sine qua non

Alexis de Tocqueville Revisted

2010-06-28T11:12:00.009-05:00

Walking the corridors of history there are seminal historical books that define an era or epoch as ultimate standards of historical insight and clarity – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons and The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant, and a third to complete this trinity of historical works is Democracy in America written by Alexis de Tocqueville.

The two volume trenchant tome of the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, remains today the greatest and most influential study ever written on the United States of America. Democracy in America is a classic work of political science, social science, as well as history. It is assigned reading for American college students majoring in the political or social sciences, and is part of the political theory curriculum at Oxford University.

The profundity of history is best stated by Tocqueville himself, a man whose wisdom is memorialized in a myriad of sagacious quotes – “When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.” So much for the study of history as being an amalgamation of interminable dates, people and places.

Just how then did this man of French nobility at age twenty five, as an apprentice magistrate at Versailles, embark on a nine month journey to produce a masterpiece of such perspicacity and prescience that it is occupies the lofty status as “the greatest book written by anyone about America?”

The Making of History

The European world that existed in the 19th century was vastly different politically, sociologically, and economically from today. France was a strong America ally. Second only to George Washington, America’s most loved military hero was France’s Marquis de Lafayette, who served as a general under Washington. Throughout Europe, and most of the civilized world, there were three classes within the population – aristocrats, clerics, and commoners. Consequently, The United States arguably a nation of commoners or middle class, was viewed with various levels of curiosity by the rest of the world, and particularly by Europe.

Alexis de Tocqueville was born a child of privilege and title in prerevolutionary France, which included all the accoutrements of wealth, property, education, and most importantly a noble lineage of government and military service. The “de” preceding Tocqueville means “of ” a distinction assigned to nobility in France, i.e. “of Tocqueville family lineage.” A brilliant and energetic young man, Alexis emerged from his study of law in Paris and was appointed as an apprentice magistrate at Versailles. At Versailles, Alexis developed what would become a lifelong friendship with another apprentice magistrate, Gustave de Beaumont.

It is unlikely that Democracy in America would have ever been written by Tocqueville had not a life changing event occur for Tocqueville in 1830 – in a vertiginous series of draconian decrees, Charles X dissolved the legislature, limited voting, and abolished freedom of the press. In this unsettled political climate, Tocqueville took advantage of the opportunity to accomplish his goal of achieving something great. Tocqueville and Beaumont devised a strategy that would allow them to leave France during the political turmoil while performing official government business.

Tocqueville and Beaumont proposed that they be dispatched to America to study the penitentiaries of this new nation. Prisons in France were nothing more than en masse holding bins with no separation of the sexes, all the while crime continued to rise. America had introduced a new system of large “penitentiaries” where inmates were separated and given productive work to perform. Alexis and Gustave were authorized by the French government to undertake a nine month expedition at their own expense.

To be sure, Alexis de Tocqueville had a much larger vision in mind before sailing to America. “We’re going with the intention of examining, in detail and as scientifically as possible, all the workings of that vast American society that everyone talks about but no one knows.”

A fascinating historical footnote of the journey is the juxtaposition with yet another journey in the same year of 1831. In April, the vessel Havre embarked on a journey that would return nine months later from which the twenty five year old Tocqueville would write his magnum opus on the science of society and government, Democracy in America. In December, eight months after Tocqueville’s departure, the twenty two year old Charles Darwin would embark on a five year journey on the HMS Beagle from which he would write his masterpiece, a theory on the science of nature, On the Origin of Species.

A Brave New World

The unstable France that Tocqueville was sailing from was the antithesis of the comparably stable America. In the previous forty years France had experienced a monarchy, a radical democracy, back to a monarchy, and the current, at the time of sailing, semi-democracy. America had become in less than 100 years the cynosure of egalitarianism, albeit flawed, individualism, capitalism, and of course, democracy surpassing in these areas, all cultures in the previous centuries of western civilization.

Tocqueville the consummate interviewer/writer, traveled by steamboat, keelboat, stagecoach, horseback, canoe, and by foot to traverse 17 of the 24 states of the nation and three territories that would later become the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. In the process, he interviewed over two hundred people – farmers, bankers, lawyers, Indian chief, prison officials, prisoners, women, rich, poor, the powerful and the powerless in a uniquely American mosaic that included interviews of John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Sam Houston, and Andrew Jackson. Tocqueville considered his foreign status enormously beneficial, “A foreigner often learns important truths at the hearth of his host, who might conceal them from his friends.”

An extraordinary journey in an extraordinary time required an extraordinary writer, beyond the penetrating power of observation, the incisive interviews, it was a probing intellect that was able to pierce the very psyche of America and democracy as no other author had done before or since, “In America I saw more than America; I sought there an image of democracy itself …” As author Leo Damrosch stated, “What Tocqueville eventually created was not an account of “Americans” as a unique national type, but a structural explanation of some profound reasons why democracy, by its very nature, tends to produce certain characteristics in its citizens.” Tocqueville himself was remarkably prescient when he observed, “There is not a country in the world where man takes possession of the future more confidently, or feels with more pride that his intelligence makes him master of the universe, which he can reshape to his liking.”

Comparisons are Critical … to Understanding

A quote that has endured over the centuries despite offering faux wisdom and insight is “comparisons are odious” by John Lydgate in his Debate between the horse, goose, and sheep, circa 1440. Unfortunately, the quote has been perpetuated over the years by writers Miguel de Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne. Even Shakespeare, in Much Ado About Nothing, uses the quote satirically as “comparisons are odorous.”

The meaning of “comparisons are odious” is simply that comparison of anything to another, particularly people, is not useful and can have unpleasant consequences, things should be judged on their own merits. An admonition that truncates full analysis and understanding. Comparisons are indeed critical to understanding.

Hardly a thorough analysis of anything is limited only to the thing itself. The Aristotelian tradition of analysis requires comparison and contrast for a fuller understanding of the subject under analysis. Tocqueville understood this from his Aristotelian tutelage – “It is one of the singular weaknesses of our mind that we can’t judge objects and see them in the clear light of day unless we place other objects next to them.” Leo Damrosch, author of Tocqueville’s Discovery of America, said it well, “Always Tocqueville tried to clarify his analysis by posing large concepts - ideal types, as sociologists would later call them – against each other: North and South, America and France, aristocracy and democracy, past and present.”

In France’s Chamber of Deputies, of which Tocqueville would be elected a member, the origin of “left wing” and “right wing” was formed because of where liberals and conservatives sat in relation to the Speaker’s placement in the center of the Chamber. Today, in America one need not know where their congressman or senator sits to know whether they are left wing or right wing, the comparison between their position on issues is critical to understanding their ideology.

Tocqueville observed interesting differences in temperament between Southerners and Northerners, “The Southerner is wittier, more spontaneous, more open and generous, more intellectual, and more brilliant. The Northerner is more active, better reasoned, better educated, and better skilled. John Quincy Adams complained that cotton planters “devote themselves to physical exercise, hunting, and horse racing.” After the Civil War, his grandson Henry Adams remarked that from Southerners “one could learn nothing but bad temper, bad manners, poker, and treason.” It would appear Tocqueville offers the more insightful analysis, while John Q. Adams opinion seems based on resentment or envy, and his grandson’s observation is probably the natural, albeit unpleasant, resultant behavior of a vanquished foe.

An especially prescient comparison by Tocqueville was on the nations of America and Russia: “The American’s conquests are made with the farmer’s plowshare, the Russian’s with the soldier’s sword. To achieve his goal, the former relies on self-interest and permits the strength and intelligence of individuals to act without direction. The latter concentrates, in a sense, the whole strength of society in a single man. For the former the chief means of action is liberty; for the latter servitude. Their starting points are different and their ways are diverse, yet it seems called by a hidden providential plan to hold one day the destiny of one half of the world.”

Democracy’s Apologist and Advocate

Tocqueville declared in his introduction to Democracy in America “In America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself.”

The genius and paradox of Tocqueville is that as a born aristocrat he was able to view democracy objectively and wrote with a candor rarely seen today, “I have an intellectual attraction to democratic institutions, but by instinct I am an aristocrat, which is to say I despise and fear the crowd. I passionately love liberty, legality, and respect for rights, but not democracy.” As a major French literary historian once said about Tocqueville’s ambivalence, “He got married to democracy with deep reservations; it was a marriage of reason and necessity, not inclination.”

His traveling partner, Beaumont remarked, “Alexis de Tocqueville, even though his reason embraced democratic ideas, retained the aristocracy of feelings; now, there’s nothing so aristocratic as contempt for money.” Tocqueville came to admire the ubiquitous entrepreneurship he encountered. “The Americans bring a sort of heroism to the way they conduct commerce.”

Being an apologist and advocate of democracy was a daunting task during Tocqueville’s time, “I’ve tried to show those for whom the word ‘democracy’ is synonymous upheaval, anarchy, despoilment, and murder that it could succeed in governing a society while respecting fortunes, recognizing rights, preserving liberty, and honoring beliefs.”

Tocqueville cut to the core on how and why American democracy works in his doctrine “I’intérêt bien entendu”, (Interest properly understood). “The principle of republics of antiquity was to sacrifice individual interests to the common good, and in that sense one could say they were virtuous. But it seems to me that the principle of this republic is to make individual interest merge with the common interest. A sort of refined and intelligent egotism is apparently the pivot on which the whole machine turns.”

Tocqueville continued, “The doctrine of interest properly understood does not produce great sacrifices, but day by day it prompts little ones. By itself it cannot make a man virtuous, but it shapes a multitude of citizens who are orderly, temperate, moderate, foresighted, and masters of themselves. And if it doesn’t lead directly to virtue through the will, it advances gradually closer to virtue through the habits.”

Hardly a wide eyed intellectual enamored of all things American, the flaws of young America were all too apparent to Tocqueville – the dehumanizing effects of industrialization, the tragic treatment of Indians, dispossessing them of their native land, and the fundamental threat that slavery posed to democracy. But, as no chronicler, writer, author, or journalist, either domestic or foreign, had done previously or since, Tocqueville plumbed the depths of democracy in America revealing the connective tissue of freedom and liberty that is patently the American phenomenon.

The importance of ownership of property was clear to Tocqueville, since most Americans owned property or were expecting to be an owner, “There is no country on earth where the feeling for property is more lively or anxious than in the United States, or where the majority shows less inclination for doctrines that threaten to alter in any way how goods are acquired.” Simply stated, Americans are wedded to their property and desire no redistribution of it or their other possessions.

Tocqueville understood despotism well from his experience in France. “Despotism creates, in the souls of those who are subjected to it, a blind passion for tranquility, a debased liking for obedience, and an incredible kind of self contempt that ends by making them indifferent to their own interests and enemies of their own rights.” Tocqueville sought to describe a “new despotism”, which also has been described as a “soft despotism”, in a manner that was as chilling as anything George Orwell has written:

“Above them rises an immense tutelary power that alone takes charge of ensuring their pleasures and watching over their fate … It is absolute, detailed, regular, farsighted, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if its object was to prepare men for adult life, but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in permanent childhood. It likes citizens to enjoy themselves, so long as all they think about is enjoyment. It labors willingly for their happiness, but it wants to be the sole agent and arbiter of their happiness … The sovereign power doesn’t break their wills, but it softens, bends, and directs them. It rarely compels action, but it constantly opposes action. It doesn’t destroy, but prevents birth; it doesn’t tyrannize , but it hinders, represses, enervates, restrains, and numbs until it reduces each nation to a mere flock of timid and industrious animals, with government as their shepherd.”

As for Socialist theories, Tocqueville declared “a profound contempt for the individual taken in himself, in his condition as man. What characterizes them all is a continuous, changing, and ceaseless attempt to mutilate, cut down, and hinder human freedom in every way. It is the idea that every state should not only direct society but must also be, master of each man … in a new form of servitude.”

Tocqueville concludes, “I shall seek democracy where I have seen it, living, active, and triumphant in the only country on earth where it exists, and where it has succeeded in establishing, up to the present moment, something great and lasting – in America.”

Beyond Connecting the Dots

As an exercise, “connect the dots” is useful in cognitive development; as a metaphor it is useful in identifying the ability or inability, to grasp the “big picture” from a mass of data.

If the recent WSJ Poll is any indication, Americans have transcended connecting the dots and have reached a “blinding flash of the obvious.” For a majority of Americans their “perceptual filters” kicked in after eighteen arduous months of distinguishing, recognizing, seeing, picking out, identifying, observing, noticing, taking in, understanding, comprehending, becoming aware of, realizing, or making sense of something … that the democracy in America as described by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831, is not only at risk through the Obama administration, but under a coordinated and determined assault.

