tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10288976658886356382024-03-12T19:32:23.552-04:00The Intransigent ConservativeBrian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-88119176246695150052014-06-15T19:30:00.002-04:002014-06-15T19:30:39.599-04:00Brian T. Empric for Florida Federation of Young Republicans Vice Chairman<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">To
the Florida Federation of Young Republicans delegates and my friends:<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
the brief time since I attended my first FFYR Quarterly meeting in February
2013, I have developed strong relationships with amazingly devoted Young
Republicans from around the state. I am humbled by the trust that these
Florida YR leaders have shown by asking me to consider a candidacy for
Vice Chairman of the FFYR.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
case you don’t know me already:</span></div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;">I live in
Windermere with my wife Michele, daughter Madeleine, and son Davis, and we are
members of Holy Family Catholic Church in Orlando.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;">I have worked in
commercial construction management for almost 17 years and am now a Project
Manager in Central Florida for one of the largest privately-held construction
firms in the country.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;">I am the
President of the Orange County Young Republicans and the chairman of the FFYR
Platform and Policy Committee.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;">I was the “OCYR
of the Year” for 2012 and the "Officer of the Year" for
2013 because of my efforts in promoting club activism on policy issues and
in volunteering with multiple election campaigns, including Rick Santorum’s
presidential run.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;">I now serve as one of
the three co-chairs of Santorum’s Patriot Voices organization in Florida.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;">In October 2013,
I was chosen by BusinessForce to participate in the Central Florida Political
Leadership Institute's exclusive annual program for educating prospective
candidates on campaigning, governing and public policy.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For
the Republican Party, we know that our 18-40 age group is a critical
demographic that deserves a seat at the table with those who are setting policy
and calculating the political consequences of those policy decisions. I
was honored to lead the statewide effort to adopt a Young Republican
platform last year in the tradition of the one that Ronald Reagan
spoke about at the 1976 Convention, “a platform that is a banner of bold,
unmistakable colors, with no pastel shades,” which we should carry
throughout the state to communicate to our fellow young Floridians the obvious
differences between ourselves and the Democrats. I hope to be able to
work further in the year ahead to include FFYR leadership in state
Executive/Legislative policy discussions and communications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
this upcoming year, we will continue to prove how invaluable Young Republicans
are to the electoral success of this party. We have an important few
months of critical campaigning ahead of us, and I will put forth the same hard
work, motivation and dedication that I have exhibited in three short years
of involvement with the Orange County Young Republicans into the role of Vice
Chairman of the FFYR.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
am proud to be running as part of a team that is dedicated to continuous
improvement of an already award-winning organization. We plan on improving attendance at our
quarterly meetings, filling out all of the Federation’s committees to grow the
talent of its members, and developing the strength of the Federation’s regions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Like
Reagan said in his acceptance speech at the RNC in Detroit in July 1980, the
Republican Party may have internal quarrels, “but only as to the method of
attaining a goal.” There is no argument about the goal itself – it’s
the same as it was 34 years ago – we must win, because our party is the
only one that has the “positive programs for solving the nation's problems; a
party ready to build a new consensus with all those across the land who share a
community of values embodied in these words: family, work, neighborhood, peace
and freedom.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
would be honored to earn your support this weekend in Ft. Myers, and to allow
me to serve this organization and to lead the achievement of our mutual goals
for the benefit of the Republican Party in Florida.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thank you, may God bless you, and may He continue to bless
the United States of America.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-15671900343812398592013-12-10T22:25:00.001-05:002013-12-10T22:25:24.976-05:00Speech Accepting the OCYR Presidential Nomination at the December meeting in Orlando<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Four months ago, I formally announced my candidacy for this
office, and tonight I gratefully accept the nomination for the presidency of
the Orange County Young Republicans.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Michele and I have met some amazing people in Central Florida
and around the state since we joined this club about 2½ years ago.<span> </span>In this brief time, I have been privileged to
be<span class="textexposedshow"> chosen as a state co-chair of Rick Santorum's
Patriot Voices organization, to be honored as the "2012 OCYR of the
Year", and to be elected earlier this year as the Vice President of this
club.<span> </span>I want to thank Christian Waugh
and Eric Jontz for your guidance and your faith in me.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="line-height: 115%;">We have a big year ahead of us,
with critical elections coming after our traditional Hob Nob event in July.</span></span><span class="usercontent"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>With training, hard
work and dedication, we will regain a GOP majority in the Orange County state
legislative delegation, by holding our current seats and flipping 2 seats from
(D) to (R).<span> </span>Young Republicans like
ourselves will be on the frontline to re-elect the Republican Congressmen that
represent our County, and we will lead the </span></span><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="line-height: 115%;">way in securing the crucial I-4 corridor for Governor Scott
and the entire Cabinet.<span> </span>We will continue
to host the best guest speakers at our regular monthly meetings, to provide
access for our members to the leading politicians in Central Florida.</span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">For the Republican party, our 18-40 age group is a critical
demographic that deserves a seat at the table with those who are setting policy
and calculating the political consequences of those policy decisions.<span> </span>I’ve been honored to lead the statewide
effort to adopt a Young Republican platform in the tradition of the one that Ronald
Reagan spoke about at the 1976 Convention, “a platform that is a banner of
bold, unmistakable colors, with no pastel shades,” that we can carry throughout
the state to communicate to our fellow young Floridians the obvious differences
between ourselves and the Democrats.<span class="textexposedshow"><span> </span>We will continue to add young people into our
Party, and we will strive to have the most members of any YR club in Florida.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Like Reagan said in his acceptance speech at the RNC in
Detroit in July 1980, the Republican Party may have internal quarrels, “<span class="displaytext">but only as to the method of attaining a goal.”<span> </span>There is no argument about the goal – it’s
the same as it was 33 years ago – our party is the only one that has the
“positive programs for solving the nation's problems; a party ready to build a
new consensus with all those across the land who share a community of values
embodied in these words: family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom.”</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I am humbled by the additional responsibility conferred by your
continued trust in me, and I will not nonchalantly watch our county, state or
country suffer under mediocre leadership at any level.<span> </span>The Governor likes to say “let’s get to
work!” and I couldn’t agree more.<span> </span>You
and I will prove how invaluable Young Republicans are to this party and I am
excited to start working on these goals together with you.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Thank you, may God bless you this Christmas season, and may
He continue to bless the United States of America.</span></span></span></div>
