February 18, 2013

TOWNHALL

McCain to David Gregory: “Do You Care Whether Four Americans Died?”

by Leah Barkoukis 

February 17, 2013

The extent to which GOP lawmakers are ridiculed by the MSM for trying to get to the bottom of Benghazi is unbelievable. If you missed Sen. McCain on Meet the Press today with David Gregory, it’s well worth watching now.

After explaining to Gregory that there are still a number of unanswered questions regarding Benghazi, McCain concludes by saying there’ s been a massive cover-up. Gregory is confused: “A massive cover-up of what?”

The crux of the interview, however, came when McCain asked Gregory whether he even cared that four Americans died (transcript via NewsBusters):

JOHN MCCAIN: I'm asking you, do you care-- I-- I'm-- I'm asking you, do you care whether four Americans died? Or do you-- the reasons for that? And-- and shouldn't pe-- people be held accountable for the fact that four Americans died-- 

DAVID GREGORY: Well, what you said was the cover-up--
(OVERTALK) 

DAVID GREGORY: A cover-up of what? 

JOHN MCCAIN: Of the information-- concerning the deaths of four brave Americans. The information has not been forthcoming. You can obviously believe that it has. I know that it hasn't. And I'll be glad to send you a list of the questions that have not been answered, including what did the president do and who did he talk to the night of the attack on Benghazi? 

And why was it? Why was it that we-- that the f-- the people who were evacuated from the-- from the consulate the next day were not interviewed the next day. And then they would've known that it was not a spontaneous demonstration. Why did the president for two weeks, for two weeks during the heat of the campaign continue to say he didn't know whether it was a terrorist attack or not? 

Is it because it interfered with the line of Al Qaeda has decimated? And everything's fine in that-- in that part of the world? Maybe. We don't know. But we need the answers. Then we'll reach conclusions. But we have not received the answers. And that's a fact.

But hey, what difference at this point does it make, right?

Read more: http://goo.gl/lOa1a

HUMAN EVENTS
Night of Nonsense
by George Will
February 16, 2013

WASHINGTON — In the 12 months we have to steel ourselves for the next State of the Union spectacle, let us count the ways that this spawn of democratic Caesarism — presidency-worship — has become grotesque. It would be the most embarrassing ceremony in the nation’s civic liturgy were the nation still capable of being embarrassed by its puerile faith in presidential magic.

The Constitution laconically requires only that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” Nothing requires “from time to time” to be construed as “every damn year.” Informing and recommending need not involve today’s tawdry ritual of wishful thinking by presidents unhinged from political reality, and histrionics by their audiences. And must we be annually reminded that all presidents think that everything they want is “necessary and expedient”?

Some of the blame for this yearly night of nonsense goes to Ronald Reagan. Most, however, goes to Woodrow Wilson. Reagan, who loved entertainment, pioneered the regrettable practice of stocking the House gallery with (usually) admirable people. Wilson, who loved himself, had, as professors often do, a theory, which caused him to reverse Thomas Jefferson’s wholesome reticence.

When the Founding generation was developing customs and manners appropriate to a republic, George Washington and John Adams made the mistake of going to Congress to do their constitutional duty of informing and recommending. Jefferson, however, disliked the sound of his voice — such an aversion is a vanishingly rare presidential virtue — and considered it monarchical for the executive to lecture the legislature, the lofty instructing underlings. So he sent written thoughts to Capitol Hill, a practice good enough for subsequent presidents until Wilson in 1913 delivered his message orally, pursuant to the progressives’ belief in inspirational and tutelary presidents.

It is beyond unseemly, it is anti-constitutional for senior military officers and, even worse, Supreme Court justices, to attend these political rallies where, with metronomic regularity, legislators of the president’s party leap to their feet to whinny approval of every bromide and vow. Members of the other party remain theatrically stolid, thereby provoking brow-furrowing punditry about why John Boehner did not rise (to genuflect? salute? swoon?) when Barack Obama mentioned this or that. Tuesday night, the justices, generals and admirals, looking as awkward as wallflowers at a prom, at least stayed seated.

Except for Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, who stayed away. They missed a clunker of a speech, although the tedium was not much worse than usual, and was redeemed by clarifying three things.

First, Obama’s declaration that nothing in his long list of proposed spending “should” — should? — “increase our deficit by a single dime” means there should be commensurate tax increases. Second, now that he has proclaimed that government “must keep the promises we’ve already made,” only the uneducable can still believe he will consider entitlement reforms. Third, by saying spending cuts under the sequester would be “harsh” and would “devastate” domestic programs, he made applesauce of those two words: The cuts would remove only $85 billion from this year’s almost $3.6 trillion budget, and over a decade they would cut just $1.2 trillion from projected spending of $46 trillion. And spending this year would still be well above the post-1945 norm as a percentage of gross domestic product.

Although Obama is a self-proclaimed respecter of science, he does not stoop to empiricism. Understandably. Data are unkind to his assertion that climate change is causing storms to become more severe and drought to become more prevalent. Measured by “accumulated cyclone energy,” hurricane and other tropical cyclone activity is at a three-decade low, and Nature journal reports that globally “there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.”

Wilson’s stroke prevented him from delivering the State of the Union orally in 1919 and 1920, but Warren Harding, not known for a strong sense of propriety, continued the deplorable practice in 1921 and 1922. Calvin Coolidge did so in 1923, four months after becoming president, but not a second time. Wilson’s practice was, however, made the norm by the man who had first come to Washington as Wilson’s assistant secretary of the Navy, Franklin Roosevelt.