According to the WSJ Poll, for the first time since he was elected, more Americans disapprove of Obama than approve -- with 48 percent giving him a thumbs-down. Only 45 percent approved. Less than half -- 49 percent -- rated Obama as having "strong leadership qualities," an 8-point drop since January and a 21-point plunge from when he was first elected.

Two months after oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, half of those surveyed --including one in four Democrats -- said they disapproved of Obama's handling of the crisis. The survey indicated several troubling signs for Democrats in the midterm elections, as 62 percent of respondents reported feeling the country was on the wrong track.

The past 18 months of the Obama administration have been at once, the most turgid, liberal, and ineffectual (in advancing democracy domestically and abroad) in the nation’s history. The litany of abuses are numbing, some notable examples – organized a cabinet and plethora of czars that are to a person far left to Marxist, implemented a hyper Keynesian economic policy which failed under Hoover and FDR, that has only exacerbated a serious recession, artificially resuscitated the anachronistic unions, nationalized two major auto companies, nationalized health care, passed stimulus bills that primarily aided government union workers with miniscule public sector impact, created record multi trillion dollar debt, introduced Orwellian speak to the American vocabulary calling “terrorism” a “man caused disaster”, created an Afghanistan strategy with insuperable rules of engagement and withdrawal date, sides with the Hamas over Israel, refuses to enforce federal immigration laws, bungled the gulf oil spill to promote a Cap and Trade bill, and the latest banking bill that creates a new government agency and leaves untouched Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who got the whole recession started through their policies guaranteeing sub-prime mortgage loans to banks and investors and incurred over $138 billion in losses… and should have gone under like the private sector Bear Stearns.

Should anyone really be surprised by a government whose creed and unifying theme is “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste?” This is an administration acting like a regime intent on the deconstruction of the United States democracy through circumventing the Constitution, using every means possible to contravene the will of the majority, led by a President who is supportive of a global government in lieu of a sovereign America. Obama has surpassed the malaise of the forgettable Carter administration with a pervasive anomie.

The Obama administration may be ineffectual in advancing democracy, but it is by design. The President, former Indonesian Muslim, later Black Liberation theology layman, community organizer inspired by Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a mysterious record less ascension through Occidental College, Columbia, and Harvard Law School, culminating in the Presidency is not your Horatio Alger success story, it is far more sub rosa.

What is being done to American is nothing short of the process of a revolution. As Tocqueville said “the revolution only tells you something that already took place."

President Obama is executing the plan of Columbia professors Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven known as the Cloward & Piven Strategy. Simply stated, overwhelm the U.S. economy creating failure of the economy and social chaos; destroying capitalism in the process - voila, the socialization of America.

The reckless government spending and expansion of entitlements (estimated $117 Trillion in unfunded liabilities) are sufficient to collapse the economy.

A brief look at the numbers and their purpose is chilling: Stimulus Plan and Bail Outs –Hundreds of billions go to leftist organizations including Acorn and its progeny, unions through the GM and Chrysler buyouts, including $125 billion to unionized teachers, creating and saving thousands of government jobs, Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants – Politically Obama is holding Arizona hostage as a quid pro quo for an amnesty bill, border security in exchange for amnesty, 12 million new Democrat voters with all entitlement rights, Nationalized Health Care – Estimated 30 million uninsured now represent 30 million new Democrat voters at the cost of trillions of dollars (collapse the economy), plus unionization of all health care and hospital workers and 20 thousand new unionized IRS workers to enforce the new law, Cap & Trade – Source of revenue for the government and redistributes the wealth by exorbitant taxation on upper income tax payers. Restructure the Tax Burden – Expand voters dependent upon government by raising taxes, on high income taxpayers, small businesses, the top 20% of tax payers, redistribution of wealth to those who didn’t earn it and punishment of the successful at its finest.

It all adds up to a limitless Socialist government where changes are not only in government but the structure of society into three classes: Majority of citizens dependent on big government, privileged class of all government workers, and selected members of government become the ruling class at the top of the pyramid.

A democratic society cannot be sustained when almost 50% of the population pays no taxes. Tocqueville, the master of illuminating comparison declared, “Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

How did we get ourselves in such a mess? Some say it was eight years of George W. Bush and that the electorate was looking for something new. Possibly, but it appeared that a rabidly left leaning media, including the taxpayer funded NPR, took every opportunity to degrade Bush and marginalize Republican candidates while sycophantically deifying Barack Obama, which ultimately tipped the scales in the Democrat’s favor.

Tocqueville understood all too well the influence of the media (press) in his day, “After the people themselves, the press represents the most irresistible power that exits in America.” At the risk of an egregious incongruity, Ozzy Osbourne had it right in the lyrics of Crazy Train, “One person conditioned to rule and control, the media sells it and you live the role.”

There is ample evidence to suggest that the nation was caught up in the hysteria of electing the nation’s first black President. Dr. Walter E. Williams, distinguished black economist said it best, “white liberals who voted for Obama … received their one-time guilt-relieving dose from voting for a black man to be president.” Whatever the reason, the media failed miserably in doing its research on Barack Obama and the voters for their indifference to the facts, but instead being swayed by the mellifluous speech of Obama. Tocqueville had a particular antipathy for this type of speech, those “who reason badly and speak well.” Thomas Jefferson offered sage advice with, "Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

Is there sufficient reason remaining or have we become too conditioned to a big central government? Tocqueville presented an ominous concern, “The scope of central power expands imperceptibly in all directions, even though everyone wants it restrained. A democratic government, therefore, increases its power by the mere fact that it continues to exist. Time is on its side. Every chance event works to its advantage. The passions of individuals assist it without their own knowledge, and one may say that the older a democratic society is, the more centralized it becomes.” Tocqueville understood politicians role in this dynamic, “It is easy to see that most of the ambitious and able citizens in a democratic country will work relentlessly to expand the social power, because they hope to control it themselves one day. It is a waste of time to try to prove to them that too much centralization can be harmful to the state, because it’s for themselves that they are centralizing it.”

One is left to hope that the quote of an author falls on the side those supporting a socialist government and society versus those supporting a democratic government and society, “The infinite sadness of unfulfilled desire.”

Requiem for the Republic?

2010-03-23T00:16:00.007-05:00

A Tale of Two Ideologies

The tumultuous period of the French Revolution is succinctly captured in Charles Dickens classic historical novel A Tale of Two Cities, offering readers, arguably, the most famous opening sentence in all of literature…….” It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...”

Today, acolytes of the Constitution, freedom, liberty, limited government, and American exceptionalism find it to be “the worst of times”, an opinion that became crystallized with the 219-212 passage of the Health Care Bill, Sunday. Supporters of a democratic republic - a government in which power is explicitly vested in the people, who in turn exercise their power through elected representatives, stands in stark contrast to the President Barack Obama and the Democrat administration.

History’s greatest form of government, represented by the United States of America, now finds itself literally teetering precariously at the precipice of, take your pick, - Statism, where government centralizes extensive economic, political, and related controls at the cost of individual liberty; Socialism, where the government vests ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole, and according to Marxism, the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to Communism - all demonstrably failed systems of government.

It is sobering and at once shocking, to reflect on just how far we have drifted as a nation to the point where the will of the people is secondary to the agenda of the ruling party in Washington. Simply stated, we at a place where government has been dangerously, and most likely irrevocably expanded, where all elements of individual liberty and commercial freedom are entering the first concentric circle of the republic’s death spiral.

The Democrat ideology is shamelessly a system of Statism/Socialism, where government is determined to be the best solution for the management and control of the affairs of its citizens. This system in which entitlements are expanded to fiscally and ethically irresponsible levels, results in citizens becoming dependent upon the government as wards of the state.

The ideology of Republicans and most independents is one that holds the Constitution as the foundation for the U.S. government where individual freedom and liberty, limited government, and free enterprise are the hallmarks of the republic.

Quite simply, the values that this nation has fought and died for are at a vortex with the values that America has fought and died against.

Applying the Aristotelian Triumvirate

Over 2000 years ago Aristotle set forth the three modes of persuasion – logos, ethos, and pathos. The idea is that people are persuaded in three ways – logic: logos, ethics/trustworthiness: ethos, and emotions: pathos.

Under the Aristotelian triumvirate any one of the three modes, if expertly executed, is sufficient to persuade a majority of people regarding the subject under consideration. Successful execution of two or all three of the modes makes the acceptance of the persuader’s position a fait accompli.

Among the myriad of ironies of the Health Care debacle, is despite having a President described as the world’s greatest orator, a slavishly sycophantic promotional media, and Democrat control of the legislative and executive branches of government, these considerable combined forces failed, with virtually unlimited resources, to persuade a majority of Americans by logic, trustworthiness, or emotion to support nationalizing Health Care.

Obama persuaded 52% of voters in the last presidential election, now those surveyed in the last Gallup poll show 48% oppose the Health Care versus 45% in favor, similar polls range from 48% to 58% opposed. Nowhere in the polls is there a greater percentage in favor of the Health Care bill.

There is encouragement to be gleaned from these numbers that is supported in Aristotle’s quote:

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”.

Deepening the Divide

Oh the great expectations of the “hope and change” crowd after electing President Obama, spurred on by a media and supporters that ignored the influence on the man incubated in a Socialist/Marxist milieu by his mother and various mentors, pastor, and friends. The man with the amorphous educational background somehow pops up in Harvard Law School and is made president of The Harvard Law Review. Later his three years as a U.S. Senator, he gained the distinction as Congress’s most liberal Senator.

While the fourth estate perpetuated the image of a messianic figure, claiming Obama as the nation’s first post racial/post partisan President. Newsweek broke the bounds of credulity proclaiming Obama as Pan President (President of the world). Reality set in at every conceivable juncture of issue, event, and policy, revealing Obama to be a man with a hard coded radical left ideology, bereft of leadership skills, a myopic world view, and a surprisingly less brilliant than advertised intellectual acumen. Rather quickly much of the public viewed Obama as the naked emperor, more as a figure head President to be placed in front of audiences with the ubiquitous teleprompter, and following his numerous ideological soul mates behind the Pelosi/Reid two headed hydra.

The Health Care Bill became Obama’s cause célèbre which he contemptuously pursued, despite strong public opposition, stating to democrats that his presidency hung in the balance of the Health Care vote. It was a fatidic pronouncement, for win or lose, the vote on Health Care, an Obama second term seems a long shot at best and the remainder of his first term will be a very rough sled. Thus began the cozen journey of the Health Care legislative process, which Obama referred to as “ugly” and Republicans referred to as “corrupt and unconstitutional”.

The 2700 page fatally flawed fiscal Frankenstein piece of legislation – beautifully summarized on the internet as a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.

The bill is so bad that it becomes clear that the legislation is actually about Democrat control and power over government, ergo the nation. Even so, the bill had to be larded with incredible payoffs in the billions to Nebraska, Louisiana, New York, Connecticut, North Dakota, Florida, Cadillac Union plans et al.

Nancy Pelosi set the stage for a corrupt process with her announcement “we’ll do anything to pass the Health Care Bill”. Within a week of the vote the ever cool Obama came unglued in an interview with Bret Baier revealing a seldom publically seen robotic, uninformed, flustered, and petulant President, in addition to his normal obfuscating and misleading answers.

When the COB released last week the “preliminary estimate” of $940 B over 10 years claiming $138 B in savings from the COB, whose Director said he was only able to use the figures provided to him and his “overwhelmed and overworked staff”. It is doubtful that there is a Member of the House or the Senate that really believes these numbers. This is a bill that violates basic rules of arithmetic in addition to known accounting principles by double counting the $500 B taken from the already broke Medicare plan ($57 Trillion unfunded liability) and increasing taxes for the remaining $440 B – a ten year plan that increases taxes over the ten years for six years of benefits in the first ten years.

Along the way the Democrats dredged up the Reconciliation process to compensate for the lack of the necessary 60 votes – using a strictly budgetary tool to pass a major piece of legislation. To provide cover for their votes the Democrats planned to use the arcane Deem and Pass, a rule that allows the passing of two bills simultaneously under one piece of legislation, the second bill would be deemed to pass without having to vote again. This would have meant the bill to “fix” the Senate Health Care bill would have been voted on first and the amended bill would have been “deemed to pass”. Again, this rule has never been used on a major piece of legislation but has been used to expedite minor matters in routine legislation.

Democrat Alcee Hastings, a distinguished member of the House Rules Committee and former impeached Federal Judge removed from office for corruption and perjury, made the following comforting statement “We have no rules, we make the rules as we go along”, when queried about the legislative process of the Health Care bill.