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Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-85048218110449392442013-03-30T20:10:00.002-04:002013-03-30T20:10:31.046-04:00Weekend Potpourri<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvT9yCXrnoyIfyBqGBcAG_oP9ug9m7QL76OJViX9rOg7SroAIMdEL26w7HHWAQ2Q8-PsLOnkik937dHcepqNsjRbnCRTs6QognktqRlc8qxYeH_iILK8Ox0Ghw3X5tcUjbOWrUhI7v_R8/s1600/5+new+monuments.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvT9yCXrnoyIfyBqGBcAG_oP9ug9m7QL76OJViX9rOg7SroAIMdEL26w7HHWAQ2Q8-PsLOnkik937dHcepqNsjRbnCRTs6QognktqRlc8qxYeH_iILK8Ox0Ghw3X5tcUjbOWrUhI7v_R8/s400/5+new+monuments.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span><span><a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span class="screen-name">@natebeeler</span></a></span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJoz4R8I9uAiiVzneUoejw7GKe2cRKj1QqdUYjsao9DTr9X0hyMZyJZm64OTjpc9bxfNmEzfAAMgRYR_rOZmxLF8NTIbhTNUprKshiJj98g87S4gQLKodzfyZjNE89DbInw6-GHl1C0tc/s1600/vacations+are+great.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJoz4R8I9uAiiVzneUoejw7GKe2cRKj1QqdUYjsao9DTr9X0hyMZyJZm64OTjpc9bxfNmEzfAAMgRYR_rOZmxLF8NTIbhTNUprKshiJj98g87S4gQLKodzfyZjNE89DbInw6-GHl1C0tc/s400/vacations+are+great.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.gocomics.com/glennmccoy/">Glenn McCoy</a></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiII64gnOYVHzOMyETqTHURx0wsBOHo9cCSc9qx9zvZlTMEenFXGaCbCI0EqFimUCp4FmVsGUAx9VSTZLs7xQ_6tDKd1AbnJMPK0jr8LKIF1KhtqdQqAYcZvq1ZpLvSQFSJqHc9D3xCBsc/s1600/perez+labor+sec+middle+finger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiII64gnOYVHzOMyETqTHURx0wsBOHo9cCSc9qx9zvZlTMEenFXGaCbCI0EqFimUCp4FmVsGUAx9VSTZLs7xQ_6tDKd1AbnJMPK0jr8LKIF1KhtqdQqAYcZvq1ZpLvSQFSJqHc9D3xCBsc/s320/perez+labor+sec+middle+finger.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://fodentoon.com/">Glenn Foden</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/weekend-potpourri-3-30-13-3-31-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/weekend-potpourri-3-30-13-3-31-13" target="_blank">View the story "Weekend Potpourri (3/30/13-3/31/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Weekend Potpourri (3/30/13-3/31/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sat, Mar 30 2013 17:02:02</p>
<div>
Via <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/DennisDMZ?ref=stream" class="">Dennis Miller</a></b> on Facebook:<br></div>
<div>
<div>Am I being catfished by 51% of the country when they talk about how adept Obama is? Is "Adroit Obama" the new Manti Te'o's girlfriend?</div></div>
<div>
The Comical Conservative</div>
<div>
Philip Klein writes that Barack Obama does not think we have an immediate debt crisis – <b><a href="http://www.usdebtclock.org/" class="">even though it is over $16.7 trillion</a></b> – which may be correct if bondholders continue to purchase our debt, but is <i><b>inevitable</b></i> because of the unsustainable long-term path of the status quo. <p>
</p>
<p>
Since February 2009 when Obama held a so-called <b><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-and-vice-president-opening-fiscal-responsibility-summit-2-23-09" class="">Fiscal Responsibility Summit</a></b> at the White House and <b><a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np" class="">our debt was $10.8 trillion</a></b>, he’s added <i><b>another $6 trillion</b></i> to the amount that we and our children will have to repay, while reneging on his commitment back then to take responsibility “<i><b>right now, in this administration</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Let's say your car is on cruise control at 100 miles per hour, and there's a brick wall in the distance. The responsible course of action would be to slow down gradually and turn the car so it's no longer pointed toward the brick wall. <i><b>But if President Obama were driving the way he conducts fiscal policy, he'd be lowering the speed to 98 miles per hour and continuing on the same trajectory</b></i> -- simply assuming he'd be able to slam on the brakes right before impact.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“As with past financial crises, there are always voices warning about the inevitable but others who want to keep dancing until the music stops… There are several problems with waiting for an actual crisis to hit before taking action. <i><b>To start, it limits the range of options available to lawmakers and results in ugly policy</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Emergency measures are likely to be <i><b>much more disruptive to the economy and to people's lives</b></i>. As the Congressional Budget Office <b><a href="http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43907-BudgetOutlook.pdf" class="">wrote last month</a></b>, ‘Deciding now what policy changes to make to resolve that long-term imbalance would allow for <i><b>gradual implementation</b></i>, which would give households, businesses, and state and local governments time to plan and adjust their behavior.’ It's also fairer to spread the policy changes <i><b>among multiple generations</b></i>, rather than imposing more drastic measures on a future generation.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
My column: "We can't wait for the crisis, Mr. President" bit.ly/13TDQ6aPhilip Klein</div>
<div>
David Limbaugh (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/DavidLimbaugh" class="">@DavidLimbaugh</a></b>) writes that it is hard for Republicans to work with Obama, because he “neither views the fiscal world from the same lens nor shares the goal of significant debt reduction.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>How can anyone take President Obama seriously when he tells us our national debt is no big deal?</b></i> Well, we have to take him seriously, because, unserious thinking or not, he has serious power, including the power to obstruct progress on reducing the debt.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The enormity of our annual interest payments on the debt alone <i><b>renders Obama's dismissiveness about the debt surreal</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“House Speaker John Boehner framed the problem quite accurately when he summarized the parties' respective positions. ‘Republicans want to balance the budget. The president doesn't,’ said Boehner. ‘<i><b>Republicans want to solve our long-term debt problem. The president doesn't.</b></i> We want to unlock our energy resources to put more Americans back to work. The president doesn't.’”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Republicans need to launch a 24/7 public campaign blitz explaining Paul Ryan's new budget</b></i>, which is based on real and specific numbers and proposes to balance the budget in 10 years and make structural changes to our entitlement programs to put them on a sustainable path.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Democrats and liberal journalists are already out in force, savaging Ryan and the other Republicans -- again -- for their good faith effort <i><b>to save the nation from a Grecian-style bankruptcy.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“I am convinced that if the Republicans will strike back with as much fervor as Obama constantly hits them and take their winning case to the people, <i><b>the people will finally learn the truth</b></i>: that Ryan's plan would not throw seniors or the poor under the bus and is, in fact, their best chance for the future and <i><b>certainly the best hope currently on the table to restore America's solvency</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
David LimbaughMarch 14, 2013 Column: GOP Must Launch Reality Offensive Printer Friendly Tweet How can anyone take President Obama seriously when he tel...</div>
<div>
Roberta Rampton & Rachelle Younglai report that labor secretary nominee Tom Perez is expected to face opposition for being too aggressive on certain immigration issues and too political. <p>
</p>
<p>
“President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, as labor secretary - a job that would give him a key role in the administration's efforts <i><b>to raise the minimum wage and reform immigration laws</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Obama urged the Senate to confirm Perez quickly</b></i>. He said he would be an integral part of his economic team as the administration works with Congress to try to overhaul immigration laws to give the country's 11 million illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama called Perez ‘<i><b>the wrong man for this job</b></i>’ and criticized him for being too aggressive helping undocumented immigrants find work as part of an advocacy group called Casa de Maryland.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Senator David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, said he would block Perez's nomination until the Justice Department answered questions <i><b>about enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act in his state.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was concerned about Perez's role in persuading the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, <i><b>to withdraw a Fair Housing Act case from the U.S. Supreme Court last year</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Obama's labor pick Perez faces Republican scrutinyBy Roberta Rampton and Rachelle Younglai WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Tom Perez, head of the Justice...</div>
<div>
