January 24, 2013

NEWSMAX
Panetta to Lift Ban on Women in Combat
by Newsmax Wires
January 23, 2013

Senior defense officials say Pentagon chief Leon Panetta will remove the military's ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war.

The groundbreaking move recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units. Panetta's decision gives the military services until January 2016 to seek special exceptions if they believe any positions must remain closed to women.

"After a decade of critical military service in hostile environments, women have demonstrated a wide range of capabilities in combat operations and we welcome this review," said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California.

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a former Army helicopter pilot who lost both of her legs fighting in Iraq, called the “long overdue.”

“This is a win for our nation," Duckworth, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. told Politico. "This is a win for our military — that the talents of all of these women are going to be able to be used by our nation to protect and defend this great democracy.”

A senior military official says the services will develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions. Some jobs may open as this year. Assessments for others, such as special operations forces, including Navy SEALs and the Army's Delta Force, may take longer.

The official told the Associated Press that military chiefs must report back to Panetta with their initial implementation plans by May 15. The announcement on Panetta's decision is not expected until Thursday, so the official spoke on condition of anonymity.

Panetta's move expands the Pentagon's action nearly a year ago to open about 14,500 combat positions to women, nearly all of them in the U.S. Army. This decision could open more than 230,000 jobs, many in Army and Marine infantry units, to women.

In recent years the necessities of war propelled women into jobs as medics, military police and intelligence officers that were sometimes attached — but not formally assigned — to units on the front lines.

Women comprise 14 percent of the 1.4 million active military personnel.

The news came as complete surprise, with no leaks to the media on a day when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's riveting testimony on the Benghazi killings of a U.S. ambassador and three Americans consumed much attention.

But lawmakers, conservative activists and former military leaders were quick to react.

"The focus of our military needs to be maximizing combat effectiveness," said U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California and a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

"The question here is whether this change will actually make our military better at operating in combat and killing the enemy, since that will be their job too. What needs to be explained is how this decision, when all is said and done, increases combat effectiveness rather than being a move done for political purposes -- which is what this looks like," Hunter said.

"Lifting the ban is contrary to law and the wishes of the American people," said Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative activist and constitutional lawyer. "It is an embarrassment to the country."

Read more: http://goo.gl/OxddE

TOWNHALL
Analysis: Debt limit bill gives political cover to both parties
by Reuters
January 23, 2013

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Previous budget dramas in Washington produced bargains that made it look like Congress was making great strides, without actually doing so.

Wednesday's vote by the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives to extend the government's borrowing power until May 19 was no different.

It temporarily removed a hazard - a potential default within the next month - that only existed because Republicans created it. They initiated Wednesday's vote after taking a beating in public opinion polls for engaging in budget brinkmanship over the "fiscal cliff," a series of budget deadlines that came together at the end of 2012, which could have resulted in huge tax increases and spending cuts had Congress not acted to either eliminate or postpone most of them.

While House Speaker John Boehner advertised the vote as the "first step" toward a balanced budget that puts the onus on Democrats to address the deficit. But the House-passed bill does not contain measures that are guaranteed to bring about deficit reduction.

The bill did not: cut government spending; extract commitments from President Barack Obama or Democrats in the U.S. Senate to cut government spending; or avoid three potentially jarring fiscal confrontations a few months down the road.

Automatic budget cuts postponed from the fiscal cliff around New Year's Day kick in on March 1. A bill that temporarily funded the government will expire on March 27, threatening a potential shutdown of some federal operations. In May, the borrowing authority approved on Wednesday will run out.

While Republicans say each of these will present an opportunity for them to engage Democrats, including Obama, in deficit reduction negotiations, their track record is not promising.

"I don't think it (the House debt limit bill) has much to do with deficit reduction at all," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the non-partisan Concord Coalition, a budget reform advocacy group. "It's a way of defusing a political crisis."

"Our base case remains a series of endless cliffs," Chris Krueger of the financial services firm Guggenheim Partners wrote in a note. "Short-term extensions of these cliffs could result in an endless game of kick the can - until the can kicks back."

As for deficit reduction, he wrote: "Don't hold your breath, though hope springs eternal."

Ethan Harris of Bank of America Merrill Lynch said, "It is another example of where politicians' bark seems worse than their bite."

Welcome to the latest chapter in a two-year battle between Obama and congressional Republicans over how the world's largest economy can gain control of a $16.4 trillion national debt.

There was the 2010 presidential commission to find budget solutions, a 2011 congressional "super committee" that was supposed to put the government on a sound fiscal path and a "fiscal cliff" of late 2012 designed to force big decisions.

All sputtered.

Now, Republicans have crafted a debt limit increase without setting a specific new ceiling on borrowing that they could be blamed for.

Read more: http://goo.gl/q3ub4

HOTAIR

Rand Paul to Hillary: Let’s face it, you should have been fired over Benghazi

by Allahpundit

January 23, 2013

Via Gateway Pundit, I figured he might be the boldest Republican questioner but I had no idea how bold. The key line: “I think it’s good that you’re accepting responsibility because no one else is.” He’s taking dead aim at the insulting charade of buck-stops-here bravado among American politicians who are happy to “show leadership” by admitting to their failures on the condition that they’ll suffer no consequences for them. Accountability’s a smart theme for a populist would-be presidential candidate to take up. And telling a Clinton to her face on TV that she should have been fired for negligence, which is true, is a smart, splashy way to do it. It’s a dual critique, superficially a reprimand to Obama’s secretary of state but more broadly an indictment of how Washington tends to do business. I’ve always assumed there’s no way he’ll leapfrog Rubio and Ryan as a frontrunner among grassroots conservatives in 2016 but it’s getting harder to believe that every day.

One other note. This is not an exchange I would have expected Ron Paul to have with Hillary, not because he’s in any way comfortable with unaccountability in Washington but because his priorities lie elsewhere. You can imagine him grilling her about why the CIA is in Libya in the first place and what the root causes of the assault on the consulate might be. Not Rand; his showcase moment here has more to do with protecting Americans who are already in the field. A lot of what he’s up to lately has to do with distinguishing his brand from his father’s, the trip to Israel being the most conspicuous example. This is another.

Read more: http://goo.gl/E0HTP

January 21, 2013

MONEYMAX

Preparing for the Unthinkable: A US Default?

by Thomson/Reuters

January 20, 2013

Squabbling in Washington over the debt ceiling is again raising the specter that the United States may be forced to delay payments on its debt.

While the stigma of a default would be damaging enough to investor sentiment, the chaos from a breakdown in financial markets' systems that might result would be even scarier.

A failure to make payments on U.S. Treasurys, however brief, would create widespread damage in short-term funding markets, which are crucial to daily operations of financial institutions, investment firms and many corporations, said analysts and investors.
Editor's Note: How You Lost $85,000 During the Last Decade. See the Numbers.

The U.S. has defaulted once before, in 1979, when lawmakers were blamed in part for allowing negotiations to go down to the wire before raising the debt ceiling.

After that, back-office errors at the Treasury, caused the government to be late in redeeming three series of Treasurys bills, according to an academic paper by Terry Zivney and Richard Marcus published in the Financial Review in 1989. The failure caused rates to rise, and the government faced lawsuits from investors hurt by the delays in repaying the bonds, they said.