State of the Union addresses are now integral to the apotheosis of the presidency. If government is going to be omniprovident, modern presidents are going to be omnipresent, and politics is going to be infantile.

Read more: http://goo.gl/3YiRu

BREITBART

Woodward Attacks Rove for Fixing Elections with Soviet-style ‘Politburo’

by Breitbart News

February 17, 2013

Fox News’ Fox News Sunday, power panel featuring Author Bob Woodward and Republican strategist Karl Rove in a tense exchange.

Read more: http://goo.gl/rNTf4

February 11, 2013

TOWNHALL
Does the Republican Party Have a Future?
by Star Parker
February 11, 2013

The United States, from day one, was a project about principles and ideals.

The super power that emerged and grew from the handful of colonists that began settling here was not the product of where those colonists happened to land, but the ideals and principles in their head and heart – applied in how they lived their lives.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 to address one great blot on the nation’s founding legacy – the existence of slavery in a nation founded under the ideal of freedom under God.

Runaway slave and self-educated abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass said “I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.”

Douglass called Abraham Lincoln, America’s first Republican president, “emphatically the black man’s president.”

When some thirty years ago I told the welfare officer to not bother showing up again at my home – when I decided that my own future would be based on the values of scripture, work, and personal responsibility - there was no doubt in my mind what party would become my political home.

The party of “freedom and progress,” the party of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

But, as longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once observed, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

It‘s no mystery why the Republican Party is having a hard time today. No matter how hard you squint and try to discern the values of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, or any values for that matter, in those now wielding the money and power at the top of the party, they’ve disappeared.

These establishment Republican leaders and operatives are not about ideals and values but business – their own business.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the latest estimate from the Congressional Budget Office is that unemployment will “remain above 7.5 percent through next year. That would make 2014 the sixth consecutive year with a jobless rate that high, the longest stretch of such elevated unemployment in 70 years.”

Yet the Republican presidential candidate in 2012 could not defeat the current occupant of the White House.

In the party that is supposed to be about freedom and personal responsibility, party operatives want to blame everyone else for their own failures.

Worse, they want to pin it on candidates who actually take seriously the traditional values of their party.

Karl Rove would like to weed out candidates like former Missouri congressman Todd Akin.

Akin, who was defeated by Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill in the Senate race in Missouri, was a six term Republican congressman with a flawless conservative record.

For most of 2012 he was ahead of McCaskill in the polls. Then, in August, he expressed himself poorly in an interview about abortion. Despite his apologies and efforts to clarify himself, his own party abandoned him.

McCaskill ran ads, over and over, showing the Republican’s own candidate Mitt Romney questioning Akin’s qualifications. This race could have been saved. But the party elite wasted not a second to dump Akin because they were not comfortable with his conservative values to begin with.

We’re living in a deeply troubled country today. Americans are looking for answers, not a political class feathering its own nest.

There are tens of millions of conservative American patriots who seek an opposition party to represent their conviction that America will not get back on the path to strength and prosperity without restoration of freedom, limited government, free markets, and traditional values.

Today’s big question is whether the Republican Party is going to be that opposition party.

If not, it is not conservative values and convictions that will be abandoned. It will be the Republican Party.

Read more: http://goo.gl/5b58l

CLEVER QUIPS

Never Retreat!

by Conservative Sue

February 9, 2013

I had an interesting conversation on Facebook earlier this week after posting this graphic.

One of my friends decided to use this as an opportunity to lambaste me for sticking to conservative ideals. To sum up our conversation ... she believed that Republicans lose because they support causes such as life, gun rights, traditional marriage, and securing the borders. I, of course, insisted we must stand for conservative principles, but I never really mentioned the fact that I was not a Republican (but, a conservative). This exchange with my Facebook friend got me to thinking: has the GOP establishment brainwashed the majority of conservatives into believing it is best to stay silent on principles to win elections?  The answer to that question is NO. But, it will take a lot of work to undo the damage that is being done to the psyche of conservatives in this country, because there are a large number in the Republican establishment (aided by the conservative media) that share her views.  We have a lot of work to do.

I am currently reading Erick Erickson's book -  Red State Uprising: How To Take Back America and Erickson does a masterful job of explaining why retreating from conservative ideals not only results in a more progressive and growing government, but it actually diminishes opportunities for success. People are hungry for truth-tellers, for leaders who are passionate, articulate, intelligent, and who offer real and lasting solutions. People are tired of politicians who say anything, do anything just to get elected .. but then fail to deliver on any of their promises. People are tired of politicians who put loyalty to their party ahead of loyalty to this country and the American people. Voters detest candidates who hide their true convictions .. and despise those who pretend to support causes, when their actions are not indicative of that support.

We need to know what we believe and articulate those beliefs with confidence to those who are searching for answers. Conservatism may not be as popular as it was during the days of Ronald Reagan, but that is only because conservatives have been silent. We need a voice .. we need to step forth with boldness. Retreat is never a path to victory. Don't be duped by those who would crush the conservative movement in this country. Anyone who tells you that you should stay silent on your principles has either been deceived by the cautious and retreating Republican establishment, or they are actually working to wipe out the conservative movement. Neither of these groups are your friends.

Read more: http://goo.gl/q5MpY

BREITBART
Left-Wing Lickspittles: How the Huffington Post is Aiding Obama's Benghazi Cover-Up
by Joel B. Pollak
February 10, 2013

Normally, we at Breitbart News ignore the Huffington Post. It is self-consciously leftist, so there is little point in highlighting its rather comical bias, except when that bias filters into the mainstream media. Sunday night was just such an occasion, when HuffoPo ran two stories in succession that neatly captured the lickspittle mentality of the mainstream media towards President Barack Obama, and the danger it holds for our democracy.