David Limbaugh (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/DavidLimbaugh" class="">@DavidLimbaugh</a></b>) argues that if Obama appoints radical liberals who disrespect the Constitution and rule of law, then “<i><b>he forfeits any traditional deference to which his appointments might otherwise be entitled</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“No matter what progress Republicans may make in electoral politics over the coming years, it will be difficult to roll back the steady march of liberalism that has taken place inside our cultural, bureaucratic and legal institutions -- from academia to regulatory agencies to the Department of Justice -- <i><b>but we have to try</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Radical liberals are characteristically activists, strategists and organizers</b></i>. Their plan to infiltrate and dominate academia was hardly spontaneous, and its effects have hardly been sporadic… The same phenomenon occurs throughout the nation's regulatory bureaucracies. Liberals have managed to place so many ideologically charged people inside powerful administrative agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, <i><b>that these institutions tend to be radicalized from the bottom up</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>They don't have the same reverence for the Constitution and the rule of law as conservatives</b></i>. They view things through an ideological prism and act in deference to their ideology and their political ends more than their conservative counterparts. They see themselves as activist agents for change, as crusaders with the lofty goal of advancing an agenda so morally superior that they don't think twice about bending and twisting rules and <i><b>selectively interpreting laws and regulations to serve their agenda</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“We have to do a better job of <i><b>exposing radicals</b></i> and preventing them from overthrowing our constitutional guarantees <i><b>from inside our government</b></i>…” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
David LimbaughMarch 21, 2013 Column: Expose and Oppose Obama's Radical Appointees Printer Friendly Tweet No matter what progress Republicans may make i...</div>
<div>
White House correspondent Anita Kumar writes that Obama is growing more comfortable with pushing executive power to the limit to try to move his own agenda forward <i><b>by bypassing Congress</b></i>, on policy issues like immigration, gun control, the Defense of Marriage Act, and climate change. <p>
</p>
<p>
“He’s done it with a package of tools, some of which date to George Washington and some invented in the modern era of an increasingly powerful presidency. <i><b>And he’s done it with a frequency that belies his original campaign criticisms of predecessor George W. Bush</b></i>, invites criticisms that he’s bypassing the checks and balances of Congress and the courts, and whets the appetite of liberal activists who want him to do even more to advance their goals.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Arguably more than any other president in modern history</b></i>, he’s using executive actions, primarily orders, to bypass or pressure a Congress where the opposition Republicans can block any proposal.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Presidents since George Washington have signed executive orders, an oft-overlooked power not explicitly defined in the Constitution. More than half of all executive orders in the nation’s history – <i><b>nearly 14,000</b></i> – have been issued since 1933.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Most presidents in recent history generally have issued a few hundred orders, and hundreds more memorandums and directives… <i><b>But, experts say, Obama’s actions are more noticeable because as a candidate he was critical of Bush’s use of power</b></i>. In particular, he singled out his predecessor’s use of signing statements, documents issued when a president signs a bill that clarifies his understanding of the law.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In his first two years in the White House, when fellow Democrats controlled Capitol Hill, Obama largely worked through the regular legislative process to try to achieve his domestic agenda. His biggest achievements – including a federal health care overhaul and a stimulus package designed to boost the economy –<i><b>came about with little or no Republican support.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“But Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010, making the task of passing legislation all the more difficult for a man <i><b>with a detached personality who doesn’t relish schmoozing with lawmakers</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“’<i><b>The president looks more and more like a king that the Constitution was designed to replace</b></i>,’ Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said on the Senate floor last year.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Obama turning to executive power to get what he wants: bit.ly/11biH39Anita Kumar</div>
<div>
Joseph Curl writes that everyone has started talking about whether Joe Biden will run for president in 2016, but it’s more likely that his “<i><b>free ride is about to come to an end</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“The plagiarist with the slow-grow hair plugs and the chipmunk fake teeth and the made-up stories about heroics on the football field who quietly won five student draft deferments during the Vietnam War <i><b>really did become vice president</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[W]underboy Joey, despite his hardscrabble Scranton roots and spectacular work ethic (<i><b>he did hold an actual job for some 18 months before going on the government dole 43 years ago</b></i>) will not grow up to be the president of the United States. He’s already tried twice, in 1988 and again in 2008 (the latter after giving voters a full generation <i><b>to forget why they didn’t like him the first time around</b></i>).”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The chatter started right around the time then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton got sick, fell down, bumped her head and disappeared for six weeks… <i><b>Suddenly, all this talk swirled that Joey was going to run in 2016</b></i>, you know, pick up the mantle of his mental mentor and try to see if he could top the $10 trillion in debt his boss is on pace to rack up…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“At 70 years old, the Gaffe Machine won’t have time to wait another 20 years so America can forget <i><b>all the stupid things he says and does</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“This week brings more to pile onto the horror that the working-man’s vice president charges rent to the Secret Service to use a cottage adjacent to his waterfront home in Wilmington, Del. He and his entourage spent $460,000 for a single night in London earlier this year. And they spent another $585,000 for a night at a five-star hotel in Paris. <i><b>The stays came amid the crisis in Washington over the budget.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“What’s more, he flies to Delaware nearly every weekend — first from his taxpayer-funded home in Washington on a chopper to an Air Force base, then on Air Force Two. <i><b>The weekly jaunts have cost Americans more than $4 million so far</b></i> (according to <b><a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Biden-weekend-travel-Air-Force-Two/2012/06/04/id/441168" class="">an article on the Newsmax website</a></b>).” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
CURL: No go for Joe in 2016 ow.ly/2vHpCuThe Washington Times</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-83840487957785835852013-03-29T22:18:00.002-04:002013-03-29T22:18:57.938-04:00Good Friday Florilegium<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnbhqR-lgie1SQLUvpnaPxku2CgbFm2_Cy2twkjLRQZqc3aG5mxrptjrZ7b5uUj0s1W5afHht_VFsCucrQSl_SowQnpWGjhK6oXWaY6T4hYJSIs1j_cbjE9zfh4u9mrCQA3E1oa4mWqUk/s1600/drones+vs.+Fox+News.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnbhqR-lgie1SQLUvpnaPxku2CgbFm2_Cy2twkjLRQZqc3aG5mxrptjrZ7b5uUj0s1W5afHht_VFsCucrQSl_SowQnpWGjhK6oXWaY6T4hYJSIs1j_cbjE9zfh4u9mrCQA3E1oa4mWqUk/s400/drones+vs.+Fox+News.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/varvel">@varvel</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixOsJX5q_cjnWvQ29eFSqverQCySO7E7atKklyNfuFSd6aDox3iBTzFGDaflGUM2cpYtwvu46kDvx72XngS7GFmn4FJOzyHAqizJudIk4PNYTP6cl_sCIwNnlpBpmclGb-yQjaYYPPMow/s1600/Rand's+Filibuster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixOsJX5q_cjnWvQ29eFSqverQCySO7E7atKklyNfuFSd6aDox3iBTzFGDaflGUM2cpYtwvu46kDvx72XngS7GFmn4FJOzyHAqizJudIk4PNYTP6cl_sCIwNnlpBpmclGb-yQjaYYPPMow/s400/Rand's+Filibuster.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/varvel">@varvel</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5XNaBIPlGc6ceYVYm6MjoV3angV_sV-Ae-SDi50FGf6YLKVW48-7CVzLj5qwcfz-iWPB8AC26FVPhGhn8ptBzCgAiLhQB4FClg_Y53FNFaMfWeZ4tBZtwT64SRNZSS6MAMIFvb8vdFwk/s1600/Terrorist+Vader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5XNaBIPlGc6ceYVYm6MjoV3angV_sV-Ae-SDi50FGf6YLKVW48-7CVzLj5qwcfz-iWPB8AC26FVPhGhn8ptBzCgAiLhQB4FClg_Y53FNFaMfWeZ4tBZtwT64SRNZSS6MAMIFvb8vdFwk/s400/Terrorist+Vader.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://bostonherald.com/holbert">Jerry Holbert</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjin4zth2WI3deESmqK7AshQQz2-MyDuevBPqusNRst4MnuIoWrOwUACYFP_F-ZTOYb5QxdCw24Nvm-7pj_j4h8A7piY0IWVhRHLE1TVtiftYFBsC6osyTiwUM9yVWUUg84P103VVXeNa0/s1600/nintendo+medal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjin4zth2WI3deESmqK7AshQQz2-MyDuevBPqusNRst4MnuIoWrOwUACYFP_F-ZTOYb5QxdCw24Nvm-7pj_j4h8A7piY0IWVhRHLE1TVtiftYFBsC6osyTiwUM9yVWUUg84P103VVXeNa0/s400/nintendo+medal.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span><a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span class="screen-name">@natebeeler</span></a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/good-friday-florilegium-i-3-29-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/good-friday-florilegium-i-3-29-13" target="_blank">View the story "Good Friday Florilegium (3/29/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Good Friday Florilegium (3/29/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Fri, Mar 29 2013 19:07:25</p>
