Right Wing, Black And I Ain't Crazy!

Since Sarah's Not Running

2011-10-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, after Fred Thompson dropped out of the GOP primary, I was a supporter of Mitt Romney because he was the most conservative candidate remaining. Four painful years hence, Barack Obama is president and has unleashed a leftist gauntlet unlike anything seen since Wilson and FDR. So now, a middle of the road Republican is unacceptable, the battle must be joined because the fate of the Republic is at stake.

My choice for engaging in this battle was Sarah Palin for many reasons but three in particular. She has been attacked from every conceivable angle possible and savagely, at that. Yet, she still stands strong. She also has a deep understanding of what has gone wrong and has fought the battle against even her own party's corruption and won. Finally, she is unapologetic and fearless. She doesn't accept the leftist media premise and formulations on important issues and boldly speaks out and gives voice to Americans of all stripes who understand the blessings of liberty but who also want to hold both those in government and private sector actors accountable for abiding by the rules that have been established for the rest of us. Her identification of cronyism as the issue that animates most Americans and her articulation of the problem is as clear and relevant a manifesto as exists anywhere among the political class.

Sarah Palin is not perfect, nor was Reagan, yet I was willing to fight with her and die on that hill if necessary. If Palin is imperfect, most of the GOP presidential field is less so. I can eliminate Ron Paul and Gary Johnson from consideration because I don't agree with their take on foreign policy. Huntsman may as well be a Democrat and Romney authored Obamacare among other problems I have with him. Perry who as he entered the race fought comparisons to George W. Bush is looking more Bush-like with each debate performance. "Compassionate Conservative" anyone? That leaves Bachmann, Santorum and Cain.

Bachmann is fearless too and I like her. Until she got caught up in trying to take down Rick Perry, I was hoping that she would perform well because her philosophy and instincts are often very right. She had a good debate performance at the Bloomberg event . . until she again went after Rick Perry and that was awkward. Given where she's polling, I understand but it doesn't look good on her. Then there's Santorum. I agree with him on most issues but he too is not polling well and looked angry at the last debate. He's not getting traction. That leaves Herman Cain.

First, the big issue I have (and I suspect a number of conservatives share this concern) is his support of TARP and his tone deafness on the Federal Reserve. While the latter can be understood in light of his own chairmanship of the Kansas City Fed, without adequately understanding the problems of having a private bank manage our currency untethered to any hard valuation leads to inevitable devaluation of our currency and inflation. More problematic is his support for TARP with his only criticism being of its implementation and management, not the concept itself. If you don't see an issue, you may think that bailouts or government intervention is acceptable and find other areas where the government may step in. That is a problem!

However, just as Palin is imperfect, Cain is imperfect but his appearance on Meet The Press has placed me decidedly in his column of supporters. He has the strengths of Palin and Bachmann, not to accept leftist formulations and premises, he is unapologetic in his beliefs and he is likeable throughout, even in the lion's den of leftist media trap interviews. He is well spoken and able to articulate his beliefs and management philosophy which all translates to presidential bearing. I could talk about the merits of his "9-9-9" plan but that will become more clear in the days ahead. Ronald Reagan too was unabashedly conservative, yet cheerful and likeable and this is a great strength of Cain's that will be hard for his competitors to overcome. His "heritage" is also something that resonates with many of us; humble beginnings yet never complaining, never a victim and appreciative of the opportunity society that is America.

I think he should go have a good long chat - no, a serious conversation with Todd and Sarah about cronyism and TARP but given what we're facing, his philosophy, approach to problem solving and demeanor, I'd say Herman Cain may just be the man for this hour in American history. I support Herman Cain's candidacy for the Presidency of the United States of America.

Church of The Public Trough

2011-08-13T10:35:00.001-07:00

In the many protestations from Democrats and their media allies about how dysfunctional the democratic process is (dictatorships more efficiently confiscate our wealth and erode our liberties) one of their orchestrated complaints is that government employees are being laid off. They present this as if it is obvious that this will harm the economy. To buy this premise one would have to believe that a government job benefits society in the way that a private sector job benefits society. This is false.

Without going into the numbers, let's examine what happens with generic private sector employment versus public sector employment. Private sector employment provides income and benefits for the employee and it also provides skills and experience. Public sector employment does much the same thing, to the extent the skills and experience are transferrable. This is where the similarities begin to sharply depart.

With private sector employment, productivity and profitability matter. If the enterprise for whom the employee lends her time and effort is profitable, it enriches her employer. It may or may or may not be as the result of her direct contribution but her efforts are presumably self-sustaining. Conversely, the enterprise may not be profitable and the employer may decide to close shop or redirect those resources elsewhere. This aspect of private employment is as important as profitability.

There is another important aspect of private employment that public employment does not provide. Private employment is a conduit for wealth but also of value. I'm sitting on my couch as I write this. Not only did my wife enrich the manufacturer and help to provide employment for those who sold their time and effort to produce the couch, our family gets to use it now and for some time into the future. This ongoing value is a key aspect of our standard of living.

Whereas private employment is a conduit of wealth and value and a feedback mechanism for resource utilization, public employment is a shunt of wealth, value and is largely impervious to feedback on the proper utilization of resources. Public sector employment doesn't by and large produce value (usefulness in excess of the price paid) or wealth and its effectiveness and efficiency is part of the lexicon of our common humor.

So, while elected Democrats and pundits suggest to us the harm that a decline in the public sector will induce, they skip over the part of how those jobs are funded, how they siphon resources from individuals and families and the marginal benefit they produce for society. If it were not for the massive spending and "shovel ready infrastructure" jobs (the same ones they want to really fund this time) they say, things would have been worse.

This faith in "stimulus" that elected Democrats say, "most serious economists believe" is again in order, beyond the demonstrably failed and logically flawed Keynesian argument is really nothing more than a thinly veiled faith in Marx's dictum that private property rights should be abolished. Why? Because the struggle of man is to meet his material need and the principle thing standing between "the masses" or "workers" are those that own the resources to employ. The hymnal of this church includes songs about evil corporate jets, coal and oil, grievance group dirges, spirituals on the virtues of the public sector. This faith compels them to deny the evidence before them in their evangelistic crusade to win converts and to hold on to adherents. Let's see whether their pews are filled in November 2012.

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Warrior Silhouettes

2011-08-09T06:16:00.001-07:00

I don't want to see their faces, their vitality, their competence, willingness, their distinctly American spirit. Had they died at Thermopylae, Stirling Bridge, Bunker Hill, Iwo Jima or any number of battles or engagements that have advanced the enduring cause of liberty, I would be pleased to see their likenesses memorialized in bronze. Why are our elite warriors so vulnerable, dying helplessly, for at best, an obliquely understood mission.

Yes, there are ideologues who are determined to destroy us gathered in distant hard lands. That we can track them down and kick their ass on their home turf is not in question but the sissification of our civilian leadership has their hands tied with rules of engagement suitable for flag football, not the violent mayhem in which these warriors excel. Define the mission, provide whatever resources are necessary, kick ass, let them swagger home and dare anyone to say a m#therf*ckin' word!

What's worse is, there is something strange about this result. 22 SEALs, 3 Air force spec operators and 5 other support team members on one transport vehicle on a combat mission? Are you serious? Was there an intelligence breach, poor planning or just one giant fustercluck? I will emphasize that I don't know what the circumstances were but I am pissed off and I hurt for their families. I don't want to see their faces because, I am angry and ashamed. America has lost the courage to support these young men; the support they absolutely deserve. Because we lack the discipline of a well defined purpose for their continued presence there and the resolve to see it through, we may as well have shot them down ourselves.

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Obama, Democrats & RINOs Finally Downgrade America!

2011-08-05T18:36:00.001-07:00

For the first time in history, America's debt rating is below AAA. Hope 'n change, indeed.

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S&P Says It's The Debt and Debt Trajectory, Not the Debt Ceiling!

2011-07-27T07:21:00.001-07:00

The Boehner Plan will fall short of what's required to have US debt suffer a ratings downgrade. Cut, Cap & Balance!

My Response To Dan Riehl

2011-07-27T05:54:00.001-07:00

Dan Riehl has a blog I really like - Riehl (pronounced real) World View. He, Erick Erickson and Michelle Malkin consistently share interesting insights from a conservative perspective. However, there is no monolith of opinion among conservatives, which sometimes makes it tough sledding at critical junctures like we face now with the debate to support yet another capitulation on principle or to stand our ground on the debt negotiations in D.C.

Speaker Boehner had a very effective rebuttal to our ubiquitous president's class warfare refrains - sing it with me, because of Bush . . . and my poor grandmother's college education grants, eating dog food that Republicans want to serve them and handicapped children - everybody now! Boehner did so well in offering a direct and immediate televised response, that his web site shut down from supporters. It's like the visceral response Trump and Chris Christie get in some quarters because they take on opponents in an unabashed and direct manner. But like Trump, Christie and recently Steve Wynn, Boehner is no conservative.

Riehl, like Eric Cantor who told conservatives to stop whining and vote, supports the new Boehner plan and used the businessman's creed to bring a solution, not a problem to frame his argument. My response, posting as 2nd Treatise, follows:

"So Dan, in the businessman versus politician formulation you're advancing here, what successful enterprise negotiates against itself to the advantage of competitors? Does Costco yield to Sam's Club on Sam's Club's terms just because that's what Sam's Club wants?

Why exactly must the House pass a new plan, especially one that gives Obama a blank check in exchange for $1 billion (or just 1/1000 down payment) in enforceable 1st year cuts and a panel? Sounds like a sub-prime no job, no income loan! Let's say the Senate doesn't pass the Boehner plan, are conservatives required to capitulate again and acquiesce to tax increases?

Cut cap and balance wasn't defeated, it has been tabled in the Senate. The House passed legislation that addresses the fiscal crisis that has the U.S. Debt rating under threat, the new Boehner plan will trigger a downgrade because it doesn't address the debt, only the less fiscally important ceiling.

Why is it it incumbent upon conservatives to yield when they've provided the tool that 20+ Democrat Senators are on the record for supporting, one that also provides a debt limit increase?"

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Like No Other!

2011-07-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

Studies have shown that exposure to Old Glory predisposes the viewer toward conservatism. Keep looking and I'll keep posting!

Laura Ingraham Crushes Matt Lauer

2011-07-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Why Raising The Debt Ceiling Matters to Democrats

2011-07-11T04:26:00.001-07:00

I was reminded in an article by Larry Kudlow last week why I don't like the Ryan "Roadmap." Though contrasting the Ryan budget against the Obama budget, a graph showed both plans increasing federal spending significantly over the next decade. Establishment Republicans, like Boehner, McConnell and Ryan are welfare state managers, who don't necessarily mind the growth and influence of government, provided that they are in control.

