op ed review 12/12
-Thomas Jefferson
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
More than 50 percent of Americans say they are worse off now than they were two years ago when President Barack Obama took office, and two-thirds believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.
Slowly, painfully and reluctantly, congressional Democrats are slogging their way toward acceptance of President Obama's tax cut compromise, which would let rich and poor Americans keep Bush-era tax cuts that were scheduled to expire this month.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7331363.html
Some Republicans aren’t happy with the tax cut package: Sen.-elect Rand Paul of Kentucky added his voice to the chorus of dissenters. "If you're going to extend and add new tax cuts, you should couple them with cuts in spending," the Kentucky Republican told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "Instead, we're coupling them with increases in spending, and I think that's the wrong thing to do.”
Charles Krauthammer says Republicans have been swindled. “Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/09/AR2010120904472.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
On the other hand, “President Obama has made a fatal political mistake: He has shattered his progressive base - perhaps permanently. His liberal hour is over. This is the real meaning of the White House's tax deal with Republicans. Contrary to the administration's spin, the agreement is not a "compromise." It is a surrender - an ideological betrayal of the Democrats' central economic principles.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/9/obamas-final-betrayal/
Noonan: “We have not in our lifetimes seen a president in this position. He spent his first year losing the center, which elected him, and his second losing his base, which is supposed to provide his troops. There isn't much left to lose!”
The Senate on Thursday dealt a severe blow to the repeal of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” law.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/132745-senate-fails-on-repeal-of-dont-ask-dont-tell
Liberals were outraged, the New York Times called it “one of the most shameful days in the modern history of the Senate”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/opinion/10fri1.html?_r=1&hp
This year's omnibus spending bill refuses to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and would block the transfer of any suspected terrorist detainees to the United States in what appears to be the final blow for President Obama's campaign pledge to shutter the facility.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/8/congress-deals-death-blow-gitmo-closure/
Representative Ron Paul, Texas Republican and author of “End the Fed,” will take control of the House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve.
Nine new Republican women won seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. This surpasses the previous high mark of seven newly-elected Republican women in a single election.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40439
The Obama administration has quietly issued even more waivers to allow companies to duck out of a provision of ObamaCare, with half of them granted in the past three weeks. The total now stands at 222.
http://www.floort.com/show.php/8077
And thanks to one of the 2800 pages that apparently no one in Congress read before voting on the bill, the new law has drug manufacturers canceling discounts to childrens’ hospitals that helped provide medicine to children suffering from rare diseases. The change will cost these hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars.
http://amerpundit.com/2010/12/09/obamacare-cancels-discount-drug-deals-for-childrens-hospitals/
Kiss goodbye to energy independence: “A new analysis of government data by the Western Energy Alliance shows a 79 percent drop in the number of energy development leases offered by the federal government on public lands in the Rocky Mountain region states…”
Electricity company Exelon said it will close the nation's oldest nuclear power plant in 2019 — 10 years earlier than planned. "...environmental compliance costs based on evolving water cooling regulatory requirements — created significant regulatory and economic uncertainty,"
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12347997
Meanwhile China has 30 nuclear power plants under construction.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS376800032720101207
A child nutrition bill championed by the first lady and on its way to President Barack Obama gives the federal government power to limit school bake sales and other fundraisers.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/dec/05/law-gets-frosty-reception/
Another Christmas Eve, another sixth of the economy taken over by Washington. President Obama's FCC is obsessed with regulating the Internet.
http://biggovernment.com/pkerpen/2010/12/01/congress-must-stop-fccs-internet-regulations/
Your tax dollars at work: Many American colleges and universities are steering their students toward a new source of “financial aid”: food stamps. “This may be a little surprising given that food stamps were created to help struggling poor people, not heavily-subsidized and frequently-idle college kids.”
China reportedly has launched a new crackdown on “house churches,” Protestant congregations that do not belong to the country’s state-sanctioned, “patriotic” church organization. In an ominous development, authorities allegedly have labeled the house church movement a “cult.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/china-declares-christian-house-churches
The WikiLeaks de facto declassification of privileged material makes it case closed: Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- and intended to restart his program once the heat was off.