<div>
<p>
Satellite radio show host Armstrong Williams (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/Arightside" class="">@arightside</a></b>) writes about a <b><a href="http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Al-Qaeda-in-the-USAbridged-version-LOWRES-Final.pdf" class="">report</a></b>released last month by the Henry Jackson Society (a bipartisan,British-based think tank), “Al-Qaeda in the United States: A CompleteAnalysis of Terrorism Offenses,” which showed that <b><i>24% of al Qaeda terrorists</i></b>embraced radical Islam later in life with the fervor of religious converts.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The report is more than 700 pages, and is a painstakingand meticulous review <b><i>of all 171 al Qaeda or al Qaeda-inspiredterrorists</i></b> who were either killed during their attacks or convicted incourt in the U.S.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It reveals that the bulk of the terrorists in the U.S.are not highly trained foreign nationals infiltrating our borders to attack us,<b><i>butour neighbors next door.</i></b></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<b><i>More than half of the terrorists wereAmerican citizens. A shocking 82 percent of the terrorists killed or convictedwere U.S. residents.</i></b> Ninety-five percent were men, and they lived instates from coast to coast and across the heartland.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Another remarkable data point is that <b><i>52percent of the attackers were college-educated</i></b> and nearly 60 percentwere either pursuing education or were employed at the time of their arrests. <b><i>Thesefacts punch gaping holes</i></b> into the self-defeating assertion that thosewho hate America are driven to terrorism because they are ignorant ordowntrodden.”</p>
</div>
<div>
WILLIAMS: The home-grown terrorist next door <a href="http://t.co/AwPWFsRb75" class="">ow.ly/2veTAP</a>The Washington Times</div>
<div>
Al-Qaeda in the United Statescsisdc</div>
<div>
<p>
Chad Bray reports that Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a 47-year-oldson-in-law of Osama bin Laden and onetime spokesman for al Qaeda, plead notguilty earlier this month in a lower Manhattan federal courthouse of conspiringto kill American citizens, and he faces life in prison if convicted. <b><i>The next hearing is April 8.</i></b></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“At the brief hearing in Manhattan federal court, Mr. AbuGraith, who was ordered detained, was wearing blue prison garb and was led intothe ornate ceremonial courtroom in handcuffs.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. Cronan told the courtthat after Mr. Abu Ghaith was taken into custody, <b><i>he gave a 22-page statement tolaw enforcement</i></b>. That statement, in the form of a Federal Bureau ofInvestigation report, as well as a number of DVDs containing speeches by Mr.Abu Ghaith, were turned over to his lawyers, the prosecutor said.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Abu Ghaith was captured in Jordan after he wasdeported from Turkey, according to people familiar with the investigation. Hewas detained in Turkey last month after leaving Iran, <b><i>where U.S. officials believed hehad been hiding for a decade</i></b>, according to people familiar with thematter.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Abu Ghaith is being held at the MetropolitanCorrectional Center in lower Manhattan, one of two federal facilities in NewYork City that house defendants awaiting trial.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“According to the indictment, Mr. Abu Ghaith appearedwith Mr. bin Laden the day after the (Sept. 11) attacks and said a ‘<b><i>greatarmy</i></b>’ was gathering against the U.S. In another statement, he advisedMuslims, children and opponents of the U.S. ‘<b><i>not to board any aircraft and notto live in high rises</i></b>,’ according to the indictment.”</p>
</div>
<div>
Bin Laden Son-in-Law Pleads Not Guilty <a href="http://t.co/dPxxj0xH5j" class="">on.wsj.com/10rTBQP</a>WSJ Politics</div>
<div>
<p>
Mark Steyn (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/MarkSteynOnline" class="">@MarkSteynOnline</a></b>) writes of drones,paramilitarized bureaucracies and all-seeing governments.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“I’m a long, long way from Rand Paul’s view of the world(I’m basically a 19th-century imperialist a hundred years past sell-by date), <b><i>butI’m far from sanguine about America’s drone fever</i></b>. For all itsadvantages to this administration — no awkward prisoners to be housed at Gitmo,no military casualties for the evening news — the unheard, unseen, unmanneddrone raining down death from the skies confirms for those on the receiving endal-Qaeda’s critique of its enemies: <b><i>As they see it, we have the best technologyand the worst will</i></b>; we choose aerial assassination and its attendantcollateral damage because we are risk-averse, and so remote, antiseptic,long-distance, computer-programmed warfare is all that we can bear. <b><i>Ourtechnological strength betrays our psychological weakness</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The guys with drones are losing to the guys withfertilizer — <b><i>because they mean it, and we don’t</i></b>. The drone thus has come tosymbolize the central defect of America’s ‘war on terror,’ which is that it’sall means and no end: <b><i>We’re fighting the symptoms rather than thecause</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The same bureaucracy that booked Samira Ibrahim for anaudience with the first lady and Anwar al-Awlaki to host prayers at the Capitolnow assures you <b><i>that it’s entirely capable of determining who needs to be zapped by adrone</i></b> between the sea bass and the tiramisu at Ahmed’s Bar and Grill.But it’s precisely because <b><i>the government is too craven to stray beyondtechnological warfare</i></b> and take on its enemies ideologically that itwinds up booking the first lady to hand out awards to a Jew-loathing,Hitler-quoting, terrorist-supporting America-hater.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Insofar as it relieves Washington of the need to thinkstrategically about the nature of the enemy, <b><i>the drone is part of the problem</i></b>.But its technology is too convenient a gift for government to forswear at home.America takes an ever more expansive view of police power, and, <b><i>whilethe notion of unmanned drones patrolling the heartland may seem absurd</i></b>,lots of things that seemed absurd a mere 15 years ago are now a routine featureof life. Not so long ago, it would have seemed not just absurd but repugnantand un-American to suggest that the state ought to have the power to fondle thecrotch of a seven-year-old boy without probable cause before permitting him toboard an airplane. <b><i>Yet it happened, and became accepted, and is unlikely ever to bereversed</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“We have advanced from the paramilitarization of thepolice to the paramilitarization of the Bureau of Form-Filling. Two years agoin this space, I noted that the U.S. secretary of education, who doesn’t employa single teacher, <b><i>is the only education minister in the developed world with his own SWATteam</i></b>… That the education bureaucracy of the Brokest Nation in Historyhas its own Seal Team Six is ridiculous and offensive. <b><i>Yet the citizenry don’t find itso: They accept it</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“I mention in my book that government is increasinglycomfortable with a view of society as a giant ‘<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon" class="">Panopticon</a></b>’ —the radial prison devised by Jeremy Bentham in 1785, <b><i>in which the authorities can seeeveryone and everything</i></b>. In the Droneworld we have built for the war onterror, we can’t see the forest <b><i>because we’re busy tracking every spindlysapling</i></b>. When the same philosophy is applied on the home front, it willnot be pretty.”</p>
</div>
<div>
The Panopticon State: Of drones and paramilitarized bureaucracies: Mark Steyn’s weekend column. <a href="http://t.co/8EZ4NDUHHP" class="">bit.ly/10s72QO</a>National Review</div>
<div>
<p>
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorializes that the logicof elevating the Distinguished Warfare Medal for military personnel who operatedrones over established honors given for valor on the battlefield is inexplicable. Courage counts, and a medal for valor should outrank one for desk duty.</p>
<div>