The first story was headlined, “Obsessed.” It described the promised by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to block the confirmations of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan to the posts of Secretary of Defense and CIA Director, respectively, unless the Obama administration fully explained the president’s actions during the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sep. 11.

Graham is no wide-eyed ideologue. Many conservatives consider him a squish on core issues. (I was once present to hear Graham address a gathering of high-dollar donors. He admonished them about the need to address climate change, even using the odd term “carbon pollution” to describe fossil fuel use. One irritated donor turned to me and whispered: “That sound you hear is checkbooks slamming shut across the nation.”)

Yet Graham takes foreign policy very seriously, as well as the fate of Americans serving abroad. He has, after all, been one of them. In pursuing answers on Benghazi, he is doing what the mainstream media ought to have done, and what the nation wants to be done. He is also answering Obama’s challenge in November: “If Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham and others want to go after somebody [on Libya], they should go after me.”

It is the Huffington Post’s own dishonor that it would impute mental imbalance to a Senator who seeks the truth about how four Americans died--a truth hidden behind lies about YouTube videos, among other alibis. It is only through Graham’s firm persistence, for example, that we learned last week that Obama did not communicate with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta after an initial briefing about the attack that evening.

The second story on Sunday evening was headlined, “Commander,” and linked to a Washington Post story about how President Obama intends to use executive orders to pursue his policy goals in his second term, rather than working with Congress. Leaving aside for the moment that Obama now seeks the very executive supremacy he once denounced, there is something even more disturbing in HuffPo’s framing of the story.

The headline and image were clearly meant to be laudatory. The Huffington Post was praising Obama for exerting “command,” and gave the impression that both its editors and readers are eager to be so commanded. The idea of a president who not only ignores the opposition, but the very legislative process, matches Obama’s vision in last year’s State of the Union address of grafting a military model onto our political life.

That spirit, which has possessed much of the country’s press corps, fits fascism rather than democracy. The irony is that Obama was not the “commander” on that terrible night. We already know that neither he nor his Cabinet showed more than a passing interest in the fate of the Benghazi consulate and its personnel. To mock those seeking answers, and to praise Obama’s leadership, is to aid and abet a disgraceful cover-up.

Read more: http://goo.gl/MpHzn

January 29, 2013

REDSTATE
Senator Ron Johnson the Winner of the Week in Washington
by briansikma
January 28, 2013

Sometimes a citizen lawmaker dares to exercise such candor that the inside-the-Beltway crowd recoils in horror at the blatant honesty. Such was the case with Wisconsin’s own Senator Ron Johnson (R) this past week. Johnson captured attention with his tough questioning of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to finally answer questions about the Benghazi disaster of last September.

Clinton, demonstrating the cunning political acumen that propelled her and her husband so far on the national political stage, weaved a range of emotions into her carefully prepared opening statement. With her final months as Secretary of State clouded by the death of an American ambassador and a subsequent lack of honesty in dealing with the situation during a political campaign, Clinton had to present a strong showing to maintain future political opportunities.

Then Ron Johnson happened.

Refusing to accept Clinton’s scripted answers, Johnson pressed the Secretary for specific details of her involvement in the disaster and her Department’s failure to protect one of its own. The exchange was contentious and tumultuous.

After the hearing, Johnson suggested to a reporter that Clinton was less than genuine in her appearance before the committee. What he suggested wasn’t flattering, but it was true. As any candid political observer knows, the Clintons are masterful politicians who are able to fabricate and project an image that may not be genuine but is quite convincing.

For daring to question Hillary Clinton’s motives, Senator Johnson was named the person who had the “Worst Week in Washington” by the Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza. Cillizza is a smart reporter, even if infected by the more liberal-leaning Potomac fever that taints a number in the nation’s political press corps elite, and his observations are often useful and insightful. But he’s dead wrong on this one.

Ron Johnson may have felt the pressure to back off his statement and the Washington intelligentsia may have found his honesty woefully out of line. But what he said didn’t only need to be said, it was true.

For far too long an incestuous atmosphere has pervaded the nation’s capitol. Establishment political figures in both parties have been given a pass by those who are supposed to be the watchdogs of the process. Instead of receiving the skepticism and vetting bestowed on others, these individuals – and the Clintons are among them – have been able to act with impunity expecting to never be held accountable.

Senator Johnson’s questions at the hearing, and subsequent candor about the attitude of Secretary Clinton, are a refreshing breath of fresh air.

Washington’s self-confidence does not comport well with a nation that sees looming fiscal and economic challenges growing closer by the day. To fix the problems we face it is going to take more honest leadership than Washington is used to being comfortable with. Senator Ron Johnson is one of those leaders who is willing to ignore the status quo that got us to where we are, and provide the honesty we need.

Read more: http://goo.gl/h7zcj

PJ MEDIA
California at Twilight
by Victor Davis Hanson
January 29, 2013

We keep trying to understand the enigma of California, mostly why it still breathes for a while longer, given the efforts to destroy the sources of its success. Let’s try to navigate through its sociology and politics to grasp why something that should not survive is surviving quite well — at least in some places.

Conservati delendi sunt

The old blue/red war for California is over. Conservatives lost. Liberals won — by a combination of flooding the state with government-supplied stuff, and welcoming millions in while showing the exit to others. The only mystery is how Carthaginian will be the victor’s peace, e.g., how high will taxes go, how many will leave, how happy will the majority be at their departure?