Even the casual observer knew that the Dems had the 216 votes necessary when Saturday evening it was announced that they were dropping the Deem and Pass strategy. The fix was confirmed when long time abortion opponent Michigan Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak switched his vote from “no” to “yes” and carried with him eleven other prolife Dems, all based on Obama agreeing to sign an executive order that would state than no federal funds may be used to pay for abortions. Of course,
the President may rescind an executive order at any time and if challenged legally it becomes secondary to the rule of law contained in the Health Care bill.

It is not known what other enticements Rep. Stupak may have received for his changed vote.

The Republicans were united in their opposition to the Health Care bill.

The fissures separating the Republicans and most of the public from the Democrats are now yawning chasms.

Repeal and Replace

Obama’s favorability ratings were upside down Saturday, 43 % approve/53 % disapprove according to The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Gallup had congress at historic lows of 80% disapproval and 16% approval, before the vote.

The New England Journal of Medicine surveyed physicians nationally and 46% of those surveyed indicated that they were either going to leave the practice of medicine or were considering doing so.

The Obama administration’s chief actuary, Richard S. Foster and his staff analyzed the Senate-passed bill and determined that it bent the cost curve up, estimating in a January 8 report that national health expenditures would increase by an estimated total of $222 B, and that the additional demand for health services “could be difficult to meet” and “could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, and/or changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.” Foster, in his letter today, expects the new health spending bill to be “generally similar.”

A letter sent last Thursday to President Barack Obama and members of Congress signed by more than 130 economists predicted the legislation would discourage companies from hiring more workers and would cause reduced hours and wages for those already employed.

Caterpillar, the world's largest construction machinery manufacturer, said it's particularly opposed to provisions in the bill that would expand Medicare taxes and mandate insurance coverage. The legislation would require nearly all companies to provide health insurance for their employees or face large fines. Caterpillar said these provisions would increase its insurance costs by at least 20 percent, or more than $100 million, just in the first year of the health-care overhaul program.

As the public becomes more aware of the various provisions of the Health Care legislation it should only strengthen the Republicans in the November elections.

The Bill calls for removal of medical limits, preexisting conditions, dropping coverage in 2010. Also imbedded in the HCB is the unrelated Federal takeover of student loans with the projected savings in billions credited against the cost of the Health Care Bill.

Through the creation of over 130 committees and several new agencies, the Bill is designed to ultimately drive insurance companies out of the health insurance business with the government setting all the rules for the insurance companies with doctors and hospitals becoming agents of the government. This is nationalized health care with health care rationing and death panels on the horizon as the public option becomes the only choice.

The Internal Revenue Service will become the enforcement agency for the purchase of mandatory health insurance with 17,000 agents and support staff budgeted in the bill.

The Republican plan is to repeal and replace the Health Care Bill; imagine the task ahead as trying to get a camel out of a tent.

Simply stated, the process must begin with the November elections resulting in recapturing the House and closing the gap in the Senate, if not regaining a majority. From there Obama must be defeated in 2012, then a tough fight to repeal the Health Care Act and replace it with a more viable program as previously proposed by the Republicans. That gets the camel out of the tent.

Now, until then 11 states Attorney Generals are preparing suits against the Congress as to the unconstitutionality of the mandatory insurance provision with 25 states considering joining in. This could make it all the way to the Supreme Court for the ultimate decision.

In the meantime expect the administration to be emboldened by their success and to pursue other transformational legislation - Amnesty that legalizes all illegal immigrants (how do you think they plan to win 2012?) and Cap and Trade (despite the scientific discrediting of much of the Global Warming/Climate Change theory).

The classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities has the unusual distinction of in addition to having the most famous opening sentence in literature; is also recognized as having the most famous closing sentence in literature:

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

Taking literary license with the circumstances and setting of the novel and placing the words in the context of repeal and replacement of Health Care – may our elected officials view their work in the preservation of our Republic as "a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done", so that this current bill passage is but a battle in a War won by the Republic.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

2010-01-31T19:42:00.003-06:00

A Deficit of Trust

As President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address, (his address last February to a joint session of Congress was not an official State of the Union address), many were waiting to see whether Obama would now “get it”. After all the public rejection of the Health Care bill, was Obama going to be hoisted on his own petard of Obama Care? Even the morally corrupt, but politically astute Bill Clinton knew when to drop that albatross.

In the Democrat pantheon of presidents, no one represents and demonstrated the political savvy of an accomplished politician more than Clinton, by moving to a centrist position in his first term after losing Democrat control of Congress for the first time in forty years. Of course, with the current President no such flexibility exists, as the American public is becoming painfully aware that Obama is nothing more than a one trick socialist pony. The only aspect of Obama’s State of the Union speech that was Clintonesque was the length and an obligatory attempt at expressing “I feel your pain” empathy for the US economy.

The Obama story of ascendancy and descent embodies both of the two essential plots of all novels - the hero goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town. The journey of Obama has been well documented by a sycophantic media - rising from a broken home and culminating in a Harvard law school education; conveniently omitting a plethora of socialistic training and friendships and a complete absence of documented academic performance – that’s the journey of the hero.

What became quickly apparent on the campaign trail was the man with the sonorous voice and rhapsodic rhetoric could make trite and hackneyed expressions sound elegant and philosophical…….like hope and change.

Now the stranger comes to town – Washington. Along the way Obama forgot, or never knew, that the reciprocal of hope and change is trust. In mathematics it’s called the multiplicative inverse, meaning the ratio of unity to a given quantity by which the given quantity is multiplied to produce unity. Without trust, “hope and change” are just vacuous words without meaning or purpose ….no unity.

The President has systematically overdrawn his trust account through his “we won” expressed and demonstrated behavior. The nation’s first “post racial/post partisan” president’s approval rating has dropped further than any other president in his first year, effectively neutering a super majority advantage in the House and the Senate (until Scott Brown’s election).

In virtually all areas of policy sans bipartisanship and transparency – national security (domestic and foreign), economic, health, climate change, et al have produced failure - a seriously stalled economy with ever increasing unemployment, failed stimulus plan, mirandized terrorists, grossly incompetent cabinet and administration czars ……and that’s just touching the surface.

No president in memory has made as many speeches in his first year, as if Obama actually thought he could impose his far left ideological will on his audience. An interesting phenomenon occurred during the process, the law of diminishing returns kicked in, and the words and syntax that once marveled fell flat and seemed as if they were written by his ubiquitous teleprompter.

So it was reasonable to assume that Obama, in collaboration with his brain trust, a staff that New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks calls the most intelligent ever assembled by a U.S. President, would be able to craft a State of the Union speech that would acknowledge the majority of the nation’s views and deliver a statesman state of the union address with a commitment to honor the will of the people.

The State of the Union Speech – The Sound and the Fury

Our President, in his finest finger wagging socialist professor style, delivered seventy excruciating minutes of “more of the same”, in a panoply of delivery styles –condescension, arrogance, whining, combativeness, scolding, petulance, defiance, and of course egoism.

In a curiously disjointed speech, with the triple digit exercise of personal pronouns, President Obama essentially tossed the gauntlet before the American people. Exclaiming “I don’t quit”, as he continued “Change has not come fast enough. As hard as it may be, as uncomfortable and contentious as the debates may be, it’s time to get serious about fixing the problems that are hampering our growth.”

Among the many lowlights of the address was the proposed three year freeze on most discretionary domestic spending, beginning in 2011, after the debt ceiling has been raised. He also announced he will issue an executive order creating a bipartisan task force to recommend ways to reduce the deficit……the Senate recently blocked a similar proposal.

Obama urged the Senate to follow the House and pass a second jobs bill as its first order of business this year. Yeah, the first one really worked swell.

The President urged Senate passage of climate legislation to help the country deal with global warming and shift toward cleaner energy sources and help create jobs. Our President still supports the global warming scam.

Proving he doesn’t quit, the President called for a continuance of efforts to overhaul the health care system.

In a move to get college students on free government entitlements, Obama proposed capping student loan repayments at 10 percent of income and forgiving all student loan debt after 20 years, or after 10 years if the student enters public service. With the government now the exclusive provider of college loans, wonder how many of those loans will be repaid?

In a particularly magnanimous gesture, after shutting Republicans out of all meaningful legislation discussion with the super majority Democrats, Obama proposed monthly meetings with both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress.

The lowest of lows was achieved, a first for a state of the union address, when Obama attempted to bully the co-equal judicial branch of government, the Supreme Court, by urging lawmakers to pass a bill to undo a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows companies and labor unions to exercise First Amendment rights to make independent expenditures in candidate elections.

Justice Samuel Alito one of the justices in the majority in the decision under attack, shook his head as he heard the president’s summary of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission mouthing the words “not true.”

State of the Union addresses are opportunities for presidents to take or lose command. Obama's poll numbers on how he handles major issues have been dropping; a majority of Americans do not support his management of the economy, taxes and other issues. Unemployment is in double digits and terrorism fears are rising.

It was an opportunity lost. Either President Obama doesn’t get it or he does and just doesn’t care. The latter appears closer to the truth.

The Anatomy of a One Term President

The 1957 Sci Fi classic film The Incredible Shrinking Man presented a hero, Scott, who became exposed to a radioactive mist while on a boat off the California coast, thus beginning the gradual but inexorable shrinking of Scott. Near the end of the movie Scott has been reduced to a size that allows him to walk through a space in the grid of a window screen as he walks through the space he muses “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle,”something akin to Barack Obama assuming the office of President of the United States.

It’s a long way from Pan-President, the messianic leader of the world, to becoming a one term president. But the first quarter of Obama’s presidency has been abysmal in achieving any measurable positive results.

An ever increasing number of Americans see the direction Obama is moving the country away from capitalism towards a redistribution of wealth with more government control. The man whose bust Obama reportedly removed from the oval office, Winston Churchill, said it best when asked to compare Capitalism with Socialism, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery”. The overwhelming majority of Americans find the vice of capitalism vastly superior to the virtue of socialism.

After one year in office, it is reasonable to deduce that the president’s character, personality, beliefs and ability has had ample opportunity to be revealed. And so it is with Barack Obama.

As far as character is concerned, while Obama’s flaws don’t rise to the Bill Clinton level of amorality, clearly he’s a man who is quite comfortable with prevarication and misrepresentation. The best thing Obama has going for him is his personality, he’s a narcissistic charmer, but the veneer is wearing thin. Obama’s beliefs spiritually and politically are radical fringe. Spiritually he’s a mixture of black liberation theology and Islam. Politically he’s a blend of Marxist, Statist, and Socialist. His abilities are not well suited for President, but would probably serve him well as a college professor and a community organizer.

The malaise that hangs like a storm cloud over the nation is not likely to dissipate during the next three years. Not since the redoubtable Jimmy Carter have we seen a president so ill equipped in all aspects of governance. The State of the Union speech pretty well provided oral testimony to the incorrigible nature of President Obama’s agenda.

Churchill captured it best in his time - “A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”

Mr. Brown Goes to Washington

2010-01-20T16:07:00.004-06:00

Life Imitates Art

In all the tradition and improbability of the 1939 Frank Capra film classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Massachusetts State Senator, Scott Phillip Brown has accomplished what political pundits dismissed as impossible just two months ago. In the movie, Mr. Smith played by “everyman” Jimmy Stewart, a naive man appointed to fill the vacancy in the US Senate created by the death of one of his State’s Senators. Mr. Smith quickly collides with political corruption, but doesn’t wilt under the intense pressure, and ultimately and dramatically becomes a state and national hero.

While Mr. Smith was appointed to the vacant Senate seat, Mr. Brown didn’t have it so easy. Brown, a Protestant Republican in the heavily Catholic bluest of blue states seeking to succeed the iconic, if not venerable, Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, was considered well……an almost perfunctory gesture on the part of the GOP to even nominate a candidate.

Massachusetts is Blue for a Reason

The Massachusetts demographics were stacked heavily against Mr. Brown. The state’s political demographics are 38% Democrat, 11% Republican, and 51% Independent, a state that Obama won by 26 points in 2008 (62% to 36%). The Independents in the state are decidedly left leaning. Further exacerbating the situation, religious demographics have the state at 44% Catholic; slightly more than double the percentage of Protestants in the state.

Pollsters posited that for Brown to have a chance in the Bay State, the breakdown of the political demographics on Election Day had to be 33% Democrat, 12% Republican, and 55% Independent. It was said if that happened and if Brown was able to carry two-thirds of the independent vote, he would win 51% to 49%.

The Making of an American Hero

Democrats find it almost impossible to believe that this Senate seat they've held since John F. Kennedy could go to a Republican. The Bay State has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. Ted Kennedy held his seat for almost 47 years until his death last August.