</div>
<p>
“Drones have changed the face of modern warfare. Killingenemy soldiers, while still a brutal act, is no longer as intimate as it was inthe last century. Nowadays the distance between target and targeter can bethousands of miles, <b><i>and launching an attack can look more like a video game</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“From the perspective of the victim and the collateraldamage that results, it doesn't matter whether the assault came from anAmerican soldier in a hideout 200 feet away or a military base 7,000 milesaway. <b><i>In either case, the target is extinguished</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“(Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey and Rep. TimMurphy) object to the Defense Department's decision <b><i>to rank the Distinguished WarfareMedal higher than the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star</i></b>, two honors thatcan be earned only in the face of combat. The Purple Heart goes to woundedsoldiers, but in the new hierarchy <b><i>it will sit lower than the award given to aservice member pushing buttons</i></b> in the safety and comfort of a controlroom in the United States.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<b><i>War is hell, but the Pentagon doesn't haveto make it worse by losing perspective on loyal troops' sacrifice</i></b>.”</p>
</div>
<div>
ICYMI @PittsburghPG agrees with me and PA vets that the new drone medal should not rank above combat valor medals <a href="http://t.co/S3joKAfYsx" class="">ow.ly/iOmcr</a>Senator Pat Toomey</div>
<div>
<p>
Charles Krauthammer writes that the war on terror is notgoing away, but it needs a new rulebook when it comes to drone warfare. 4,700 are estimated to have been killed bydrone, without any protest from the hypocrites, whereas “George W. Bush wasexcoriated for waterboarding exactly three terrorists, <i><b>all of whom are nowenjoying an extensive retirement on a sunny Caribbean island</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In choice of both topic and foil, Rand Paul’s nowlegendary Senate filibuster was a stroke of political genius. The topic was,ostensibly, very narrow: <b><i>Does the president have the constitutionalauthority to put a drone-launched Hellfire missile through your kitchen</i></b>— you, a good citizen of Topeka to whom POTUS might have taken a dislike —while you’re cooking up a pot roast?”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The correct response, of course, is: Absent an activecivil war on U.S. soil (of the kind not seen in 150 years) or a jihadistinvasion from Saskatchewan led by the Topeka pot roaster, <b><i>the answer is no</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<b><i>The vexing and pressing issue is the use ofdrones</i></b> <i><b>abroad</b></i>. <i><b>The filibusterpretended not to be about that</b></i>. Which is testimony to Paul’s politicaladroitness. It was not until two days later that he showed his hand, <b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sen-rand-paul-my-filibuster-was-just-the-beginning/2013/03/08/6352d8a8-881b-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html" class="">writing in The Post</a></b>, ‘No American should be killed bya drone without first being charged with a crime.’ <b><i>Note the absence of therestrictive clause: ‘on American soil.’</i></b>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Outside American soil, the Constitution does not rule, <b><i>nomatter how much Paul would like it to</i></b>. Yet Paul’s unease applies tonon-American drone targets as well. <b><i>His quarrel is with the very notion of thewar on terror</i></b>, though he is normally too smart to say that openly andunequivocally. Unlike his father, who implied that 9/11 was payback for oursins, Paul the Younger more gingerly expresses general skepticism about notjust the efficacy <b><i>but the legality of the entire war</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The war’s constitutional charter, the 2001 <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists" class="">Authorization for Use of Military Force</a></b> (AUMF), hasproved quite serviceable. But the commander-in-chief’s authority is so broad —it leaves the limits of his power to be determined, often in secret memos, bythe administration’s own in-house lawyers — <b><i>that it has spawned suspicion,fear and now filibuster</i></b>.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<b><i>It is time to rethink</i></b>. That meansnot repealing the original AUMF but, using the lessons of the past 12 years,rewriting it with particular attention to a new code governing drone warfare <b><i>andthe question of where, when and against whom it should be permitted</i></b>… Allwe need now is a president willing to lead and a Congress willing to takeresponsibility for the conduct of a war that, <b><i>however much Paul and hisacolytes may wish it away</i></b>, will long be with us.”</p>
</div>
<div>
After 12 years, it's time to reauthorize the war on terror and openly codify drone warfare rules. <a href="http://t.co/TeRI0WLHqc" class="">washingtonpost.com/opinions/charl…</a>Charles Krauthammer</div>
<div>
<p>
Back in 1787,Alexander Hamilton wrote <b><a href="http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa23.htm" class="">FederalistNo. 23</a></b>, one in the series of articles frequently used to interpret the intentof the Constitution, especially in Supreme Court decisions. He observed:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The authorities essential to the common defense arethese: to raise armies; to build and equip fleets; to prescribe rules for thegovernment of both; to direct their operations; to provide for their support.These powers ought to exist without limitation, <b><i>because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and varietyof national exigencies, or the correspondent extent and variety of the meanswhich may be necessary to satisfy them</i>. The circumstances that endanger thesafety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shacklescan wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed</b>.This power ought to be coextensive with all the possible combinations of suchcircumstances; and ought to be under the direction of the same councils whichare appointed to preside over the common defense.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://nrinstitute.org/sf-andrew-mccarthy.php" class=""><b>AndrewC. McCarthy</b></a>, a senior fellow at the <b><a href="http://nrinstitute.org/" class="">NationalReview Institute</a></b>, writes that Congress, <i><b>not theConstitution</b></i>, should curtail the president’s war powers. The president can be shackled “by trimminghis sails in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), <i><b>not bytrimming his constitutional power</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It was Wednesday, shortly beforeSenator Rand Paul’s bravura 13-hour filibuster, the Jimmy Stewart star turn inPaul’s crusade to have the Constitution ban a bogeyman of his own making: <b><i>thekilling of American citizens on American soil by America’s armed forces</i></b>— a scandal that clearly cries out for action, <b><i>having occurred exactly zerotimes</i></b> in the 20 years since jihadists commenced hostilities by bombingthe World Trade Center.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“At a hearing of the Judiciary Committee, Senator TedCruz was grilling Attorney General Eric Holder. Cruz seemed beside himself — inthe theatrical spirit of the day — over Holder’s refusal to concede that theimaginary use of lethal force conjured up by Paul would be, <b><i>underany and all circumstances, unconstitutional</i></b>…Yet my sympathies were with Holder. I found myself wishing he’d stood by hisequivocal guns.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<b><i>To cross Paul admirers can mean being castinto the neocon darkness</i></b>, along with all those other cogs in themilitary-industrial complex who dream of a global American empire — and that’s evenwhen the offense is not compounded by suggesting that Eric Holder might havebeen right about something. So let me say outright: <b><i>I am against using our armedforces to kill our citizens in our homeland.</i></b></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“That puts me in the same camp as about 99.9 percent ofAmericans. In part, that owes to our natural, patriotic predilection. Butthere’s another part of the explanation — just as important, but less wellnoticed: <b><i>After 20 years, we understand the particular conflict we are in</i></b>.We can confidently say that, in the war authorized by Congress a dozen yearsago, <b><i>wedo not need to use lethal military force inside our country</i></b>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Contrary to Senator Paul’s assertions, and those ofsenators Cruz and Mike Lee, who lent their voices and scholarly heft to Paul’sfilibuster, <b><i>the Constitution does not prohibit the use of lethal force in theUnited States against American citizens who collude with the enemy</i></b>.