The state of Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson, and George Deukmejian is long dead due to the most radical demographic shifts of any one state in recent American history — as far away as Cicero was to Nero. One minor, but telling example: Salinas, in Monterey County where the murder rate is the highest in the state, just — at least I think the news story is not a prank — named its new middle school after Tiburcio Vasquez.

A convicted murderer.

He was the legendary 19th-century robber and murderer who was hanged for his crimes. But who is to say that Vasquez is a killer, and Henry Huntington a visionary?

The New Demography

California has changed not due to race but due to culture, most prominently because the recent generation of immigrants from Latin America did not — as in the past, for the most part — come legally in manageable numbers and integrate under the host’s assimilationist paradigm. Instead, in the last three decades huge arrivals of illegal aliens from Mexico and Latin America saw Democrats as the party of multiculturalism, separatism, entitlements, open borders, non-enforcement of immigration laws, and eventually plentiful state employment.

Given the numbers, the multicultural paradigm of the salad bowl that focused on “diversity” rather than unity, and the massive new government assistance, how could the old American tonic of assimilation, intermarriage, and integration keep up with the new influxes? It could not.

Finally, we live in an era of untruth and Orwellian censorship. It is absolutely taboo to write about the above, or to talk about the ever more weird artifacts of illegal immigration — the war now on black families in demographically changing areas of Los Angeles, the statistics behind DUI arrests, or the burgeoning profile of Medi-Cal recipients. I recall of the serial dissimulation in California my high school memorization of Sir Walter Raleigh:

Tell potentates, they live/Acting by others’ action/Not loved unless they give; Not strong but by affection; If potentates reply/Give potentates the lie.

There were, of course, other parallel demographic developments. Hundreds of thousands of the working and upper-middle class, mostly from the interior of the state, have fled — maybe four million in all over the last thirty years, taking with them $1 trillion in capital and income-producing education and expertise. Apparently, they tired of high taxes, poor schools, crime, and the culture of serial blame-gaming and victimhood. In this reverse Dust Bowl migration, a barren no-tax Nevada or humid Texas was a bargain.

Their California is long gone (“Lo, all our pomp and of yesterday/Is one with Nineveh and Tyre”), and a Stockton, Fresno, or Visalia misses their presence, because they had skills, education, and were net pluses to the California economy.

Add in a hip, youth, and gay influx to the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and coastal Los Angeles that saw California as a sort of upscale, metrosexual lifestyle (rule of thumb: conservatives always find better restaurants in liberal locales), and California now has an enormous number of single-person households, childless couples, and one-child families. Without the lifetime obligation to raise $1 million in capital to pay for bringing up and educating two kids from birth to 21 (if you’re lucky), the non-traditional classes have plenty of disposable income for entertainment, housing, and high taxes. For examples, read Petronius, especially the visit to Croton.

Finally, there is our huge affluent public work force. It is the new aristocracy; landing a job with the state is like hitting the lottery. Californians have discovered that, in today’s low/non-interest economy, a $70,000 salary with defined benefit public pension for life is far better than having the income from a lifetime savings of $3 million.

Or, look at it another way: with passbooks paying 0.5-1%, the successful private accountant or lawyer could put away $10,000 a month for thirty years of his productive career and still not match the monthly retirement income of the Caltrans worker who quit at 60 with modest contributions to PERS.

And with money came political clout. To freeze the pension contribution of a highway patrolman is a mortal sin; but no one worries much about the private security’s guard minimum wage and zero retirement, whose nightly duties are often just as dangerous. The former is sacrosanct; the latter a mere loser.

The result of 30 years of illegal immigration, the reigning culture of the coastal childless households, the exodus of the overtaxed, and the rule of public employees is not just Democratic, but hyper-liberal supermajorities in the legislature. In the most naturally wealthy state in the union with a rich endowment from prior generations, California is serially broke — the master now of its own fate. It has the highest menu of income, sales, and gas taxes in the nation, and about the worst infrastructure, business climate, and public education. Is the latter fact despite or because of the former?

Read more: http://goo.gl/0dMAS

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

December 19, 2012

NEWSMAX

Mark Foley: Boehner’s ‘Surrender’ Inevitable in Fiscal-Cliff Talks

by By Todd Beamon and Kathleen Walter

December 18, 2012

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley tells Newsmax TV that House Speaker John Boehner is “going to have to wave the white flag of surrender” and accept tax increases to reach a deal with President Barack Obama to avert the fiscal cliff expected to occur at the end of the year.

“We have a spending problem more than we have a revenue problem, but there’s got to be a decision to be made to get a little bit of both,” Foley, the popular Florida Republican who resigned his seat in 2006 after five terms, tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview. “We’ve got a divided Congress. We’ve got a Democratic presidency, we’ve got a Democratic Senate and we’ve got a Republican-led House.

“We can bay at the moon as long as we want. We’re going to hit the fiscal cliff. So, Boehner has to concede,” he added. “Boehner’s going to have to wave the white flag of surrender, that we’re going to allow some additional revenue — but I would suggest the Democrats better, including the president, figure out what we’re doing with entitlements, work on reducing some defense spending — waste, fraud, and abuse — and find a way to not just simply say we’re going to keep spending, spending, spending.”


Boehner is not wrong to consider revenue increases in his talks with Obama, Foley said.