Markets now are far more complicated. Battles over ownership, interest paid or owed and a host of other issues relating to the transfer of the securities would likely be mired in legal disputes. U.S. debt is also considerably higher, and there is greater foreign ownership of Treasurys. The economy is also more vulnerable, making the risk of a creditor exodus a far more damaging prospect for the country.

"The minute we default, there would be a complete collapse in the bond market," said Peter Schiff, chief executive officer of Euro Pacific Capital and a critic of U.S. government spending habits.

That would leave the U.S. struggling to refinance more than $4.6 trillion that come due within two years, including $3 trillion of Treasurys due to mature in 2013.

In the event of a default, confusion would be rampant as trading systems struggle to identify, transfer and settle bonds that have matured but have not been repaid. Interest rates would surge and investors would likely sell stocks and commodities as they fled risky assets, analysts said.

But that doesn't mean investors would necessarily run to the safety of Treasurys. Many U.S. government bonds could be shunned as investors worry about which issues are in default — even longer-dated issues that could have a coupon payment due that would potentially be in jeopardy.

A default could also trigger a wider paralysis in the financial system that could quite quickly stall the economy, as happened at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008.

For starters, money market funds are not allowed to hold defaulted collateral. These funds pulled back on making loans in 2011, when the ceiling was last an issue, and some analysts fear this time could be worse, potentially creating broad funding problems and send the cost of borrowing in short-term markets — including those in repurchase agreements or loans based on Libor — surging.

The U.S. Treasury hit its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling — the legal amount it is allowed to borrow — on New Year's Eve. The Treasury Department will run short of funds as early as mid-February, so legislation is needed to increase the borrowing limit. This had been a formality for years but turned into a political standoff between congressional Republicans and the White House over government spending levels in the summer of 2011. The resulting battle roiled markets concerned about U.S. political gridlock and its impact on the economy.

The likelihood of a default on U.S. Treasurys has in the past been seen as so low that many parts of the market fail to even account for it in planning and paperwork. For example, unlike other debt, such as corporate bonds, Treasurys documentation has no grace period to make up for missed interest or principal payments.

Many banks and investors may not even have the systems needed to screen out which Treasurys have principal or interest payments due that are most at risk of not being paid.

"No one is going to build a system to assume you have a defaulted Treasury floating around there; it's not a baseline assumption," said Michael Cloherty, head of U.S. interest rate strategy at RBC Capital Markets in New York.

Treasury bills maturing at the end of February and in March are most vulnerable to default, though analysts said hundreds of other issues also have coupon payments due at the end of February. Rates on some short-term debt maturing in that time have risen and now yield more than similar debt maturing in April, a sign that a dislocation has started.

Read more: http://goo.gl/EEjzi

TOWNHALL

Rand Paul: GOP Must Evolve

by Kevin Glass

January 20, 2013

Rising GOP star Rand Paul made some surprising comments about his own party in an interview on Sunday, acknowledging the GOP's recent public image struggles and the need for a kind of evolution.

Speaking to a New York City radio station, Paul said "we are not popular" while pointedly noting the party's struggles in New England and on the west coast.

"We think the Republican Party needs to evolve and adapt, or we are going to become a permanent minority party... we think a little more of a libertarian Republican, someone who is a strict constitutionalist but also believes in a strong, defensive military but not necessarily in an overly aggressive or bellicose let’s get involved in everybody’s civil war military, I think that has more appeal to independents and some people who have given up in the Republican Party."

The Kentucky Senator has been often mentioned in speculation about frontrunning 2016 GOP candidates. Whether Paul will throw his hat in the ring is obviously still to be determined, but his willingness to criticize his own party has never been hidden.

Read more: http://goo.gl/Od47a

NATIONAL REVIEW
Dems Wary of Gun Control 
Gun-control legislation could give some Democratic senators a chance to show they’re independent.
by Katrina Trinko
January 21, 2013

While Democrats have the majority with 55 senators, not all of them appear open to gun-control measures. Earlier this month, freshman senator Heidi Heitkamp (D., N.D.) expressed concern that the White House’s gun-control proposals were too “extreme.” Heitkamp’s concern isn’t shocking. She, like ten other Democrats in the Senate, currently holds an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. For these senators, seven of whom represent states that voted for Mitt Romney in the election, demonstrating independence from the Democratic party on gun control can help them win votes.

Some of these senators, despite their past voting records, are suggesting a new openness this time around. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said last month: “I’ve got an A rating from the NRA. But the status quo isn’t acceptable. . . . There’s got to be a way to put reasonable restrictions, particularly as we look at assault weapons, as we look at these fast clips of ammunition.” Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who famously shot the cap-and-trade bill in a 2010 ad and who also has an “A” rating from the NRA, said earlier this month that “we have to change the culture of mass violence we have,” although he emphasized that gun owners should be respected and that looking at how the nation treats the mentally ill should also be a priority.
However, Manchin isn’t running for reelection in 2014. (Warner is, but thanks to Virginia’s changing population, the state is becoming bluer, giving Warner political leeway on gun control.) In 2014, there will be as many as 21 Democrat senators running for reelection. (The exact number depends on who will retire and who won’t.) Three of them — Mark Begich of Alaska, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Warner — currently have an “A” rating from the NRA. Two more, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, have ratings of “C” and “C-,” respectively. Most of their Democratic colleagues have “F”s.

Instead of pushing for new gun-control legislation, Begich last week issued a statement saying he supported “an increase in mental health services as well as strengthening the enforcement of laws already on the books.”

Other Democrats are walking the tightrope between supporting Obama’s gun-control initiatives and positioning themselves for a win in 2014. Take North Carolina senator Kay Hagan, who was elected in 2008. She currently has an “F” rating from the NRA, but gun-control issues have been on the back burner during her term. Now they’re not. In a statement, Hagan was non-committal about whether she would vote for Obama’s approach, calling for a “serious commonsense debate in Congress that looks at access to guns, access to mental health care and violent video games,” adding that “while respecting the rights of responsible gun owners, I am committed to working with my Republican and Democratic colleagues toward a comprehensive approach that ensures our communities are safe.”

North Carolina voted for Obama in 2008 but swung red in 2012 — and not just in the presidential race. In November, the Republican gubernatorial candidate won, as did nine of the 13 House candidates. John Dinan, a political-science professor at Wake Forest University, says that Hagan is likely hoping the gun-control legislation never comes up for a vote. “She’s been able to avoid taking a lot of tough votes because Senate majority [leader] Reid has been able to keep a lot of tough votes from having to be taken,” he comments. But if the legislation does “come to a vote, she’d probably want to split the difference and vote for some parts, and maybe not others.”

One Republican involved in North Carolina politics speculates that Hagan might see a potential upside in the legislation coming up for a vote. “She may want it to come up just because it gives her a chance to show some independence from the administration after four years of voting for Obamacare, for the stimulus, and for everything else. ” However, voting against gun-control measures could hurt her with donors.

Read more: http://goo.gl/rDaLw

January 19. 2013

HUMAN EVENTS
GOP plays small ball (again)
by David Harsanyi
January 18, 2013

So House Republicans will vote next week on a bill that would raise the nation’s debt ceiling for three months. The catch? It will feature a provision that would stop all pay for members of Congress if the Senate doesn’t pass a budget. When we consider that the median wealth for a senator in 2009 was almost $2.38 million; well, this clause isn’t the most effective threat available to snap Harry Reid (worth between $3-$10 million) into action. The chances of the Senate passing it? Zero.