In recent debt ceiling negotiations, with a new twist on an old class warfare tactic, Obama has characterized the GOP position as protecting the interests of "corporate jet[s] (owners)." I'm not sure just how many susceptible to this envy laced rhetoric understand how many mechanics, pilots, support staff, suppliers supported by the industry are not the despised "millionaires and billionaires" Democrats love to hate. If the corporate jet owners die off, like the pigs they are, who will employ the maintenance staff, suppliers, support staff? They too will get 99 weeks of unemployment and then step out into the Obama economic recovery.

Notwithstanding that Senator Obama decried raising the debt ceiling as a failure of leadership before voting against it, there are two fundamental reasons why Democrats need to raise the credit limit: all of their economic arguments fall away if spending is actually cut (not the Washington game of decreases in the rate of spending) especially when the economy improves in no small measure as a result of cuts and more urgently for them, their raison d'etre is the unabated growth and influence of government. They are there to protect, far and away the largest industry in America; government and any that feed at its trough. Without this predicate, they cannot win election.

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An Opportunity To Replace A Squish With A Patriot

2011-06-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

Support Ted Cruz and send Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul additional reinforcements!

The Standard Bearer

2011-06-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

I have to do this every once in a while to maintain my sanity, while the clueless statist in the White House destroys the last vestiges of self governance to be found on earth. Mitt Romney? Really? Tim Pawlenty? Are you serious? John Huntsman? You have got to be kidding me!

There is a great temptation to be sucked in by the tinkerers and tweakers; the welfare state managers. They can "fix" the economy, they say. They don't have a freedom agenda. This group needs Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi as foils to demonstrate just how effectively they can manage the mess.

We need an outsider, an insurgent, someone not beholden to the GOP establishment and beltway press corps. Someone viewed as "extreme" by this group is just what America needs. Why did Trump resonate, Christie, Palin? They have a direct manner of speaking to issues they want to address.

Those trying to kill Reagan all over again are those who support the failed middle way, including Republican vote counters like Karl Rove, Mike Murphy and Alex Castellanos,pressers like Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Bill Krystal and sadly, increasingly, George Will.

Where are the William Saffire's and Ronald Reagan's? Here's to a couple of dead white guys. Enjoy!

Flight Of The Tickbird

2011-05-29T08:40:00.001-07:00

Perhaps no relationship in nature better exemplifies symbiosis than the RINO and the tickbird. Like the swarming cicadas freed from their thirteen year slumber by the late spring heat are in full flight, so too are the media tickbirds who see their host RINOs threatened. On the Sunday talk shows and in columns, the tickbirds have declared the race to be between Romneycare, Cap & Tax and ethanol subsidy supporting Pawlenty and Obama administration promoter, Huntsman.

On one formerly worthwhile show, after bashing Ryan and supporting tax increases, the supposed conservative stand in tickbirds, flitted, chirped and led the attack on Sarah Palin and Rick Perry, rushing to agree with Democrats in their "reasonable" assessment of the GOP field and of the issues.

The conventional wisdom among elites and vote counters is that a conservative cannot beat someone presiding over a muddled foreign policy and the promulgator of a highly unpopular universal health care plan for whom thousands of political cronies have won waivers and political enemies have been stymied. The conventional wisdom is that a president with exceptional TelePrompTer skills is so unassailable that he can overcome real joblessness over 17% and a pending double dip, yawning deficits and a national malaise created in no small part because of his oppressive hyper-regulation and governance.

If one could have a conversation with conventional wisdom, I would agree that RINOs have a difficult time winning elections unless their horn is hidden (e.g. George W.), Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush (once removed from the shadow of Reagan), Bob Dole and John McCain, were all uninspiring and lost. However, I would ask conventional wisdom what it said about a candidate in his 70s that it considered too extreme, too conservative who emerged in conditions similar to those we face today, a little over 30 years ago. When will the tickbirds concede that only a conservative won consecutive 50 state landslides and only George Washington, who had only 13 states won a higher percentage?

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Man versus . . . .

2011-05-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Benjamin Netanyahu, a grown ass man, schools President Obama. GOP candidates take note, this is how it's done!

Top Green Admits: “We Are Lost!”

2011-05-06T04:31:00.000-07:00

Walter Russell Mead happens upon an intellectually honest "Green."

George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.

Read the whole piece for a thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it. This is what I’ve been getting at for more than a year here: regardless of what is happening to Planet Earth, the green movement does not have coherent and workable solutions.

Greens like to have it both ways. They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions. Both doomsday scenarios cannot be true; one cannot simultaneously die of both starvation and gluttony.

Monbiot gets it, and furthermore concedes one of the main arguments of the anti-green case. The ‘problem’ is not a shortage of carbon rich non-renewable futures. The problem is the abundance of these fuels. We are not running out of hydrocarbons; shale natural gas, tar sands and coal offer enormous reserves that can cover our needs for the foreseeable future. We have an abundance of fossil fuel. Moreover, it seems likely that for a very long time to come, fossil fuels will be substantially cheaper and more abundant that expensive renewables. (One should also note that these new fuel sources are found in places like Canada and the United States rather than Saudi Arabia and Iran.)

More, Monbiot also acknowledges the contradictory and inconsistent nature of the green solutions. He acknowledges that there is no prospect for democratic politics to impose the draconian limits on consumption and economic activity that green dogma requires. Every ‘solution’ the greens have come up with has a fatal flaw of some kind; none of it works, none of it makes any sense.

Following an admission from Monbiot, Mead continues . . .

This is an awesome admission of categorical intellectual, political and moral failure. For two decades greens have arrogated to themselves the authority of science and wrapped themselves in the arrogant certainty of self-righteous contempt for those who oppose them. They have equated skepticism about their incoherent and contradictory policy proposals with hatred of science and attacked their critics as the soulless hired shills of the oil companies, happy to ruin humanity for the sake of some corporate largesse.

Monbiot has worked his way through to a cogent description of the dead end the global green movement has reached, but he has not yet diagnosed the cause. In particular, he remains a staunch Malthusian. In his view, humanity is good at creating new ways to destroy itself, but not at finding solutions to the problems we create. Our ingenuity is magically good at finding new fossil fuels, but we have no skill whatsoever at managing the consequences of our discoveries. The unknown technologies of the future will create horrible new disasters, but they will offer no new ways to contain or manage the disruption they cause.

Economic growth is a cancer, in this view. Its bad effects are permanent and cumulative, its blessings are evanescent and ultimately trivial.

Malthusianism is a religious conviction that desperately needs to think of itself as a science. From Thomas Malthus and his mathematical certainties to Paul Ehrlich with his famine timetables and the Club of Rome with its ‘scientific’ predictions of resource exhaustion, Malthusians have made confident predictions about the future and claimed scientific authority for statements that turned out to be contemptibly silly. That is the brutal fate that often awaits people who can’t keep the boundaries between science and religion straight.

It is happening on a massive and humiliating scale to the world’s greens today. Monbiot’s sober assessment of the consequences is dead on; when the greens digest his analysis and go a bit further to ask how they got into this mess, they will be ready to join something that the world truly and urgently needs: a serious and grownup conversation about how to conserve the beauty and viability of our glorious home as the human race continues to develop the extraordinary intelligence Mother Nature has seen fit to give us.

Obama's Victory Lap at Ground Zero

2011-05-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

Not having the ability to use Bush like he did Paul Ryan or the Supreme Court Justices, the only questions that remain for me are how long it will take Obama to suggest that the occasion warrants a call for "bi-partisan" expansion of the welfare state and what's the over/under on his use of self-referential pronouns? Who knows, he might get happy and go pro athlete on us and speak of himself in the third person!

Someone will have to tell me though, it's hard for me to watch and listen to the man-child when I have as much contempt for him as i had for the rival thug he was backed into a political corner into taking out (he would have caught hell if it were known that he had the chance and didn't take it). You know that delay in Barry's decision to authorize the mission? Here's what I think went down. After he slept on it, Michelle told him that bin Laden was, in a sense, his partner in America's demise, but he shouldn't share credit. So, he sent the SEALs.

Fed Up with the Fed? - HUMAN EVENTS

2011-05-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

Fed Up with the Fed? - HUMAN EVENTS

Keynes & Hayek 2nd Round

2011-05-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

Navy SEAL Video Download | Navy SEAL Trailer

2011-05-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

Navy SEAL Video Download | Navy SEAL Trailer

Barack Obama Is An Ass!

2011-04-13T11:23:00.001-07:00

Moreover, he's a lying ass! Shared sacrifice? What sacrifice is shared by the bottom 50% of wage earners? Are we so gullible that we would believe that confiscating the wealth of an envy based, politically defined scapegoat will solve America's debt crisis or that it is even morally right?

Despite the November elections, John Boehner and his welfare state manager peers (the GOP establishment) are providing cover for Obama by rolling over on the 2011 budget and are now signaling a roll over on the debt ceiling debate. Even Paul Ryan's budget doesn't balance, it adds $1 trillion in debt over the next decade!

Obama talks about an America that he believes in and suggests that we too believe in the ever expanding welfare state. How many votes will it take to root out the government class (the Democrat Party) which is wholly dependent on the growth of government for its political viability? How many votes will it take to root out the welfare state managers from leadership of the GOP?

What the hell is a government "investment?" Statist language is so offensive. How long will America survive under this construct? This mentality must be exposed and eradicated root and branch from the soil of American governance. Yes, Barack Obama is a leftist ass accelerating America's demise with every breath he draws in the office he holds. It's hard to see light from here.

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Voting With Their Feet

2011-03-29T05:56:00.000-07:00

Voting With Their Feet

So Because Qaddafi Offended Obama, We Went To War, Oh and it's Bush's Fault!

2011-03-28T16:58:00.001-07:00

I made it clear that Qaddafi lost the right to lead. I wouldn't allow this to stand.

Now he compares his confusion to Bosnia?

Here's the real deal, he is imposing his view of America's diminished role and his vision for the (I'm spitting these words out of my mouth) "international community."

He wants to be clear? LOL!

Transitioning to the future that the Lybian people deserve?

Does anyone else see megalomaniacal evil all over this guy's demeanor and face like I do?

It's true America cannot use our military whenever . . . ?

But that doesn't mean that we should never (in a faux sincere appeal like voice) . . .

Is he going to talk Qadaffi to death? Damn!

Is this what liberals call nuance? This is some damn confusion! Now he's blaming Bush again? Lord, have mercy!

Is he trying to convince himself, us, or Qaddafi?

Under my presidency . . .

As commander in chief . . .

al Qaeda??? Dude!!!

Is he done yet?