“Most people don’t use a million-dollar homestead exemption to deduct interest from their income. If you adjusted that to $500,000 to properly reflect what the average homeowner needs in a mortgage deduction, you could reduce that exemption and bring in a lot of cash revenue,” Foley said. “Technically, yes, that’s a tax increase on those who have more than $500,000 in mortgage loans, but shouldn’t we design a program that benefits the majority rather than a select few?

“Let’s design a tax code that satisfies the broad middle class. The rich, if they lose a little deduction, aren’t going to notice it. The poor aren’t taking advantage of it. It’s the middle class that we protect by doing so. When you allow that to happen, you raise revenue so then we have a chance to fill in the deficit.

“But if the Democrats are allowed to spend that enhanced revenue, then you’ve really at zero as far as an accomplishment,” Foley added. “That’s why both sides have to work together. Bring a little bit of revenue through some mechanism of the tax code but, really, dramatically reduce spending — and, there, we see a brighter future for America.

“If it’s simply force Republicans to raise taxes and we don’t want to do anything with spending, then this disaster will continue.”

And, any increase in the nation’s debt ceiling should be tied to a Congressional vote, he said.

“It causes people to reflect on the urgency when there’s that debt-ceiling limit, because it makes people remind themselves. If you just put it on autopilot, people lose sight of the fact that we’re in a financial free-fall and we are in a dangerous place.

“That’s the reason for credit limits on individual borrowers: to prevent them from going broke. Our nation has to have the same trigger,” Foley said. “So I disagree completely when the president says let me have ultimate power and let me raise the debt ceiling as I need it. Unfortunately, this man would borrow us into the grave.”

Rank-and-file Republicans should give Boehner some slack during these demanding negotiations, Foley said.

“He’s always in jeopardy. You’ve got a majority leader who probably wants his job. You’ve got a majority whip who wants his job. But when that speaker has to make decisions that reflect the best interest of the nation, there are those who are in extraordinarily safe districts who squawk.

“But this man has to control a body of 435, so I hope they give him the flexibility to properly negotiate,” Foley said. “Hopefully, he won’t give up too much — and we will resolve this problem.”

That includes keeping up the pressure for Democrats to make cuts and changes to Social Security and Medicare.

“Social Security is not supposed to be the end all, be all of your retirement,” Foley said. “People say what if they raise the retirement age? I can’t retire until I’m 67. No, you don’t get paid until you’re 67. You can retire when you’re 35. That’s the free will of the environment. You can do anything.

“Yes, there are those that work hard at average jobs — and 67 may be a burden, but we’re living longer, we’re living healthier, and even people now in our generation who turn 65, they don’t want to retire. They want to stay in the workforce until 72. But if it’s going to be around for your child, Timmy, when he needs Social Security, it better be a system that has longevity.

“The same with Medicare,” he added. “You can’t provide every ounce of healthcare to a growing, age-eligible population without some requirement to suggest the wealthier pay a higher premium or take less out. So I don’t begrudge them. That’s one of the most urgent issues.

“Democrats better get to the table and stop the squawking about you’re hurting the elderly because nobody has proposed, including Paul Ryan, to hurt the elderly.”

Read more: http://goo.gl/bHqF6

TOWNHALL
It's the Spending, Stupid
by John Stossel
December 19, 2012

Listening to progressive media pundits, I'd think the most evil man in the universe is Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. His crime? He heads a movement that asks political candidates to pledge not to raise taxes.
I think Grover accomplished a lot. But I wish he'd convinced politicians to pledge not to increase spending.

President Obama says raising taxes to cut the deficit is a "balanced" approach.

Balanced ...

But what's "balanced" about raising taxes after vast increases in spending? Trillions for war, Medicare, "stimulus" and solar panels. Tax receipts rose -- after tax-rate cuts -- from $1.9 billion in 2003 to $2.3 billion in 2008, the year the recession started. That increase couldn't keep up with the spending. The deficit doubled -- actually, more than doubled -- as politicians increased spending to nearly $4 trillion! Our debt, at more than $16 trillion, now exceeds our gross domestic product.

Ludicrous, irresponsible spending is why we're in trouble. As columnist Ron Hart points out, Bill Clinton's balanced budget spent $1.7 trillion. "Adjusted for inflation," he writes, "our federal government would (have) a $200 billion surplus. But instead of increasing government spending in line with normal inflation, under Bush and Obama we are spending $3.8 trillion today. Democrats, who believe we have a 'revenue' problem instead of a 'spending' problem, must also think they have a bartender problem, not a drinking problem."

The media obsess about tax rates, but spending is more important. As Milton Friedman taught us, spending is a far more accurate gauge of the government burden. If government spends a dollar, that dollar is taxed away from someone. If it's borrowed, it's removed from productive use, setting the stage for higher taxes later. If the government prints more dollars to fund spending, our purchasing power falls. Transferring purchasing power from the people to the government via inflation is a form of taxation.

If Republicans and Democrats reach a deal, the tax increases will be real -- but spending "cuts" probably illusions. If they actually happen, they will only be reductions in already planned increases. The Wall Street Journal notes that when the two parties talk about cutting spending by $4 trillion over a decade, "those numbers have no real meaning because they are conjured in the wilderness of mirrors that is the federal budget process. Since 1974, Capitol Hill's 'baseline' has automatically increased spending every year according to Congressional Budget Office projections ... . Tax and spending changes are then measured off that inflated baseline."

