Powers of Congress

We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

Ronald Regan – First Inaugural Address

January 20, 1981

 

Section 8 - Powers of Congress

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Reason With This?

If this is the Arab Street I am guessing that reasoning with him is futile.

Thank You Liberals

The mid-term election is closing in and all talk is about the mess the country is in and it is the fault of either George Bush or the party of No. So, I started thinking about what liberals have done for me in the past four years

First - I am much more politically aware. In the past I have liked some presidents more than others, some I have disliked, but I always thought that our country could overcome a bad one. But the constant hate of George Bush and the Conservatives by the left became more than I could tolerate. My feelings of disgust increased every time one of these people spewed hate. It increased during the 20008 election and became worse daily. If President Bush wasn't blasted, then Sarah Palin was. The media took great delight in this, but could see no wrong whatsoever with Obama. I must admit that I could not believe people wanted Obama more than Senator McCain. I feel that the president, congress and the liberal lefts must really hate America, otherwise how could they be so happy to destroy it. So thank you liberals for making me increase my knowledge of what is going on in our country.

Second - My beliefs toward Christianity have increased greatly. I use to take it for granted. Now I realize that the liberals are trying to take that away from me. You can't criticize any religion, except Christianity. There is freedom of religion for every religion except Christianity. Display of the nativity scene is prohibited. Saying Merry Christmas is no longer acceptable. So thank you liberals for increasing my faith.

Third - I always felt I was patriotic, but now I realize how important our country really is. I was raised where the Pledge of Allegiance was something that was said every day before school with your hand over your heart and men removed their hats. Never were we told not to wave our flag, but it is perfectly acceptable for illegal aliens to wave the flag of the country they were fleeing. So thank you liberals for making me more patriotic and giving me a stronger sense of America while you try to destroy it.

Fourth - respect for our Constitution and the laws of the country that should be followed. Obama wants Supreme Court Justices that think the Constitution should be a document viewed only from their "life experience", not what our forefather wrote. So thank you liberals for increasing my knowledge of our Constitution and our laws.

Fifth - Racism - I thought America was past racism. I did not care if Obama was black, white or half- black half-white. It was his beliefs that were important. So we get the first half black president. Now I see as much racism as in the first half of the last century, but it's different this time. This time it's an excuse. Any criticism of the president is seen by liberals as racism. Any disagreement with liberals is because the opposing side is racist. Obama never mentions his white heritage - is he ashamed of the people that raised him to be what he is today? So thank you liberals for creating a more racist America.

It’s About Me

More Graphical Criticism

Somehow this eases my pain.

I Don’t Know The Man

Obama  was asked, by the press, if he had  ever met Gov. Ron  Blagojevich.
Barack  Obama: "I only saw Rod Blagojevich one  time .... and that was in the stands and from a  distance at a  Chicago  Bears Football  Game."

Rod  Blagojevich, Barack Obama and Richard Daley  during a rally in  Chicago , April 16,  2007.   (Photo  Reuters ) 

 

Other times they were NOT together.

Bulgarian Blue Jeans

P.J. O'Rourke in remarks at Radio Free Europe in Prague:

The free market is not an ideology or a creed or something we're supposed to take on faith, it's a measurement. It's a bathroom scale. I may hate what I see when I step on the bathroom scale, but I can't pass a law saying I weigh 160 pounds. Authoritarian governments think they can pass that law—a law to change the measurement of things.

The Soviet Union didn't collapse because of Reagan or Thatcher or missile bases or Star Wars: It collapsed because of Bulgarian blue jeans. The free market was trying to tell the Communists that Bulgarian blue jeans were ugly and didn't fit, that people wouldn't wear Bulgarian blue jeans — not, literally, to save their lives. But the Kremlin wasn't listening, and the Berlin Wall came down.

Obama closes curtain on transparency

There has not been any transparency so far, but now this.

President Obama has abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency and shunted those duties into the portfolio of a partisan ex-lobbyist who is openly antagonistic to the notion of disclosure by government and politicians.

George and Laura

George and Laura Bush greeted 150 (very surprised) troops as they arrived home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their expressions were so priceless!