So the Muslim Brotherhood is equivalent to the American Revolution?

That was a confused jumble of nonsense!

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Atlas Shrugged Part I

2011-02-24T09:36:00.000-08:00

The timing of the movie's release couldn't be better but will it live up to the novel? That is a tall order.

Glenn Beck Is Right . . . and Wrong

2011-02-06T10:05:00.001-08:00

There are certain personalities that inspire a fierce defense from adherents. Glenn Beck clearly qualifies. I am not offering a criticism of him here, except as a point of departure. One of the conventions Beck uses on his radio program to promote his brand of libertarianism is to say on a given topic, the left is wrong because, fill in the blank but the right is wrong because, again, fill in the blank. My point here is, where is the political left, correct about anything?

On what public policy questions that have the potential to address the ills of our society does the left by motivation or result, rise to the level of legitimacy in an American context? Here, in terms of motivation, I make a distinction between the casual voter and the activist left. The motivations of ordinary citizens are far different than those of the activists, even though the ordinary citizen often adopts the language of the activist unconsciously. A voter that succumbs to envy laced rhetoric about CEO pay is far different than a union activist working to seize the means of production.

The American context is a natural rights context, or as Lincoln described at Gettysburg, a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Where does a mandate to purchase health insurance, a carbon tax, ethanol subsidies or progressive taxation, for example, fit in this conversation? Was Lincoln offering a prescription to equalize outcomes by wealth redistribution?

Libertarians have a legitimate perspective but it is not enhanced by the false narrative of left-right equivalence. The libertarian argument is not advanced by Christian phobia or by comparing pro-life advocates with Islamo-fascists (not something, by the way, that Beck has done to my knowledge). Libertarianism isn't advanced by eschewing questions such as the definition of marriage or legalization of illicit drugs. However, this, along with questioning our foreign policy in the Middle East and Asia together with other cherished libertarian topics fall within the scope of Lincoln's resolve that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Statist arguments have no place in this discussion, therefore, attempts to compare them to natural rights liberals in order to advance your own defensible positions is unnecessary and unhelpful.

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Tavis Smiley

2011-02-06T04:52:00.001-08:00

Last night, Tavis Smiley spoke at my church as part of a series that we call Riverside Conversations. He and I share some things in common. We both attended Indiana University, though I ultimately graduated from The Citadel. We are both members of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Years ago when he worked for BET, he interviewed my brother in law, the head of a coalition of black pastors and my uncle, who was then the president of the Riverside Urban League (who incidentally had not met prior to the interview) on the occasion of the shooting of a young black woman by police in Riverside, CA. He is a dynamic speaker, who offered nice prescriptions for those seeking to achieve greater success in life. Then he offered his critique of President Obama, a critique that caused many in the black community to criticize him.

His critique, however, is a critique from the far left. Obama, he argued, hadn't done enough for the most loyal of his constituencies, the black electorate. His rationale for making this claim is the unprecedented high rate of black unemployment and the fact that he had not done enough for the poor. He often referenced, Cornell West, whom he described as his closest friend. He expressed his policy preferences in terms of love, love for people generally, but black people first. His public policy positions are based on collectivist notions.

Many of the folks that were in attendance, to be sure, were there to challenge him on what they perceived to be his criticism and lack of support for Obama. He stuck to his guns, offering in his black folk as downtrodden way of thinking, that what good is a black president that doesn't consider the interests of black people? Socio-economically, the audience was not representative of black America by any stretch. Our church's membership is full of professionals and business owners and those that attended from the community weren't altogether different. I am somewhat discouraged that even this swath of our population has been swayed so comprehensively by socialist dogma.

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Reagan

2011-02-05T12:09:00.001-08:00

My father's family has roots in Dixon, a small town in north central Illinois. Many summers before my high school years, my father's aunt Jennie, herself an interesting person who played professional baseball, would take me and my sister to spend those months in Dixon, billed then as the petunia capital of the world.

What I remember about Dixon is that it was a clean town of neatly manicured lawns and somewhat hilly for a town situated in the great plains. Aunt Jennie was very regimented and organized. Her mother, my father's grandmother, Mama St. James, lived with aunt Jennie after uncle Almond died. Aunt Jennie had plastic seat covers on her Oldsmobile and on her living room furniture, that we were not allowed to sit on. She had a huge bible placed on the table that looked as if it might collapse under the weight of that volume.

We had fresh corn, tomatoes and cucumbers, it seemed with every meal and fried chicken quite often. Her daughters, their husbands and their children lived nearby as did her brother, Uncle Willie, His daughter Alberta (who was, as we used to say, slow) and Uncle Willie's hunting dogs who always scared me until we went out to hunt, which Aunt Jennie frowned upon. My father's brother, Uncle Brother (William) still lives there as do many of my cousins and other relatives.

After church on Sunday's we ate in the church basement, one of the great feasts to be found outside of the world's palaces to be sure. I remember admiring Uncle Jim who looked like a movie star and whose picture you could easily imagine to be found beside the definition of "Sunday best." Aside from the outward idyllic appearances of it all, people were not only kind, they always, it seemed, did the right thing, whether it was convenient or not.

I rarely saw white folk there or if I did, I had little interaction with them but it was my impression that they too shared those traits. It wasn't until after Reagan had been in office for a while, that I realized that he was from that small town. As I sat and watched a recording of the dedication of the Reagan library on CSPAN 3, he made reference to it several times in his own remarks. I could recall through his recollections my own remembrances of that place, those ordinary people, whose character is more remarkable now, unfortunately, because of its rarity in terms of the sense of community and decency.

Two remarks were made by former presidents at that dedication that stood out in my mind. The first was by Richard Nixon, who spoke of Reagan's idealism, not as an academic exercise but as a life pursuit for which he was criticized by the left as a simpleton. A very classy Nixon recounted a meeting with Nikita Kruschev where Kruschev pointed his finger in Nixon's chest and said, your grandchildren will someday live in communism. To which Nixon replied, someday your grandchildren will live in liberty. He recalled being certain that what Kruschev said was not going to be right but that he had doubts about whether his own prediction about Kruschev's grandchildren would be true. He said that in large measure because of Ronald Reagan, that Krusxhev's grandchildren did indeed live to be free.

The second remark was by George H.W. Bush who recounted an interview where Reagan was asked by a reporter what man in history he most admired and Reagan replied, the Man from Galilee. Reagan in his remarks, delivered a sermon about liberty and its author. His great optimism and unapologetic belief in liberty were infectious and inspiring, which made him the greatest president since the last son of Illinois by way of Kentucky occupied the White House.

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Can He Be Stopped?

2011-02-04T18:56:00.000-08:00

There is no longer a question among serious political observers that Obama is a leftist. Sure, the far left commentariat, squishy politicians and "conservative" foils at liberal rags or on left leaning talking head shows, elide Obama's rhetoric and record and insist he's some sort of moderate. Even an electorate easily duped by liberal duplicity finally sniffed out Obama and rejected him, his agenda and his elected minions down to the historic turnover in state legislatures.

In spite of his drubbing, he is pressing full speed ahead. Since being repudiated by voters, his administration has been held in contempt for ignoring a court order to lift the illegal oil drilling moratorium, he has agreed to trade British nuclear secrets to the Russians, has undermined an ally in Egypt and is acting in direct defiance of a court decision that voided, eliminated, erased Obamacare. It's almost gallows sport among those of us alarmed by what we're witnessing with mouths agape to identify his stripe, motives and tactics. Post-colonialist, anti-colonialist, Marxist, Fabian socialist, fascist, crony capitalist, Alinskyite, whatever. Where is the legacy media?

The breadth and pace of Obama's assault on liberty and America's interests is breathtaking and because he won't comply, what is our recourse?

Political Discourse

2011-01-09T09:29:00.001-08:00

A disturbed young man whose name doesn't deserve mention, killed and wounded many at a political gathering in Arizona. It is despicable when violence is foist upon a peaceable assembly. Amplifying the senselessness and extending the tragedy are those seeking to link this action to the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, opposition to illegal immigration or 2nd Amendment rights, in an attempt to vilify political opponents and stifle debate.

The desperate search to link this killer's views to anti-government activism and to associate it with an ascendancy of liberalism (constitutionally limited government) and a national reawakening regarding individual liberty is unseemly when a 9 year old girl's death, at the hands of one who violently imposed his twisted views on others, is being mourned by her family. Most of us are deeply saddened by these events that leave congressman Giffords clinging to life and her husband and untold numbers of others praying for her recovery.

Yet, some can't help themselves. They see the opportunity to participate in what they've accused their ideological adversaries of fomenting. But in the case of the those doing it now, in the wake of these disturbing events, they do so with relative impunity from a legacy media sympathetic to these notions.

The debate over the nature of our republic is engaged. Despite what's known (the killer hold's anti-Semitic views, is a flag burner and is a fan of the Communist Manifesto), those who hold a redistributionist vision will undoubtedly add this event to the vocabulary and lexicon of the politically correct who attempt use race, gender and other demographic formulations to end the conversation or to change the subject.

Any change in the political discourse needs to move in the direction of more energy and vigor, not less. Regardless of where you stand, as Americans, we're genetically predisposed to have our opinions heard and to have our electorally expressed views respected. It's apparent by her participation in the reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House of Representatives and her open meeting with constituents that she agrees.

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I'm Encouraged

2011-01-07T07:40:00.001-08:00

It's early and there will be strong headwinds blowing from the media against them but this new crop of Republican legislators are a breath of fresh air. Watching the proceedings of the House Rules Committee and the debate on the rule that would bring the repeal vote of the job killing Obamacare law to the floor of the House, there is now a group of unabashed, plain speaking conservative legislators willing to challenge the prevarications upon which the Democrats have built their raison d'être.

Seeing the Constitution read (which was inspiring), the new rules adopted including "cutgo" and various interviews with Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor and the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan has further supported my belief that the election results on November 2nd has produced some institutional humility and stiffened the spine of the GOP leadership in the House. The House is doing its job in framing the issues, in addition to setting the proper tone for legislating. I look forward to the effect that Rubio, Lee, Johnson, Paul and Toomey have on the weaker Republican conference in the Senate.

I'm further encouraged that because of this freshman class that whoever the Republican nominee for president will be in 2012, the nominee will not be an accommodationist centrist like those the GOP is wont to produce. We may not get Barry Goldwater or even Ronald Reagan but we also won't get Nixon, Ford, Bush or Bush, Dole or McCain.

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Herman Cain

2010-12-28T12:53:00.001-08:00

No one is perfect and I don't expect Herman Cain to be but he comes closer to my thinking than the politicians who seem to be lining up for consideration. He has a plan that includes spending cuts, reducing regulation and tax simplification. One concern is that he is a former Fed Board governor and may support Bernanke as he supported TARP. I don't know the answer but this far out, he has my support until I see something different.