Zero tolerance idiocy: A sixteen year old honor roll student in Montana is at risk of having her college education derailed and maybe even being identified forever as a domestic terrorist. Why? She went hunting over Thanksgiving with family and friends. She forgot that her unloaded hunting rifle was cased and locked in the trunk of her car.”
http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/hbo/2010/dec/08/model-studenthunter-faces-expulsion/
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Peter Heck 12/5/10
In fifty years I have little doubt that we will regard the administration of Barack Obama as the presidency that saved America. No, not in the sense that Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and all the other media John the Baptists foretold as they proclaimed the coming of our political messiah just over two years ago. Rather, the history of our time will show that it was the radical nature of Obama's dogged devotion to a liberal progressive philosophy far out of the American mainstream that jolted awake a generation of apathetic and passive citizens just in time to save the republic.
Though that apathy has always been inexcusable, it was at least understandable. Our politics had become more theater than substance. In fact, voters reasonably began to view their choices at the ballot box as something akin to picking between airline food and hospital food: bland, insipid, uninspiring.
For all their posturing and crowing, the two parties had largely become mere reflections of one another. Seriously, how different was Bill Clinton's "triangulation" and George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism?" Candidates of either party who showed convictions contrary to the Washington establishment and challenged that establishment's control were labeled radical, and every attempt was made to marginalize them.
But Barack Obama changed all of that. For the last two years, the president has unleashed the most aggressively left-wing agenda he could muster. When the electorate began a backlash against his revolutionary designs at town halls and tea parties, he ignored them. And when they rejected his ideology by throwing his party out of power by historic proportions in the midterm elections, he pretended not to notice.
All this makes little sense to those attempting to view Obama's presidency through the conventional prism of political leadership. But Obama is not a conventional politician. He is a radical ideologue. Obama is not a leader. He is a bitter partisan. And as odd as it sounds, that is exactly what this country needed.
It has been generations since Americans have been exposed to a more vivid depiction of the significant differences between the left's and the right's views of this country and its future. The delineation between conservative and liberal had grown hopelessly blurred to a majority of citizens. But Obama and his leftist cabal have been successful not only in demonstrating the frightening vision progressive liberals have of making America into a European-style socialist state, but they have also managed to animate a vast conservative majority that has laid painfully dormant since the mid 1980s.
The distinction is glaring, and even for those who normally avoid politics, impossible to miss.
While Americans watch conservative Republicans like Eric Cantor explain that raising taxes on any citizens in the midst of a recession (particularly those who are being relied upon to invest and expand businesses to create jobs) is foolish, they see President Obama proclaim that "we can't afford" not to raise taxes on a group of citizens he determines are too wealthy.
Besides the glaring proof this offers of the left's obsession with using divisive class warfare to gain power, it also reveals a notable difference in philosophy. While conservatives like Cantor believe money belongs first to the citizen and is confiscated by government, leftists like Obama believe money belongs first to the government. That government then lets select citizens keep some of it if and only if government "can afford" to be so generous….
Everywhere they turn, Americans see that the left is offering higher taxes, less freedom, more debt and regulation. They simultaneously see the right offering lower taxes, freer markets and fiscal sanity….And with a 2012 election cycle that already sees Democrats poised to face even more devastating Congressional losses… Obama's persistent, unapologetic left-wing crusade is shaping up to be the political equivalent to Pickett's Charge.
In the end, the era of Obama will do more damage to the progressive left than any Republican presidency could have ever done. For that, posterity will owe him a debt of gratitude.
Edited from a longer article, read it here:
http://www.peterheck.com/columns/2010_articles/view/186/the_presidency_that_saved_america
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“The Pentagon's poll on "don't ask, don't tell" is beyond idiotic. Instead of asking whether the troops support repeal of DADT, the Pentagon asked only if they can learn to play nice with the gays. Even more absurdly, the Pentagon polled all military "personnel" -- and their spouses! Only a small portion of what is known as "the military" actually does the fighting. The rest is a vast bureaucracy along the lines of the DMV. Today's military features "victim advocates" and sensitivity training facilitators, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services personnel and a million other goo-goo positions. How did we ever take the shores of Normandy without a phalanx of "sensitivity training" counselors?”