Fun With Graphics

 

 

 

 

 

Remember the chart for Hillary Care? This one is even more complex.

The case for impeachment

Every citizen elected to serve in Congress or any person appointed to any federal position, swears an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic."

It is significant that the Founders included domestic enemies in that oath of office. They thought liberty was as much at risk from threats within our borders as from outside.

For the first time in American history, we have a man in the White House who consciously and brazenly disregards his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. That's why I say the greatest threat to our Constitution, our safety and our liberties, is internal. Our president is an enemy of our Constitution, and, as such, he is a danger to our safety, our security and our personal freedoms.

Barack Obama is one of the most powerful presidents this nation has seen in generations. He is powerful because he is supported by large majorities in Congress, but, more importantly, because he does not feel constrained by the rule of law. President Obama is determined to see things done his way regardless of obstacles. Mr. Obama's paramount goal, as he so memorably put it during his campaign in 2008, is to "fundamentally transform America." He has not proposed improving America - he is intent on changing its most essential character.

Mr. Obama is a more serious threat to America than al Qaeda. We know that Osama bin Laden and followers want to kill us, but at least they are an outside force against whom we can offer our best defense. But when a dedicated enemy of the Constitution is working from the inside, we face a far more dangerous threat. Mr. Obama can accomplish with the stroke of his pen what bin Laden cannot accomplish with bombs and insurgents.

Mr. Obama's most egregious and brazen betrayal of our Constitution was his statement to Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, that the administration will not enforce security on our southern border. That is, to put it plainly, a decision that by any reasonable standard constitutes an impeachable offense against the Constitution. For partisan political advantage, he is willfully disregarding his obligation under Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution to protect states from foreign invasion.

Some would-be terrorists, including at least one associated with Hezbollah, already have. Recent reports of contacts between Hezbollah and Mexican drug cartels make it all but certain that terrorists intent on destroying us will come across our southwestern border.

Mr. Obama's refusal to live up to his own oath of office - which includes the duty to defend the United States against foreign invasion - requires senators and representatives to live up to their oaths. Members of Congress must defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Today, that means bringing impeachment charges against Mr. Obama.

Boil Them Alive

The Free Market has gone south. It may never return.

 

Boiling Democrats in oil does have an appeal to me. A slow boil you understand.

Not all of them, but Frank, Dodd, Pelosi, Reid and Waxman would make a fine start.

Or we could boil the 22% who think Congress is doing a fine job.

Or the 22% who indentify themselves as progressives.

Oh what the hey, toss them all in the pot.

 

What’s amazing to me is that 44% think the messiah is doing a good job

Assimilation and the Founding Fathers

By Michelle Malkin  •  July 2, 2010

In his immigration speech on Thursday, President Obama heralded America as a “nation of immigrants” defined not by blood or birth, but by “fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear.” If only it were so. Left-wing academics and activists spurned assimilation as a common goal long ago. Their fidelity lies with bilingualism (a euphemism for native language maintenance over English-first instruction), identity politics, ethnic militancy and a borderless continent.

Obama blames “politics” for the intractable immigration debate. Whose politics? The amnesty mob has taken to ambushing congressional offices this week to scream at lawmakers to choose “reform” (giving a blanket path to citizenship to millions of illegal aliens) or “racism” (their description of any and every legislative measure to stiffen sanctions for and deter the acts of border-jumping, visa-overstaying and deportation-evading).

Is there no middle ground for all sides to agree that clearing naturalization application backlogs should take priority over expanding illegal alien benefits, or that tracking and deporting violent illegal alien criminals should take precedence over handing out driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, or that streamlining the employee citizenship verification process for businesses (E-verify) and fixing outdated visa tracking databases should come before indiscriminately expanding temporary visa and guest worker programs?

Must every response to even the most modest of immigration enforcement measures be “RAAAAACIST”?

Further, as I’ve noted many times over the years when debating both Democrats and Republicans who fall back on empty phrases to justify putting the amnesty cart before the enforcement horse, we are not a “nation of immigrants.” This is both a factual error and a warm-and-fuzzy non sequitur. Eighty-five percent of the residents currently in the United States were born here. Yes, we are almost all descendants of immigrants. But we are not a “nation of immigrants.” (And the politically correct president certainly wouldn’t argue that Native American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians and descendants of black slaves “immigrated” here in any common sense of the word, would he?)