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Open Letter to Marsha Blackburn

2010-12-16T16:46:00.001-08:00

Congressman Blackburn,

I am a resident of Hermitage, a constituent of the 5th congressional district
of Tennessee. Like so many others, I find myself increasingly frustrated by what's going on with the federal government. I have voiced those concerns to my Congressman Jim Cooper's office (I even had the occasion to share with him my disgust over his vote for Obamacare in the security line at Nashville International) but he is after all a Democrat.

It would stand to reason that I would be able to appeal to one of my Republican Senators, whom I'm sure are friends of yours, but they don't seem to have the same political philosophy that you have, that I have. They are marginally conservative which only seems to manifest itself in campaigns. Both Senators Alexander and Corker voted for TARP and rushed to force through a temporary extension of tax rates at the expense of budget busting and morally debilitating unemployment benefits for a full three years when both ethically and politically, the momentum was on the side of Republicans to stand firm on demanding a permanent extension without concessions, if not actual cuts in personal, corporate, dividends and capital gains rates and the elimination of the wholly immoral death tax.

I'm writing to appeal to you to consider running against Senator Corker in 2012. I don't know your voting record but I do know I haven't seen you trying to broker deals with Democrats as Senator Corker is wont to do (e.g. the UAW bailout). He seems to fancy himself as a sort of John McCain light. Shortly after the elections in November, he came to Nashville to give a presentation at Belmont that I could not attend on the gravity of our economic condition.

I saw the pre-work and heard from those that attended that his premise is that the government operates best at a funding level of around 18% of GDP. All that thinking does is to lock in a behemoth government too involved in our lives and transactions, thwarting our liberty and prosperity. How about starting from the premise that there are certain legitimate functions of government, how do we eliminate those that are not and carefully fund only those that are necessary?

If you're thinking, why don't you contact Senator Corker's office and register your complaints with him? I have! I have called and written both he and Senator Alexander in their Washington and Nashville offices several times. When I get their form letters back several weeks later, when they're even on topic (Senator Alexander's office is particularly poor about this), it is what I would expect from a bureaucrat.

You might also be tempted to think that my concerns are only marginal and that Senator Corker votes a conservative position x% of the time. I contend that the margins are where the country and our liberties and prosperity are being destroyed. We just had an election where, as you know, Republicans were not loved, the leftists were reviled and rejected, yet, Senator Corker sees now as a time to yield and compromise? How should I compromise with those who have clear contempt for the concept of American exceptionalism?

To be sure, the White House and congressional Democrats are responsible for the grotesque spending, irredeemable regulation, the assault on commerce and vilification of Americans who simply want to be safe within our borders. Most of us want to be left to lead our lives and raise our children without some politician's wife telling us how to feed our children or without a private bank eroding the purchasing power of the legal tender we earn. We don't want to be told we must purchase insurance or put corn in our gas tank instead of eating it. However, to the extent that there is cooperation with this agenda, it is to our detriment, which is why I appeal to you, the only elected conservative I'm aware of in the State of Tennessee, to consider a run for the United States Senate in 2012.

Sincerely,

Craig Bardo

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Timeless

2010-10-27T16:07:00.001-07:00

RealClearPolitics - Video - Juan Williams: NPR Fired Me For Making "Bigoted Statement"

2010-10-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

RealClearPolitics - Video - Juan Williams: NPR Fired Me For Making "Bigoted Statement"

Top 10 Myths The Left Would Have Us Believe

2010-10-21T01:06:00.000-07:00

10. The Constitution is irrelevant for today's challenges and the courts are where the will of the people should be modified.
9. Government regs (like the FDIC) and spending (like on unemployment comp) prevent problems and stimulates economic growth.
8. The "rich" pay too little in taxes and minimum wage laws don't cause unemployment.
7. Unregulated markets and free exchange created the economic turmoil we have today and is proof that the profit motive is evil and must be replaced.
6. The charge of racism, sexism, homophobia and intolerance of any kind is sufficient evidence of guilt.
5. If they say TARP & "stim" kept us from another depression and that Obamacare will "bend the cost curve" without death panels enough times, we'll believe them.
4. Man "evolved" from a fish, an ape or something; we're killing the earth so re-distribution, no more children and living like cavemen on a vegan diet is the answer.
3. Teacher's unions have the best interests of children at heart.
2. Islam is "a religion of peace."
1. As long as we don't call it a baby, abortion is not a murder of convenience.

Okay, so I combined some issues and I have more! A Top 10 list sounded more compelling. Please feel free to contribute, debate or list your own.

Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander - Accommodationists!

2010-10-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to Mark Levin, who has knowledge of a meeting wherein Corker said that he and the leadership were not interested in repealing Obamacare. I called his office in Washington and his office here in Nashville. The staffers were prepared and remarkably disciplined. They both read from a script saying that the reports of the meeting were wrong and that they were trying to get to the bottom of the issue. I told both staffers that no one answered the phone when TARP was being discussed and before the vote. I couldn't get Alexander's office either.

Why do I believe Mark Levin and not the staffers? Because Levin said that he'd spoken with someone who was in the room with Corker. Corker also likes to be seen as a deal maker of some kind. If you'll remember, when the UAW bailout was being discussed, he was out front trying to negotiate a more acceptable deal or whatever nonsense he was engaged in. His staffers pointed out that he voted against Obamacare and the UAW bailout. I told them that it's not only his vote, it's his tenor. So, no, I don't believe Corker, not for a minute.

Alexander was quoted in a POLITICO piece for going after Jim DeMint who has supported conservatives, even in primaries against squish Republicans like Alexander and Corker. Unfortunately, neither is up for a primary contest but I promise you, we won't forget!

I Shall Die A Dialectical Materialist and Consequently Atheist

2010-10-19T21:05:00.001-07:00

So wrote Trotsky in Mexico shortly before his death in 1940 at the hand of an assassin sent by Stalin. What are we to make our professed Christian president when he speaks of our endowed rights with no mention of the Creator, not once but three times this fall?

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Leftists, Progressives and Socialists by Walter E. Williams

2010-10-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

Leftists, Progressives and Socialists by Walter E. Williams

The GOP Leadership Can't Be Trusted!

2010-10-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

This from Erick Erickson at RedState blog:

Senate Republicans May Not Try to Repeal Obamacare

I have told you this before and I will tell you this again. Unless you elect Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Ken Buck, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Sharron Angle, and Joe Miller, we will never see Obamacare repealed.

Senator Judd Gregg is up today saying that repeal is not recommended.

Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.), the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said that repealing the new healthcare reform law — or looking to defund it — were not good options.

“I don’t think starving or repealing is probably the best approach here,” Gregg said on the Fox Business Network. “You basically go in and restructure it.”

Here’s the thing — Senate leadership staff will say this is just Judd Gregg, who is retiring, and not reflective of the Senate GOP leadership. There is a problem though.

In the past several weeks, there have been several closed door, off the record meetings of high dollar donors getting briefings from various elected officials, including several Senators. In each case the donors have been “reassured” by the Senators present that they have no intention of repealing Obamacare, just restructuring it.

The Senators seemed to think the high dollar donors were not kooks like those tea party activists and would understand the practical need to just “restructure” instead of “repeal.” Unfortunately, the Senators have badly misread the donors.

In any event, you can be sure that Judd Gregg is not speaking out of turn and is not a lone wolf on this issue. His view reflects that of the Senate GOP leadership despite their protestations to the contrary.

Again, if you haven’t sent money to Joe Miller, Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Marco Rubio, you better. Repeal of Obamacare depends on them.

Pre/Post Election Reading

2010-10-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a little reading in case you don't by now, know who we're dealing with and what he's likely to do even in the face of a humiliating rejection and rebuke by voters.

David Limbaugh's Crimes Against Liberty: An Indictment of President Obama
Michael Savage's Trickle Up Poverty - Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy and Security
Finally, out today is Stanley Kurtz's Radical in Chief, Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism

Chris Coons is... The Taxman

2010-10-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

Chris Coons is... The Taxman

Carl Paladino

2010-10-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

The left must be very concerned about Carl Paladino's candidacy. All of the typical sources are pounding him first for protecting his family forcefully, something most fathers can identify with and then for being "homophobic," the outrage! New York is flat busted broke, Jerry Brown's wife calls Meg Whittman a ho' and because he's a leftist, that story is replaced with Carl Palodino's supposed homophobia? We've got 'em on the run!

RealClearPolitics - Video - Obama: Republicans Counting On Blacks Staying Home

2010-10-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

RealClearPolitics - Video - Obama: Republicans Counting On Blacks Staying Home

November's Coming!

2010-10-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

Do not lose heart, stay the course, finish the race - there will be much left to do after November but there is nothing more important. Here's some encouragement.

Ron Johnson

2010-10-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

Ron Johnson

Sharron Angle

2010-10-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

We need this woman in the Senate! I could care less about the fact that she'll unseat the sitting Democrat majority leader. What she'll do is to bring another voice of sanity to the Republican caucus in the Senate. We're sending reinforcements Senator DeMint!

Rush on Family Guy

2010-10-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of the show but this episode looks like it might be funny.

Hope 'n Change Equivalent To "Free[ing] The Slaves?"

2010-10-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

In a campaign speech yesterday, the anti-colonialist in chief equated his agenda with "free [ing] the slaves." Who can argue with freeing slaves? In the book of Luke, Jesus referred to the prophet Isaiah's words when speaking of what he came to do saying, "The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." The inspirational, uplifting words of The Declaration of Independence reflected the words of John Locke (and Hutcheson) when Thomas Jefferson penned "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable (God-given) Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Freeing slaves is not controversial (at least in contemporary terms). Is the agenda of an angry anti-colonialist?

What is the president's agenda? The angry bi-racial president, who is a descendant of slave owners (not slaves), proclaimed that "America has been arrogant and dismissive." The self-professed Christian president said , speaking of fellow Christian Americans, that "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." One of the most anti-business presidents in history, according to one of his former speech writers, wants to "spread the wealth around," and famously said that we (Americans) "can’t drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we’re living in the desert or we’re living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world’s energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we’ll be fine."

While some of us paid attention to the president's agenda when he was a candidate, many are awakening to and are witnessing the absolute failure of the leftist demonstration project first hand! With promises of no more than 8% unemployment and slogans like "The Summer of Recovery" Obamanomics has failed on its own terms. Not only that, people have seen the astounding debt being amassed by Obama and his predilection to have the government take over industry after industry and more aspects of our lives, all the while making things more expensive and people subservient to an all powerful federal government. Unlike freeing the slaves, which was a laudable goal, a high moral calling and non-controversial, "hope and change" is not laudable, it is immoral and highly controversial. This crass attempt to draw equivalence between his counterrevolution and the end of slavery is reprehensible.