Strategically speaking, this is obviously another attempt to shift the public’s ire from Republicans to Senate Democrats on the ongoing cliff battles. I’m not sure it’s exactly a bad idea, but more than likely it is an ineffective one. The problem with this stuff is that it’s small ball and transparently political. It sounds like a stunt. (UPDATE: Not to mention, probably unconstitutional.)

In a statement released from Republican retreat in Virginia, Eric Cantor said: “The first step to fixing this problem is to pass a budget that reduces spending. The House has done so, and will again. The Democratic Senate has not passed a budget in almost four years, which is unfair to hardworking taxpayers who expect more from their representatives. That ends this year.”
Well, the last time the Senate passed a budget was April of 2009. And the habit is probably not going end this year.

Cantor might be right in substance, but everyone understands: 1 – Republicans were going to vote to raise the debt ceiling. All kinds of Republicans have openly said they’d do it. Whether you agree with taking a stand on the debt ceiling or not, to extract concessions from a president who offers so little, you have to be prepared to take the dive. 2 – Republicans aren’t making compelling big-picture arguments so there’s no way to win the small ones. Even if you believe, like I do, that conservatives are right on these budgetary issues, they’re not very convincing.

As Jonah Goldberg recently argued, the GOP’s problems do not stem from “being insufficiently conservative. Its troubles stem from it being insufficiently persuasive, not to its right flank but to the general public.” Want proof? Most polls – now, and during the debt ceiling showdown in 2011 – show that Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling. As you’ve no doubt heard, this is supposedly the position of the most extremist and radical elements in society. Yet, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey found that 45 percent of those polled say they will blame Republicans if the debt ceiling is not raised and the United States defaults. Only 33 percent would blame Democrats. That means there is a broad problem communicating to average, disinterested Americans a compelling reason to side with them. At some point, Republicans will have to take a stand, and with it the consequences.

Read more: http://goo.gl/FxdX4

PJ MEDIA
Nothing, and Maybe Worse: A President’s Nonsensical Gun Proposals - He knows not what he speaks.
by John Rosenberg
January 18, 2013

As far as I can tell, here is the totality of what President Obama proposed Wednesday to do about “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines. (Actually, regarding those guns and magazines, he didn’t really propose to do anything; what he proposed for was Congress to do something — the same thing it did in 1994). In any event, here is the beginning, middle, and end of what he proposed:

Congress should restore a ban on military-style assault weapons, and a 10-round limit for magazines. (Applause.) The type of assault rifle used in Aurora, for example, when paired with high-capacity magazines, has one purpose — to pump out as many bullets as possible, as quickly as possible; to do as much damage, using bullets often designed to inflict maximum damage.

And that’s what allowed the gunman in Aurora to shoot 70 people — 70 people — killing 12 in a matter of minutes. Weapons designed for the theater of war have no place in a movie theater.
Here’s my recommendation: Congress should take the president literally, and do exactly what he says: nothing.

“Weapons designed for the theater of war” have the capability of firing automatically. Such weapons have been prohibited (except to collectors, who pay a very high license fee) since 1934. They are not available to the general public.

They have been used in no mass shootings, and no crime at all, for over 60 years.

Banning them again would ban no weapon currently in production or readily available anywhere. What weapons would the president’s “proposal” ban? Who knows? He certainly doesn’t. The 1994 law dealt with the fact that there really is no such thing as an “assault weapon” by naming a few specific weapons and by listing some required identifying features. For example: a pistol grip or a detachable magazine could qualify a gun as an “assault weapon.” But what would President Obama have Congress do about this rifle?

Note that this Mossberg MVP Varmint Rifle has a very distinctive pistol grip, and it also has a detachable box magazine. Many hunting rifles do, but this one is distinctive: it uses any magazines that will fit AR-15 rifles. It comes with a 10-rounder (of the same caliber, 5.56 NATO/ .223 Remington) that most AR-15s and other scary-looking “military style” weapons fire. Thus, it will accept the 20- and 30-rounders that Obama would like to prohibit.

Yet — since it is a bolt action and not a semi-automatic, this weapon would not be illegal under the terms of the 1994 law, even though it can be fired rapidly enough (as can pump action shotguns, also not banned in 1994) to do extensive damage quite quickly.
Would Obama have it be outlawed? Certainly, he doesn’t know.

The “one purpose” of the weapons used in Aurora (the movie theater in Colorado) and Sandy Hook, according to the president, is “to pump out as many bullets as possible, as quickly as possible.” This description does not distinguish those weapons from the millions of other semi-automatics (and high-capacity magazines) currently in the hands of law-abiding Americans.
The Washington Post reports that when the 1994 ban went into effect, “there were roughly 1.5 million assault weapons and more than 24 million high-capacity magazines in private hands” (and that was just “assault weapons” according to the limited definition of the 1994 ban — not all semi-automatics). There are many more now, and none of those weapons or magazines already produced were affected by the ban. Nor are the bullets those “assault weapons” fire — the .223 Remington — different in any way from those widely in use in all those other semi-automatic rifles.

The president’s reference to “bullets often designed to inflict maximum damage” presumably refers to hollow-points, bullets designed to expand on impact. But is the president seriously proposing to ban all hollow-point ammunition? If so, it is not accurate to say that his attempt to restrict “military style” weapons and limit the capacity of magazines would have no effect whatsoever on the likelihood or lethality of mass shootings. Indeed, banning hollow-points would almost certainly make future shootings — at least future shootings conducted with federally approved ammunition — much more lethal.

Solid bullets penetrate walls, doors, bodies, etc.; hollow points do not, or do so rarely.
In fact, limiting magazine size can also be predicted to cause more rather than fewer fatalities. As I argued here:

Indeed, a perfectly predictable but unintended consequence of banning high-capacity magazines would be to decrease the appeal of 9mm handguns and increase the popularity of more the powerful and lethal .40 and .45 caliber and .357 Magnum, since the main appeal of the 9mm has always been its higher-capacity magazines.

As with many “reforms,” the president’s proposals are sure to be ineffectual if implemented, and in some cases are far worse than doing nothing.

Read more: http://goo.gl/8HHve

REDSTATE
An interesting, if mildly depressing, exchange on Obamacare
by Moe Lane
January 18, 2013

Goodness gracious, but check this out. Background: Whole Foods CEO John Mackey called Obamacare first ‘socialist,’ then ‘fascist,’ then regretted calling it fascist because the Left is generally too ill-educated to understand the difference between National Socialism and economic fascism* -so they were thus all getting hung up in their own ignorance, and thus omitting to address Mackey’s point. Cue CNN Carol Costello, who gave a stunning demonstration of same.

So, once Mackey had dumbed it down again for the nice talking head, we get this exchange:

Costello then asked, “But why inject yourself into the debate over ObamaCare in the first place?” 

Mackey responded that he provides health insurance for 73,000 Whole Foods employees and some provisions of Obama’s health care law will raise his company’s costs. “It’s making it more difficult to provide the insurance at affordable rates to our team members, so I’m trying to protect them as well as I can,” he said. 

“I think, though, that many of your customers probably wouldn’t agree with you since, I don’t know, you kind of run a store that appeals to the more liberal in America in some ways,” Costello replied. 

“I don’t understand what your question or your point is,” Mackey said.

I suspect that Mackey was being nice. The question was Why are you publicly disagreeing with your customers on a political issue? and the point was HERETIC! UNBELIEVER! Which Mackey almost certainly knew, although I’m not sure that Carol Costello did.