So how is it that “Downtown Scotty Brown”, as he was called on the Tufts University basketball team and the 1982 Sexiest Man in America posing in the buff of the centerfold of Cosmopolitan magazine, became the victor in the most important non presidential election in the past 50 years?

It is the quintessential American success story and a far more compelling tale than the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A child of divorced parents, Scott was raised by his grandmother and later his aunt. An arrest at age twelve for shop lifting caused Scott to take a better path, devoting his energy to sports and ultimately playing on the Tufts University basketball team. Brown is an accomplished cyclist, swimmer, and runner and has won a number of triathlons. He earned his BA from Tufts and his Juris Doctor from Boston College of Law. Brown worked for a while as an actor/model appearing in several commercials.

Scott Brown entered politics in 1992 and has served in the Massachusetts Senate since 2004. Mr. Brown has served in the Massachusetts National Guard for thirty years and currently holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Brown has been deployed to Kazakhstan and Paraguay. He and his wife Gail have two daughters, Arianna and Ayla. Prior to winning the race for Senator, the most famous member of the Brown family was Ayla, an American Idol semi finalist and Boston College basketball player.

Brown is considered a conservative Republican by Massachusetts standards and a moderate Republican by national standards. Scott Brown is anti tax, pro gun, strong national defense, pro choice, and supports civil unions, but not gay marriages.

At The Precipice

The monumental Massachusetts Senate victory by Scott Brown was every bit a referendum on the Obama Democrat administration and agenda. Massachusetts merely served as a microcosm of the national outrage over Obama’s radical agenda and the utter contempt and arrogance displayed toward the will of the American people. It’s no surprise that after a year in office, President Obama has the lowest approval rating of any President in modern history after his first year.

The American voters either ignored the obvious lifelong radical nurturing, tutoring, and political record of Obama, or more likely were sweep up in the frenzied media promotion of the potential of the nation’s first black(well almost) President. Never underestimate the judgment of the American people, bad or good. Things appear to be changing now in a very big way.

How ironic then at the beginning when Obama declared "change we can believe in" and proclaimed "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my presidency," quite the antithesis of the litany, too numerous to enumerate, of appointments, initiatives, legislation, actions, inactions both domestically and abroad since his inauguration. Only the most myopic of the far left views the Obama Presidency as anything but an abject failure.

It borders on the unbelievable that this President, as an ineffectual neophyte, has squandered a congressional majority because of his hard coded Socialist ideology, obnoxious arrogance, and pseudo intellect. From a community organizer to the President of the United States is clearly a bridge too far.

The American experience under Obama is rapidly becoming the tandem nightmares of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The Orwellian “Big Brother” and “Newspeak” have become an all too familiar part of the contemporary landscape. Orwell wrote of the truth being concealed from us, while Huxley told of the truth being drowned in a maelstrom of irrelevance. In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, people are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

The nation now teeters on the precipice of becoming a socialist state with the Senate Health Care Bill before the House. If passed, Obama Health Care becomes a major domino in the crashing down of America’s democracy and free enterprise system.
Now with Scott Brown taking the 60th vote in the Senate from the Democrats the Obama Health Care Plan appears to be in terminal condition along with the entire Obama agenda.

It’s not too difficult to imagine that the Democrats will try every manner of chicanery and bribes to push the 2000 page HC monster to passage, but there are a few comments that at least a few have seen the blinding light of the obvious in the Scott Brown victory.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb stated: “In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”

Fellow Massachusetts citizen and Congressman Barney Frank, a friend of neither democracy nor free enterprise remarked: "I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts.”

“One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills.”

“But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened.”

“ Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process."

The stage is now set for the Republicans to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; managed properly this November the GOP could gain at least 25 seats in the House and possibly six seats in the Senate.

We may expect Senator Scott Brown to become the new bête noire of the media, as demonstrated by the seldom viewed MSNBC Host, Keith Oldermann: “In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea bagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”

Welcome to Washington Mr. Brown, may you enjoy success that exceeds that of Mr. Smith. After all, your success may be instrumental in saving the country we know and love.

Post Tenebras Lux

2009-11-04T14:04:00.007-06:00

After Darkness Light

In the beautiful Swiss city of Geneva stands one of the world’s imposing monuments, at 325 feet long and 30 feet high, it dominates the popular and once botanical gardens of Parc des Bastions. Inscribed in huge letters along the 325 foot expanse of this historic edifice is the Latin words Post Tenebras Lux (After Darkness Light) commemorating the dawn of the Reformation in Europe and eventually the world.

It has been almost 500 years since the birth of the Protestant Reformation, which produced a seismic shift in Christianity of historic proportion. As hyperbolic as it may sound, another darkness to light phenomenon is occurring in the United States. While not at the climactic level of the Reformation, Tuesday’s off season election results is a harbinger of what may prove to be the coalescing effect for the 2012 Presidential election.

The results of Tuesday’s off year elections represent a streaming shaft of radiant light that holds the potential of ushering out in as dramatic fashion as the socialist leadership of the U.S. government bolted into power. If the momentum gained carries through the 2010 and the 2012 elections, the shift will be every bit as seismic in the world of politics and government as the Reformation was in the world of religion.

America as the only democratic republic of consequence remaining in the world will have survived a major assault on its constitutional government and free enterprise system.

The Willful Suspension of Disbelief

The main stream media pundits would have you believe that the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia had nothing to do with being a referendum on the Obama administration - essentially another coordinated effort to shape public opinion contrary to obvious facts.

The fact is, that on the matters that are most important to the voting public, whether on a state of federal level, the economy, healthcare, and the war in Afghanistan, all have a direct bearing on how state voters cast their ballots.

With states reeling from post depression record levels of unemployment, collapsed property values, and increased taxes, it is nothing short of ridiculous not to acknowledge the Federal government’s role in the states’ “state of affairs”.

In keeping with the non referendum message reporters were urged not to draw sweeping conclusions from Tuesday's gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama wasn't even keeping an eye on the results - "He's not watching returns," Gibbs said.

The Obama Referendum Just Short of a Trifecta

Just ten months into his administration President Obama could not have foreseen the swiftness in which the political tide was turning and more amazingly the grass roots impetus of the change.

New York - The New York 23rd congressional district was arguably the most revealing of the three elections, with the congressional district seat vacated by moderate GOP Rep. John McHugh. McHugh was tapped by Obama to serve as Secretary of the Army, with Obama expecting to have the vacant seat filled by a Democrat in a predominantly Republican district that Obama carried in his Presidential bid.

The campaign began with the RNC, Congressional Republican leadership, and Newt Gingrich backing RINO “moderate” Dede Scozzafava, a pro abortion, pro same sex marriage, and tax happy candidate.

Almost immediately the conservative establishment in Washington was throwing its support behind Conservative party candidate and political newcomer Douglas L. Hoffman, an accountant from the Adirondacks.

The machinations that followed are sure to be a precursor of 2010 and 2012 elections.

Urged on by leaders including former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, Dick Armey, the former House majority leader from Texas, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Mr. Hoffman had never run for public office, and now had Steve Forbes, The Wall Street Journal editorial page and The National Review among his supporters.

The weekend before the election Mrs. Scozzafava dropped out of the race and threw her support behind the Democratic candidate Bill Owens, a lawyer from Plattsburgh, giving additional credence to Scozzafava’s RINO reputation.

When the dust settled in the 23rd district Owens defeated Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, 49 percent to 45 percent, after a boost from unified labor efforts in the last days of the campaign. Look for Hoffman to reenter the fray when Owens will be up for election for a full term next year.

"This is only one fight in the battle, people," Hoffman said before a gathering of supporters in Saranac Lake, N.Y., after conceding the race. "Let's keep the fight going. Let's make sure our voices are heard."

Virginia - The Virginia Gubernatorial race was a predicted GOP victory, but not quite the shellacking that ensued. Last fall, Obama became the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry Virginia since 1964. Obama did not want to lose this important state and sent his campaign operatives to basically run Creigh Deeds’s flagging campaign in the final weeks.

Republican Bob McDonnell won the election handedly with a 17 percentage point victory over Democrat Deeds, and became the first GOP Governor since 1997. Exit polls showed McDonnell won 63 percent of independent voters. Likewise in Democratic-trending Northern Virginia, the Republican carried the three largest suburban counties of Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William — all counties Obama won handily last year.

The landslide of McDonnell, a former state attorney general, appears to offer the GOP a model for victory in swing states. A graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University who made his name in the state Legislature as a social conservative, McDonnell downplayed social issues in the campaign and focused intently on winning back the Virginia suburbs that fueled the Democratic resurgence in recent years.

Of the off year elections, if the New York 23rd congressional district was the most revealing and Virginia the most one sided, then New Jersey had to be the most surprising.

New Jersey – Republican Chris Christie, former U.S. Attorney for the district of New Jersey, ran in heavily Democratic New Jersey, was badly outspent (5 to 1) by the self-funding multi millionaire incumbent Jon Corzine — who ran a barrage of negative ads, some saying Christie was too fat to lead — and also fended off a former Republican running as a third-party candidate who gave anti-Corzine voters an alternative to the GOP nominee.

Against all odds Christie still defeated Corzine by 4 percentage points — the largest victory by a New Jersey Republican in nearly a quarter-century. Christie’s margin marked a 20-point swing from Obama’s performance.

The New Jersey race was especially painful for the White House, which, sensing a loss in Virginia, sought to prop up Corzine in the campaign's final weeks. The president came to the state five times campaigning for Corzine, where he called Corzine his “partner” in an effort to fire up the Democratic base.

“We will not lose this election if all of you are as committed as you were last year,” Obama told a heavily black crowd in Newark. Obama also appeared in an ad for Corzine aimed at Hispanic voters and recorded robocalls for the governor.

In New Jersey Christie won 58 percent of independents.

Off Year Elections Lessons Learned

The bloom is definitely off the Obama rose as large numbers of voters are shaking off the media induced hypnotic allure of the nation’s first “post partisan”, “post racial” President.

American remains a center right ideological nation. Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to a recent Gallup Poll.

At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years.

In 2009, 40% percent of respondents in Gallup surveys that have interviewed more than 160,000 Americans have said that they are either “conservative” (31%) or “very conservative” (9%). That is the highest percentage in any year since 2004.

Only 21% have told Gallup they are liberal, including 16% who say they are “liberal” and 5% who say they are “very liberal.”

Thirty-five percent of Americans say they are moderate.

A child was turned over the keys to the Mercedes and has darn near totaled the car. The parents will have an opportunity to take back the keys and ground the child.

Republicans need to pay careful heed to the grass roots conservatism of this nation and align their candidates consistent with social and fiscal values that set it apart from the Democratic Party.

Simply stated, this means the NRC and certain GOP luminaries (Newt Gingrich) no longer represent the majority of Republicans, and would be well served to understand that a large tent has no place for RINOs.

Post Tenebras Lux……..Let there be light.

Surveying The American Community

2009-10-26T10:42:00.004-05:00

The Pace of Events

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day,to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death…...” Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5.

A comforting and enduring pleasure of writing these commentaries is not being bound by a timetable driven by commercial demands, but rather as my schedule permits an adequate analysis of the “events of the day”. The events of the day have a timetable of their own; ideally these events are captured incipiently with analysis that sometimes may offer fresh and incisive insight, before the news becomes stale and over analyzed. Recently circumstances have prevented my analysis of a mother lode of news events that serve to further delineate the trajectory of the world in which we live.

An unfortunate consequence of the speed and volume of news events is that they operate to render little encroachment on the collective nescience of the populace. So at the risk of plowing yet again fresh furrows of information, I’d like to posit my perspective on several recent examples of eventful news and conclude with my personal experience with 1984.

The Theater of the Absurd

The common plot characteristics of those plays deemed as part of the genre of the Theater of the Absurd are emptiness and unresolved mysteries; an apt description for an ever increasing disquiet of the American public on the once effulgent now tenebrous Obama administration.

Emptiness pervades the man himself - enrolled at Occidental College as Barry Soetoro, when did Barry Soetoro become Barach Obama, i.e. the stepson of a Muslim Indonesian oil company manager or the son of a Atheist Kenyan government economist?

Unresolved mysteries abound in this existentialist play where the President who campaigned for a more “open government” and “full disclosure”. His medical records remain sealed along with his school records, his birth records, and passport records. A team of lawyers representing Obama will not allow the release of his Harvard records, his Columbia records, including his college thesis, or his Occidental College records.