Since the Democrats controlled the House, Senate and the White House, they passed what they wanted to pass, especially "health care," it's their baby. With all the promises made about "bending the curve" and lowering deficits and debt, information released by the CBO now puts the lie to all of it. We were also promised that costs to consumers would be lowered and as predicted by those of us who thought it through, prices are escalating now and employers are dropping coverage. As those of us paying attention predicted (because the same thing happened in Canada and England) Obamacare will add to the existing shortfall of doctors in the U.S. by 50% by the year 2015! Yet, this White House and Congress blame Republicans for these results even though there was no possibility of them stopping a thing. Though there have been those who have attributed resistance to Obama's agenda as being racist or racially motivated, last I checked, Obama has the same racial composition now at 38% favorability that he had when he enjoyed nearly 70% favorability shortly after he started his new gig. We'll see what America thinks about Obama's change agenda in November!

Why Do Non-Leftists Vote Democrat? - Dennis Prager - National Review Online

2010-09-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

Why Do Non-Leftists Vote Democrat? - Dennis Prager - National Review Online

Politics Versus Gold

2010-09-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Politics Versus Gold

Gangsta Government Rap

2010-09-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

Gangsta Government Rap

Stimulus didn't save the nation from depression | detnews.com | The Detroit News

2010-09-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

Stimulus didn't save the nation from depression | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Prescient Tocqueville

2010-09-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Prescient Tocqueville

The Empire Strikes Back

2010-09-24T12:06:00.001-07:00

What those of us who were shocked into reality with the advent of TARP know that the New York Times and its spiritual progeny in print and broadcast media continue to get wrong by ignorance or willful deceit, is that "the tea party" has targeted non Constitutional conservatives of each party. That question is no longer in dispute.

While federally elected Republicans in leadership positions along with the state and national parties publicly cheered this grassroots uprising, they privately sought to co-opt its potency. However, what the insiders failed to realize is that we were paying attention. When we closed down the Capitol Hill switchboards with our protest of TARP, many of the elected officials ostensibly on our side of the question also refused to answer or respond to calls. We were watching and taking note.

I'm convinced that my own senators, Lamar Alexander and especially Bob Corker avoided the fate of Lisa Murkowski, Charlie Crist, Bob Bennett, Mike Castle and others only because their names were not scheduled to come before the electorate. So when the establishment began to protest directly and through their intermediaries in the commentariat, most notably with Christine O'Donnell's candidacy and victory, a clear fault line was exposed.

Comically, some who voted for TARP, UAW bailout and those who supported other aspects of state expansion like taxing bonuses of bailed out companies, have tried to recast themselves as "Young Guns" applying lipstick to the pig. The NRSC backed by leadership supported those uncommitted to Constitutional conservatism again and again. We were watching and taking note.

We have done all that we can to express our urgency, our awareness of the lack of both time and political resources required to meet an existential threat to this the greatest of opportunity societies. We helped to elect Republican governors in states Obama had won less than a year before in New Jersey and Virginia. We helped elect a Republican who promised to vote against ObamaCare to the seat formerly held by a liberal icon. Though two of these three are not ideological conservatives, we did what we could and when we had more time, we did more!

Now, having been rebuked, the empire strikes back! Following her announcement that she would wage a write in campaign, rather than stripping her of her leadership position, senate Republicans reelected the defeated Lisa Murkowski to her committee leadership position, a fact she is sure to use against the solidly conservative Joe Miller in the Alaska senate race.

This is a serious push back against our concerns and what we want unreservedly expressed. This is a time for Jeffersonian clarity and focus! This is a time for Churchillian rhetorical flourishes. Damn it, we are at war! If we lose these battles the Republic is at jeopardy as surely as if we were under siege on our own soil by all of the forces arrayed against liberty. There is an army engaged in a pitched battle to meet an enemy that is mortal threat to all that we love and cherish. We are prepared to stake our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor on this fight and this is what they do? This is the standard they lift for us to follow?

We want the government thrown off, not managed. We want an acknowledgement of the exceptionalism of this Republic and the principles upon which it was established, under God. Because this land is special to us, we want its borders defended and our sovereignty asserted. When we send our sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, friends and neighbors into harm's way, we want them trained, equipped and fighting to win and returned to us with the respect and honor they are due! We want the size and influence of government stopped, reversed and downsized through the elimination of regulations, subsidies, tariffs, bailouts and spending, even on entitlements.

The GOP will have no one to blame but themselves for their demise if they continue to ignore us. Their desire for power will be their undoing. There is no room for opportunists, no time, no patience, no tolerance. Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way!

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The Politics of Resentment - Thomas Sowell - National Review Online

2010-09-21T03:12:00.000-07:00

The Politics of Resentment - Thomas Sowell - National Review Online

Women Leading The Way

2010-09-17T17:39:00.001-07:00

When the moderate Republican establishment cowered and slunk away from tough fights, who fought for the country and stood up?

Sarah Palin was the spine of the McCain/Palin campaign until she was taken down by moderate insiders serving a moderate presidential candidate. Even after making what many considered to be all the wrong moves, her star and influence has only risen.

Michelle Bachmann was called crazy and fringe predictably by the left but also by so called moderates within the GOP and the same cabal of supposedly conservative pundits (by New York Times standards) that have showed disdain for Sarah Palin.

Jan Brewer continues to stand up for Arizonans beleaguered by a persistent and dangerous illegal immigration problem. She has won the support of a large majority of Americans for their cause.

Nikki Haley, falsely accused of infidelity, leads with a conservative message to restore honor to the Palmetto state.

Sharron Angle, quietly but insistently takes on the GOP establishment and wins with a constitutional conservative message and then is hit with the onslaught of the war chest of the Majority Leader of the US Senate and still leads.

Christine O'Donnell is savaged by the GOP and national pundits, even after she earned victory in the primary.

Yes, there have been men like Jim DeMint, literally standing alone in the US Senate to support the longest of long shot candidates against the establishment to yield an astonishing 10 conservative candidates with primary victories. Bobby Jindal stood up to the Obama administration's willful neglect to fight for the people of Louisiana and indeed the entire Gulf.

But I have two questions regarding the leading women; aren't these feminist victories to be celebrated and where are the feminists coming to the defense of these women coming under attack, often definitively sexist attack?

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Palmetto State Star!

2010-09-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

Why I'd Rather Lose With A Conservative Than Win With A Moderate

2010-09-12T16:26:00.001-07:00

Indigestion. When I consider having to listen to Bob Corker and see he and Lamar Alexander, my senators. vote, I would rather allow the leftist demonstration project to make the case for a true modern conservative/classical liberal than muddle through with unreliable power brokers who simply want to ride herd over the welfare state rather than dismantle it.

Christine O'Donnell is an imperfect candidate but she is a constitutional conservative. Mike Castle is a disaster of beliefs in GOP clothing. I could care less about the GOP in its current form, embodied by the ridiculous Michael Steele, the NRSC and the elected Republicans who voted for TARP, the UAW bailout and other absurd votes. Sadly among them is Paul Ryan, who has decent prescriptions for managing the welfare state - if that's your goal. I am a radical, pre-judicial review, Declaration and Bill of Rights/Constitution revering, natural rights, God loving, classical liberal. Mike Castle is a train wreck!

If Christine O'Donnell is incapable of getting one vote in a general election, I'd rather go down with her than win with someone who's sentiments are nearly indistinguishable from the elected Senator whom he would replace.

November 3, 2010 - January 4, 2011

2010-09-06T17:57:00.001-07:00

While the lame duck session should be interesting, I'm more interested in how newly elected Republican majority/majorities respond. Will they be self congratulatory like a rookie scoring his first touchdown with a pre choreographed end zone celebration (while the team is down by 30 points in the 4th quarter)? Or will they approach the situation soberly like a veteran who realizes that they have work to do the day after the election victories and the day after the transfer of power.

I don't hold out great hope. After all, John Boehner will likely be the majority leader (or at least Democrats better hope so) and Mitch McConnell will lead Senate Republicans, unless Republicans in that chamber are wise enough to make a change. I'm discouraged because a group of self-described "young guns" who have much to account for, have promulgated a manifesto that divorces themselves from their own votes for TARP, auto bailouts, punitive taxation and soft stances on a host of issues, too numerous to count.

On the other hand, I'm encouraged at just how successful patriots have been in making their presence felt and their voices heard from Virginia to New Jersey to Massachusetts to Florida; from Nevada to Alaska, from Utah to Wisconsin, from South Carolina to Delaware, from Kentucky to Pennsylvania. Not only have leftist Democrats in Washington been put on notice, the GOP establishment, fighting patriots just as hard as leftists to stay in control, are not only on notice, they are alarmed.

The one man coalition of Senate Conservatives, Jim DeMint has beaten the snot out of John Cornyn of the NRSC, the very strange Michael Steele of the national GOP and many state GOP party chairmen. Though he his success has gone uncovered, he has been cheered by Tea Parties around the nation. Unless the back of the GOP establishment is broken and accommodationists are placed on the back bench where they belong it will be impossible to save the republic.

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Leftist Demonstration Project - Fail!

2010-08-28T17:30:00.001-07:00

The definition of an economic depression is not as well defined as say, recession which is said to occur when there are two consecutive quarters of negative growth. A depression is far more subjective but like former Supreme Court associate justice Potter Stewart, might have said, "I know it when I see it." Some do quantify economic depression as a drop in GDP of 10% or more.

Depressions are unnatural economic occurrences characterized by a lack of confidence by business owners that they will earn enough to to warrant putting their money at risk. It is also characterized by deflation, which represents a loss of perceived value. It is usually accompanied by high general unemployment. The last two depressions in America and most of the recessions were preceded by massive government intervention in the private markets either by regulation, taxation or direct participation.

The loss of value in the current economic downturn has come from direct government involvement in the mortgage market whose interest is secured by real estate and a tacit (now, de facto) backing by the federal government. Government changed underwriting rules making it easier for prospective, unqualified borrowers to secure loans and because government was the biggest player in the market, it set the rules for everyone. A government contractor, the Federal Reserve Bank, exacerbated the problem by keeping short term interest rates low (relatively risk free), so money flooded into the mortgage market and away from more sound investment.

After the government created the bubble, it tried to keep it from deflating through bailouts and takeovers, despite the ample historical evidence and logic that it will only prolong the agony. Since the government had limited resources and less moral authority to do this, they borrowed and printed, making a bad situation and methodology worse. Even the Democrat candidate for the US Senate, Bennett acknowledged, like FDR's Treasury Secretary did 70 years ago, the government has spent money and has nothing to show for it but massive debt. Debt that in this case, will destroy all value in our economy.