Read more: http://goo.gl/MYwjH

January 15, 2013

REAL CLEAR POLITICS

Liberalism Versus Blacks

by Thomas Sowell

January 15, 2013

There is no question that liberals do an impressive job of expressing concern for blacks. But do the intentions expressed in their words match the actual consequences of their deeds?

San Francisco is a classic example of a city unexcelled in its liberalism. But the black population of San Francisco today is less than half of what it was back in 1970, even though the city's total population has grown.

Severe restrictions on building housing in San Francisco have driven rents and home prices so high that blacks and other people with low or moderate incomes have been driven out of the city. The same thing has happened in a number of other California communities dominated by liberals.

Liberals try to show their concern for the poor by raising the level of minimum wage laws. Yet they show no interest in hard evidence that minimum wage laws create disastrous levels of unemployment among young blacks in this country, as such laws created high unemployment rates among young people in general in European countries.

The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state. Most black children grew up in homes with two parents during all that time but most grow up with only one parent today.

Liberals have pushed affirmative action, supposedly for the benefit of blacks and other minorities. But two recent factual studies show that affirmative action in college admissions has led to black students with every qualification for success being artificially turned into failures by being mismatched with colleges for the sake of racial body count.

The two most recent books that show this with hard facts are "Mismatch" by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr., and "Wounds That Will Not Heal" by Russell K. Nieli. My own book "Affirmative Action Around the World" shows the same thing with different evidence.

In all these cases, and many others, liberals take positions that make them look good and feel good -- and show very little interest in the actual consequences for others, even when liberal policies are leaving havoc in their wake.

The current liberal crusade for more so-called "gun control" laws is more of the same. Factual studies over the years, both in the United States and in other countries, repeatedly show that "gun control" laws do not in fact reduce crimes committed with guns.

Cities with some of the tightest gun control laws in the nation have murder rates far above the national average. In the middle of the 20th century, New York had far more restrictive gun control laws than London, but London had far less gun crime. Yet gun crimes in London skyrocketed after severe gun control laws were imposed over the next several decades.

Although gun control is not usually considered a racial issue, a wholly disproportionate number of Americans killed by guns are black. But here, as elsewhere, liberals' devotion to their ideology greatly exceeds their concern about what actually happens to flesh and blood human beings as a result of their ideology.

One of the most polarizing and counterproductive liberal crusades of the 20th century has been the decades-long busing crusade to send black children to predominantly white schools. The idea behind this goes back to the pronouncement by Chief Justice Earl Warren that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Yet within walking distance of the Supreme Court where this pronouncement was made was an all-black high school that had scored higher than two-thirds of the city's white high schools taking the same test -- way back in 1899! But who cares about facts, when you are on a liberal crusade that makes you feel morally superior?

To challenge government-imposed racial segregation and discrimination is one thing. But to claim that blacks get a better education if they sit next to whites in school is something very different. And it is something that goes counter to the facts.

Many liberal ideas about race sound plausible, and it is understandable that these ideas might have been attractive 50 years ago. What is not understandable is how so many liberals can blindly ignore 50 years of evidence to the contrary since then.

Read more: http://goo.gl/U05xn

AMERICAN THINKER
Liberals: The Necessary Delusion
by Christopher Chantrill
January 15, 2013

Normally, I can't get interested in the daily liberal partisan output, but when I saw RealClearPolitics' link to Andy Kroll of Mother Jones on "Revealed: The Massive New Liberal Plan to Remake American Politics" I decided to make an exception.

Nancy Pelosi has been promising to take back the House in 2014: maybe the lefties at Mother Jones knew something I didn't know.

The "massive new liberal plan" turned out to be a meeting of all the usual suspects to commit resources and staff to a three-point plan. The plan calls for:

1. getting big money out of politics,
2. expanding the voting rolls while fighting voter ID laws, and
3. rewriting Senate rules to curb the use of the filibuster to block legislation.

Nothing new, in other words, just the usual liberal push to marginalize and demonize anyone and anything that isn't liberal.

Kroll is full of the usual rubbish about "wringing our hands over the Koch brothers" and the "40-plus-year strategy by the Scaifes, Exxons, Coors, and Kochs of the world...to take over the country."

Now I like to say that there are only five things wrong with liberal thought and politics: its cruelty, its corruption, its injustice, its waste, and its delusion. The delusion bit begins with the need for lefty-liberals like Kroll to insist that those awful Kochs and Scaifes and Exxons are trying to take over the world, so they can demonize them.

Let's stipulate that Karl Marx had a point when he worried about capitalists replacing the landed warrior class as the overlords and oppressors of the modern era. Way back then, who could tell how the power contest of the industrial era would turn out?

But the answer eventually became clear, at the very latest when the US government broke up Standard Oil a century ago. If the capitalists were really running things, why would they let the politicians smash up their capitalist corporations?

In our own time we have the recent evidence of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. When President Obama told BP to fork out $20 billion -- before any regulatory finding or legislative action, just on his say-so -- BP merely asked whether to pay with their usual eftps.gov account. If you are not living a delusion that act has to tell you something.

This week we have the Boeing Dreamliner problem. Does Boeing tell the FAA and the flying public to go take a hike? They wouldn't dare.

The left needs the idea of vast corporate power to populate its tableau of oppression. It needs oppression to justify its lust for government power. And it needs to divide employers and employees to maintain its power.

However, advanced lefties realize that the old tableau of capitalists vs. proletarians needs freshening up. So Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in their Empire-Multitude-Commonwealth trilogy declare that the capitalists are now merely surplus. In the new economy of "biopolitical production" the capitalists just get in the way of the spontaneous exchanges of the multitude, the "labor of the head and heart, including forms of service work, affective labor, and cognitive labor." Hardt and Negri call for an end of the power of both capitalists and the welfare state in favor of the spontaneity and self-governance of the multitude. But first we need a "global initiative to provide the basic means of life to all:" income, health care, and education.

Isn't it odd that a book advertising the wonders of spontaneous order among millions of "singularities" in the multitude wouldn't have one, not even one index entry for F.A. Hayek, who wrote the book on the subject.

Hardt and Negri call for revolution (of course!) to purge the "common" of its "corrupt form." They mean "the family, the corporation, and the nation."

One is reminded of Winston Churchill line that democracy was the worst form of government "except all the others that have been tried."

One day in the glorious future the history of the last century will be written as the repeated and delusional attempt by people like Andy Kroll and Hardt and Negri to force on us a society stripped of the most stunning and most beneficial forms of social cooperation ever established by settled science: the nuclear family to organize generation, the limited liability corporation to organize production and service, and the nation state to create a society based on the tie of common language rather than common blood.

It's this combination of the common in its corrupt form that got us from $1-3 to $120 per person per day in 200 years.

There will come a day when people will ask of us, as we wonder about the Romans, how could we end up so stupid, so deluded?

Read more: http://goo.gl/8ECvt

HUMAN EVENTS
Obama: GOP 'holding a gun at the head of the American people'
by David Harsanyi
January 14, 2013

President Barack Obama held the final press conference of his first term by demanding that House Republicans raise the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling. Republicans, alleged the president, were “holding a gun at the head of the American people” by demanding Democrats cut deficit spending.

Obama reminded everyone that “the American people” agree with his take on the debate.  (To the surprise of many Americans who hold alternative opinions, no doubt.)

