Less celebrated is the profound misunderstanding inherent in Powell’s ideas which betray a thinly veiled liberal mind. Powell asserts that in order to appeal to liberals, the Republican party must stop listening to Rush, and it goes without saying, all others of his ilk.
What Powell clearly does not understand as a liberal, inexplicably pretending to be a conservative, is that in the market economy of ideas, supply meets demand; this is in contrast to the centrally planned economy of ideas which liberals fantasize where ideas are handed down to workers from the central committee.
Rush, Medved, Hewitt and Hannity have millions more patrons than Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews because they meet demand not create it. Sarah Palin did not push the party to the right in the waning days of the campaign. Conservatives reacted to seeing an actual conservative on the stage. You can put all the conservative talkers in the gulag and there will be new ones tomorrow. Legislate them off the AM dial and they will move to the satellite.
Governor Paterson’s suggested beverage tax in New York, proves the point about the liberal desire to over-reach. The proposed tax revives the nagging discussion about how Americans have become obese victims of fast food advertising and a complete lack of regulation controlling our ability to eat unrestricted quantities of pizza and donuts. Only the government can save us from our own gluttony?
Consider the efficacy of intrusive and regulations in the mortgage market. In order to ensure that no hapless borrowers are victimized while getting a home loan, the process includes about 3,000 impenetrable documents your lawyer couldn’t read in a week. Thanks to this shield of regulation, only half of your neighbors now claim they were the victims of mortgage fraud and bad mortgages are sinking our economy.
Principles made the Republican party great; limited government, lower taxes and a strong national defense. Many Americans still understand their power. If they are now a minority so be it. Powell describes these principles as our “baser instincts.” If only the party of Lincoln could could elevate their thinking to something truly noble and extra-constitutional like dictating the American diet, we would really be on the road to recovery.
Talk about defining deviancy down. If the incessant “rock star” tenor of the presidential campaign was not syrupy enough to trigger your gag reflex, today’s school girl euphoria over shirtless Obama photos may be the thing. I hope someone has revived Chris Matthews.
Yes, this does reflect poorly on Obama’s supporters in the media because it lays bare, so to speak, the depth of their thinking about Obama. While the President elect is being questioned in connection with the potentially criminal behavior of his closest political advisors, so called journalists are swooning over his physique. How do we rate the relative merits of Obama against say Stephen Harper? It’s hard to say. Most people don’t know who Stephen Harper is because his staff hasn’t arranged for him to appear shirtless on a beach. So there really isn’t much to talk about.
This is further evidence of genius in the Obama camp however. When the dialogue about the President centers on his next quote in Men’s Health, there is little room to be disappointed in his handling of trade policy. All the Obama team has to do is toss their lapdogs in the press a little beef stick and their short term memory is reset.
The financial world is reeling from another body blow delivered by native son, Bernie Maddof , who stands accused of orchestrating a record breaking Ponzi scheme.
A Ponzi scheme involves paying established “investors” with money taken from new investors to perpetuate a ”business” that does not actually generate promised returns. The only way to prolong the scheme is to continually bring in new investor money. The sham collapses when “management” can no longer bring in new “investors.”
President Bush announced today that he will usurp the ”power of the purse” given to Congress by the Constitution, by giving $14 Billion to the auto industry.
Bush will take money from taxpayers ( investors ) and use the money to sustain two sham companies, GM and Chrysler, which, like Madoff Securities, exist not to enrich shareholders but to sustain the parasitic UAW. In 4 months they will need more cash or they will be forced to declare bankruptcy.
Absent the halo of government benevolence that accompanies all extra constitutional redistribution of wealth these days, what exactly is the difference between White House actions today the actions Bernie Madoff was arrested for?
Comical and vaguely unsettling at the same time to see the reduction of American Capitalism to this scene. “Captains of Industry” driving 10 hours in tiny wind-up clown cars for an opportunity to exhibit greater meekness and contrition before Congress and the American people; neither of which can apparently do basic math. If Alan Mulally makes $20 million a year, the extra 6 hours it takes him to drive to Washington costs the shareholders ( remember the shareholders ) about $60,000. It’s the same kind of logic that makes it okay for Pelosi and Reid to pour $34 billion down the Detroit drain if only the executives are solicitous enough. If they dress up in big clown shoes and wear a dunce cap, can they get more cash? Somehow this self-flagellation is all the political cover needed to compensate for “business plans” which involve taxpayers contributing billions while the automakers keep doing the same thing for a few more months.
Behind the silly stunts and play acting this is a serious high stakes deal in which the Congress is spending money we don’t have to buy the loyalty of misinformed and misguided union voters. The American automakers are bankrupt now not because of the economic downturn but because they are bad businesses. We are not going to right the American economy by artifically animating dead businesses.