What plan can address both slow economic growth and long term debt? Analogies are often imperfect but if the economy is a game where the players earn their living based on a contract, you won't get the players to conditioning workouts and practice if they know the referee will not only favor their opponent but the opponent might even be the referee. If the referee also threatens to take more of what the best players earn, then the game will be called off for lack of participation, especially if the players learn that what they were to be paid is known to be heading for a seriously decline in value. They will pick up their ball, go home and wait for better conditions.

Government has to get out of the game. It has to stop bailing out, taking over, regulating and taxing the economy to death. Real assets have to be allowed to fall to their true economic value to induce investors to step in, which will start the recovery. Government must stop putting roadblocks in the way of wealth creation and potentially profitable private interactions. Then after the intrepid have cleared those barriers, the government has to stop punishing success with envy laced rhetoric, higher tax burdens and justifications for immoral redistribution schemes. The government is crowding out sustainable private activity and has created what some call regime uncertainty. Well, the uncertainty doesn't apply because the capital is certain it doesn't want to participate under these conditions.

The spending must stop, including for sacred cow entitlements lest we take the whole ship down. Market forces must be reintroduced into health care and the social security Ponzi scheme must end. The opportunity society that drew people from around the world, often times at the risk of life and limb, legally or otherwise, must be restored to produce the conditions that will return people to work and prosperity based on their contribution. The leftist demonstration project not only failed but scared people back to an American sensibility. The question remains however, will we have the courage to not only stop but reverse course enough to restore what we all sense losing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Speaking of Crazy

2010-08-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

Here's another example of why government intervention, especially for dubious reasons, is an absolute train wreck. Because we are subsidizing corn ethanol, what are farmers here in the states and around the world doing? Growing corn of course. But what has that done to the ecology of places where corn shouldn't be grown and what has it done to staple foods around the world. Listen for 1 minute to find out.

New Blog Title - Book Title, Unless Someone Steals It!

2010-08-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

My liberal leaning brother, who is familiar with my views, suggested that I write a book with this title and I'm going to take him up on it. I've also changed the title of the blog and will probably make other changes to it but I won't change who I am. If you know me, I'm not given to racial analysis unless it's to call out racialists and poverty pimps who use race to change the subject. I just thought my brother, who has a way with words (hence his broadcast career) came up with a clever title that speaks to how others might see me and it's something I can put to the written word.

Let's see how this goes!

The Implications of Revealed Motive

2010-07-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

As Peggy Noonan points out in a WSJ Op-ed, despite legislative victories, which have historically correlated with increased popularity, president Obama is suffering an unprecedented reversal in public support. Last year's town hall protesters, it turns out, were different in both scope and nature than how Democrat politicians and their media colleagues tried to characterize what eventually morphed into the Tea-Party movement. A significant broad based push back has emerged against the agenda of congressional Democrats and President Obama that goes well beyond just those who participate in the oft-maligned Tea Party. Yet, Obama surprisingly, still enjoys popularity of just over 45% according to Rasmussen, compared with Congressional Democrats which generically, fare worse. What accounts for the floor in his polling? What happens if he breaks through this resistance level?

So far, most of the broad based criticism of the Obama agenda has not reached the level of assigning a hostile motive. Understandably, with a solid majority of voters ushering him to victory, that same electorate less than two years later might be reluctant to concede that Obama is not who they believed him to be and that a President of the United States would actively move against the interests of those who put him in office. However, with unemployment near 10%, a new narrative may be emerging, one that the White House is eager to dispel.

For a while, it seemed reasonable, to some, to blame Bush for the "need" for "stimulus," the take over the auto industry, capping executive pay, massive pork laden budgets, "cash for clunkers," etc. However, when Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid muscled through a very unpopular federal take over of health care along with the passing of time, the blame Bush rhetoric has begun to ring hollow with more and more voters. Meanwhile, the White House continues to demonize industry after job producing industry and to attack or tie the hands of states beleaguered by the lack of federal effectiveness in response to disasters. Now, the somewhat amorphous Tea Party is getting reinforcement from former Obama supporting crony capitalists and state governments.

Jan Brewer and Bobby Jindal, trying to address the needs of their states have been thwarted by the federal government but aren't remaining silent. High profile boycotts of Arizona are widely publicized and the White House has decided to sue the State of Arizona over its law intended to absolve law enforcement from prosecution for doing their job, a job the federal government refuses to attend. Yet, nearly 70% of the nation's voters support Arizona's law, which is more or less a restatement of federal law. Jindal has fought an unresponsive and even hostile federal government from protecting the coastal waters and estuaries of Louisiana by blocking the state's use of skimmers at one point and the building of protective sand or rock berms. But what seems to have brought business into the fight, in earnest is the Obama administration's moratorium on drilling in the Gulf, which has now been overturned and reinstatement denied by successive court rulings.

Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, really began the charge, facing down a hapless Carl Levin in a Senate hearing but when the chief crony of capitalists and Obama supporter, GE CEO, Jeffery Immelt blasted Obama and his policies while praising Germany's Angela Merkel in the same speech, the battle was fully joined. Later, a more effective Verizon CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, in his role as chairman of the Business Roundtable (which also supported Obama), delivered a devastating indictment of the Obama administration, when he spoke at the Economic Club of Washington. But when even a liberal columnist, the Washington Post's Fareed Zakaria had to report that CEOs he'd interviewed spoke about sitting on cash as the result of regime uncertainty (overtaxation and whimsical overregulation), the anti-business label begins to adhere. The logical question voters are beginning to ask is, why?

Most Americans are unconcerned with the ongoing debate between the economic philosophies of Keynes and Hayek and may have less familiarity with the aims of Marx and "progressives" but when even Louisiana fishermen, devastated by the oil spill, recognize the lack of wisdom of and vehemently oppose a Gulf oil drilling ban attempted by President Obama, it may not bode well for the future of Obama's agenda and his own popularity, outside of an almost certain lame duck session. Given his established disregard for the electorate, that lame duck session could be very troubling for America. This pending rebuke makes a man, whose motives I believe to be aligned with his mentors' Frank Marshall Davis, Jeremiah Wright and indirectly Saul Alinsky, (whose political appointments, legislative goals and methods reflect this belief set) even more threatening and dangerous to what most Americans consider to be unalienable.

Can We Finally Kill Keynes?

2010-07-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

It didn't work in the 1930's or 1940's, it didn't work for Japan or Europe, it hasn't worked for us because it's nonsensical. Taking money from the productive economy to produce economic activity makes as much sense as taking water from one end of the swimming pool to "stimulate" the creation of water at the other end. If you choose to print money in an attempt create economic activity, you're only diminishing the value of the money that was already in place before the printing press was enlisted in your service.

Bailouts create the moral hazard we're already outraged about and make it more likely that it will happen again. Propping up asset prices via government control or manipulation of markets, only prolongs the agony. Why are employers shedding jobs? Two seriously strong headwinds, regime uncertainty (indeed hostility to private property and the profit motive) and a pending massive tax increase.

The drivers of economic activity cannot compete with a robust and thriving public sector determined to whimsically change the rules to satiate its demands for growth. Now we're in a pattern similar to that of the pre Great Depression era that even the Obama friendly CNBC has to acknowledge with government leadership that is contemptuous of growth in the private sector and an election cycle dangerously distant even though we're only months away. Couple that with a journalistic class content to advance the narratives put forward by elite Keynesians (spending equals stimulus, deflation is the concern not inflation, tax cuts reduce revenue, etc.) and you've got combustible pile of debris receptive to any malevolent spark.

So, can we finally conclude as a mature Lord Keynes himself did, that growth is the remedy for such a time as this and that tax cuts are the prescription? We also need significant spending cuts to keep from trashing the currency completely and if it's possible with this virulent political class, a lot less paternalism in the form of over regulation would be nice too!

The Black Woman and Customer Service During a Recession

2010-06-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

My running hypothesis has been that with increased employment scarcity, allowing employers to be more selective in their hiring, that retail customer service attitudes would improve commensurately with that scarcity. In some respects, I believe it has. My business takes me throughout the country, traveling several days each week on average and most of it requiring air travel. This vantage point gives me a perspective because I rent cars or cabs, eat out, stay in hotels, fly and often purchase items from various retail outlets in all but 10 states this year.

I certainly have not conducted a scientific study but two groups of people consistently seem to be impervious to economic conditions insofar as it relates to their behavior toward customers; government employees and black women. Now, this is certainly not my impression of all government employees or black women who interface with the public, it just seems that "attitude" is more often resident with these groups than elsewhere.

I encounter government employees each week, when I go through airport security screening. Because I fly Southwest so often, I'm often at Midway in Chicago or BWI in Baltimore, Love Field in Dallas or Oakland where there are a lot of, you guessed it, black women working for the TSA. You can tell the ones who have adopted the attitude, I'm in no hurry, I'm going to be here all day. You can try to avoid their lines, only to find another with a worse attitude, one that says, I gotta be here all day and I don't care if you wait until I leave or go on break. Really, what incentive does a TSA officer have to help a passenger, so I almost get how they get away with poor attitudes there but what about in for profit retail outlets? Why is the behavior of black women in customer service so often intractably poor?

It's almost cliche', in fact, as the Anjelah Nicole Johnson character Bon Qui Qui attests. We've all encountered her, which is why the skit resonates. Before all the sistas come at me hard or more likely with a "what's your point?" or "whatever" I'll stipulate that it's not all black women. Is it political correctness that keeps this behavior from being addressed or employment law? I've encountered no other group that is allowed to respond to customers like this with impunity. What am I missing? I know I'm not the only one who has made this observation!

Peak Oil? LOL!!!

2010-06-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

Where are all of the experts who just a short time ago were warning about the peak oil crisis? We were all going to have to find alternative sources of energy because there wasn't enough to go around, the demand was just too great, the supply too little. We were all going to have to get used to heating our homes with dung from the donkey carts that were going to replace our cars. This spill in the Gulf won't stop gushing, just absolutely won't and it wasn't a particularly big find. Still think we're going to run out? LOL!

The World As The Left Wishes It Were

2010-06-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I've given up reading the New York Times and did so years ago. It's been good for my blood pressure. However, I still occasionally look in on the Sunday shows, even the post Russert, Meet The Press. There is this theater that takes place where a host like David Gregory or Gwen Ifill on PBS's Washington Week, facilitates conversation between guests or leftist journalists and one of those whom they deem conservative, like David Brooks and orchestrate a mythology before ever diminishing readership/viewership. The mythology is that this group presumes to speak to a national audience and that their presentation of data and world view resonate beyond the echo chamber of their own making.