All his legislative records from the Illinois State Senate are missing and he claims his scheduling records during those State Senate years are lost as well. In addition, no one can find his school records for The Punahou School, an elite college prep school he attended in Hawaii.

What the public has learned after his ten months in office is that the nation’s Commander in Chief is our country’s most far left (radical) President ever.

Now on to the news events that further define this President and administration.

The Fix is In

With all Obama’s egregious missteps to date it’s difficult to imagine a less propitious start to a presidency. Don’t expect the main stream media to offer anything but plaudits despite abysmal performance in every conceivable area. Through it all there has been the tandem constants of an unconstitutionally expanded government and slavish media promotion and support.

The international fix is in with Obama as evidenced by the recent awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." The nominating committee sent out its solicitation for nominations last September, two months before Obama was elected president and selected Laureate after ten days in office.

President Obama immediately cemented his standing with the Zeitgeist of the international socialist community when he began his America apology tour – among many examples, the obsequious bowing in Cairo, embracing Chavez, and the shameless dropping of the missile shield in Eastern Europe to appease Russia.

Obama’s kumbaya diplomacy that has yielded zero results is best described by the Weekly Standard, “taking no for an answer is now Obama’s “presidential trademark.” Obama asks and asks, but always gets the same answer. The International Olympic Committee (no to games in Chicago), Israel (no to a settlement freeze), Mahmoud Abbas (no to talks with Israel), King Abdullah (no to Saudi friendly gesture to Israel), our NATO allies (no to more troops for Afghanistan) a government official in Scotland (no to stopping the release of the Lockerbie bomber), Fidel Castro (no to loosening his dictatorial control), Honduras (no to taking back its deposed president), Russia (no to anti-missile batteries in Eastern Europe and meaningful sanctions on Iran) — for all the love the world has showered on Obama, national self-interest still determines the behavior of nations, just as it did when George Bush was President.”

Now that the President is the Nobel Peace Laureate, it will be interesting to see how long Obama “dithers” with the requested Afghanistan troop increase of 40,000. How long and at what cost, from the man who has repeatedly said that the term “victory” is not the objective in Afghanistan?

The best that can be said about Obama’s international diplomacy style is captured in Teddy Roosevelt’s observation in his day “The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife."

Obama’s Enemies List

Apparently the unbridled hubris of the Obama administration transcends heeding the lessons of history as offered in Nixon’s ill fated enemies list. The Nixon enemies list, prepared by Chuck Colson, was a covert list of 20 individuals’ names, brought to light by the Senate Watergate Committee for the official purpose, as described by the White House Counsel’s Office, to screw Nixon’s political enemies, by means of IRS tax audits, and by manipulating grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, etc.

The Obama administration has been disturbingly aggressive in overtly demonizing individuals and brazenly attacking institutions and industries at unprecedented levels and scope – the Obama enemies list. Prominent targets include:

Rush Limbaugh - Not surprisingly, Rush is at the top of Obama’s individuals’ list and understandably so with 30 million listeners weekly. Rush’s misfortune was being invited to participate financially in a group seeking to buy the NFL St. Louis Rams. Once the news became public, the media began a withering barrage of falsified quotes attributable to Rush and the “no visible means of livelihood” brothers Revs. Sharpton and Jackson immediately appeared on the scene with their race bating accusations in a league that is composed of 75% African Americans. The deal killer was the head of the NFL players’ union and Obama transition team member DeMaurice Smith, who was outspoken in his criticism of Mr. Limbaugh. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that Rush was “too controversial” for a league that is inordinately populated with felons, rapists, drug users, drug dealers, dead beat dads, et al.

FOX News – Again not surprising, FOX is the most watched cable news network by several orders of magnitude, Fox dominates cable news. President Obama while being interviewed on CNBC recently took a shot at FOX News when asked about media coverage of his young administration, "I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration...That's a pretty big megaphone. You'd be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front," Obama said.

Adding fuel to the fire, President Obama said he would give White House interviews via Kenneth Feinberg only to legitimate news organizations and FOX News was not on that list.

But bureau chiefs of Washington television affiliates stood up for Fox and said they wouldn't go unless FOX News Channel, a network that has been in the same press pool since 97, was allowed to attend. When asked about the situation President Obama told an NBC reporter that the reason for keeping FOX out was because it operated more like talk radio than a news outlet...but that he wasn't losing any sleep over it.

So much for the freedom of speech and First Amendment rights of American citizens.

Health Insurance Companies – A huge target because Obama sees the insurance companies as the perfect villain for attacking to gain support for a government run health care plan. The president said the current health care system and the policies of insurance companies are — in his words — "hurting too many families and businesses." And he vowed to change that, predicting health care reform legislation will be passed by Congress this year.

New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer has threatened the insurance industry with dropping the anti-trust exemption currently in place for the industry.

United States Chamber of Commerce – The White House is moving aggressively to remove the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from its traditional Washington role as the chief representative for big business, and Instead of working through the Chamber, President Obama is meeting repeatedly with small groups of CEOs in his private White House dining room. Obama is urging corporations to leave the Chamber.

The Chamber spent a record $34.7 million in the third quarter lobbying against the Obama administration's proposals to overhaul energy policy, financial regulation and health care, clearly the anti-regulatory position of its members. The Chamber has launched The Free Enterprise Program - Dream Big with the goal of creating 20 million jobs in ten years, clearly responding to the failed Obama stimulus policy.

The Obama political thaumaturgy is just not working anymore with much of the public, as evidenced by his dramatic drop in favorability ratings in all the polls. The majority of the public no longer support his major initiatives – health care, cap & trade, et al. Except for the continuing fawning of the main stream media, which no longer represents main stream opinion, Obama is seen as a man who is ill equipped by temperament, ability, and ideology to deal with major issues facing our nation. After all, other than being elected President, what the man has accomplished of significance?

The chilling dimension of the entire flurry surrounding the Obama agenda is the head long thrust of socialism, government control, racial division, economic division, and evaporating freedoms.
This dimension in all its Orwellian reality presented itself in the American Community Survey.

The American Community Survey

With cosmic irony, a month ago I (actually “Resident”) received a letter from the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, informing me that my address had been randomly chosen as a participant in The American Community Survey. Being firmly grounded in the reformed faith I have no illusions about “random”, “chance”, or “luck” being anything more than merely man’s attempt to explain the inexplicable.

Then two weeks later I received the dreaded American Community Survey in an envelope boldly stamped Your Response Is Required By Law. The envelope contained a letter from the Director, U.S. Census Bureau informing that “the survey collects critical up-to-date information used to meet the needs of communities across the United States”. And that “results from this survey are used to decide where new schools, hospitals, and fire stations are needed”. “This information also helps communities plan for the kinds of emergency situations that might affect you and your neighbors, such as floods and other natural disasters.”

The letter reminded me that my address was chosen randomly (there’s that word again) and not me personally. The letter concluded “You are required by U.S. law to respond to this survey”, but not to worry all your answers are kept confidential. There was a handy 16 page brochure that answered frequently asked questions about the survey and finally the survey itself and a postage paid return envelope.

The whole experience was sobering and chilling. “Community” just doesn’t mean what it once did; commune and communism are now the prevalent visions conjured under the current administration. Particularly disturbing was that all the information requested is available from local and state sources. Central planning is really one large community.

So there I was standing at the intersection of hope and change (with apologies to the late Rod Serling) - Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas………all personally repugnant.

Rather than test the legal consequences of not completing the survey, I dutifully completed the 28 page form, wincing every step of the way, answering questions on the value of my home, quality of my home, place of birth, job, income, education, disability, journey to work on each person living in the home. I felt like I had just completed a Third Reich questionnaire in Nazi Germany.

Before mailing the survey I received another letter from the Director, U.S. Census Bureau reminding me to send my survey in as soon as possible as required under U.S. law. The “soon as possible” admonition struck me as somewhat strange, maybe it shows a weakness in enforcing the requirements of U.S. law, after all the IRS has a deadline for filing annual tax returns. Again, I didn’t have the appetite to challenge the enforcement proclivity of the U.S. government and begrudgingly mailed my survey in.

As I look wistfully to 2012, the remaining lines of Macbeth’s soliloquy waif through the ether……..”a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

That Dog Won't Hunt

2009-09-09T22:48:00.003-05:00

The Wisdom of Idioms

Among the many advantages of being raised in the South is the wisdom imparted from the extravagance of the agrarian axioms that are as indigenous to the southern culture as are the accents of the region – for example, “Root hog or die”, “Two bricks short of a load”, “Going to talk to a man about a cow”, “Rode hard and put up wet”, “Scarce as hen's teeth”, and a couple “A guilty dog barks the loudest” and “Plant a tater, you get a tater” seem particularly appropriate to the current administration.

There is a wonderfully incisive southern expression that bears an ineluctable truth about the character and behavior of President Obama………”That dog won’t hunt”, a natural metaphor representing a person or plan that simply won’t work. A little more on this remarkably apt description of our President can be found in the analogous field trial, a competitive event where hunting dogs compete against one another in a series of tests. Field trials require a higher degree of training with more complexity and distance involved than hunt tests. Field trial dogs must be “finished” in order to enter. Now we’ve got an “unfinished” dog in the field trial and that dog won’t hunt.

The Short and Winding Road

It’s difficult to imagine a less propitious nine months journeyed by Obama and his band of merry pranksters, but sadly this administration is not a prank but one that is on a deadly serious mission to inalterably change the nation’s government for the decidedly worse. A campaign that parlayed the simplistic and hackneyed nostrum of hope and change, with the attendant manufactured refulgent aura of destiny, is now a dim candle flicker close to being doused, and for good reason.

This short and winding road is littered with the flotsam and jetsam of a leadership that revels in converting challenges into crisis after crisis, by an administration whose center of gravity is radical left, while arrogantly governing against the will of the American people.

Recent weeks have been replete with more of the same:
– Obama saying the stated objective in Afghanistan is not victory,
- The initial development of the Obama youth indoctrination speech encouraged kids to write the President on how they could help their President (the public outrage was so great that the school speech was bowdlerized to a platitudinous lecture on personal responsibility, ironically the antithesis of the President’s agenda)
- The resignation of green jobs czar Van Jones, avowed communist and 9/11 truther (belief that 9/11 was orchestrated by the White House) with no comment by the Obama administration.

The cumulative effect of this Presidency has left Obama as the naked emperor strutting and fretting his hour on stage in this extended nightmare of Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame, where fawning devotees like Peggy Noonan are shaking their school girl fixation on this nightmare of a blind date, as has much of the nation. Mrs. Noonan belatedly bemoans BHO as being cold.....” He is cold, like someone who is contained not because he's disciplined and successfully restrains his emotions, but because there's not that much to restrain. This is the dark side of cool”. That’s right Peggy, Obama is neither cool nor hip, just a weak and empty vessel propped up by teleprompters, a state media, and a grotesque gaggle of extremist czars and cabinet members.

With his popularity and approval rating plummeting like the job market, Obama has put his Presidency’s efficacy on the line by calling a Joint Session of Congress to make his case, yet again, for a national health care plan. In what appears as a desperate move, since Obama has made over 100 speeches on the subject since he has been in office, but alas this speech according to the President will answer every major question about the health care plan. This is the President’s field trial.

His Hour upon the Stage

Much as expected, the President overextended himself in his usual perorated delivery which extended the promised 30 minute speech to 45 minutes, “……a walking shadow, a poor player”. The content, to put it politely strained the bounds of credulity, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing ”.

Speaking for myself and hopefully representing the opinion of tens of millions, Obama delivered a highly partisan speech that represented a grossly distorted version of House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009, the only heath care bill voted on in Congress. Reducing the President’s rhetoric to violations of basic arithmetic and economics – BHO promised 1.) Lower cost 2.) Add 30 M newly covered insured, and 3.) Not raise the debt; need I mention the only 5% Obama said will choose the government option or the $900 B savings from the elimination of waste and inefficiency in Medicaid and Medicare. Which is it with BHO, prevarication or ignorance? Of course the CBO has consistently disagreed with all Obama healthcare cost and debt numbers.

The question now becomes what strategy the President will use to push this colossal transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government and cornerstone of socialism through Congress.

Oh, the field trial results – that dog won’t hunt!

An Impecunious Nation

2009-08-26T08:38:00.005-05:00

The era of the Great Depression produced any number of songs conveying the mood of this dramatic period of our nation’s social and economic change, including two particularly popular tunes that reflected opposite ends of the misery spectrum to which many of us, including our economists can relate to today.

“Brother Can You Spare a Dime”
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

“We’re in the Money”
We're in the money, we're in the money;
We've got a lot of what it takes to get along!
We're in the money, that sky is sunny,
Old Man Depression you are through, you done us wrong.