Even if we were a “nation of immigrants,” it does not explain why we should be against sensible immigration control. The Founding Fathers were emphatically insistent on protecting the country against indiscriminate mass immigration. They insisted on assimilation as a pre-condition, not an afterthought. Historian John Fonte assembled their wisdom, and it bears repeating this Independence Day weekend:

George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, stated that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.”

In a 1790 speech to Congress on the naturalization of immigrants, James Madison stated that America should welcome the immigrant who could assimilate, but exclude the immigrant who could not readily “incorporate himself into our society.”

Progressives Know Best

Secretary of labor, Hilda Solis, produced a video advising workers to contact her office should they feel that they have been shorted wages by their employers. But then she goes on to explicitly include workers who are not documented and to promise them confidentiality, “Every worker has a right to be paid fairly, whether documented or not.”

“Undocumented” is the current circumlocution for residing here illegally. Although Solis is a federal executive sworn to uphold existing federal law, she has decided which laws suit her and which do not. She rightly promises to pursue lawbreaking employers, but quite wrongly not to pursue lawbreaking employees.

 

Law professor Obama campaigned on respect for the rule of law as he trashed elements of the Bush administration’s war on terror — almost all of which he subsequently kept or expanded. Note how what was deemed illegal before 2009 has suddenly become quite legal and worthy of emulation and expansion.

Why Doesn’t Evolution Get Rid of Liberals?

Why isn’t everyone beautiful, smart and healthy? Or, in a less-polite formulation, why haven’t ugly, stupid, liberal people been bred out of the population—ugly people because no one will have them as mates, meaning they don’t get the chance to pass their ugliness to the next generation; stupid people because they’re outgunned in the race to financial success; liberal people because they can not dodge bullets very well?

Allow me to illustrate my point with this old graphic.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."  

Terrorists = Nitwits

They blow each other up by mistake. They bungle even simple schemes. They get intimate with cows and donkeys. Our terrorist enemies trade on the perception that they’re well trained and religiously devout, but in fact, many are fools and perverts who are far less organized and sophisticated than we imagine.

Thank goodness for that!

Wondering If Liberals Accept Gravity?

This survey illustrates why you can not have a discussion with liberals. Their knowledge of the real world is abysmal.

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that DANIEL B. KLEIN writes about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

Here are the questions. See how you do.

1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree)

2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree).

3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree).

4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree).

5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree).

6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree).

7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).

8) "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." (unenlightened answer: disagree).

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics. In other words, reality does not exist in wonderland.

The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.

No One Ever Said it Better

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Echoes of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer
This is a new look at the sources of one of history's great speeches. While it has long been determined that Abraham Lincoln's writings were influenced by the King James Bible, until now no full-length study has shown the precise ways in which the Gettysburg Address uses its specific language

How We Got Here

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Liberalomania

by Sarah Durand

Although it’s long been argued that liberalism in itself is a mental disorder, it usually remains relatively benign. However, if left untreated, the initial infection of liberalism could continue attacking the central nervous system.  In some cases, it takes over the entire reasoning center of the brain, and the full-blown disease, liberalomania, sets in.

Liberalomania is a progressive (no pun intended), degenerative form of dementia. Like megalomania and many other personality disorders, some of its characteristics are narcissism and delusions of grandeur.

Liberalomanics are master manipulators and skilled blame-gamers.  They not only create perceptions of victimization within themselves, but also succeed in cultivating similar feelings within their voting-aged followers. They see themselves as perfect beings, free from sin, who should therefore receive infinite entitlements. Believing in their superiority, they often are condescending and use manipulation to force others to submit to their will.

Like a cry for help, President Obama consistently shows signs of liberalomania.

Obama Bingo

Points to ponder about Barry

If George bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how  inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

 

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

 

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a  minor slip?

 

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas, would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk.

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in  New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue  with claims of racism and incompetence?

 

If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved.

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

 

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 9 months -- so you'll have three years and three months to come up with an answer.