President Obama, who twice said that the United States is “not a deadbeat nation,” reiterated that raising the debt ceiling was about paying the bills that Congress has already amassed and not a debate about deficit spending. In one long, tortured analogy, the president maintained: “You don’t go out to dinner and eat all you want, then leave without paying the check. And if you do, you’re breaking the law.”

Then again, if your credit card has a trillion-dollar outstanding balance on it, you may have no choice.

Obama has consistently claimed he will not negotiate the debt ceiling, claiming that House Republicans were “absolutists.” Yet, of course, he voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006 as a senator. When challenged on his vote by Major Garrett of CBS News, Obama claimed that historically speaking, the debt ceiling was not held up over negotiations over spending, despite the fact that that’s exactly – as the National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru lays out — what happened in 1985, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2010 and 2011.

Read more: http://goo.gl/YZgrX

December 27, 2012

WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Biggest Cliff of All
by Daniel Henninger 
December 26, 2012

If you're looking for optimism as the world turns toward 2013, stay up late watching paid-for television explaining how to turn wrinkles into miracles. Past that, my own reservoir of uplift is a bit dry this year.

A famous and successful American optimist, Ronald Reagan, put his finger closer to the problem when he suggested there was little limit to what people could accomplish if government would get out of the way. As Barack Obama flies from Hawaii's beaches to Washington's cliff, there may be four or five liberals who've come to agree with the Gipper.

Indeed, a reality has become too obvious for the world's dazed inhabitants not to notice: The greatest threat to the upward arc of human progress is the collapse of public policy making. That is the biggest cliff of all.

Governments are giving government a bad name.

Japan's once-thriving economy has been in the dumpster for years. California, said to be the world's sixth-largest economy, is joining Japan in decline. The euro crisis, now in its third year, is less a crisis than a chronic condition of policy failure across Western Europe. As to America's fiscal cliff, no comment.

Then came the Newtown massacre. A few days after this event, a familiar American policy-making consensus called for federal gun-control laws. More precisely, they want Congress to re-pass the ban on big, dramatic-looking assault-type weapons that existed from 1994 until the law sun-setted in 2004.

Government, for the past 80 years or so, has seen its purpose as mainly to "respond" to society's failures the moment they occur or whenever they are imagined. Adam Lanza killed with guns, so modern policy-making logic posits that government must pass a law. Whether that law will accomplish its goal is . . . irrelevant.

Policy making has become an activity that supports the genetic and financial needs of policy makers and their follower tribes. The community's role, we've lately learned, is to provide revenue. Medicaid, for example, is medical care for the poor. As administered by the policy professionals, it has been allowed to become awful.

The experience with guns is hardly better. In November 2011, the National Institute of Justice convened its Firearms and Violence Research Working Group to examine what the best research reveals about reducing gun-related violence. In 2005 the National Research Council produced a 250-page study of this subject. Both concluded that the quality of data about gun violence and prevention programs is poor, and that it is possible to reach very few policy conclusions about what works or not.

Programs and laws abound already. For years the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has run the National Tracing Center that operates the firearms eTrace system. Every new U.S. firearm goes into the eTrace system from point of manufacture to first retail sale. But past first sale, tracing guns or bullets has proved impossible.

A real-world look at where killers and other career criminals get guns emerged in October when the New York Police Department put on display 154 guns—most of them bizarre-looking handguns—that it obtained in a high-risk sting operation in Brooklyn. Incidentally, these police antigun efforts are about the only program that research has identified as effective.

Buying or possessing a gun legally in New York City is so difficult that it is a non-subject for most New Yorkers. So where did the NYPD get these guns? A Mr. Kerwin "Trini" Gobin allegedly sold undercover cops 87 of the weapons, including a Sten machine gun able to fire 550 rounds per minute. Machine guns have been illegal since the 1930s. But not in Trini Gobin's world. The illicit firearms market is global. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all wrestling with how to control black-market gun traffic after recent outbreaks of firearm violence, much of it gang-related.

A consensus has formed around the unacceptability of young people being killed by guns—as bystanders in the inner cities or as mass-murder victims in the suburbs and on campuses. Policy making today ordains that we pass laws no matter how little we know and ignore what we've already learned.

After Newtown happened, mental-health experts pointed out the hardly disputed linkage between violent behavior and some untreated or poorly medicated patients who have a severe mental illness. But legislation to monitor or mandate effective treatment for individuals already identified as dangerous is frequently voted down by various civil libertarians. Public programs that exist are often poorly administered.

Government's problem for a great many people around the world today is that its advocates are enacting policies that do damage or don't work. The public record of national governments—America's and others'—as we approach the new year calls to mind the minimalist optimism of a prescient book title from the 1960s: "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me."

Read more: http://goo.gl/ejRqA

HUMAN EVENTS
Geithner: Treasury runs out of cash Monday
by Neil W. McCabe
December 26, 2012

The 75th man to hold the office of Treasury Secretary informed congressional leaders from both parties by a letter dated today that the U. S. Treasury would hit its debt limit Dec. 31.

As of Dec. 24, the national debt stood at $16,337,556,561,533.65.

The current debt ceiling is: $16,394 trillion.

“Under normal circumstances, that amount of headroom would last approximately two months.  However, given the significant uncertainty that now exists with regard to unresolved tax and spending policies for 2013, it is not possible to predict the effective duration of these measures,” wrote Timothy F. Geithner, who served as the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York prior to his current posting.

Geithner said the reason for the short notice and the short leeway is the confusion caused by the failure of President Barack Obama and the Congress to resolve tax and spending issues regarding what has become known as the “fiscal cliff,” the mandatory spending cuts and tax increases written into the Budget Control Act passed in August 2011.

“If left unresolved, the expiring tax provisions and automatic spending cuts, as well as the attendant delays in filing of tax returns, would have the effect of adding some additional time to the duration of the extraordinary measures,” Geithner said.

Speaker John A. Boehner (R.-Ohio) released a joint statement today, before the Geithner debt ceiling letter was released, with the other members of the GOP House leadership team: Rep. Eric I. Cantor (R.-Va), the House Majority Leader, Rep. Kevin O. McCarthy (R.-Calif.), the House Majority Whip and Rep. Catherine McMorris Rogers (R.-Wash.) stating his case for resolving the fiscal cliff.

The House Republicans have already acted to meet the crisis, he said.

“The House has acted on two bills which collectively would avert the entire fiscal cliff if enacted.  Those bills await action by the Senate,” he said.

“If the Senate will not approve and send them to the president to be signed into law in their current form, they must be amended and returned to the House,” he said.

The House will act, but the Senate, controlled by Democrats, must act first, the Speaker said.

Boehner said he and the House GOP will continue to communicate, but they are convinced the problem that the governement spends too much, not that the people are taxed too little.

Geithner sent his letter to all Capitol Hill leaders,  including Boehner, House Minoity Leader Nancy P. Pelosi (D.-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader A. Mitchell McConnell Jr. (R.-Ky.), Rep. Sander M. Levin (D.-Mich.), the ranking member on the House Ways and Means committee; Sen. Max S.Baucus (D.-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R.-Utah), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, recieved the same letter as well as individual members of the outgoing 112th Congress. The 112th Congress expires Jan. 3.

The text of the letter sent to Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), the senate majority leader is below:

December 26, 2012
The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510 

Dear Mr. Leader:

I am writing to inform you that the statutory debt limit will be reached on December 31, 2012, and to notify you that the Treasury Department will shortly begin taking certain extraordinary measures authorized by law to temporarily postpone the date that the United States would otherwise default on its legal obligations.