-Ann Coulter
"The motive behind the proposed repeal of the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy is ... what, exactly? ... The whole idea of opening military enlistment to professed gays is the furtherance of the gay rights cause. It is what you might call an odd motive indeed for adoption of a military policy with mainly cultural implications. ...The drive to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell' is about political promises to the gay rights movement and the urgency, as liberals see it, of keeping their base happy and voting liberal. Just what the country needs right now -- political and cultural warfare over who fights our wars and on what terms."
-William Murchison
"Obama has implicitly admitted that his economic strategy has flopped. He is acknowledging that tax rates matter to growth, that treating business like robber barons has hurt investment and hiring, and that tax cuts are superior to spending as stimulus. It took 9.8% unemployment and a loss of 63 House seats for this education to sink in, but the country will benefit."
-Wall Street Journal
"At a [recent] news conference, Attorney General Eric Holder assured the nation that his people are diligently looking into possible legal action against WikiLeaks. Where has Holder been? The WikiLeaks exposure of Afghan War documents occurred five months ago. Holder is looking now at possible indictments? This is a country where a good prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Months after the first leak, Justice's thousands of lawyers have yet to prepare charges against Julian Assange and his confederates?”
-Charles Krauthammer
"Sadly, I don't think there's a government program that will turn around our culture's shifting attitudes about marriage. Unfortunately, perhaps due to our cultural distaste for doing hard things, negative attitudes are evident in our view of the institution itself. According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, 39 percent of Americans now say marriage is obsolete. More importantly, 34 percent of Americans said the growing variety of family living arrangements is good for society, while only 32 percent said it didn't make a difference and just 29 percent said it was troubling. Count me among the 29 percent. The decline of traditional marriages and the families on which they are built is taking an economic, social and spiritual toll on our nation. Reigniting our culture's commitment to commitment -- even one that is truly daunting -- is the key to revitalizing our families and communities. Nobody said marriage was easy. But in every way you can measure what is good for people and society, it's worth the effort."
-Marybeth Hicks
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LEFTIST WATCH
Can anyone spot the liberal bias in this opening news line: “The conservative-dominated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has published a report criticizing the Justice Department for its handling of voting rights accusations against the New Black Panther Party.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101206/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_investigation_black_panthers
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann Compares Obama’s Tax Compromise with Nazi Appeasement
http://www.imdb.com/news/ni6037202/
“An Army private jailed for allegedly leaking sensitive military data is a hero and should be freed”, according to a resolution under consideration by the Berkeley City Council.
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/12/08/berzerkley-vs-america-part-99999/
Sen. Mary Landrieu: “Allowing Wealthy Americans to Keep Their Money Is “Almost Morally Corrupt”
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GLOBALONEY
“A group of top NASA scientists says that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise. “
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/new_model_doubled_co2_sub_2_degrees_warming/
South Floridians woke up Tuesday morning to cold temperatures that broke a 169 year record.
James Delingpole: “Brrrrr! It's the Warmest Year Ever!”...One of the things that makes hectoring, joke-free comedian Marcus Brigstocke weally, WEALLY cwoss are people who go: “If global warming is happening how come it’s so cold outside?”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100066901/brrrrr-its-the-warmest-year-ever/
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ISLAM
Jihadis bent on concocting a "new kind of terrorism" are brainstorming how to surgically implant explosives to make undetectable Frankenbombers. "What is your opinion about surgeries through which I can implant the bomb ...inside the operative's body?" an apparent mad surgeon recently asked an online forum used by Al Qaeda affiliates.
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FILM
Even the liberal Washington Post can’t take it: “Hollywood myth-making on Valerie Plame controversy. Hollywood has a habit of making movies about historical events without regard for the truth; "Fair Game" is just one more example. But the film's reception illustrates a more troubling trend of political debates in Washington in which established facts are willfully ignored. Mr. Wilson claimed that he had proved that Mr. Bush deliberately twisted the truth about Iraq, and he was eagerly embraced by those who insist the former president lied the country into a war. Though it was long ago established that Mr. Wilson himself was not telling the truth - not about his mission to Niger and not about his wife - the myth endures. We'll join the former president in hoping that future historians get it right.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120306298.html
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ARTICLES
As earthshaking as they were, last month's election results could be just a tremor compared with the quake that could take place in 2012.