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“American history and jurisprudence teach that Americancitizens who join the enemy <b><i>may be treated as the enemy</i></b>:captured without warrant, detained indefinitely without trial, interrogatedwithout counsel, accused of war crimes without grand-jury proceedings, tried bymilitary commission without the protections of civilian due process, andexecuted promptly after conviction. <b><i>That is because these measures arepermissible under the laws of war</i></b>, and the Constitution accommodatesthe laws of war — they are the rule of law when Congress has authorizedwarfare.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Constitution enables the government to marshal allthe might necessary, <b><i>under any conceivable circumstances</i></b>,to quell threats to the United States. The Framers, with a humility thatcontrasts sharply with our certitude, understood that some threats could beexistential in nature…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In the ongoing conflict, the enemy does not havefortifications inside our territory that would enable its operatives to keepthe police at bay. <b><i>As long as we catch them in time, our enemies can be safely taken intocustody</i></b>. And if we catch them on the precipice of deadly action,ordinary law-enforcement principles allow <b><i>for the use of lethal force to stop them.</i></b></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<b><i>But that may not always be the case</i></b>.We could have enemies with much greater capabilities, <b><i>enemies including traitorousAmericans</i></b>. The fact that we do not appear to need lethal military forcein the homeland <b><i>in this conflict</i></b>does not mean we will never need it.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Senator Paul has the controversy he sought because theObama administration arrogantly claimed nigh-limitless power to kill anyone,anywhere, at the president’s whim. <b><i>Thereis no reason to believe the president actually intends to abuse such power — hehas not done so to this point</i></b>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Senators Paul and Cruz have suggested that theconstitutional claim they’ve posited — viz., presidents are not empowered tokill Americans on American soil absent an imminent threat of violence — is ‘easy,’‘clear,’ and ‘obvious.’ <b><i>I respectfully disagree. It is none of thosethings.</i></b> What is easy, clear, and obvious is that if we do not needcertain troublesome authorities to fight a war successfully, <b><i>Congresscan withhold them</i></b>… Why does it make a difference whether thiscurtailment comes from the AUMF rather than the Constitution?”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If all the senator really has in mind is somecurtailment of presidential overreach, <b><i>the right way to do that is to limit theAUMF</i></b>. If his ambition is greater, if he believes the country would bebetter off ending the war paradigm and returning to peacetime due process, <b><i>theforthright way to do that is to repeal the AUMF</i></b>. That would be aterrible mistake, but one we could withstand, however painfully. <b><i>Whatwe might not be able to withstand is the shackling of constitutional powers wemay someday need to sustain the United States</i></b>.”</p>
</div>
<div>
On drones & Constitution - better means to #Rand's ends - my wknd column @NRO - <a href="http://t.co/L4mius0qwH" class="">tinyurl.com/axt6gdt</a>Andrew C. McCarthy</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-80317448941947421442013-03-28T21:46:00.000-04:002013-03-28T21:46:09.287-04:00Thursday's Thoughts<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUE1fQJezIPVWSeTIBMaVkIX8MuObjzb9c7MCKzuOrJ4ur73yCpKacDjnR_knm69YO9qVi53gk7X8-Pgtw-brZNaCFC3N34aXTfGTT0_F76CByP9Jzm4inStEKm7ZEy_9GWd5GSPeCjw/s1600/GOP+Anonymous.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUE1fQJezIPVWSeTIBMaVkIX8MuObjzb9c7MCKzuOrJ4ur73yCpKacDjnR_knm69YO9qVi53gk7X8-Pgtw-brZNaCFC3N34aXTfGTT0_F76CByP9Jzm4inStEKm7ZEy_9GWd5GSPeCjw/s400/GOP+Anonymous.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://robertariail.com/">Robert Ariail</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPSsKrCW8PykK29VudvSXzs_AABx0juy5N1WCCSYs5vCLISo_jR95fc1XbYTS2Xbr-7cunhyJCNM_rAH5DbLI9L8lkcYg9qSb6smzsMU1ryAcCKRoYyL1pwU2G1A4ZO4FgXOJh9TQafFo/s1600/Media+killed+GOP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPSsKrCW8PykK29VudvSXzs_AABx0juy5N1WCCSYs5vCLISo_jR95fc1XbYTS2Xbr-7cunhyJCNM_rAH5DbLI9L8lkcYg9qSb6smzsMU1ryAcCKRoYyL1pwU2G1A4ZO4FgXOJh9TQafFo/s400/Media+killed+GOP.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.investors.com/editorial-cartoons/michael-ramirez/">Michael Ramirez</a></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/thursday-s-thoughts-3-28-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/thursday-s-thoughts-3-28-13" target="_blank">View the story "Thursday's Thoughts (3/28/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Thursday's Thoughts (3/28/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Thu, Mar 28 2013 18:30:47</p>
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Alexander Burns reports that Republican strategists failed to anticipate the diversity and scale of the Democratic turnout in the 2012 election, but now <i><b>the major Republican polling outfits are collaborating</b></i> to capture an accurate snapshot of the electorate in future elections. <p>
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“The National Republican Congressional Committee is the first GOP entity to take specific steps to try to rectify the party’s widely acknowledged polling debacle… <i><b>The Republicans’ 17-seat House majority is their last bulwark against full Democratic control of the federal government</b></i>, and senior party officials say they don’t intend to lose that firewall thanks to shoddy polling.”</p>
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“The committee has formed a new <i><b>Strategy Department</b></i> tasked with projecting district-by-district population changes and mapping best- and worst-case turnout scenarios for campaigns to use in guiding their surveys.”</p>
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“The NRCC-organized talks between pollsters have also produced a set of standards and practices that campaigns will be urged to follow for 2014. <i><b>Pollsters will be expected to have at least 30 percent of their samples made up of cell phone users</b></i>, if not more – an attempt to capture more of the Democratic-leaning young voters who eluded GOP survey-gatherers last year.”</p>
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“Since the 2014 congressional map is essentially set – unlike last cycle, when redistricting left many states in flux until late in the cycle – <i><b>Republicans have an opportunity to develop a common set of assumptions about turnout and then look for opportunities to shift the playing field in the GOP’s favor, strategists said</b></i>.”</p>
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“[T]he NRCC effort may be the narrowest and most tangible effort so far to improve the GOP’s campaign machinery, <i><b>and the one most likely to yield real results over the short term</b></i>.” <br></p>
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My story this morning: After rough 2012, GOP's heavyweight pollsters meet to figure out how to get it right in '14 <a href="http://t.co/ODMZWVBvMh" class="">politico.com/story/2013/03/…</a>Alex Burns</div>
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Via Rush Limbaugh (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/limbaugh" class="">@limbaugh</a></b>) on Facebook<br></div>
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<div>Can anybody out there name for me one time a Republican effort to rebrand something has worked? Ever?</div></div>
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David Limbaugh (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/DavidLimbaugh" class="">@DavidLimbaugh</a></b>) warns that the libertarian movement to eliminate social conservatism from the GOP “<i><b>is nothing short of a political death wish</b></i>.” <p>
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“<i><b>For the first time, I am wondering about the long-term viability of the Republican Party</b></i>. I say this not as an advocate of its demise or restructuring but as an observer of troubling signs.</p>
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“The Republican Party is thought to be the institutional vehicle for the advancement of conservative policies, but for decades, <i><b>the conservative movement has been frustrated with the party's deviation from conservative principles</b></i> -- its refusal to live up to its decidedly conservative platform.”</p>
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“I'd feel better if the ongoing competition between Reagan conservatives and establishment Republicans were the only big fissure in the GOP right now, <i><b>but there are other cracks that threaten to break wide open, too</b></i>. Our problems transcend our differing approaches to the size and scope of government and to fiscal and other economic issues.</p>