This group has moved from at least making a pretense of reporting on events to trying to shape opinion to desperately pleading to be heard in a remarkably short period of time. They have marginalized themselves and proceed as if they are unaware that Muslims, specifically radical Islam is responsible for most terrorist acts, that despite the terrible tragedy in the Gulf, we will still need to drill for oil there and elsewhere, that government's actions created the housing bubble at the center of our economic crisis and that government spending, taxation and over regulation is exacerbating unemployment and mortgaging our future or that Arizonans are racist for wanting to have border security. Good luck with that!

This morning, David Gregory had Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Roger Simon and Chuck Todd on a panel after he interviewed David Axelrod. He presumably threw in, a surprisingly effective, Carly Fiorina on the panel for balance. In response to questions about president Obama's handling of the Gulf oil spill and the poor public polling he has suffered as a result, Doris Kearns Goodwin argued, pleadingly, that we have to do a better job of telling the story. Upon hearing Carly Fiorina's recitation of the bungled government effort, a clearly frustrated, Roger Simon, scolded that Obama's indignation stemmed not so much from press criticism but from "small government Republican" criticisms about the government's poor response.

The desperation of this group is palpable and increasingly transparent. Reality is encroaching like a noose tightening around the neck of the condemned. The shrinking circulation and viewership of the formerly mainstream press, if not their counterparts in academia (at least at the same pace), has eroded their confidence along with their ability to sustain their membership through employment. I don't know if the tide is actually turning but it sure appears to be weakening.

Anyone Seen A Death Tally Lately?

2010-05-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

Where are the nightly death tallies and milestone counts so prevalent in the media during the Bush administration? We're still in Iraq, Afghanistan and indeed GITMO.

Arizona Law & Immigration Violations

2010-05-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Faisal Shahzad, the initially non-mirandized, naturalized American citizen and would be Times Square bomber has apparently been coughing up information. There were several arrests of his alleged co-conspirators who are being detained on immigration violations?

Now the Arizona immigration law that is so despised by Obama, Holder and the posers on the left, specifically prohibits profiling yet Holder is detaining people on immigration violations and they profiled at least 3 Pakistani nationals to obtain this result? Do these arrests offend Obama's "basic notion(s) of fairness?"

A Tale of Two Disasters

2010-05-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

. . . It was the worst of times.

Charles Dickens' cautionary fiction A Tale of Two Cities is said to have been written to warn Britain of the conditions that created the French Revolution and just as importantly to ward off the fallout of such an event. It is one of the most widely read books in history (originally, published weekly). Dickens used metaphor but how will voters read today's events:

11 men died on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico from an apparent methane gas "blow out" which also released potentially millions of barrels of unrefined oil into the ecosystem of the Gulf's waters.

We have a front row seat to the Greek tragedy that Robert Samuelson calls "The Welfare State's Death Spiral."

Is it likely that because of an accident, though perhaps preventable, the prospects for new oil production off shore and elsewhere in the US will end? Will big government socialist/welfare state types be warned off by Greece (California, New York, Illinois and other States) and the rest of the PIIGS problems, Europe's problems? Is there a viable alternative to oil? Is there a viable alternative to the welfare state? Seeing a need for an alternative to oil assumes that there are problems with oil beyond the occasional accident. Greece is no accident.

How will American voters read the disasters? Reason suggests that new technology and continued drilling will win the day with regard to the oil question. The same group that drives opposition to oil production will drive opposition to ending the welfare state here before it collapses under the weight of its own absurdity. Were Dickens alive to publish a fiction of today's political machinations, he would surely caution readers to be leery of those who refer to one another, not as Jacques but as environmentalist, worker and especially those who refer to others as masses.

Repeal Bob Corker!

2010-04-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

I warned him. I sent him an open letter. Yet, he comes to my home town and speaks to the issue of ObamaCare. From the Nashville Business Journal:

In the immediate aftermath of the reform’s passage, many of Corker’s Republican colleagues, including 2008 presidential contender Sen. John McCain, have pledged to repeal the legislation. Corker described that as unlikely, given the reality of needing 67 votes in the Senate to overcome a presidential veto of repeal legislation.

“The fact is that’s not going to happen, OK?” Corker told dozens of people at Vanderbilt University.

Still, Corker made clear his opposition to the legislation and spoke in favor of continued, incremental legislative reform in future years to correct problems he foresees.

He will share the fate of his soulmate Jim Cooper! We will not forget!

Little Brother Featured In Documentary

2010-03-31T20:39:00.000-07:00

Well, "featured" may be too strong a word. Stephen covered a high school basketball game for ESPN and gets a little face time as he sets up the game and provides commentary on the contest.

Social Security Broke This Year, 9 Years Earlier Than "Projected"

2010-03-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

Source, that right wing rag, the NY Times.

New Subtitle

2010-03-29T19:54:00.000-07:00

The perversion that is the Obama-Pelosi cabal has changed my focus. The new subtitle reflects that change. The navigation will involve information, links, alerts and even calls to action.

Contrived Claims of Homophobia, Racism, Violence

2010-03-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

Do they think this is really going to work this time? I was about to organize my thoughts about this when someone beat me to it. Others have beat it down pretty substantially too. I don't feel compelled to offer the obligatory condemnation about threats of violence, remember this? The real violence is being done to We The People by the President, Pelosi, Jim Cooper and Congressional Democrats all. The Marxist in Chief and his impish minions would be wise to heed the biblical admonition that if they sow the wind they will reap the whirlwind. Don't start none, won't be none. Oops, too late!

Control The People?

2010-03-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

Now that the deed is done supporters like representative John Dingell, now more confident, are openly confiding their evil machinations. Jim Cooper supports this!

Jim Cooper Must Go!

2010-03-21T20:35:00.002-07:00

Educate me Nashville. How do we get this done? He has more in common with Nancy Pelosi than the residents of Middle Tennessee. This man has held himself out as a fiscal conservative and voted for this communist takeover of health insurance and medicine in America using IRS thugs to enforce these mandates. This cannot be allowed to stand!

Jim Cooper Must Go!

2010-03-21T20:35:00.001-07:00

Socialist Jim Cooper Votes Yes!

2010-03-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

The lie of the "Blue Dog," pro-life and fiscal conservative dies today. So too does Jim Cooper's free run at Tennessee's 5th Congressional District. I pledge my life, my fortune and my sacred honor to see this enemy of liberty defeated!

Mourn Today, Where We Fight Tomorrow!

2010-03-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

The wall has been breached. The political statist apparatus is about to be erected, replete with armed IRS enforcement, informants and propagandists. There is an understandable and palpable sadness at witnessing the squandering of the last best hope of earth to error and deceit. The tendency will be to hang our heads, yield to the inevitable panels or do our best to align ourselves with the politically connected to protect our interests. There is another way.

Legal challenges for the mandates and denying the statists in the White House and Congress room to enjoy their pyrrhic victory are just the start. This will embolden the Marxist in chief to overwhelm us with a fusillade of anti property rights, anti-liberty, economic stifling initiatives designed to divide us and to further change the relationship between America and its citizens. We will need to come to consensus about not only repealing socialized medicine but how we organize our campaign to reclaim America for the American ethic.

Effective strategies will emerge and the enthusiasm, if not the momentum, is all ours. Behind the leadership of those like Paul Ryan who have put forward credible ideas to return us to solvency and to put Leviathan in check, we'll turn back the statists. Don't lose heart!

Jim Cooper D-TN, Socialist?

2010-03-20T20:21:00.000-07:00

Is my congressman, Jim Cooper a socialist? The supposed "blue dog" Democrat that voted for TARP, the UAW bailout, Obama's budget, etc., and after much pressure from back home decided to vote against the House's first version of this fiasco is rumored to be moving his support to Pelosi.

If he does this, I will do everything in my power to see this man defeated and run out of office. This self-proclaimed "fiscal conservative" is going to destroy the republic because of some pressure from Pelosi? I wonder what job he lined up? I wonder if he talked to neighboring and "retiring" congressman Bart Gordon about his promised NASA gig?

These people make me want to spit.

We'll Sue!

2010-03-19T05:02:00.001-07:00

How a Bill Becomes Law

2010-03-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

Do any of you remember these School House Rock videos? Maybe Pelosi and Obama need to watch some cartoons.

Open Letter to Bob Corker

2010-03-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

Over the overwhelming objections of your constituents, you supported TARP. Shortly after that vote, you were seen negotiating a bailout of the UAW. Most recently, you've been working with Chris Dodd on financial regulatory reform.

I realize you are years away from a re-election bid but we will not forget! You seem to think, like Democrats and their allies Lindsay Graham, John McCain, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, that government plays some beneficial role in markets other than protecting private property rights and acting as an impartial referee. The voters of Tennessee strongly disagree.

Just in case they forget, I will be here to remind them!

Paul Ryan on ObamaCare

2010-03-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

The Practice of Economics

2010-03-09T20:33:00.000-08:00

Caterpillar Chairman and CEO, Jim Owens addressed the National Association for Business Economists today. His economics are where the rubber literally meets the road. Examine for yourself whether what he says comports with your sense of the world as it is more than Obama's "world as it should be."

Where Are Our Statesmen?

2010-03-09T16:55:00.001-08:00

Conservatives often lament the passing of the Reagan era. Reagan was reviled by the Republican establishment as an outsider, an interloper. He was a former Democrat who voted for FDR. He had been the president of the Screen Actors Guild, a union. He was also a student of American history, especially our patriarchs. Having been a Democrat, he understood their beliefs, tactics and mentality but he also knew America, which is why in two presidential contests, he lost only 6 states in his first contest (Thank you Booker Rising for the correction) one state the second time. He understood peace through strength as well as the enemy within.

He was an unusual man who saw clearly how to move an electorate, an economy and an enemy to great effect. He didn't accomplish great things by compromising his beliefs and when challenged, he confronted his enemies with humor. Even his most ardent political foes liked and admired the man. Where are those that followed his lead? Unabashedly cheerful, optimistic and classically liberal?

Unfortunately, the only place where I see that same kind of sold out commitment is in the person of Barack Obama. Though contemptuous of Americans and liberty, he is focused like a laser on "transforming America" and will spare no political ally in his cause. America needs a champion in the political sphere who will roll back the welfare state and shoot straight with us before the dollar goes the way of the drachma and those of us who recognize the poison will have to search for a new place to be free.

Where's McCain's Gang Of 14?

2010-03-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

John McCain and other liberal Republican colleagues joined with Democrats to keep the Senate from invoking the "nuclear option" to confirm judges, which is the prerogative of the president to nominate. Where are McCain's "friends" "across the aisle" now?

