerable families in America are going to suffer because of this political decision by one senator. … We will be back, we will try to get this done. And to those families: Hang in there."

The massive shift into dependence on the government, while essential in promoting an economic revival last year, has postponed a reckoning for many consumers who went too far into debt to maintain their lifestyles during the boom years, Mr. Bandholz said.

While the government was lavishing aid, banks were cutting credit to consumers by a record $250 billion, nearly as much as the amount consumers gained from government transfer payments.

"This shift only postpones a solution to the problem" by substituting government debt for consumer debt, Mr. Bandholz said. "These elevated debt loads will at least result in sluggish growth rates for the time being — and if the problem is not tackled with determination, it might very well lead to another crisis."

Some economists say the big shift toward dependence on government spending and borrowing is only temporary.

"Sure, temporary government transfers played a role this past year. But that's OK," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. He noted that Americans also accumulated a record amount of savings last year as they stowed away funds out of fear of losing their jobs.

The increase in savings now enables many consumers to increase spending, while the 90 percent of workers who still have jobs can spend more because they are accumulating more income from overtime hours, he said.

"It's a combination and interaction of all these forces — not just one — that will promote more future spending by households and keep the economy going later without government aid," he said.

Jobless benefits and other welfare spending for the unemployed will start to decline when job growth returns. Many economists predict that employment will increase this spring or summer in the next stage of the recovery. Because of bleak job prospects during the recession, some people were forced to go more permanently on the government dole.

In particular, many workers who were nearing retirement age and got laid off started drawing Social Security benefits. The number of retirees taking Social Security at age 62 grew by a record 19 percent in the past year, helping to push up Social Security outlays by $100 billion. Analysts expect those spending levels to stay high and continue to increase as more baby boomers retire.

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