These extraordinary measures, which are explained in detail in an appendix​ to this letter, can create approximately $200 billion in headroom under the debt limit. Under normal circumstances, that amount of headroom would last approximately two months. However, given the significant uncertainty that now exists with regard to unresolved tax and spending policies for 2013, it is not possible to predict the effective duration of these measures. At this time, the extent to which the upcoming tax filing season will be delayed as a result of these unresolved policy questions is also uncertain. If left unresolved, the expiring tax provisions and automatic spending cuts, as well as the attendant delays in filing of tax returns, would have the effect of adding some additional time to the duration of the extraordinary measures. Treasury will provide more guidance regarding the expected duration of these measures when the policy outlook becomes clearer.

Sincerely, 

Timothy F. Geithner

Read more:  http://goo.gl/Aoz67

December 10, 2012

TOWNHALL
Time to Stop the Debt Charade
by Starr Parker
December 10, 2012

The crisis du jour in Washington now dominating the news, the so-called “fiscal cliff”, is but the latest in seemingly endless political crises that we shouldn’t be having.

We get two different kinds of problems in life. The real ones – the struggle to work and improve the quality of our lives – and the ones we bring on ourselves through poor behavior.

The more time we must deal with the latter type, the less time and energy we have to deal with life’s real problems and challenges.

The political crises which emanate from Washington are invariably problems of the type that result from poor behavior. And this latest, the “fiscal cliff”, is no exception.

Let’s recall that the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are scheduled to occur January – the “fiscal cliff” – are the result of the failure of Republicans and President Obama to agree on a budget deal as condition for raising the debt ceiling last year.

Why do we have to keep raising the debt ceiling? Because politicians are afraid to be honest with the American people and immediately raise taxes to pay for all their new spending. So instead of raising taxes and paying for our new bills when we incur them, they just borrow the money.

Anybody who doesn’t pay the full balance on their credit card bill each month knows what this is about.

Except there’s one big difference. You run up your credit card bill on your own account. You are the one that is on the line for your own bills.

Politicians run up bills on our account. We’re on the line for what they spend.

They could be honest. When they have their wonderful ideas about what they want to spend our money on, they could go right to taxpayers and say we are going to spend X for Y so we will raise your taxes Z to pay for it. OK?

They don’t do this because they know it is not okay. Politicians know that the money they are spending ultimately will come out of every American household. And if they go to those households, to those actually responsible to pay the bills, and the heads of those households know they don’t have the money, they will say “NO”. Don’t spend the money and don’t raise my taxes.

So politicians don’t ask.

And our constitution, which originally was supposed protect the property of citizens, is now so degraded that they can do this.

They just spend the money and borrow, on our behalf – often from those overseas like the Chinese – to pay the bills.

Read more: http://goo.gl/B4aNW

THE WEEKLY STANDARD

The Journal's Tax Advice

by William Kristol

December 9, 2012

The Wall Street Journal editors are unhappy about the present correlation of political forces. Who isn't? They're also, I gather, unhappy about "Beltway sages" who, facing the fact that the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year, have suggested Republicans accept a modest increase in tax rates for the wealthy while leading the charge to keep taxes from rising for 98 percent of the American people.

It would be great if the Journal editors had a better idea of what Republicans could do. They don't.

This becomes clear about halfway through their editorial. After making a familiar—if mostly sensible—political and economic case against higher tax rates, the Journal editors come to the heart of the matter in these three paragraphs:

“It's certainly true that Republicans can't stop a tax rate increase if Mr. Obama is determined to make it happen. The Bush-era rates automatically go up on January 1, and the House can't extend them alone.

“But Mr. Obama also can't get what he wants without House Republicans. He needs their votes to extend current rates for lower-income taxpayers, as well as to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hitting 27 million more taxpayers. Most of those new AMT taxpayers live in high-tax Democratic states. Meanwhile, the death tax rate reverts to 55% and a $1 million exemption. Senate Democrats running for re-election in 2014 won't want that on their resume.

“For all of his bluster about blaming Republicans, Mr. Obama also knows a budget failure would do enormous harm to his chances of second-term success. It would guarantee at least two more years of trench budget warfare and poison the chances of immigration or other reform. Another recession would be on his watch, not on George W. Bush's.”

Paragraph one is correct: The Bush-era tax rates expire on January 1. It might have been a good idea to make this clear nearer the beginning of the editorial, but it is to the Journal editors credit that they now clearly state the problem.

The second paragraph is the Journal's attempted answer to the problem. But it turns out to be no answer at all.

It's true that "Mr. Obama also can't get what he wants without House Republicans. He needs their votes to extend current rates for lower-income taxpayers, as well as to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hitting 27 million more taxpayers." But think for a minute about the implications of what the Journal seems to be saying. The Journal editors believe that after January 1, when taxes will have gone up for everyone, House Republicans will block Democratic legislation that would cut taxes—that would restore the lower 2012 rates for the vast majority of taxpayers, fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, and for that matter would probably offer a compromise on dividends and the death tax better than what will be the new dividend rate of 39 percent and death tax of 55 percent with a $1 million exemption.

Will Republicans really oppose such legislation? President Obama will be beating the drums for this tax cut. Senate Democrats will pass this tax cut. If Senate Republicans vote against it, it won't be "Senate Democrats running for re-election in 2014" who will have a tax hike on their resumes. It will be Senate Republicans who will have voted against cutting taxes. And if House Republicans block such legislation, it will be they, and they alone, insisting on higher taxes.

Of course they won't. Republicans will fold with lightning speed after we go over the tax cliff on January 1. Which is why the third of the Journal editorial's three key paragraphs is moot. If we go over the cliff, there won't be damage to Obama's chances of second-term success. Quite the contrary. What Republicans will have done is to make Democrats the party of tax cuts and Obama a president fighting for economic growth.

As I say, it won't happen. Most Republicans will go along soon after January 1 with what will now be the Democrats' tax cutting agenda. If the House Republicans now follow the Wall Street Journal editors over the cliff, the only effect, I'm afraid, will be to turn a manageable tactical retreat in December into a panicked strategic rout in January.

Read more: http://goo.gl/IHoFg

December 9, 2012

REAL CLEAR POLITICS
Shock Therapy for Obama's Super-Sized Gov't
by Robert Robb
December 7, 2012

I’ve been having irresponsible thoughts. Or at least I’ve been thinking more favorably about something I have previously denounced as irresponsible: not increasing the federal debt limit.

There is no good end in sight for the non-negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff. And the impasse goes far deeper than the question that preoccupies the public discussion about whether to increase the tax rates on the affluent.

The tax rate issue is a matter of firmly-held principle and important political symbology on both sides. But it’s not the heart of the impasse.

According to President Obama’s own budget staff, increasing the top two rates to 36 percent and 39.6 percent would only raise $442 billion over ten years, or only about a fifth of the $1.6 trillion in tax increases Obama is demanding.

Obama’s own budget actually proposes to raise significantly more -- $750 billion – through the approach proposed by Republicans in the non-negotiations: limiting the deductions of the affluent. In addition to reinstating the limits that existed prior to the Bush tax cuts, Obama’s budget proposed capping the value of all itemized deductions for the top-two tax rates at 28 percent.