Read more: http://goo.gl/WBSJN

THE WASHINGTON POST

Review of Benghazi attack faults ‘grossly’ inadequate security, leadership failures

by Anne Gearan

December 18, 2012

An independent investigation of the fatal attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Libya on Sept. 11 found that “grossly” inadequate security and reliance on local militias left U.S. diplomats and other personnel vulnerable, the State Department told Congress on Tuesday.

The review of the assault on the mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans faulted systemic failures of leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department, according to an unclassified version posted on the department’s Web site Tuesday night. 

The review by the Accountability Review Board said the temporary, lightly defended compound where Stevens died lacked disciplined oversight of its security operations. The diplomatic post’s ad hoc nature, with inexperienced staff members working there for short periods, “resulted in diminished institutional knowledge, continuity, and mission capacity,” the report said.

Finally, the report said State Department officials in Washington ignored requests from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, for additional guards and better security for the Benghazi compound, which served as a temporary U.S. consulate for eastern Libya. It also said that there had been worrisome incidents in the weeks before the attack that should have led to increased security, but the report did not identify any specific threats to the compound on Sept. 11.

The report said State Department security personnel on the scene and CIA officers at a nearby annex used as an operations base had responded in a timely and appropriate manner, and it absolved the U.S. military of any blame, saying there was not enough time for a military response that would have made any difference.

Despite the broad security failures, the report did not single out any individual officials as violating procedures and did not recommend any disciplinary action.

The report also concluded that, contrary to initial reports by the Obama administration and by media outlets, there was no protest outside the outpost ahead of the attack and that the assault on the diplomatic compound and the CIA annex was carried out by terrorists.

Stevens and another diplomat, Sean Smith, were killed inside the compound. Two other Americans, CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, died in the attack on the annex. Ten people were injured in the assault.

The panel’s report “provides a clear-eyed look at serious, systemic challenges,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote in letters to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She said that the State Department had already begun to address the lapses and that she accepts “every one” of the recommendations for improvement.

Read more: http://goo.gl/JIi4i

December 16, 2012

NEWSMAX
Report: Boehner Agrees to Tax Hikes for Entitlement Cuts
by the Associated Press
December 15, 2012

Signaling new movement in "fiscal cliff" talks, House Speaker John Boehner has proposed raising the top rate for earners making more than $1 million, a person familiar with the negotiations said.

President Barack Obama, who wants higher top rates for households earning more than $250,000, has not accepted the offer, this person said.

The proposal, however, indicated progress in talks that had appeared stalled. The person would only discuss the plan on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

As part of a broader budget deal, Boehner is still seeking more spending cuts than Obama has proposed, particularly in mandatory health care spending. Boehner has asked for a long-term increase in eligibility age for Medicare and for lower costs-of-living adjustments for Social Security.

Boehner's tax proposal was first reported by Politico.

A Boehner aide would not comment on the report.

At issue are expiring tax rates that would automatically increase on Jan. 1 for virtually every income tax payer if Congress and the president don't act. Steep budget cuts are also scheduled to kick in, unless Congress and Obama agree to forestall them with other deficit reduction measures.

Obama has insisted on extending current rates for the 98 percent of taxpayers in household that earn less than $250,000. He would let the top two marginal rates increase from 33 percent to 35 percent and from 36 percent to 39.6 percent for those taxpayers making over that threshold.

Until now, Boehner had maintained his opposition to raising any rates. Instead, he had proposed to raise up to $800 billion in tax revenue over 10 years by limiting tax loopholes and deductions as part of a broad tax overhaul.

But the speaker and House Republicans have come under increasing pressure form a number of Senate Republicans who say they should yield to Obama's demand on tax rates and then press him for additional cuts early next year in exchange for an increase in the nation's borrowing limit.

Read more: http://goo.gl/af4B5

BREITBART

Hillary Clinton Concussed: Won't Testify on Benghazi

by Tony Lee

December 15, 2012

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fainted due to a stomach virus that left her dehydrated and suffered a concussion in the fall last week, the State Department revealed on Saturday.

As a result, Clinton is not expected to testify next Thursday at the congressional hearings on the terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.

State Department spokesperson Phillipe Reines said Clinton "became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion" while suffering from a stomach virus that caused her to also miss a scheduled trip to Mexico last week.

"She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors," Reines said.

Reines added that at the recommendation of Clinton's doctors, "she will continue to work from home next week, staying in regular contact with Department and other officials." He claimed she "is looking forward to being back in the office soon."

Congress will hold hearings on Benghazi next week, and Clinton had been scheduled to testify. She took "responsibility" for many of the security failures leading up to the attack.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, after withdrawing her name for consideration to be the next Secretary of State on Thursday, said that Clinton had initially been asked to go on the Sunday shows immediately after the attacks. Rice claimed she took Hillary's place because Clinton was too worn down from her travels to do the interviews.

Read more: http://goo.gl/d5K0f

THE BLAZE

Grieving Father Memorializes Daughter…Has Kind Words for CT Killer’s Family

by Erica Ritz

December 15, 2012

Fighting back tears and struggling to catch his breath, the father of a 6-year-old gunned down in Friday’s school shooting in Connecticut told the world about a bright little girl who loved to draw and was always smiling– reserving surprising words of sympathy for the gunman’s family.

Robbie Parker’s daughter Emilie was among the 20 children who died in the one of the worst schoolyard attacks in U.S. history. He was one of the first parents to speak publicly about their loss.

“She was beautiful. She was blond. She was always smiling,” he said.

Parker spoke to reporters not long after police released the names and ages of the victims on Saturday, a simple document that told a horrifying story of loss.

He expressed no animosity or anger, offering only prayers for the family of the man who killed 26 people and himself.