You're next!

2010-02-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

My mother smoked for decades before kicking the habit several years ago. Before she stopped however, there were many public efforts to limit smoking in privately owned facilities like bars. I don't disagree with those efforts in public spaces because they are common (and I don't smoke and don't like smoke filled rooms). My mother doesn't share my political perspectives but even she saw something in those efforts to condemn smokers. She said to me that (paraphrasing) if government can compel private establishments to change their practices (smoking sections, smoking bans, etc.) then they can do anything to anyone they want.

Today, the unemployment rate is 10% and if "discouraged workers" are included that number jumps to 17%. Leftist, progressive, liberal politicos have recently condemned variously the pharmaceutical industry, banks, insurance companies, auto makers or in short, the private sector of the economy. Our government is being led by those who have contempt for allowing individuals to dispose of their property or enter into private agreements as they see fit. They want to decide who gets to do what with their property and control agreements believing they can orchestrate the society they desire. As they flail about, unless you are a government employee, your employer, hence you, will likely be targeted for blame next, that is, if you're still employed or operating a business.

The crony capitalist (mercantilist) executives of Government Motors (the same owners of AIG, FNMA & FHLMC), the House Energy and Commerce committee are holding hearings to punish a competitor corporation, Toyota. They are trying to prove that they can walk and chew gum at the same time by taking down the American auto industry and a foreign maker at the same time. Here's the deal though. Those foreign makers employ a lot of Americans taxpayers even if they are non union! There is a cheering minority in the country applauding this activity. Here's the rub, this activity kills the jobs Democrats say they want but do they really want jobs or do they want increasing dependency on government?

There is a dead line/tipping point out there that Democrats understand and are rushing to beat. There are nearly 50% of voters (voting themselves benefits at the expense of those who produce) who pay no federal taxes. Government's only source of funding is the private sector, individuals, businesses and those who pool their assets to effect potentially profitable private transactions. With fewer of them available and willing to fund government coupled with the government's capacity to borrow impinged by its own poor practices, then Democrats have precious little time to beat back the growing resistance in order to irrevocably transition the economy from private control to public control and they know it.

More Obamunist Lies

2010-02-20T03:51:00.000-08:00

One More Reason To Love Jim DeMint!

2010-02-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

I think we’ve confirmed that you can’t govern from a teleprompter. Just because you’re good on TV doesn’t mean you can sell socialism to freedom-loving Americans.

Senator Jim DeMint R-SC at CPAC

Amity Shlaes on CSPAN

2010-02-17T23:00:00.001-08:00

Along with Jim Powell and Robert Higgs, Amity Shlaes is one of my favorite economic historians. Her latest book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, blows up many of the myths associated with the helpfulness of the "New Deal." She appeared last night on CSPAN 2's BookTv live together with Dean Baker who though annoyingly inaccurate about so many of his Keynesian beliefs, bested Schlaes on his description of how Greenspan and Bernanke recklessly contributed to the housing bubble with their extended below market rates. Shlaes recovers strongly though at several points discussing what Higgs calls "regime uncertainty" and her defense of the singular significance of private property rights and their role in recovery, development and growth (turning Baker's feckless defense of state banking on its head), including abandoning TBTF and bailouts of all kinds. They jabbed at each other for an hour but it really got good at the end, when the moderator had to call the game for time. It's worth a watch.

Is Success Sort of Random?

2010-02-15T22:57:00.000-08:00

I offer this article not only because it supports my assessment of the cause of the financial crisis I've shared with you several times but because of its critique of the nature of capitalism at the end. The authors promulgate their view of why conservatives are wrong about why unregulated private transactions produce so much public benefit and why liberals are blind to how competition transforms "luck and greed" into the social benefit they take great pains to claim they desire.

After so diligently supporting their arguments, making the case that regulation was the cause of the financial market meltdown, my perception was that they whimsically dismissed the power of incentives without offering support for that position. I went back and read the comments thread where I first saw reference to the article and found out that some of my feeling about the arbitrariness of their dismissal of incentives may be semantic. Admittedly, I'm not sure because the discussion is between an economist and a political scientist, Peter Boettke and one of the authors of the referenced article, Jeffery Friedman, respectively, lost me for a minute in their academic jargon but I do think the authors only wanted to point out the uneven distribution of rewards owe as much to accidents (of birth or timing) as to the talents of risk takers.

As it turns out, I think they're wanting to discuss motives, not incentives, while advancing the merits of competition. In other words, the motives of the founders of Whole Foods, was not primarily profit, though they've turned out to be wildly profitable, while "others" (anecdotally) who sought primarily profit have ended up busted out of the game. So, the article's authors were condemning the simplistic arguments of "conservatives" that self-interest is the engine of success in capitalist systems, which they take care to define in this era of politicized definitions (an invaluable part of the article's benefit) before analyzing what they view as unsupported beliefs.

I think the authors would also make the case that stupidity and ignorance is more prevalent (or at least as potentially prevalent) among regulators than it is among proper market participants though it's much easier to see in the case of the latter. In the end, I still disagree, to an extent that even motives aren't central to economic analysis because the author's examples only relate to transactions on the margin, those that are wildly successful and those that fail. In my opinion, the analysis doesn't give just due to the benefit provided by those individuals and entities which perpetually persevere between the poles of success and failure or those which struggle along before becoming an outlier (as success or failure).

Signs of Life in Wisconsin

2010-02-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

A Real Communicator - Sans Teleprompter

2010-02-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

It is widely acknowledged and understood that the two major federal entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security are insolvent. Then why do we continue to enroll new entrants to the workforce in these programs? If we are honest, we are taxing young people and legal immigrants new to our workforce and promising them a benefit they will never receive. The new entrants, well even folks my age, are the back end of a Ponzi scheme established by progressive politicians.

It may be too much to take on politically and I'm not suggesting we cut off those that are beneficiaries or those who have already paid in (though as I've stated, the money isn't there) but let's stop adding to the burden! If we don't deal with entitlements directly, we are only dabbling at the margins and this uprising will have been for naught, at least insofar as the country's economic future is concerned.

Of course we will have to deal with this balloon of debt we're now confronted with, but shouldn't we first stop making new promises? We can't march on as if these programs have a permanent existence. To use a bi-partisanly popular word, these programs are "unsustainable." Listen to Reagan address Social Security. Will his solutions work today? In the words of a famous hockey mom, you betcha!

Audi's Green Police

2010-02-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

Is backlash against the left becoming popular? Will there be retribution?

My Church Featured In USA Today

2010-02-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

The AP writer, Lucas Johnson, is also a member of our church, so they're not all bad, I suppose. Abstinence education and parenting works. I won't preach or brag about my wife who is the youth coordinator for our church who pulled all the churches in town together to get this done.

Wow! So you think you're going to keep your doctor?

2010-02-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

Why Obama Is A Practiced Liar

2010-02-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive -- but real -- allies of the Haves...The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be.

Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, an excerpt from chapter 2

When I listen to Obama these days, I'm reminded of the old saw about known liars: "How can you tell if _______ is lying?." In the case of Obama it's when his teleprompter is turned on. Supporters will say that Obama is mutable, yielding to political reality and that his promises weren't significant. There is no dispute that he has lied and often. What some are still clinging to or trying to spin others into believing is that Obama is not an authoritarian leftist ideologue. Democrats believe that asking Republican candidates if Obama is a socialist is a winning strategy. The problem for them is that my guess is that a majority of Americans do believe that, which is reflected in his poll numbers. Except for academics, distinctions in the name of the leftist ideology don't matter. Whether it's fascist, socialist, communist, Maoist, Marxist, each of these is authoritarian, top down and contemptuous of liberty, private property and profit.

The question remains, why is Obama a shameless liar? Using recent examples, he is careful to throw into his prepared remarks outrage over deficits. What? He has prepared two consecutive budgets that add more to the national debt than all of his predecessors combined! Yet, he is captured in sound bites talking about how these deficits are "unsustainable" as if he is detached from their creation. It is well known that Obama is an adherent of Saul Alinsky but fewer people know Jerry Kellman an Alinsky protege, who introduced him to the philosophy. This is what Kellman has to say about the man he hired to be a "community organizer" in Chicago:

After college Obama moved to Chicago to be part of the Jerry Kellman organization as a community organizer. [Kellman was a Saul Alinsky protege.] Among the primary goals of Alinsky was radical socialism and redistribution of wealth. Alinsky taught his proteges to "HIDE" their true goals by any means necessary. Lying was fine. The objective of Alinsky and Kellman was to turn people against the white establishment.

(hat tip: Hyscience)

The reason Obama lies is that Americans oppose his anti-American agenda. However latent or suppressed, liberty is in our DNA, we can smell authoritarianism on this guy, even those who weren't listening to or dismissed what he said during the campaign. Americans don't want the country remade into a welfare state. Even liars tell the truth sometimes and there is one thing that I do believe about him. He says he won't quit. I believe him. Do you?

Government Spending Equals Jobs???

2010-02-01T16:47:00.000-08:00

There are a couple of disturbing, unchallenged myths circulating via media outlets in hyperdrive post SOTU: Obama is an honest broker and more importantly, that government spending is required to jump start the economy. The first is self-evidently false. Of course, media figures accept the premise of government spending equals jobs which then makes the debate, not whether but how much. As readers of this blog know, government spending does not produce sustainable economic activity because if it did, why wouldn't we redistribute all earnings and wealth? I'm convinced that most people never consider these questions which is why the media complicity, indeed participation in perpetuating this myth is so insidious. Only a moment's pause reveals the absurdity of the assumption. The electorate is awakening but are we too groggy to fight off Obama holding the pillow over our face?

Bolshevik Plot Accelerated

2010-02-01T06:19:00.000-08:00

Today the president will unveil yet another obscene budget replete with the now familiar blame Bush refrains and authoritarian, Washington oriented command and control programs and funding. He didn't skip a beat following his Bolshevik dissembling tour through his joint address to Congress and then to the House Republican caucus.

The president is an interesting political tactician. His desire to "remake" America goes forward despite political setback, even the stinging rebuke of losing "Ted Kennedy's" seat. I'm sure there is the political will to stop him but is there a strategy? Ideologues are impervious to phone calls, marches and seemingly, even electoral defeat - the will of the people. We find ourselves dependent upon the self-preservation instincts of elected Congressional Democrats. Appeals to their sense of decency assumes that it exists. What now?

Quote of the Day

2010-01-31T21:12:00.000-08:00

We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work . . . I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. . . I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot!

Henry Morgenthau Jr., May 9, 1939 before Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee
Morgenthau was FDR's Treasury Secretary, and was speaking 7 years into the "New Deal"