Obama is now backing away from his plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts. His campaign promise to pay for $4 trillion in new spending by squeezing the filthy rich (aka those making more than $250k a year) and repealing Bush’s modest tax cuts to the rest of us seemed sound. Astonishingly though, It turns out that raising taxes on anyone in the middle of a recession is not such a hot idea. Reality intrudes and the tax cuts stay.
This actually seems to be part of a larger pattern as Obama transitions into office and, as a conservative, I couldn’t be more pleased. As he fills out his cabinet and makes other appointments, I get the distinct feeling that we could possibly have done worse in some ways if McCain had won. Don’t get me wrong: I fully expect my conservative sensibilities to be deeply offended before long. But it’s interesting that the guy who ran around the world talking about bankrupting the coal industry, raising a civilian army (?), closing Gauntanamo, and causing the oceans to recede appears to be preparing to govern from the center. Funny how things change when you actually have to make the decisions that effect 300 million people’s lives.
Which brings me to President Bush. Liberals love to pronounce him the “Worst President In The History Of Our Country.” And possibly in the history of the universe! Of course history will be the judge of that. And history’s judgment will be based in part on the fact that our country hasn’t been attacked in more than seven years. I was thinking of this as I was reading Mark Steyn’s excellent column on the intricately planned terrorist attack in India this week.
As Steyn points out, there is a reason why this hasn’t happened in America recently. And it’s because when he’s not shredding copies of the constitution and listening in on my phone calls, President Bush is making the hard decisions that are necessary to protect our country. Obama will have to decide if he is going to honor every promise he’s made to those on his far-left flank, or if he’s going to make the same difficult decisions that President Bush has made in order to keep us safe.
It’s probably too much to expect Obama to keep Guantanamo open, but I look forward to the reaction from his multitudes of liberal fans when they discover that his foreign policy is not the ”change” they were hoping for. Faced with out current reality, liberal dreams of “hope” and “change” will likely be dashed. And many of President Bush’s decisions will be validated as Obama decides he has no choice but to continue with the status quo.
Critics in the objective and unbiased media are mesmerized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint’s involvement in California’s Proposition 8. The Church is well organized and quick to mobilize. Membership includes many productive, prosperous families willing to work for a cause they believe in. As a result, the LDS Church is widely recognized in this country and by governments abroad as an important ally in the effort to fight hunger, improve literacy and provide medical care for those in need.
It is worth noting that Mormon’s support of Prop 8 has not involved discussion about how their opponents are strange, spooky, or weird. On the other hand, the proponents of gay-marriage, failing to make their case with the voters of California, have defaulted to shrill, vitriolic attacks on the Mormon’s.
Mounting a rebuttal along the lines of ”Hey, your pretty weird and a lot of people don’t like you” might make your arguments look weak to the thinkers in the crowd. The Mormon’s have been listening to this kind criticism for a long time now. Remember when Lilburn Boggs made it legal to shoot Mormon’s in Missouri. Critics have been predicting that the “Mormon Moment” is passed for more than 160 years to no effect. It’s enough to make you wonder.
Critics should focus on an honest debate about the virtues of their cause. Predicting the worst for the Mormons or blaming them for society’s ills has proven ineffective. Note that Pundits still consider two Mormons as top potential presidential possibilities for 2012. Among those campaigning in Georgia for Saxby Chambliss, it’s worth noting that McCain and Palin rallies were free. Romney still commands $2,500 per couple among conservative supporters.
Marriage is the very substance of our society, our lives and who we are as human beings. There is nothing more essential, or eternal than human love and the family. That makes this debate emotional and consequently contentious. Gay activists and their supporters in the totally unbiased and objective media are seeking to exploit that emotion and an easy target instead of making their case.
New York Times Editorial Writer, Maureen Dowd, is quick to associate Mormons, Catholics and other ominous “church backed” conspirators with graphic descriptions of the death of Harvey Milk; the late gay activist.
Dowd interviewed Dianne Feinstein who talks in detail about the horror of finding Milk’s body and placing her fingers in a bullet hole to find a pulse. That’s going to leave an impression on anyone and it’s true that Church groups exercised their first amendment rights to support an issue they feel strongly about. Their support of that effort did not involve damaging any property, making threats against opponents and of course it did not involve violence.
Dowd’s effort to associate those who supported Prop 8 with the psychology of a murderer is as dishonest as it is telling.
I have been watching the coverage of the ongoing tragedy in Mumbai and I have yet to hear anyone on CNN or the Networks name the perpetrators as Muslim Terrorists even though a Muslim terror group has claimed responsibility. I wonder if the NYT will be as quick to name names in the gruesome deaths of hundreds this weekend as they are to make a vague association between the actions of Dan White 30 years ago and the majority of California voters, including some churches today.