Civility

Beware of sudden and apparently reasonable “calls for civility.” That pathetic mantra is usually voiced by a liberal administration and its supporters when criticism mounts that they are taking the country too far to the Left — like the Clinton implosion in 1993 or Obama today. I fear “civility” does not mean one should not write novels or produce movies contemplating murdering George Bush — that’s sort of an understandable agitprop art. “Civility” does not mean the New York Times should not give discounts to run ads in wartime like “General Betray Us.” That’s needed dissidence. Civility does not suggest that a Sen. Durbin, or Sen. Kerry, or Sen. Kennedy not use inflammatory language that compares our own troops or personnel to terrorists, Nazis, Pol Pot, Stalinists, or Saddam Hussein’s torturers; that most certainly is not uncivil. And it was certainly not impolite for Rep. Stark to call President Bush a “liar.”

“Civility” does not mean that we should not spew hate at anti-war protests; that’s grassroots popular protest. It doesn’t mean that we should not employ Nazi and fascistic labels to tar the President of the United States like John Glenn or Al Gore or Robert Byrd did. “Civility” does not mean that a shrill Hillary Clinton should not scream that the Bush administration is trying to silence critics, or suggest that the commanding general of an entire theater was lying to Congress in ways that require a “suspension of disbelief.” That’s needed pushback.

More at

War Presidents

This is Victor Davis Hanson on the double standard of Dem and Rep war presidents.

......it’s why Woodrow Wilson could do what he did in World War I, FDR could do what he did and Truman did what he did, LBJ and JFK could do what they do because the idea is that a Democrat is a man of peace. He’s a utopian. He doesn’t like war. He goes to it reluctantly. A Republican is a blood thirsty warrior type person who likes war and so anytime we have a democratic president, the left-wing is really to forgive him in a much greater degree than he is a Republican. You’re right. Obama’s been a great gift not only to the Republicans but to George Bush because singlehandedly he showed the world, he said to the world, your anti- Americanism, your George Bush hatred, your writ that Bush shredded the Constitution, it had nothing to do with reality. It was just piggybacking on the American left’s critique of a sitting Republican president for partisan purposes. Look, we’re doing everything that Bush did in Iraq, everything in Afghanistan, tribunals, renditions, intercepts, Patriot Act, etc., Predators, and where are the marches in Europe right now about Predators? They don’t exist. Where is some Hollywood celebrity giving a speech at the Oscars about rendition? Where’s the movie Rendition? Where’s the movie Redacted, Valley of Elah? Where’s all these Hollywood anti-Iraq movies? They don’t exist.

I haven't solved it yet

On a recent edition of NBC's "Today" show, President Obama struck a high-minded tone when interviewer Matt Lauer asked him about the bitter tone of American politics:

We now have a pattern of polarization . . . where the political culture gets so wound up. Frankly, Matt, it gets spun up partly because of the way the media covers politics these days, and the 24/7 news cycle and the cable chatter and the talk radio and the Internet and the blogs--all of which tend to try to feed the most extreme sides of any issue instead of trying to narrow differences and solve problems. There's something about the political culture here in Washington that is a chronic problem. I haven't solved it yet.

Obama Zombies

I have not read the book, but I Iike the title.
Not feeling really free as the left has taken will take more of the free market.


Where is Vald, the Impaler, when he is really needed.

New Health Care Symbol

For new healthcare, the White House felt it necessary to develop a new medical symbol that truly depicts the HealthCare Plan you will be getting. Please bend over.



Thanks, Doug

Barry Knows Best

Barry spoke in Ohio Monday, his 50-something speech on taking over the health system:
The American people want to know if it's still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don't know about the politics. But I know what's right.


He knows what's right. And he cares so much about the American people that he is determined to do what is right, whether we want it done to us or not. Yet he keeps coming up against delays and obstructions. Where's the fairness in that? If he's omniscient and benevolent, doesn't he deserve to be omnipotent too?

Chicago on the Potomac

It's evident to me that this is how Barry sees his mission. The America I grew up in must be saved from those like me.
He's right. I'm wrong.

I try not to be angry at him. He is doing what he any fool should have known he would do before the election took place.
I try reserve my anger for the fools who elected him.