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“Reagan conservatism is no longer under attack from just establishment Republicans; it's also under attack from many inside the conservative movement itself. <i><b>Reagan conservatism is a three-legged stool of fiscal, foreign policy and social issues conservatism</b></i>. But today many libertarian-oriented conservatives are singing from the liberal libertine hymnal that the GOP needs to remake its image as more inclusive, more tolerant, less judgmental and less strident. <i><b>In other words, it needs to lighten up and quit opposing gay marriage, at least soften its position on abortion, and get on board the amnesty train to legalize illegal immigrants</b></i>. I won't even get into troubling foreign policy divisions among so-called neocons, so-called isolationists and those who simply believe we should conduct our foreign policy based foremost on promoting our strategic national interests.”</p>
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“I belong to the school that believes <i><b>the Republican Party must remain the party of mainstream Reagan conservatism</b></i> rather than try to become a diluted version of the Democratic Party. This does not mean Republicans can't come up with creative policy solutions when advisable, <i><b>but it does mean that conservatism is based on timeless principles that require no major revisions</b></i>. Conservatives are champions of freedom, the rule of law and enforcement of the social compact between government and the people enshrined in the Constitution, which imposes limitations on government in order to maximize our liberties. If we reject these ideas, then we have turned our backs on what America means and what has made America unique. <i><b>What's the point of winning elections if the price is American exceptionalism?</b></i>” <br></p>
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David LimbaughMarch 18, 2013 Column: Trouble Brewing in GOP Printer Friendly Tweet For the first time, I am wondering about the long-term viability of ...</div>
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Growth & Opportunity ProjectBrian_Empric</div>
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Byron York reports that the RNC’s <b><a href="http://growthopp.gop.com/default.aspx" class="">Growth and Opportunity Project</a></b> “autopsy committee” included some policy recommendations that “<i><b>could cause Republicans plenty of headaches in the future</b></i>.” <p>
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“First, the committee declared that the GOP ‘<i><b>must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform</b></i>.’ ‘If we do not,’ the committee said, ‘our party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.’</p>
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“Committing so firmly to comprehensive immigration reform is not only a measure of the GOP's anxiety over its dismal showing among Hispanic voters last November. <i><b>It's also a gamble that risks exacerbating tensions between the party's elites and grass roots</b></i>.”</p>
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“<i><b>Two-thirds of Republican voters</b></i> believe a pathway to citizenship will just encourage more illegal immigration,” says pollster Scott Rasmussen, “and <i><b>58 percent of all voters</b></i> believe federal policies continue to encourage illegal immigration.”</p>
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“The RNC's other exception to the no-policy rule involves gay marriage. ‘There is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and rights of gays -- and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the party is a place they want to be,’ the report says. ‘<i><b>If our party is not welcoming and inclusive, young people and increasingly other voters will continue to tune us out.</b></i>’</p>
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“<i><b>That is not a flat-out declaration that the RNC supports gay marriage -- but it's pretty close</b></i>…”</p>
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“In a new ABC News-Washington Post poll, just 34 percent of Republicans support gay marriage while 59 percent oppose it. <i><b>Among those who call themselves conservative Republicans, support is at 24 percent, with 71 percent opposed</b></i>. On another hot-button issue sure to receive extensive coverage in the press, the Washington-based party elites have placed themselves in opposition to the grass roots.</p>
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“A lot of what the RNC autopsy committee recommends is uncontroversial. The party certainly needs an upgrade in technology, voter contact, communications -- in pretty much every aspect of its operations. <i><b>But its two forays into policy could come back to haunt the RNC in the not-too-distant future</b></i>.” <br></p>
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Why didn't they stick to original plan? RNC risks dividing party with stands on contentious issues. <a href="http://t.co/xf2HRe7Hf3" class="">ow.ly/jcOPC</a>Byron York</div>
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Jonathan Martin (<b><a href="http://twitter.com/jmartpolitico" class="">@jmartpolitico</a></b>) & Maggie Haberman (<b><a href="http://twitter.com/maggiepolitico" class="">@maggiepolitico</a></b>) report that the RNC’s <b><a href="http://growthopp.gop.com/default.aspx" class="">Growth and Opportunity Project</a> </b>included a “<i><b>political bombshell</b></i>” at the end of their report, urging a reduction in the number of primary debates and changes to the primary/caucus nominating process, which could benefit better-financed establishment candidates like Mitt Romney. <p>
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“The GOP’s prescription to cure the ills that helped bring on yet another disastrous presidential cycle would revamp its presidential nominating rules <i><b>in ways to benefit well-funded candidates and hamper insurgents</b></i> - a move that quickly heated up the already smoldering feud between the Republican establishment and the tea party-inspired base.”</p>
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“John Brabender, Santorum’s chief adviser, said <i><b>the reforms would favor the moneyed candidates.</b></i></p>
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“While I commend Chairman Priebus for taking important steps to remedy Republicans’ recent election failures, I am troubled by the possibility of a condensed presidential primary process <i><b>which undoubtedly gives an advantage to establishment backed candidates and the wealthiest candidates</b></i>,” said Brabender.</p>
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“<i><b>Any changes to the party’s nominating process would have to be ratified by the full membership of the RNC</b></i>. The first debate on the recommendation will take place next month at the party’s spring meeting in Los Angeles, but party veterans don’t expect any final resolution on the 2016 plan that soon.”</p>
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“The general idea of a shorter primary has strong appeal among many Republicans <i><b>who prefer beating Democrats than beating up on each other</b></i>.”</p>
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“Conservatives have been particularly suspicious of the committee since it was announced last year because three of the best-known members — (former Bush spokesman Ari) Fleischer, (Florida GOP strategist and Jeb Bush adviser Sally) Bradshaw and (Mississippi GOP committeeman Henry) Barbour — are pillars of the party establishment. <i><b>And after reading the primary recommendations, these movement Republicans feel vindicated their concerns were well-placed</b></i>.” <br></p>
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Right blasts RNC 'autopsy' as power grab - Jonathan Martin and Maggie HabermanThe GOP’s prescription to cure the ills that helped bring on yet another disastrous presidential cycle would revamp its presidentia...</div>
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Jonathon Moseley writes that the GOP is violating time-tested, basic principles of sales and marketing. Last year, my employer hired a business coach to work with non-marketing personnel to improve our networking and time management skills, and to learn sales strategies. One of the great books that our group read was “<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sell-Feeling-6-Step-System-Business/dp/B0058M8DOK" class="">Sell the Feeling</a></b>,” by Larry Pinci & Phil Glosserman; like Moseley, I agree that basic salesmanship tactics can translate into politics. Pinci & Glosserman write that the actual buying decision is triggered by feelings, and the goal is to create a state of mind of being taken care of, trust, and confidence with your prospect, by creating rapport and then linking their emotional need to your product. <p>
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“Here is what is wrong with the Republican Party. This author taught in a sales training seminar firm in Eastern Europe, International Trendsetters. The solutions are overwhelmingly time-tested and proven in real life. This is not theory. <i><b>Republicans are chronically making classic rookie sales mistakes</b></i>.”</p>
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“<i><b>You must explain how a policy benefits the voter</b></i>. Bad salesmen talk about features -- the radio has a better tuner. Good salesmen talk about how the radio benefits the customer -- you will enjoy the music more and set a better mood for your love interest because it sounds better and clearer.”</p>