True to form, the NRO staff has cut through all the hysteria and laid bare the facts about opposition to Prop 8 and the involvement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. As I have stated on this page before, opposition to gay marriage is rooted in a Judeo-Christian religious ethic. While clergy are often the spokespersons for traditional marriage, the explicit root of their common support is never explicitly defined. By the same token, pro-gay animosity towards organized christian religion is rarely called a spade.
Gay activists recognize that anti-Mormon sentiment is common and socially acceptable even among many conservatives and Christians. Attacks on the Mormons are a shrewd attempt to play conservatives against each other and they have good reason to think this will be an effective strategy.
Mitt Romney, whose propensity to adapt policy positions was no more pronounced than any of the other republican primary candidates, was manifestly more the viable conservative candidate that John McCain. Mike Huckabee was not a viable candidate but Evangelical Christians’ distaste for Mitt superceded their fear of an Obama presidency and a 3 branch liberal majority. Their support for Huckabee assured a McCain candidacy and loss.
Where are the spokespeople for other Christian organizations who supported prop 8, now that the Mormon church is being singled out in post election aftermath? The same Christian organizations are now reluctant to voice support for the LDS church even though it hurts not only the immediate cause but makes more likely the possibility of serious consequences down the road. The same lack of fore-site that led to a futile McCain candidacy will hurt all organized religion as the pro-gay agenda is shepherded through the courts by pro-gay activist judges.
Despite adamant protestations to the contrary, the current struggle over same-sex marriage goes way beyond a simple desire to redefine marriage.
Business Week reports that the on-line matchmaker eharmony.com will launch a new service catering to same-sex couples. A private company, founded by a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, has been compelled by the government to do something to which they object on principle. No laws were broken. Activist bureaucrats need only the most mild pretense of offense in order to “man-handle” the unenlightened.
The LA Times reports that Eric McKinley complained to the New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights after finding that eharmony would not help him find a gay partner. This is not Rosa Parks being displaced on a bus in Montgomery Alabama. There is no natural right to an electronicaly generated romance. Mr. McKinely’s misplaced and misdirected frustration is broadly representative of the gay community which resents Americans who object to same-sex marriage as a matter of moral or religious principle. Will the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights be pursuing matchmaker sights which cater to the Gay and Lesbian Community?
It’s only reasonable to speculate about what’s next since social trends and legislation are progressive. What about movie studios who blatantly disregard the rights of gay Americans, producing movies which appeal to a heterosexual audience? What happens when Mr. McKinley finds himself at a bar or restaurant which he feels does not cater specifically to the needs and preferences of gay patrons? How do the tax payer funded gay activists at the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights feel about web-sites that that produce opinion content objectionable to gay Americans?
Since union labor is working so well for Detroit, expanding their influence in the rest of the economy only makes sense right?
As Holman Jenkins, points out in the WSJ this week, It’s well within the realm of possibility to make cars in the nation that God and capitalism built and earn a healthy profit doing it. Unions however have proven to be a back-breaker. As the financial crisis spins ever more wildly out of control, American auto makers pose a real systemic threat. The threat is almost completely self-imposed and unions are mostly to blame. Detroit will always be a shadow of its former glory, hooked up to life support if it can’t normalize its cost structure.
President elect Obama now must solidify his agenda and that means paying up. Unions are near the front of the payback line and they expect President Obama to support the Employee Free Choice Act, which eliminates private ballots as unions try to organize. It’s obviously a lot easier for the union muscle to target their “recruiting” efforts if they know who is standing in the way of the workers utopia.
It really makes you wonder how all the Americans making cars for Mercedes, Toyota and Honda are surviving the squalor and the depravity of those non-unionized plants. Where are the 20/20 exposes about the abuses and misery of these non-unionized workers? The New York Times can’t even make something up?
The Employee Free Choice Act raises another question. How long until we liberate some other special interest groups by making elections totally free and open and public? When will we address unjust ballot initiatives like proposition 8 by ensuring that everyone can see their fellow citizens’ vote? Isn’t that the only way to ensure fairness and “free choice?”
The widening probe of insider trading on Wall Street is expected to examine transactions at Steven A. Cohen's SAC, one of America's largest and most successful hedge funds.
Traditionally, the super-rich didn't bother with mortgages, but that changed in the boom years -- and it is still going on. Recent big-time borrowers include hedge-fund titans and baseball magnates.
Obama will face new friction in China over his choice to limit Chinese imports to the U.S. and views that he hasn't done enough to overhaul the financial system.
PELOSI’S HEALTH MONSTER: As senators remained in the dark late last week about the details of the huge committee-approved Senate healthcare bill, over on the House side of Capitol Hill, Speaker Pelosi last Friday unveiled a 1,990-page bill that, not surprisingly, is loaded with mandates, tax increases and a government-run public option and. . .