Robert and Alissa Parker leave the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire House in tears after a shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Friday morning, Dec. 14, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. (Photo: AP)

Parker remarked, struggling with every phrase, on Saturday:

It’s a horrific tragedy, and we want everybody to know that our hearts and our prayers go out to them– this includes the family of the shooter.  I can’t imagine how hard this experience must be for you, and I want you to know that our family, and our love and our support goes out to you as well. 

As the deep pain begins to settle into our hearts, we find comfort reflecting on the incredible person that Emilie was, and how many lives she was able to touch in her short time here on earth. 

Emilie was bright, creative, and very loving.  Emilie was always willing to try new things– other than food.  She loved to use her talents to touch the lives of everyone she came into contact with.  She was an exceptional artist, and she always carried around her markers and pencils so that she never missed an opportunity to draw a picture or make a card for those around her. 

I can’t count the number of times Emilie noticed someone feeling sad or frustrated, and would rush to find a piece of paper to draw them a picture, or to write them an encouraging note.  ​[Emphasis added]

Parker proceeded to discuss what a remarkable mentor Emilie was to her two little sisters, ages 3 and 4, and how she loved teaching them how to “read, dance, and find the simple joys in life.”

“Emily’s laughter was infectious, and all those who had the pleasure to meet her would agree that this world is a better place because she has been in it,” he said of his daughter.

Parker concluded by saying we cannot let tragedies define us.

Struggling to maintain his voice, he urged:

“Let it [be] something that inspires us to be better, to be more compassionate and humble people.  Let us please keep the sentiments of love that we feel for our families, and the compassion that we feel for others– even complete strangers– and keep them with us at all times, not just in times of sorrow and tragedy.  And may we do this so that we can better all of our communities, and all of our cities and all our states, so we can make everyone, everywhere in this country feel safe.”

Watch Parker’s complete remarks, via CNN, below:

Read more: http://goo.gl/Dm6oG

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

November 20, 2012

AMERICAN THINKER

Is 30 the New 50?

by Scott Mayer

November 20, 2012

With ObamaCare in the wings, the traditional forty- or fifty-hour work week will soon be replaced with a less than thirty-hour week for many American workers. To wit: many businesses, including ones that previously received ObamaCare waivers, are trying to avoid paying onerous fines for not providing employees with health coverage as mandated by the new law.

President Obama recently said that he won't allow the budget to be "balanced on the backs of the middle class." He sure did give the appearance of truly caring about these "folks," but he failed to disclose the fact that, even if taxed at 100%, there simply aren't enough rich people to pay for all of his big-government plans. But as Thomas Sowell points out, even at a rate much lower than 100%, higher tax rates don't necessarily translate into higher tax revenues. So where will all this needed money come from? While Obama is targeting the group of Americans who already pay the most in taxes, the burden of his policies will ultimately break the backs of those he claims to be trying to protect.

The Obamacare mandate is just one example of how the middle class will be forced to shoulder a heaver burden, which flies in the face what Obama had promised to the American people. But in addition to this mandate (now officially a tax), a reduced work week will in essence have the same effect as a huge tax increase for those affected. Take-home pay is what ultimately matters, and losing 25% of one's gross pay based upon a forty-hour week or about 45% based on a fifty-hour week when overtime is factored in represents an enormous hit. This hit comes before anything is even earned to tax at regular rates. And there are plenty of other hidden ObamaCare taxes that will also take a huge bite out of Americans' pocketbooks in one way or another.

And the hits just keep on coming. ObamaCare will also take a bite out of middle-class buying power when it comes to one of America's most popular foods -- pizza -- by imposing complicated national menu-labeling standards, the costs of which will no doubt be passed along to the consumer. This added cost will be in addition to any other expenses that businesses will need to add to their products due to the hefty burden of ObamaCare. (Hat tip: KSFO Morning Show with Brian Sussman)

Margaret Thatcher once said: "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." The problem with Obama's socialism is that we're already running out of other people's money -- and Obama is just getting started.

By the time Obama and Democrats are finished with us, perhaps thirty will be the new fifty -- or maybe even seventy, in terms of age and health. I suppose we can call it Extreme Makeover: Obamacare Edition.

Read more: http://goo.gl/qkB4T

THE NATIONAL REVIEW

Oh What a Tangled Web - Libyagate won't end like Watergate

by Victor Davis Hanson

November 20, 2012

Supporters of President Obama have dubbed those who question administration statements about Libya as either partisans or conspiracy theorists, on the premise that the administration had no reason to dissimulate. But in fact, it had plenty of political reasons not to be candid, as the following questions make clear.

Why was the administration hesitant to beef up security at the vulnerable Benghazi consulate ahead of time, or to send in military assistance during the seven-hour attack on the consulate and the CIA annex, or at least to be candid after the attack?

The Obama reelection campaign had established a catchy narrative about foreign policy. “Leading from behind” had rid the world of Qaddafi without the loss of American lives, and had prepped Libya for the arrival of the Arab Spring, which would lead to a postbellum reform government. Barack Obama had killed Osama bin Laden and scattered al-Qaeda, dispelling slurs that he was somehow soft on Islamic terrorism. His reset diplomacy had brought a cool professional approach of quiet competency to foreign policy, consistent with a new lower-profile American posture abroad.