So how is it that in the midst of the nation’s economic depression two markedly different interpretations of the economic landscape were put to tune? Well in the thirties, I would submit, that “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” most accurately expressed the sense of disillusionment and dismay that pervaded the country – conveying a clear message of collapsed dreams. On the other hand, “We’re in the Money” was more of a jingle than a song, designed to lift people’s spirits with lyrics encased in a snappy upbeat tempo.

The same and different today

Today we find our nation in similar economic circumstances to the thirties – sort of a depression lite (two or three more years of recession will qualify as a depression). Also similar today, the Obama administration is seeking the Keynesian solution of massive government spending and an expansionary monetary policy to turn the economy around. Doesn’t anyone in the White House know that it took WWII to get the nation out of the depression?

This is not to suggest that a war (favoring guns over butter) is just what is needed to get us out of this economic mess - we haven’t been able to win wars anymore the way we did in WWII. It just seems that a healthy dose of proven Supply Side economic solutions of tax cuts to promote business capital investment coupled with a Laissez-faire policy that government not interfere with natural market forces (the invisible hand), is infinitely superior to the failed policies of socialism.

While FDR had his detractors, he was a broadly popular President for four consecutive terms, despite introducing socialistic programs in an enormously expanded U.S. government never before imagined. BHO has been on the job almost eight months now, and it’s safe to say that the bloom is off the rose, amid plummeting favorability ratings as his reach has far exceeded his grasp.

This most peripatetic of all Presidents has been like an unsuccessfully house trained puppy, pretty much making a mess wherever he goes. The President has the potential to easily eclipse the heretofore incomparable ignominy of former President Jimmy Carter.

The interpretation of the economic landscape represents a wide divergence of opinion among economists, giving credence to the historical apothegm for economics as the “dismal science”.

The dismal science applied for better or worse

Little has changed over the centuries, in terms of economics being viewed as much an art as a science, suspecting much of this view is attributable to its appellation as the “dismal science”. The derogatory alternative name’s origin goes back to the 19th century when Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish historian and essayist, gave the name “dismal science” in response to the writings of the Reverend Thomas Malthus, who grimly predicted that starvation would result as projected population growth exceeded the rate of increase in the food supply.

The question, hanging like a cloud facing economists concerning the recession - which is it, are we coming out of a recession or may we expect more of the same?

The “We’re in the Money” economic interpretation of current conditions is most frequently evident through those economists and economic analysts wandering in the halls of government, most notably the reappointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday offered his most optimistic outlook since the financial crisis struck, saying the economy is on the verge of growing again. Bernanke’s hopeful remarks on the economy contributed to a rally on Wall Street. The DJIA surged about 155 points, or 1.7 percent, and broader stock averages also gained sharply.

The financial markets have stabilized, and some businesses and consumers have found it easier to get loans. Still, the banking system has yet to return to normal, Bernanke said. Financial institutions face further losses on soured investments. And many businesses and households still can’t get the credit they need to fuel the economy, he said. “Although we have avoided the worst, difficult challenges still lie ahead,” Bernanke told the gathering of fellow bankers, academics and economists. “We must work together to build on the gains already made to secure a sustained economic recovery.”

Now, on the other hand there are the “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” economic proponents which include those analysts who saw and warned that this economic crisis was coming— Noureil Roubini, Peter Schiff, Marc Faber, Bill Bonner, Richard Daughty and Mike Shedlock—the consensus seems to indicate that much worse is on the way.

Roubini, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, said it appears the global economy will bottom out in the second half of this year, and that U.S. and western European economies will likely experience "anemic" and "below trend" growth for at least a couple of years.

Yet he warned that policymakers face a "damned if they do and damned if they don't" conundrum in trying to unwind their massive fiscal and monetary stimuli to keep the global economy from toppling into a depression. He said that if policymakers try to fight rising budget deficits by raising taxes and cutting spending, they could undermine any recovery. On the other hand, he said if they maintain large deficits, worries about excessive inflation will grow, causing bond yields and borrowing rates to rise and perhaps choking off economic growth. Roubini said another reason to worry is that energy, food and oil prices are rising faster than fundamentals warrant, and could be driven higher by speculation or if excessive liquidity creates artificially high demand.

The most sobering assessment is provided by Niall Ferguson, financial historian, Harvard professor, and author of The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, says conditions are especially dangerous. Countries are experiencing double-digit drops in exports, “depression-style contraction,” and the world is still in the “early stages of the game at this point.” Ferguson told Canada’s Globe and Mail, trade wars and a revival of protectionism threaten. The system is “fragile” and “there is a real danger that globalization could unravel,” he says.

According to Ferguson there will be blood, in the sense that a crisis of this magnitude is bound to increase political as well as economic conflict. It is bound to destabilize some countries. It will cause civil wars to break out, that have been dormant. It will topple governments that were moderate and bring in governments that are extreme. These things are pretty predictable. The question is whether the general destabilization … ultimately leads to something really big in the realm of geopolitics.

So how bad off is the U.S. economy, who Ferguson says “is a made in America crisis that has gone global”.

The notion of national impecuniosity

How does one know that the U.S. has gone from the world’s richest nation to a government with impecuniosity (little or no money)? It is the combination of the incomprehensible amounts of debt (what comes after a trillion) and the rapid change in the amounts that is most disturbing. The most salient example occurred last Friday when The Obama administration OBM raised its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion. That’s almost a 20% increase; staggering when dealing with these numbers.

How much longer will the Treasury markets exist with this mounting deficit? The United States relies on large foreign buyers such as China and Japan to cheaply finance its debt, and they will demand higher interest rates as they begin to doubt that the government can control its deficits.

A few numbers to put the impecunious state of economic affairs in perspective:

National Debt - $11.734 Trillion
U.S. Spending YTD - $2.576 Trillion
U.S. Budget Deficit YTD - $1.219 Trillion
GDP YTD - $8.962 Trillion
U.S. Tax Revenue YTD- $1.356 Trillion
U.S. Debt Held by Foreign Countries - $3.456 Trillion
U.S. Trade Deficit YTD - $227.520 Billion
U.S. Unfunded Liabilities (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Rx drugs)- $58.949 Trillion

A Leadership Crisis

In the house of mirrors that is the White House where the curved mirrors distort all images of our democratic republic, has produced an economic debacle of biblical dimension unprecedented in the nation’s history. The consequences of a marginal community organizer incubated in socialist orthodoxy and now acting as leader of the free world is nothing less than a lachrymose tragedy.

No, BHO did not inherit this economic monstrosity, the TARP which he inherited is the only Bush spending program that he is dealing with. The rest are his babies, and what an ugly family portrait it is - Stimulus Bill, the Omnibus Spending Bill, the bank bailouts, the GM and Chrysler bailouts, Cash for Clunkers, and Obamacare (if it passes) all belong to him.

In addition to being the most peripatetic of all Presidents, this tin ear ideological automaton has squandered a filibuster proof majority in both the House and the Senate because of his “scorched earth” policy of governance.

Viewing where the liberals have taken this nation one wonders how such a body itself is governed; the words of the Italian fascist Benito Mussolini come to mind…. when asked how one governs the Italian people he responded – “Governing the Italian people is not impossible, merely useless”.

It appears that we are witnessing the disintegration of the Obama Presidency as the economy continues in the tank, Obamacare is on the rocks, as the public’s confidence in BHO’s leadership steadily erodes. At this juncture, people of the common persuasion of restoring our nation to a free enterprise republic should take heed with the lessons learned from The Stockdale Paradox.

The Stockdale Paradox

The name refers to Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking U.S. military officer in the "Hanoi Hilton" POW camp during the Vietnam War. Tortured over twenty times during his eight-year imprisonment, Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoner's rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he would survive to see his family again.

He shouldered the burden of command, doing everything he could to create conditions that would increase the number of prisoners who could survive unbroken, while fighting an internal war against his captors and their attempts to use the prisoners for propaganda.
At one point, he beat himself with a stool and cut himself with a razor, deliberately disfiguring himself, so that he could not be put on videotape as an example of a "well-treated prisoner."

He exchanged secret intelligence information with his wife through their letters, knowing that discovery would mean more torture and perhaps death. He instituted rules that would help people to deal with torture (no one can resist torture indefinitely, so he created a step-wise system - after x minutes, you can say certain things - that gave the men milestones to survive toward). He instituted an elaborate internal communications system to reduce the sense of isolation that their captors tried to create using taps and pauses.

At one point, during an imposed silence, the prisoners mopped and swept the central yard using the code (tapping) "We love you" to Stockdale on the third anniversary of his captivity. After his release, Stockdale became the first three-star officer in the history of the Navy to wear both aviator wings and the Congressional Medal of Honor.

When asked "Who didn't make it out?" Stockdale relied, "Oh, that's easy, The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

After a long pause, Stockdale said, "This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be."

Allow me to admonish the optimists among us as Stockdale might - "We're not getting out of this before 2010 and then not completely out until 2012, deal with it!"

Until then, brother can you spare a dime?

The Verisimilitude of 2012

2009-07-05T20:49:00.005-05:00

The Exit of Sarah Palin

Sometimes a six syllable word serves most adequately to describe a future event, in this case the state of the Republican Party candidates for the 2012 Presidential election - the quality of appearing to be true or real, not quite absolute certainty or veracity but the appearance thereof.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has a knack for sending shock waves through the public sector. First as the surprise running mate in John McCain’s unsuccessful bid for the White House and now her totally unexpected resignation as Governor of Alaska effective July 26. It was a decision she said that had been in the works for a while and was formally decided by a vote of family members in response to her question – “Hey, do you want me to make a positive difference and fight for all our children's future from outside the governor's office”? The answer was a unanimous yes.

Never one to follow conventional wisdom, Sarah Palin has succeeded by her energy, enthusiasm, and extraordinary charisma - a charisma that resonated among millions of Republicans and repelled in equal measure by millions of Democrats. Her “every woman” persona, unflinching conservative message, and good looks made her a lightning rod for the main stream media which attacked her with hysterical harassment, while she injected energy and enthusiasm into the otherwise moribund McCain campaign.

The rub against Mrs. Palin, since arriving on the national stage has been whether she is Presidential timber or even Vice Presidential timber. After the failed McCain campaign, many Republicans were left with the sense that a few years of seasoning and study would at least have a palliative effect on Gov. Palin’s viability as either a Vice President or Presidential candidate. On the other hand, the conundrum that is Sarah Palin hangs ominously - millions of Republicans consider her now an entirely felicitous Presidential candidate.

Back to Gov. Plain’s decision to resign as Governor of Alaska based on family pressures rather than not run for reelection, places into question a couple of important factors.

First, Harry Truman said it best “If you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen”. Politics and particularly a political campaign is a bare knuckles brutal business that demands incredible fortitude to prevail. Given Mrs. Palin’s family situation (downs syndrome child and unwed daughter with an infant child) may understandably be too much for Gov. Palin to manage. Mrs. Palin also stated that she and her family have had enough of the “partisan sniping”. Who can forget the effective end of Edmund Muskie’s 1972 campaign for Democrat nominee for President while crying in a snow storm in New Hampshire - definitely not for the weak of heart or the thin of skin.

Secondly, perhaps collapsing under pressure from the family, Sarah Palin would have been well advised to complete her term as Governor, as Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney chose not to seek another term as he geared up for an unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has announced he won't seek another term, giving him plenty of free time ahead of a potential 2012 bid. Should she launch a Presidential bid, the specter of quitting looms large over an already fragile inventory of qualifications.

So is this the exit of Sarah Palin from elected offices? Maybe so, maybe not. Surely she can earn a high six figure, perhaps seven figure income from a book, articles, talk radio, and speaking engagements with far less stress than campaigning for office. Remember Sarah Palin is just 46 years old, a veritable teenager in Presidential politics. One thing is for certain no one in the Republican Party, and for that matter in the Democrat party, save Barack Obama, has the charisma and devoted followers as Sarah Palin. Simply stated, as things now stand the 2012 Republican candidate for President, if not Sarah Palin, must have the endorsement of Sarah Palin to win the nomination and election.

The Republican Party Gestalt

Amid an American landscape that includes the highest number of unemployed in over five decades, the greatest debt in the history of the nation, the worst recession since the depression, a third world foreign policy, the exhuming of organized labor, the takeover of the auto industry, the control of banking, increased central planning and control, a stimulus plan that is clearly not working, ad infinitum, the Republican Party would appear to be poised to capture the Presidency in 2012.

Not so fast.

Several assumptions are required in order for Republican ascendency to occur in 2012.