The Toad, Krugman

Krugman has a Nobel. He is just as deserving of it as Barry is of his. He makes lying look easy. Try to follow this.

Textbook economics is "a bizarre point of view"--according to the textbook's author!
By JAMES TARANTO

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman takes note in his New York Times column of what the calls "the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties":

Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.
"What Democrats believe," he says "is what textbook economics says":

But that's not how Republicans see it. Here's what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning's position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work."
Krugman scoffs: "To me, that's a bizarre point of view--but then, I don't live in Mr. Kyl's universe."

What does textbook economics have to say about this question? Here is a passage from a textbook called "Macroeconomics":

Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker's incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of "Eurosclerosis," the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.

So it turns out that what Krugman calls Sen. Kyl's "bizarre point of view" is, in fact, textbook economics. The authors of that textbook are Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. Miss Wells is also known as Mrs. Paul Krugman.

It seems Krugman himself lives in two different universes--the universe of the academic economist and the universe of the bitter partisan columnist. Or maybe this is like that episode of "Star Trek" in which crewmen from the Enterprise switched places with their counterparts from a universe in which everyone was the same, only evil.

Like Spock, the evil Krugman is the one with the beard.

The Left Is Never Right

During his State of the Union address, with eight of the Supreme Court justices sitting right in front of him like clay pigeons, Barack Obama told the world that he would have to correct their mistake by bringing back McCain-Feingold. Well, why wouldn’t he say such a stupid thing? After all, he’s been wrong about everything else.

It’s perfectly reasonable that Obama would oppose corporations donating money to political campaigns. Where do oil, coal and pharmaceutical companies, get off thinking they should have the same right as the UAW, the SEIU, ACORN and George Soros, to finance elections?

Exit Stage Left

I think it was around mid-January — the public collectively shrugged and concluded of Obama, “I don’t trust anything that this guy says.” And when that happens in American politics, it is almost impossible to restore any modicum of credibility. All we are left with now is three more years of the president’s “Bush did it” mantra and a buffoonish Robert Gibbs, like some strutting carnival barker, showing off ink on his palm to a bored press corps.

©2010 Victor Davis Hanson

Testing Positive For Stupid

The Fun-Suckers go around saying how unsafe this fun thing is and how unhealthy that fun thing is and how unfair, unjust, uncaring, insensitive, divisive, contagious, and fattening every other thing that’s fun is.

The motive behind spoiling things for others and then throwing a wet blanket over the rained-on parade is a matter of neither caution nor morals. The Fun-Suckers suck the fun out of life in order to gain control. They’ve found a way to achieve power without merit. Nothing requires less information, education, or accomplishment than saying that everything’s wrong. It’s wrong to risk lives, wrong to use up earth’s resources, wrong to pollute air, wrong to support an economic system that heightens income inequalities, wrong to own a big, expensive car, drive it fast, and vote Republican.

The Fun-Suckers have been around forever. But they didn’t used to have the influence they have now. Right now we have the armpit of the liberal left wing running the country. The community activists, the socialists, call them what you will, the perfect storm bought all the rats out of the sewer. It looks like the cycle is turning and they return to lurking underground once again.

Homework: Ask a progressive if they want to make the world a better place through regulations and sacrifice, aspire to be like Pol Pot or if they are closet masochists who just want to feel the boot of tyranny.

The Elite Know Best

Charles Krauthammer writes: After Democratic setbacks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama gave a stay-the-course State of the Union address (a) pledging not to walk away from health-care reform, (b) seeking to turn college education increasingly into a federal entitlement, and (c) asking again for cap-and-trade energy legislation. Plus, of course, another stimulus package, this time renamed a "jobs bill." This being a democracy, don't the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don't they understand Massachusetts? Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.

Our Obama Saga

by Victor Davis Hanson

While much criticism is made of the president’s scripted eloquence, his reliance on the teleprompter, his unease with repartee, his awkwardness in question and answer, nonetheless he is skilled with the teleprompter, and much of his message to many of the people can be teleprompted. After all, that is in part how a two-year senator got elected in the first place. And as a rhetorician, Obama is skilled in weaving alternate realities. For you reader, his recent exegesis of his broken promises to put the healthcare debate on C-SPAN (it was sort of aired, didn’t you know that, dummies) was preposterous. But admit as well that such a bold alibi came right out of the mouth of Saruman in his Orthanc — mellifluous, assured, seamlessly shameless. It would make even Tartuffe proud. Obama’s art is more than just teleprompted eloquence.