So, as politically important as the rate issue is, resolving it would only reveal an even bigger – and probably irreconcilable – divide. What Obama is really trying to do is to force Republicans to finance – through higher taxes and increased borrowing – the size of the federal government Obama thinks appropriate.

And Obama likes his government supersized. Obama’s budget proposes locking in federal spending at 23 percent of Gross Domestic Product, an unprecedented level since the end of World War II. Obama has proposed no constraints that would bring spending below that level and consistently dismisses as non-starters any such proposals by others.

Obama likes to cite the Clinton economy in support of his positions. But federal spending as a percentage of GDP was just 18 percent at the end of Bill Clinton’s tenure. The difference between Obama-level spending and Clinton-level spending is more than $700 billion a year.

The Simpson-Bowles debt commission recommended that federal spending be brought down to 21 percent of GDP. The difference between Obama-level spending and Simpson-Bowles level spending is around $300 billion a year.

Republicans in the House undoubtedly won’t, and shouldn’t, agree to finance Obama-level spending. After all, they were elected in 2010 to put a brake on Obama’s spending and were returned to power this election.

But where and when to draw the line is substantively and politically dicey. Obama clearly intends to push Republicans to the edge of every cliff – the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and sequestration; maxing out the debt limit – counting on them to blink at the end.

At no point will Republicans have the upper hand politically. But blink each time, and they end up financing Obama-level spending.

So, perhaps it’s time to think about the unthinkable: not increasing the debt limit.

This does not have to mean default. Existing debt can be rolled over under the current limit. Servicing the debt only costs around $250 billion a year, which could be made a priority.

What it would mean is that on-going spending would have to be on a pay-as-you-go basis. Spending would have to be reduced from $3.6 trillion to around $2.8 trillion.

That’s a huge cut. But spending as a percentage of GDP would be close to the 18 percent it was under Clinton. In fact, if the Clinton spending discipline of limiting growth in outlays to around 3 percent a year had been maintained during the profligate presidencies of George W. Bush and Obama, that’s about what the size of the federal budget would be today.

Not increasing the debt ceiling would be shock therapy for the country, with uncertain economic and political ramifications. A more gradual decline in spending as a percentage of GDP, such as proposed in Paul Ryan’s budget or by the Simpson-Bowles commission, would be infinitely preferable and more responsible.

But if the only choices are financing Obama-level spending or shock therapy, then at least some thought has to be given to shock therapy.

Read more: http://goo.gl/Ab1QD

AMERICAN THINKER
Antinomianism: The Soft Heresy
by Daniel Ciofani
December 9, 2012

The election of 2012 fused principles of state and church demanding Americans follow one distinct path. The country chose to follow a path that is fiscally illogical, covetous of private property, dismissive to personal initiative, mythological towards freedom, repentant to a planet, subjugating of the religious to the secular, deadly to the unborn, disrespectful to the sick and aged, encouraging to the sexually deviant, and destructive to family.

So how could our nation, so strongly and freely steeped in Judeo-Christian principles, have chosen such a path willingly? First, let us quickly address the Judeo portion of our heritage. Quite simply, there used to be twelve tribes of Israel. Now there are but two; Judah and Benjamin (and a sprinkling of Dan). So when and why did the other tribes evaporate? This I will leave to the more learned, but I have a hunch that they weren't doing something right.

Let's focus in on our good Christian friends.There are many makes, models, colors, and flavors of Christianity to freely choose from in our society. After five hundred years of reforming, reshaping, and reshaking Christianity, the truth is that there is not much difference among each of the varieties. Oh sure, on paper or parchment there are fundamental differences, but they are difficult for the average laity to describe without stumbling. Rarer yet are clergy who attempt to describe their branch's differences, for fear of losing half their flock.

This can be interpreted as a good thing, however. After all, Christianity started out as one Faith and the spirit of ecumenism fosters all to become one family again. Perhaps the old passage, "There is one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism" rings truer than ever. Amidst all the church rules and laws, maybe we can agree with Augustine, "Love, and do what you want!"

So how could a Christian faith so unified with other denominations all across the country vote so consistently to outlaw its own historical and religious values? How could Christianity vote for ideas that run counter to mathematical, logical, civil, moral, and Biblical laws? It's really quite simple. It's not that there aren't enough Christians in the country, for there are plenty. It's because Christians are saved! (Or think they are.) Their prayer, song, and presence in the Lord, made possible through the gift of Salvation, calls them to be exempt from earthly laws. In short, many Christians are practicing a style of Christianity known as Antinomianism. Here is the definition:

an•ti•no•mi•an•ism (noun) 

1. Theology; The doctrine or belief that the Gospel frees Christians from required obedience to any law, whether scriptural, civil, or moral. 

2. The belief that moral laws are relative in meaning and application as opposed to fixed or universal.

In case you are wondering, Antinomianism is a Christian heresy. This gentle and soft heresy is popular for many reasons. First, it's very old. The original Antinomians were Gnostics. They believed that Christianity was a secretive and privileged message that only the learned understood. They were the climate-changers of their day. The Gnostics held those who just didn't get it in contempt. With that secret knowledge, you could do whatever you wanted in this life, because the material world was ultimately unimportant. Antinomianism made a return during the Reformation, and Luther had to formally put the heresy in its place. Sure, the Just shall live by Faith. Sure, good works don't get the job done. However; Faith and bad works means all bets are off. Even the Council of Trent made a case for its specific heresy. All Christians get to clearly understand this one: antinomianism is an equal opportunity Salvation destroyer.

Today Antinomianism is alive and well in all churches. We have all met many Antinomians. They are the Christians comfortable with bankrupting the country and confiscating others' property. They are Christians who somehow believe that Salvation has a quota based on skin color. They are the pro-choice Catholics, and the Anglicans who encourage the homosexual clergy. They include the Lutherans who pray long and hard for their church to finally move from Sola Scriptura to Some-a-Scriptura. They are even the Evangelicals who actively await the destructive end, while not even voting to prevent it. They are Saved, so they do whatever they want, even if it's deadly. All of these Christians use their gift of Faith as an escape valve for their own irresponsible moral, religious, and Biblical decisions and public policy.

And so the next time you attend church, ask your spiritual leader if he or she is an Antinomian. Most will say that they'll have to get back to you on this one, while they go and look it up. When they do respond, they'll contend, of course not! You'll then have to ask them to describe one religious law of the faithful, defended strongly by your church in secular society. If your spiritual leader has no response, then you have met another Antinomian. No matter how the conversation goes, it is common practice for all religious leaders to suggest, for the sake of the Church, that you pray on it. In the meantime, for the sake of the Church, the Devil too, will be preying on it.

Read more: http://goo.gl/AxZze

Luke 6:46 46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?

December 6, 2012

THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR

I See England, I See France - Where in the world have tax increases made things better?

by Matt Purple
December 6, 2012

The left and much of the center are launching a scorched-earth assault against the right's position on taxes.

Republicans are being told they must hike taxes on top earners if they're serious about paying down the debt. Grover Norquist is being portrayed as a mad sorcerer, staggering around and misfiring spells in fits of pique while his entranced minions slowly come to. Here in Washington, meaningless buzzwords are fluttering through the air like dead autumn leaves. "Serious." "Hostage takers." "Reality-based community." "Balanced approach."

The last of those terms might be the most amusing. President Obama's initial fiscal cliff plan was repeatedly lauded as a "balanced approach." On one hand, Democrats got tax hikes on the top earners. And on the other hand, Democrats got $200 billion in stimulus. Even-steven, you see.