JR Dunn: Long but insightful article, “Multiculturalism Hits the Wall” “The battle against terror is a race between rationality and luck. We have been very lucky so far -- lucky over Detroit, lucky in Times Square, lucky in Dallas, and lucky in Portland. But luck, as Fort Hood clearly reveals, won't last forever. When it fails, rationality -- intelligence, common sense, and trained intuition -- must be ready to take over. Multiculturalism is the enemy of all those factors. It is a set of blinders creating a state of tunnel vision. There are things that multiculturalism forbids us to look at. Soon enough, the attacks will begin coming from those directions, from out of those blind spots. The record clearly shows that we will not be ready to meet them.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/multiculturalism_hits_the_wall.html
“The ten top ways the liberal view of reality resembles a Disney movie”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/12/how_liberalism_is_like_a_disne.html
Could Hillary Clinton become the highest profile casualty of the Wikileaks scandal? In Bahrain last Friday, a tired looking Secretary of State declared she would definitely not be running for president in 2012 (no real surprise there), but far more significantly stated that her current role would be “my last public position”.
“Dial down the deafening Sarah Palin buzz for just a moment: The most consequential decision in the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes could be whether Mike Huckabee decides to run again – and associates say the former Arkansas governor may well take the plunge.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45987.html
Former Republican governors Sarah Palin of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts took different paths in how they supported candidates in the closing days of the 2010 campaign, as they both collect chits for possible presidential runs, according to a National Journal Daily analysis of Federal Election Commission reports. The scorecard suggests that Romney is spreading goodwill amongst the establishment, putting him in a better position to win the support of key Republicans in the nominating process.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has swiftly become a superstar in the political firmament. His stands for the taxpayers and against wasteful government spending have exhibited the type of tough decision-making people have been waiting for among our politicians; his forceful stands against the public unions and the stranglehold they have over our lives and futures have become YouTube hits. He is the real Governator, not like that pretender in California. Governor Christie has been touted as a future GOP candidate for the presidency.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/obamas_war_on_chris_christie.html
Spengler: “How could the Tea Party elect five senators and 40 members of the United States Congress last November, none with political experience and many with evident eccentricities? The answer is that a single issue united a slapdash agglomeration of amateurs, with sufficient power to override all the sources of weakness. The Tea Party represents creditors of the government who do not want to be cheated out of their savings; that is, people close to retirement age who fear slow confiscation by inflation…”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/LL07Aa01.html
Fifteen-year-old students in the U.S. ranked 25th of 34 countries on an international math test and scored in the middle of the pack in science and reading, raising concerns the U.S. isn’t prepared to succeed in the global economy. Teenagers from South Korea and Finland led in almost all academic categories…..U.S. students ranked 17th in science and 14th in reading. The U.S. government considers the OECD test one of the most comprehensive measures of international achievement.
Just What Do They Mean by ‘Net Neutrality’? Some mean they don't want Comcast seeing your data, but more nefarious types mean "Internet Fairness Doctrine."
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/just-what-do-they-mean-by-net-neutrality/?singlepage=true
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Christmas approaches, conservative merchandise makes good gifts.
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/political
http://www.zazzle.com/veertotheright/gifts?cg=196754911225841849
http://www.politicalgifts.com/gopshopyours.html
http://www.republicanmarket.com/store/home
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HUMOR
What if we had an Italian President from New Jersey?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avw0n9b2o9U
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LATE NITE
Jay Leno: Because of a printing error, a billion new $100 bills have to be destroyed. They're going to burn $100 billion dollars -- just like they did with the last stimulus program……Do you know that president Obama is into re-gifting? In fact, he just gave the Republicans the tax cuts he inherited from President Bush…. I’ll give you an idea how bad it is for him now. Now Democrats want to see his birth certificate…….China is holding about a trillion dollars in U.S. debt. Next time you go for Chinese food and the bill comes, tell them to put it on the tab…… The majority of women say they don’t need presents and they just look forward to spending time with their mates on Christmas. Guys, it’s a trick.
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WISE WORDS
"It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome."
-Alexander Hamilton
posted by gary at
12:08 PM
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