I have to admire anyone who can correctly use Saruman and Tartuffe in a political analysis. Hanson is truly a man of letters.

For my own edification, from Wikipedia:

Saruman is a character in The Lord of the Rings. The meaning of names was important to Tolkien: Saruman means "man of skill". In the book, Saruman is one of several characters illustrating the corruption of power; his desire for knowledge and order has led to his fall and he rejects the chance of redemption when it is offered. He serves as an example of technology and modernity being overthrown by the forces of nature.

Tartuffe: a hypocrite who pretends to religious piety (after the protagonist in a play by Moliere)

The Elites Know What's Best For Us

On a recent Glenn Beck Show, he had a graph that illustrated the percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is... a real life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages discussed by Mr. Beck.

Eisenhower...57%

Reagan...........56%

GW Bush.......55%

Nixon............53%

Wilson..........52%

GH Bush......51%

FDR.............50%

Truman.......50%

Harding......49%

Coolidge.....48%

LBJ..............47%

Hoover.......42%

Ford...........42%

Taft............40%

Clinton......39%

T Roosevelt..38%

Carter........32%

Kennedy.....30%

Obama.........8%

Only Eight Percent!!!..the least by far of the last 19 presidents!! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business? They know what's best for GM... Chrysler... Wall Street... and you and me? How can the president of a major nation and society...the one with the most successful economic system in world history... stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one... or about jobs when he has never really had one??! And neither has 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers! They've spent most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit jobs....or as "community organizers"...when they should have been in an employment line.

Free Speech

Finally a post about the theme of this Blog.

Justice Clarence Thomas added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907.

“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”

It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.”

Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process.

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said.

“If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”

“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.

The Good Old Civilized Days

One of John Edwards's early boosters was the late Ted Kennedy, who "saw almost unlimited potential in this young, energetic, well-spoken, good-looking Southerner." In a conversation with Mr. Young, Kennedy waxed sentimental about Washington in the early 1960s: "It used to be civilized. The media was on our side. We'd get our work done by one o'clock and by two we were at the White House chasing women. We got the job done, and the reporters focused on the issues. . . . It was civilized."

He's Not Listening

In a moment of faux humility, he said of ObamaCare's failure: "I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people."

He will not listen to us; he expects us to listen to him as he explains this monstrosity again, "more clearly" this time, he promises.

And then Barry showed us more of his real character by his unprecedented upbraiding of the Supreme Court, six of whose members were seated immediately in front of him.

People Will Never Know

I can not make this stuff up.

White House aide David Aexlrod, who argued on "This Week" that Congress should ignore the voters' clear rejection of ObamaCare:

With House and Senate leaders trying to figure out how to proceed legislatively, Mr. Axelrod also issued a warning to Democrats who were reconsidering their support for the health care measure.

"As a political matter, the foolish thing to do would be for anybody else who supported this to walk away from it," he said. He added, "The underlying elements of it are popular and important, and people will never know what's in that bill until we pass it, the president signs it and they have a whole new range of protections they never had before."

Let's keep a good thought that we never know.

Maybe the Game Is Not Over?

Clearly I do appreciate Barry’s exalted morality and genius, nor any of the others who think they know what is best for me. So we are doing the happy dance here for the first time in years. Maybe America has had enough hope and change?

Did you feel the ground move Tuesday night? That was Teddy spinning in his grave because a relatively unknown, conservative knocked off an Obama-endorsed, liberal, female attorney.

Woo Hoo!

Victor always said it better than I could even on a good day. Here he runs down a few of the lies Barry has told.

The Angry Left is like a chronic skin rash

That’s it. That’s all I have to say today.

It’s real hard to talk about freedom, when every day the Left is taking it away.

Much Ado About Nothing

Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

New research finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades, contrary to some recent studies.

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009)

Of course facts have nothing to do with Gore and buddies mission.