But let's examine the plan's main provision and President Obama's loudest podium-thumper: the tax hikes on top earners. If passed, rates for the top two tax brackets would increase from 33% and 35% to 36 and 39.6% respectively, tax rates on capital gains would go up from 15% to 23.8%, and the top rate on dividends would skyrocket from 15% to 43.4%. The president's accountants claim this would raise $1.6 trillion over the next decade without slowing down the economy.

If that were true, it would be worth consideration. Conservatives like low taxes, but the overriding concern right now must be paying down the debt. $160 billion per year might be a drop in the bucket, but enough drops fill up.

The problem is it's not true. Raising taxes only makes things worse. The vintage conservative nostrums about higher taxes reducing revenue and enervating economies still hold.

Look at Great Britain where former Prime Minister Gordon Brown pushed through a tax hike shortly before voters booted him in 2010. Wealthy earners saw their rate increase from 40% to 50%. The top rate for capital gains also shot up 10%.

The results have been catastrophic for Britain's economy. In 2010, there were more than 16,000 people in Britain declaring income of 1 million pounds or more. With Brown's new taxes, that number dropped to just 6,000 as the wealthy either left Britain or trimmed their income to avoid taxation. Earlier this year, under Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, the government announced it would drop that rate from 50% to 45%. Since then, the number of residents declaring 1 million pound incomes is up to 10,000.

Higher tax rates lead to fewer millionaires; lower tax rates lead to more millionaires. It's as clear an illustration as you'll ever see. And far from increasing revenue, Brown's tax burden actually cost the treasury 7 billion pounds. Britain's economy has stalled since Conservatives took power, leading various Krugmanians to reflexively scream "AUSTERITY!" every time they hear an English accent. Britain's recession is complicated but one of its real causes is surely "TAXES!"

Across the channel in France, Socialist President François Hollande is trying to mend his country's crumbling finances with a host of new taxes. The most lacerating one is a 75% income tax rate on millionaires. Also included are new taxes on capital gains, a hike in inheritance charges, and an exit tax for those selling their companies.

The question now isn't whether wealthy French will leave, but how many. The New York Times quoted one tax specialist saying the exodus wouldn't be limited just to millionaires, but also to up-and-coming entrepreneurs with six-figure incomes. Fleeing businessman Jean-Emile Rosenblum summed it up as only the French can: "France is no longer a sexy place to be.… With all the costs, the taxes, and the social pressure, France looks more like an old maid to me."

We can add French voluptuousness to the list of things progressive economists have ruined. Expect the usual consequences: fewer millionaires, less investment, less revenue, and slower growth.

Read more: http://goo.gl/8Zj1K

THE BLAZE

New York Times: Arms Shipments ‘Secretly’ Approved by Obama Admin. Ended Up in Hands of Islamic Militants 

by Jason Howerton

December 5, 2012

The Obama administration “secretly” approved arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, however, U.S. officials quickly became concerned as evidence suggested Qatar was handing the weapons over to Islamic militants, The New York Times reports, citing a number of United States officials and foreign diplomats.

There is no evidence available that suggests the U.S.-approved weapons were involved in the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, which left four Americans dead on Sept. 11. But the revelation is sure to ignite speculation.

More from The New York Times:

But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government. 

The experience in Libya has taken on new urgency as the administration considers whether to play a direct role in arming rebels in Syria, where weapons are flowing in from other countries. 

The Obama administration did not initially raise objections when Qatar began shipping arms to opposition groups in Syria, even if it did not offer encouragement, according to current and former administration officials. But they said the United States has growing concerns that, just as in Libya, the Qataris are equipping some of the wrong militants. 

The United States, which had only small numbers of C.I.A. officers on the ground in Libya during the tumult of the rebellion, provided little oversight of the arms shipments. Within weeks of endorsing Qatar’s plan to send weapons there in spring 2011, the White House began receiving reports that they were going to Islamic militant groups. They were “more antidemocratic, more hard-line, closer to an extreme version of Islam” than the main rebel alliance in Libya, said a former Defense Department official.

“To do this right, you have to have on-the-ground intelligence and you have to have experience…If you rely on a country that doesn’t have those things, you are really flying blind. When you have an intermediary, you are going to lose control,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser who is now dean of Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

The startling revelations raise even more concerns regarding the Obama administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

The secret transactions began in the early months of the Libyan rebellion that ended in Qaddafi’s death. Various officials sought to assist the rebel forces trying to oust the Libyan dictator.

It was a short time later that Mahmoud Jibril, then prime minister of the Libyan transitional government, voiced his concerns to administration officials that the U.S. government was allowing Qatar to arm Islamist militant groups that were against the new Libyan leadership, anonymous U.S. officials said.

Read more: http://goo.gl/HSg4b

HOT AIR

Huh, that’s odd: Harry Reid declines to bring a vote on Obama’s cliff plan

by Erika Johnsen

December 5, 2012

On the Senate floor on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered to give Democrats a chance to go on the record and demonstrate just how serious they are about averting the fiscal cliff by proposing a vote on the package that President Obama proposed last week. Take it away, McConnell:

If the President’s proposal was made in good faith, Democrats should be eager to vote for it. So I’m surprised the Majority Leader just declined the chance for them to support it with their votes. I guess we’re left to conclude that it couldn’t even pass by a bare majority of votes, and that they’d rather take the country off the cliff than actually work out a good-faith agreement that reflects tough choices on both sides. … I think folks should know who actually wants to raise taxes on family farmers and manufacturers, and who thinks we can solve our fiscal problems without doing anything serious to our real long term liabilities. Democrats are so focused on the politics of this debate they seem to forget there’s a cost. They’re feeling so good about the election, they’ve forgotten they’ve got a duty to govern. A lot of people are going to suffer a lot if we go off this cliff. That’s why we assumed Democrats wanted to avoid it. We thought it was the perfect opportunity to do something together. Apparently we were wrong.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s response to this reasonable request? How dare these Republicans ask us to vote on a bill carefully designed and touted by our party leader — it’s a stunt, I say! A stunt!

“I reserve the right to object. I just a minute ago moved to the Russia trade bill,” said Reid. “The purpose of moving to this bill is to protect American jobs. If we don’t do this legislation, we’ll lose American jobs for sure and put American companies in even worse shape than they are with Chinese and European companies. So the question is really this: are we going to get serious here and legislate or is this more of the obstruction we felt so much during this last Congress? 

“The answer to that is really obvious. The answer is yes. Or are we going to continue the sort of political stunts that the Republican Leader is trying to pull today, now?”

Okay, sure: Let’s go ahead and accept Mr. Reid’s language that this is a Republican “stunt,” but it being a “stunt” isn’t why Mr. Reid objects to it — the real problem is that a vote on President Obama’s plan would expose exactly what’s really going on here. The White House insists that President Obama’s plan — to hike up all kinds of taxes and virtually eliminate the debt ceiling — is a substantive, credible, good-faith proposal, yet plenty of Democrats are conspicuously hanging back from endorsing it. Could it be that the White House really doesn’t care about compromise, avoiding the pain of the fiscal cliff, or reducing the deficit, but is actually just single-mindedly committed to their entirely reckless goal of merely hiking taxes on the wealthiest Americans — a plan that even most Congressional Democrats wouldn’t vote for?

…Oh, hey, check that out — they just admitted as much.

Read more: http://goo.gl/UWpyL