The idea of a preplanned hit by al-Qaeda affiliates on a vulnerable and unprepared American diplomatic post had the potential to shatter that narrative right before the election. Susan Rice summed up best the administration’s positive take on the supposedly spontaneous riot:

This is a turbulent time. It’s a time of dramatic change. It’s a change that the United States has backed because we understand that when democracy takes root, when human rights and people’s freedom of expression can be manifested, it may lead to turbulence in the short term, but over the long term, that is in the interest of the United States. The mobs we’ve seen on the outside of these embassies are a small minority. They’re the ones who have largely lost in these emerging democratic processes, and just as the people of these countries are not going to allow their lives to be hijacked by a dictator, they’re not going to allow an extremist mob to hijack their future and their freedom. And we’re going to continue to stand with the vast majority of the populations in these countries.

Had we, as our people on the ground had requested, beefed up security at the annex with Marines, attention at some point might have been focused on the chaotic situation in Libya and the vulnerability of the very Americans who supposedly had done so much to free Libyans from Qaddafi. Ambassador Chris Stevens was the sort of new diplomat — low-key, cool, a career professional, fluent in the local language and customs, able to blend in with the locals — that typified the new soft-power approach. He was hardly the sort of ambassador who would need, or want to be associated with, a sandbagged, barbed-wired, Marine-laden traditional compound.

Likewise, sending in air support to the beleaguered defenders — in the manner that Bill Clinton allowed the Blackhawks to strafe whatever was necessary to save a trapped American outpost in Mogadishu — would have reminded Americans that once more we were fighting al-Qaeda or its affiliates — all very much alive after the death of bin Laden. It would also have had the potential to result in a nasty high-profile firefight in a supposedly friendly reforming country on the eve of the U.S. election — a sort of mini-version of Mogadishu or the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon. This was at the very time the president on the campaign trail was telling the country that we were leaving wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not starting one in Libya.

Second, the alternative explanation — blaming a crass right-wing anti-Islamic filmmaker and the notoriously Islamophobic Florida pastor Terry Jones — was just too attractive an antithesis between a few bigoted Neanderthals and the majority of reform-minded liberal Americans. Blasting reckless hate speech, arresting the filmmaker for his insensitivity on the pretext of a minor parole violation, and delivering Cairo-speech-like reassurances about ruffled Muslim feelings would all showcase the president’s natural forte on the global stage: ecumenical reaching out, zero tolerance for bigotry, and singular sensitivity to wounded Muslim feelings.

Obama simply could not resist that, even though on September 12, the day after the attack, he let slip in an interview with 60 Minutes (of which this segment was not aired till weeks later) that he suspected it might have been a preplanned terrorist hit. After all, the notion that on 9/11 hundreds of people would show up at an obscure American consulate in a secondary Libyan city in order to protest a two-month-old video produced by an obscure American, and then suddenly get out of hand and use heavy weaponry such as machine guns and mortars to attack Americans, was as preposterous as it was apparently still preferable to the inconvenient truth.

Read more: http://goo.gl/BuWfz

CVN EDITORIAL

This Will Not be a Quick Fix

by Conservative Sue

November 20, 2012

Thomas Paine once said, "These are the times that try men's souls."  We live in a crazy world where what is right is now declared wrong, where good men and women are vilified by our government, where instant gratification and selfishness are guiding principles. 

I've said, for years, that restoring American exceptionalism will require a lot of hard work by dedicated patriots who are willing to withstand the onslaught of ridicule to educate those who have fallen asleep on our watch. Our government and our culture are slipping into an appalling state of lethargy and insolence. Those who are in leadership are not held to account while those who insist that we must respect our Constitution and founding principles are blamed for the failures of others who have taken this country down a dark path.

I have worked in education all my life. It hasn't been an easy profession for me, but a long hard battle to change a system that is designed to reward those who submit to the status quo while simultaneously thwarting the efforts of those who believe that exceptionalism in education (as in  any other endeavor) is the only real and lasting success.  

I have worked in good school districts and bad ones, but, without exception, the school districts that were willing to look at the hard facts and tackle their problems head-on were the only ones who made a real difference in improving education for the students and changing the culture of their schools and communities for the better. 

I liken the situation we see in America now to that of a faltering school district. Today many school district officials put out glowing reports of success to the public while students sit in classrooms devoid of engagement and true learning. Test scores are manipulated, data is parsed to put a positive spin on what might otherwise be seen as failure in our students. The school officials work day and night to get around accountability measures while wallowing in mediocrity and insisting that the status quo is wholly acceptable. Instead of taking poor results as a warning signal or a call for change, they ignore the results and look for a quick-fix or simply misrepresent what those negative results really mean to a naive community.

To change a culture of a school district is very difficult.  I have been very fortunate to work in school districts alongside some great teachers and administrators.. who believed, like me, that failure is simply not acceptable. That bad data is simply that, and any spin to make it look better than it is ... isn't serving any good purpose.  Years of hard work paid off as we worked together to instill an attitude of exceptionalism first within our students, then their parents, then within the school leadership teams.  The culture began to slowly change from 'what is the minimum we can do to get by?' to one of 'We will not settle for less than exceptional'. To see those attitudes change has been the most rewarding part of my career.  

Now we need to do the same in this culture.  There is no quick-fix for a culture that has drifted so far from the ideals of exceptionalism that once guided us. We can't expect that our leaders will report data honestly or begin working to restore what has been lost until we stop rewarding those who lie and stop crucifying those who are honest. We need to face the hard realities and begin the hard work of restoration.  Educating a culture that is not only clueless but also uninterested in the affairs in our government is going to take a monumental effort, but the most glorious victories are in those battles which everyone said could not be won.

I will not settle for anything less than exceptional.  Who will join me in the fight?