First, the downward spiral of the United States economy into socialism and the attendant effects of the warp speed overreaching programs of the Obama administration must continue - a bitter and painful pill to swallow.

Next, the Republicans must regain seats in the 2010, without that momentum, a recapture of the White House in 2012 becomes almost impossible.

Finally, a true leader and spokesman for the Republican Party must emerge and espouse the core values of conservatism – family values (prolife, heterosexual marriage only, etc.), fiscal responsibility (budget, taxes, etc.), free market solutions, and formidable national defense. The hard part is, in spite of the nation being polled consistently as a center right body politic, the Republican Party seeks to move to the center and left, with the predictable results as seen in the failed McCain campaign.

Further complicating the Republican gestalt are the counterproductive group voices of the neo conservatives and the individual voices of Colin Powell, Tom Ridge, and a host of pseudo conservative writers including Christopher Buckley, who subtract rather than add to the Party’s efficacy. They are the donkey’s tail on the Republican elephant.

A particularly problematic component of the Republican Party apparatus is the National Republican Committee that has yet to develop a consistency in articulating content and strategy. Two prime examples are 1.) the painful process of watching Chairman Michael Steele’s desultory efforts to broaden the party, i.e. hip hop, Rush Limbaugh put down, and groveling apology to Rush Limbaugh and 2.) the NRC consistently endorsing moderate candidates such as Florida’s Gov. Charlie Chris over legitimate conservative candidates like Florida House Speaker Mario Rubio for the upcoming Senate race.

It’s no wonder then that the person considered to be voice of the Republican Party is Rush Limbaugh, without holding or seeking to hold a public office, his consistent conservative message resonates more widely among Republicans than any Republican politician. It’s important to note that Limbaugh was the one person considered most responsible for the success of the 1994 Republican revolution which captured both House and Senate majorities for the first time in forty years.

Likely 2012 Candidates

Before looking at the most likely Republican candidates in 2012, it’s helpful to reexamine human nature and the attraction of public office, particularly the most powerful position in the world as the leader of the free world. While our founding fathers cited the noble calling of public service and governance it carries with it a deeply personal opiate - power and adulation; very few, if any, are able to escape the seductive tentacles of this medusa like monster.

The abuses of power are well documented and certainly fresh on the minds of Republicans as documented in the extramarital affairs disclosed by two 2012 presidential prospects, Nevada Sen. John Ensign and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Scratch those two from the list.

The point is who is least likely, based on personal history to violate the sacrosanct trust between candidate and voters. Keeping this in mind, let’s look at the current leading candidates to throw their hats in the ring for 2012, in no particular order.

Newt Gingrich

One of the smartest of all potential candidates, well versed and articulate on all facets of policy who is running hard to stay in front of the public. A formidable combination of intellect and experience, the former Speaker of the House and Time Magazine Man of the Year, although on the right side of all major issues, Newt is not without serious baggage.

In eleven favorability ratings beginning in 1994, Newt has never had less than an 8 point deficit below his unfavorable perception. His latest rating in June shows a 46% unfavorable rating versus a 35% favorable rating. Gingrich lost a budget standoff with President Clinton, which may have contributed to Clinton's re-election in November 1996.

Newt has been married three times. He presented his first wife in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery a list of his plans for divorce that he wanted her to sign. In 1981, six months after his divorce was final, Gingrich married Marianne Ginther. He remained married to Ginther until 2000, when they divorced. Soon thereafter, Gingrich then married Callista Bisek, with whom he was having an extramarital affair during the same time he was leading the Congressional investigation into allegations that President Clinton lied under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

A Baptist since graduate school, Gingrich converted to Catholicism, his wife’s faith, in March this year.

In summary, Gingrich appears to be a man whose time has come and gone.

Mike Huckabee

Since the Presidential election, no potential Republican Presidential candidate has been in front of the public more than Mike Huckabee as author, Fox political commentator, Fox weekend show Huckabee, and ABC radio show, Mike Huckabee enjoys 7 days a week exposure.

Huckabee performed credibly in the Republican primaries before dropping out as a distant second to John McCain. It is important to note that Huckabee carried most of the southern states in the primaries while splitting the conservative vote with Romney.

As Arkansas Governor, Huckabee served two terms. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the five best governors in the U.S., writing “Huckabee has approached his state’s troubles with energy and innovation”. Huckabee was accused of increasing state spending, as a “liberal in disguise” by 65.3%. The Arkansas Department of Finance states during Huckabee’s tenure, taxes were cut 95 times for a decrease of $378 M, while taxes were raised 21 times for an increase of $883 M.

The Cato Institute gave Huckabee an “F” for spending and tax policy in 2006. In 2007,Judicial Watch announced that Huckabee was named to its list of “Ten Most Corrupt Politicians”, as subject of 14 ethics complaints.

Although Huckabee is right on major issues, reservations exist about his Baptist preacher background and his departure from conservative fiscal policy as Governor of Arkansas. In two out of three polls, Huckabee is considered the frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012. A third national poll in June shows Huckabee a co-favorite as the Republican nominee along with Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney.

Opinions of Huckabee’s personality range from charming, engaging, and warm to thin skinned, vindictive, and self righteous.

Mitt Romney

Among the potential candidates, Romney’s combination of private and government experience make him appear the most presidential of all Republican aspirants. A Harvard Law School graduate, Romney enjoyed huge success in the management consulting and private equity business.

Specializing in leverage buyouts as head of the company for 14 years, the firm enjoyed an average annual internal rate of return of 113%. He invested in or bought companies such as Staples, Domino’s, Sealy Corporation, and Sports Authority.
In 1990, Romney was asked to return to a company that was facing financial collapse. As CEO Romney restructured the company and within a year returned the firm to profitability without layoffs or partner defections.

Romney headed the 2002 Winter Olympics and took it from a $379 M short of its revenue goals. After Romney’s hire in 1999, he revamped the organization’s leadership, policies, budget, and boosted fund raising. The Games ended clearing a profit of $100 M.

In 2003, as Massachusetts Governor, Romney faced a projected $1.2 B deficit and through spending cuts, increased fees, and removal of corporate tax loopholes the state had a $700 M surplus by 2006 and was able to cut taxes. Romney signed the Massachusetts health reform law which requires nearly all state residents to buy health insurance. The bill also establishes means tested state subsidies for people who do not have adequate employer insurance and who earn below an income threshold, by using funds previously designated to compensate for the health costs of the uninsured.

Romney won 11 states primaries and caucuses, 4.2 M votes and 291 delegates, although he would likely have won more had he not ended his campaign early. Romney decided not to seek donations to recover the $45 M in personal loans he made to his campaign. Instead, the loans were reclassified as contributions by Romney. The Romney committee raised approximately $65 M from individual donors during the primary campaign.

Romney and his wife have a net worth of between $250 and $500 M, not including his blind trust in the name of their children valued at $100 M.

In many respects Romney appears to be the ideal Republican nominee - he’s on the right side of all major issues, has a track record of success, and no hint of scandal or character issues. However, there are conservatives who question his pro-life conversion as politically motivated and perhaps even more who have reservations, particularly in the south, about his Mormon faith.

Tim Pawlenty

The 50 year old Governor of Minnesota, Tom Pawlenty has announced that he will not seek a third term as governor, opening speculation that he’s preparing for a run for the Republican nomination in 2012. Pawlenty served as co-chairman of the McCain for President campaign. Pawlenty served as chairman of the National Governors Association from 2007 to 2008.

So is this guy a moderate or a conservative, being from Minnesota and all? Well he passes the litmus test – pro-life, pro-gun, fiscally conservative, he’s a little light on immigration and is a strong ethanol proponent, remember this is the guy who succeeded Jesse Ventura as governor.

During his first year as governor, Pawlenty balanced a deficit of $4.3 B without raising taxes by reducing the rate of funding increases for state services, including transportation, social services, and welfare. In 2006, the State announced more than a $2 B budget surplus, not adjusted for inflation.

Pawlenty was raised Roman Catholic and converted to his wife’s Baptist faith.

Whether being ambitious and attractive are enough for Mr. Pawlenty to make waves in 2012 remains to be seen.

Bobby Jindal

Thirty nine year old wunderkind Bobby Jindal has a great deal going for him as the nation’s youngest governor for the state of Louisiana. Governor Jindal represents the finest tradition of the American success story.

Born Piyush Amrit Jindal in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the first son of Agarwal Indian immigrants, raised as a Hindu but converted to Catholicism in high school and gives his religious testimony before Baptist and Pentecostal congregations. Jindal graduated with honors from Brown University in Biology and Public Policy and went on to study at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar receiving a degree in Political Science. After Oxford he was accepted to Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School, but decided to join McKinsey & Company as a consultant.

In 1999, Jindal was appointed President of the University of Louisiana System and in 2001 George W. Bush appointed Mr. Jindal Assistant Secretary of Health & Human Services for Planning & Evaluation. In 2004, Bobby Jindal was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana.

Bobby Jindal was sworn in as Governor in January of 2008. Later that year, Jindal oversaw one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history prior to the landfall of Hurricane Gustav. He successfully managed the evacuation from the state’s coastal areas and activated 3,000 National Guardsman to assist in the exodus that included vacating hospitals and nursing homes. The evacuation was credited as the primary reason so few lives were lost from Hurricane Gustav.

Bobby Jindal falls on the right side of all major issues and is an outspoken critic of the Stimulus plan and the money allocated to individual states putting him at odds with fellow Republican governors Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty and Florida’s Charlie Chris.

Clearly Bobby Jindal has a bright future, but a 2012 Republican nomination for President seems a bit soon, but 2016 is another matter.

Well, there you have it as the future appears now, but the admonition of Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680) is as valid today as in the 17th century, “Verisimilitude and opinion are an easy purchase; but true knowledge is dear and difficult”.

Remembering Charles Martel

2009-06-19T17:51:00.001-05:00

Living in Historic Times

To say that we live in historic times is an understatement of historic proportion. Just in my lifetime I have seen the ending of WW II, the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the beginning and ending of the Cold War, the Korean War, Elvis, the Civil Rights Movement, the first man in space, the assassination of a President, the resignation of a President, the modern computer, the break-up of the Soviet Union, Feminism, Aids, Gay rights, and 9/11. And throughout all these monumental events the common thread of America, as a free democratic republic, was the constant of unwavering stability.

Enter the 21st century, despite all the hopes and dreams attendant with science and technology, we as a nation stand at the precipice of the most historical cultural and political shift of our lifetime and one for the ages of recorded history. Follow now the unfolding scenario of this precarious and seemingly unalterable course.

A precursor is the Alice through the Looking Glass quality of Barack Obama’s statements, as with his declaration that America is not a Christian Nation and the U.S. is one of the world’s largest Muslim nations. The Christian nation statement is patently false while completely disregarding the nation’s Judeo Christian heritage. As far as the U.S. being one of the larger Muslim nations citing a population of 7 million Muslims (some studies indicate 9 million), in the U.S., places the U.S. among a gaggle of third world countries.

President Obama gaffes are easily commensurate with the gaffes of his VP, but are much more revealing of the inner man; a man whose roots are more Islamic than Christian and whose economic philosophy appears to reflect more of Marxism than Capitalism. Giving the President the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he was looking forward when making his Muslim statements. Startling demographic research portends a vastly different world on the horizon, one more closely aligned, it would seem, to the President’s perspective.

Demographics of the Future

Now for the harsh demographic facts, let’s start with the fertility rate necessary to maintain a culture for more than 25 years. A fertility of rate of 2.11 children per family is required; anything less and the culture will decline. Historically, no culture has ever reversed a 1.9 fertility rate; a 1.3 fertility rate is impossible to reverse because it would take 80 to 100 years to correct itself and there is no economic model that can sustain a culture during that time.

As the population rate shrinks, so does the culture. As of 2007, France had a fertility rate of 1.8, England 1.6, Germany 1.3, Italy 1.2, Spain 1.1; across the entire 31 countries of the European Union the fertility rate is 1.38. Historical research tells these numbers are impossible to reverse. In a matter of years Europe as we know it will cease to exist.

In the last 30 years Great Britain has seen their Muslim population grow from 82 thousand to 2.5 million with over 1,000 mosques. Fifty percent of the Netherlands newborns are Muslim; in 15 years half of their population will be Muslim. Russia has 23 million Muslims, one in every five Russians; 40% of the Russian army will be Muslim in just a few years.

Currently in Belgium 25% of the population and 50% of newborns are Muslim. The Belgium government has stated that 1/3 of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025. The German Federal Statistics Office has issued the following statement: “The fall in the German population can no longer be stopped. Its downward spiral is no longer reversible…..it will be a Muslim state by the year 2050.”

Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya says “There are signs that Allah will grant victory to Islam in Europe, without swords, without guns, without conquest. We don’t need terrorists, we don’t need homicide bombers. The 50 plus million Muslims in Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent in a few decades.

There are currently 52 million Muslims in Europe; the German government has said that number is expected to double to 104 million in twenty years. Closer to home in Canada the fertility rate is 1.6 nearly a full point below what is necessary to sustain a culture and Islam is now the fastest growing religion. Between 2001 and 2006, Canada’s population increased by 1.6 million and 1.2 million of those by immigration.

In the United States the current fertility rate is 1.6 children per American citizen family; with the influx of Latino immigration the fertility rate rises to the bare minimum of 2.11 children necessary to sustain a culture. To better understand the rapid growth of Islam in the U.S., in 1970 there were only 100,000 Muslims in America, today there are over 9 million Muslims in this country. Three years ago the Islamic Strategy Conference held in Chicago, composed of 24 Muslim organizations, reported that the Muslim population in America is expected to reach 50 million in thirty years

The Catholic Church recently reported that Islam membership has now surpassed Catholic membership. It is estimated that in 5 – 7 years Islam will be the world’s dominant religion. The Muslims have been trying to accomplish this for centuries.

Enter Charles Martel

In 732 AD, Charles Martel (The Hammer), the Frankish military and political leader, turned back the Muslims in the Battle of Tours (France) that kept Europe from coming under Islamic rule, in one of history’s most important epochs by one of history’s greatest generals.

An amazing victory because the Christian army under Martel was composed entirely of foot soldiers against an Arab army consisting almost entirely of cavalry and had behind them a long and unbroken series of victories extending over a century. The day following the furious and bloody battle only the Christian cross flag remained flying while the crescent banners of Islam lay on the ground.

Martel would be turning over in his grave if he knew how Europe has relinquished the nations to the Muslims without a fight. A sad commentary that is now at America's doorstep aided by a President that says we are not a Christian nation. The numbers of Christians in the U.S. still predominate. What Obama should have said while on his apology tour is that he is not Christian.

Sadly, Islam is a religion that perverts Christianity. The inhabitants of Arabia were descendants of Ishmael, son of Abraham and half brother of Isaac. They were heathen, worshipping idols and believing in many gods. In this heathen country of Arabia a boy was born in the city of Mecca named Mohammed in 570 AD. As a youth he was a shepherd and later became a merchant where his travels took him to many countries meeting Jews and Christians and learned something of their religions. Mohammed claimed to have received a revelation from the angel Gabriel, resulting in him forming a new religion he called Islam.

The teachings of Mohammed were later collected and written in a book called the Koran, which is the sacred book of the followers of Islam. Mohammed's fundamental teaching is: There is but one God (Allah), and Mohammed is his prophet. The followers of Islam, called Muslims sum up their religion in the saying: Allah is great, and Mohammed is his prophet.

Mohammed gained a few converts, but most of the people of Mecca believed in many gods and did not like his teachings and the opposition grew so great that in 622 he and his followers had to flee Mecca to the city of Medina. This flight is called the Hegira. In Medina, Mohammed's teachings were warmly received, and with the help of his converts in ten years' time he made himself master of Arabia. The influence of Islam did not die with Mohammed in 632, and over the next hundred years the crescent moon lay across northern Africa with one point resting on Asia Minor and the other on France. It appeared that the crescent moon might become full and that all of Europe might become Muslim until the Battle of Tours repulsed the Arab invaders and halted the advance of Islam into Europe.

Of course, Islamic and Christian hatred was exacerbated during the period of the Crusades (1096-1291); the military expeditions encouraged by the Catholic Church for the purpose of wresting the Holy Land and its sacred places from the hands of the Muslims.

The arithmetic is simple and almost irreversible. Will another Charles Martel arise? With the Muslims growing and Obama dismantling the republic, it is a good time to remember the scriptural admonition of being in this world…..not of this world.

Brinksmanship as a Governing Strategy

2009-06-08T23:25:00.003-05:00

The term brinksmanship was first introduced into the American lexicon in the 50’s as part of the Cold War vernacular. Brinksmanship is simply the strategy of pursuing a desired outcome by pushing a highly dangerous situation to the limit (brink) rather than concede.

My experience with brinksmanship was forged in the crucible of labor negotiations as the corporate head of labor negotiations, representing the company in labor contract negotiations with the unions. The symbiotic relationship between management and the union, seeking mutual self interest, was hard baked into the economy of the industry, where profitability, jobs, and growth were an immutable part of the economic equation of bargaining. Under ideal circumstances each side sought an enlightened approach to differences that would hopefully result in win/win solutions. Our approach was guided by Fisher and Ury’s principles of win/win negotiations as captured in their classic book Getting to Yes.

Brinksmanship is a seldom used strategy in labor negotiations any longer, by either management or labor, primarily because of the long lasting, if not permanent, consequences of executing a successful brinksmanship strategy. The scars from a strike or work stoppage create wounds that are slow healing, sometimes requiring a generation for recovery.

On the international political stage, brinksmanship has a history punctuated by two particularly monumental examples:
1.) President JFK’s stand down of the Soviet Union in 1962, over the Cuban Missile Crisis when he demanded the removal of all ballistic missile capability from Cuba while ordering a naval blockade of Cuba. Soviet Chairman Khrushchev accused Kennedy of pushing mankind "to the abyss of a world missile-nuclear war." Khrushchev backed down and ordered cancellation of missile deployment in return for an American promise not to invade Cuba.
2.) President Ronald Reagan’s "peace through strength" defense philosophy was the hallmark of his administration and was directly responsible for the economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union from super power status. During his presidency Reagan increased defense spending by 35%, 7% of the GDP. Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), included the creation of an anti-missile defense system dubbed Star Wars that caused the Soviet Union to raise the share of its defense spending from 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP in 1989, while it froze the production of civilian goods at 1980 levels and ultimately caused Soviet Chairman Gorbachev to throw in the towel – no mas.

As the nation now stands at the crossroads of socialism and capitalism, I am reminded of Winston Churchill’s words on Socialism, a philosophy that I consider as anachronistic as organized labor, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” Churchill went on to contrast capitalism with socialism, in the negative in typical Churchillian fashion – “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

From Churchill to Obama is a distance of galactic proportion, but that’s where we are today, riding the Obama crisis creating brinksmanship machine, hell bent on driving the United States into a socialistic state.

Brinksmanship is the coin of the realm of the Obama administration and its shibboleth is expressed simply by the President’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel – “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste”.

Well it seems that everything is a crisis today and Obama is directing the brinksmanship. The crises are established once the President opts for the state solution (borrowing or printing money) over a free market solution (Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand). Both are painful, but only one offers an ultimate solution. This administration is choosing the wrong solution for every problem all guaranteed to collapse in a heap of broken dreams and disillusionment, while eviscerating the very soul of America.

Don’t expect to hear accuracy in projections from Obama – unemployment numbers, new jobs or saved jobs, national debt, revenue, medically uninsured, illegal aliens, Muslims, et al. Prevarication is the cornerstone (the end justifies the means) of any good community organizer raised under the teachings of Chicago radical Saul Alinsky. Alinsky’s two books Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals greatly influenced Barack Obama the community organizer. I suspect that Obama can more easily quote from these two books than he can from either The Holy Bible or The Koran.

Saul Alinsky states in his first book that “War is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play.” Perhaps nowhere is the sheer evil of the content and intent more clearly stated than the dedication of his Rules for Radicals – “From all our legends, mythology, and history (and who knows where mythology leaves off and history begins- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer."

The Obama Imperial presidency with its 21 czars, more than a Russian dynasty, from the bail out czar to the latest cyber-security czar operate without legislative oversight and report only to Obama.

Make no mistake about it, Obama and his party have created a finely tuned democracy destroying machine moving at a break neck pace ready to move to the brink.

24 and More

2009-05-19T23:24:00.005-05:00

Okay, I'll admit I began watching the blockbuster TV series 24 late in the game, five years late to be precise. The show proved to be everything and more of what I had heard; a series that has literally redefined the action/drama genre. Whole new levels of suspense and complexity executed at an intense breakneck pace with a juxtaposition of images that leaves you as exhausted at the end of each episode as counter terrorist agent, the indefatigable Jack Bauer…..but ready to tackle the next round of challenges with renewed vigor. This uber espionage fare is quite a departure from my normal staple (after the college football season) of Fox News, TCM, and The Antique Road Show. 24 is the perfect escape vehicle and antidote to the pervasive realities of Obamaland.

A major part of the immense appeal of 24 is the eschewing of political correctness (as in real life, in 24 enhanced interrogation produces results) and exercise of red blooded Americanism - a refreshing change in the all too familiar, predictable, and overarching landscape of TV series’ content and plot, where the Holy Grail is a pronounced left wing bias. No less a paragon of the American way, Rush Limbaugh is an avid fan of the series having visited the set and receives advance DVDs of 24 episodes from the producers. So from all appearances it seemed that 24 was firmly entrenched as a bastion of action and excitement untainted by far left moralizing. It’s hard to use “far left” and “moralizing” together without thinking that you’ve created an oxymoron.

As season seven of 24 concluded this week I was left with a strong sense of disappointment and betrayal. I suspect my enthusiasm for the series blinded me to the reality that in the entertainment business – actors, writers, producers, et al, are almost exclusively liberal in their ideology, and it would simply be a matter of time before their hard left orthodoxy would be unsubtly ingrained into episode content. My first rude awakening was seeing the 24 actors – Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer), Carlos Bernard (Tony Almeida), Cherry Jones (Allison Taylor) and Janeane Garofalo (Janis Gold) all pitching a public service message warning of global warming.

The presence of Garofalo, a radical liberal atheist comedienne (sic) in real life, in the cast of 24 fits about as well as hiring Dr. James Dobson as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine. Clearly a change is underway. Several snatches of dialogue further revealed the not so subtle shift….Bauer responding to Gold regarding racial profiling, “I don’t like racial profiling anymore than you do.” Bauer on his apparent death bed is prayed to by an Imam who offers a prayer that is neither Christian nor Islamic, but pop psychology, “You must forgive yourself first.” Bauer advising the female FBI agent not to torture the man responsible for killing thousands with a biochemical bomb in order to gain critical information. Season seven moved aggressively to sympathetically portray Muslims and show counter terrorism as barbaric and cruel.

So much for 24 as an escape from Obama and central planning; it’s back to the current panoply of events that embraces Ralph Waldo Emerson’s admonition that consistency is the “hobgoblin of small minds”.

Obama has now flipped on releasing the photos of enhanced interrogation techniques in action. Again showing that this administration is largely driven by polls, since 60% of Americans do not want these photos published. Don’t expect Obama to flip on abortions, even though for the first time in over ten years the majority of Americans oppose abortion according to the latest Gallup poll. Obama has received a funding rebuff from Congress on the Gitmo evacuation until a specific plan for evacuation is presented, while Democrat Senator Jim Webb has publically denounced the closing of Gitmo. Get ready for government/union ownership policies of the auto industry with the new CAFÉ standards and with FIAT owning Chrysler the death knell of the American auto industry has sounded.

The mendacious Speaker of the House in her fifth version maintains that she was purposely misled by the CIA. Don’t expect Pelosi to apologize, or better yet resign, until the polls shift from being evenly split according to a Rasmussen Poll on whether she or the CIA lied, a pretty sad commentary on the state of the populace today but could change if the public's dissatisfaction with her performance gets much higher than 58%. How about that madcap of a Vice President Joe Biden, who tells the Gridiron Club in DC where the bunker was located for Dick Cheney.
Walt Disney could not have created two more cartoonish buffoon characters than this dynamic duo. Pray for Obama’s protection with this succession lineup.

In the face of higher than expected projected unemployment figures, White House Budget Director, Peter Orszag said the U.S. economy appears to have bottomed out. Alright Pete, whatever you say.

Thirty Three percent of Americans now favor gay civil unions and the coup de grace of recent polls – 23% of voters claim to be Republican and 53% Democrats, not unlike the exponential growth of Islam.

Now for a new escape since 24 no longer meets the escape criteria. A place where one is transported to environs that afford the certitude of truth, honor, and duty, where hard work is rewarded and evil is punished….Andy of Mayberry. Where the world remains on its axis and a cast of characters representing humanity with all its pretenses, follies, kindness, and nobility in full view through the characters of Andy, Opie, Aunt Bea, Barney, Gomer, Floyd, Otis and others. I know that there must be at least 25 episodes that I haven’t seen. I feel better already.