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“RNC Chairman Reince Priebus explained that we must talk about how Americans benefit from low taxes and lower national debt… We fail to explain why those details actually matter to the voter… But isn't it obvious? No. <i><b>Classic rookie mistake. It's obvious to you if you spend lots of time thinking about these things.</b></i> It's not obvious to busy people who have other things to think about, which they feel are more important in their lives. Yes, you have to draw them a map.”</p>
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“<i><b>Republicans skip over too many steps and assume too much</b></i>. The American voters are smart. But they haven't spent as much time thinking about your topic as you have. We have to be able to empathize with the busy listener and even remember how we were when we first learned about these issues.</p>
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“It is amazing that the GOP has been so bad at this, <i><b>when Ronald Reagan was so good at it</b></i>. If anyone is thinking of running for office, Step #1 is to listen to every speech Ronald Reagan ever gave. Several times. <i><b>Reagan ‘got’ it. Then the GOP lost it.</b></i>”</p>
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“If you don't explain how GOP policies benefit the listener, <i><b>their minds will fill in the vacuum with other explanations</b></i>. If you don't provide a reason, <i><b>their minds will provide one for you</b></i>.”</p>
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“We view objections with dread. A voter tells you why they don't like the GOP. <i><b>Time-tested sales techniques have proven that objections are opportunities</b></i>. When a prospect tells you what he is concerned about, you now have the opportunity to address his or her concerns… most sales succeed after not just the first negative response, but after several negative issues are raised and discussed. <i><b>But you have to care about the other person as much as you care about yourself to answer their concerns fully, fairly, and respectfully</b></i>.”</p>
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“You are not going to win over any hearts or minds sitting in your office across the street from the Capitol South Metro station (the RNC headquarters). <i><b>It is common sense that you have to go out and talk to Hispanics, Blacks, and other groups</b></i>.”</p>
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“Will they buy your product? I don't know. But I do know this: <i><b>They will never buy your product if you don't go talk to them and ask</b></i>. Many a salesman has struggled with having a call list but wasting the day avoiding making the sales calls. Most salespeople -- and Republicans -- spend most of their time making excuses to avoid going out and talking to people they might win over.”</p>
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“<i><b>Democrats are able to talk directly to voters</b></i>, unfiltered, without having to beg reporters to cover the issues or people they want, while controlling the spin placed on each news tidbit.”</p>
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“Sales experts study how to get messages across because real money is on the line. <i><b>Sales principles are the solutions for the GOP</b></i>.” <br></p>
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<div>
Priebus's GOP Autopsy Misses the Point: The GOP's recently unveiled "reboot" is a start -- but only a start.... <a href="http://t.co/DMTo3XHJOq" class="">dlvr.it/36D7sB</a>American Thinker</div>
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Matt Purple describes what the RNC’s <b><a href="http://growthopp.gop.com/default.aspx" class="">Growth and Opportunity Project</a></b> gets right and wrong. <p>
</p>
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“It’s tempting to ascribe value to their report based on its size alone: 219 recommendations! But a closer examination of the prescriptions shows a lot of bureaucratic bumbling — lots of listening sessions and new councils and minority group committees. <i><b>Anyone searching for meat will have to chew through a lot of fat first</b></i>.”</p>
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“The report contains a brief section on candidate recruitment. <i><b>But it fails to address the single most important reason that the Republican Party lost in 2012: Willard Mitt Romney</b></i>… Voters just didn’t like our guy, as evidenced by his stagnant approval ratings throughout the campaign.”</p>
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“The report calls GOP governors ‘America’s reformers in chief’ who show the need to ‘modernize the Party.’ <i><b>But it’s difficult to think of a big decision made by a Republican governor that hasn’t been on the conservative radar screen for a long time</b></i>. GOP governors succeeded by applying long-held principles, not by throwing those principles overboard in the name of modernity.”</p>
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“Naturally the Growth and Opportunity Project is worried about losing young voters. <i><b>But its recommendations for connecting with today’s youth are both shallow (‘Establish an RNC Celebrity Task Force’!) and shortsightedly focused on social issues</b></i>.”</p>
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“The Republican Party should be speaking directly to the young, <i><b>elucidating the real consequences they will face if the government continues its reckless spending</b></i>.” <p>
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“The autopsy makes the common mistake of assuming comprehensive immigration reform is a tonic for the GOP’s problem with Hispanic voters. We can debate the merits of such a proposal,<i><b> but it’s simply not true that support for looser immigration policies will convert Latinos</b></i>… Hispanics, unfortunately, are falling for the big-government promises of economic liberalism.”</p>
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“Early on, the report encourages Republicans to shed the party’s reputation as a tool of big business and ‘<i><b>be the champion of those who seek to climb the economic ladder of life</b></i>’…”</p>
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“The report recommends updating both the Republican Party’s social media outreach and data analytics, <i><b>both of which are crucial to attracting new voters, especially young ones</b></i>.”</p>
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“So will the autopsy have a serious impact? Probably not. On the campaign side, Republican consultants are already aware of most of the report’s diagnoses. <i><b>On the ideas side, conservative thinkers and activists are hardly inclined to take their cues from a bunch of party suits</b></i>. Give the news cycle a few more spins and the autopsy will likely be forgotten.” <br></p>
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<div>
Navel Gazing for the GOPThe GOP lost the 2012 election, and in the bleak December that followed, the Republican National Committee decided to figure out why. RNC...</div>
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With a current 55-45 Democratic advantage in the Senate, James Hohmann reports that <i><b>the GOP needs to net six seats in 2014</b></i> from vulnerable and/or retiring senators. There are six seats <a href="http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com/2013/02/wednesdays-write-up.html" class=""><b>in states where Romney beat Obama by double-digits</b></a>: Montana (+13.7%), Alaska (+14.0%), Louisiana (+17.2%), South Dakota (+18.0%), Arkansas (+23.7%), and West Virginia (+26.8%). In general, Republicans will need to knock off some red-state Democrats, expand the map, capitalize on retirements, and defend the safe states. <p>
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“There are seven states now represented by Democrats that Mitt Romney won last year (the list above, plus North Carolina). <i><b>Republicans need to carry most of them, and retirements in West Virginia and likely South Dakota help</b></i>.”</p>
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“<i><b>Historical patterns favor the GOP. Midterms tend to bring out a higher share of whiter and older (read: Republican) voters. Typically, a reelected president’s party loses seats in the next election</b></i>…”</p>
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“Another tier of opportunity for Republicans is a trio of swing states represented by Democrats: Minnesota (Al Franken), Colorado (Mark Udall) and New Hampshire (Jeanne Shaheen). All three senators appear to be in solid shape; <i><b>knocking off any one of them would be a big boon for Republicans</b></i>.”</p>
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“<i><b>Republicans have defeated only three sitting Democratic senators — Tom Daschle, Russ Feingold and Blanche Lincoln — in the past decade</b></i>. That makes winning open seats all the more critical for the GOP. Enter West Virginia, South Dakota and Iowa.”</p>
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</p>
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“Other open seats are less up for grabs. Democrats are favored to hold Sen. Carl Levin’s seat in Michigan (though Republicans promise to contest it) and almost certainly will keep Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s New Jersey seat. The same is true for Republicans in Nebraska and Georgia, where Sens. Mike Johanns and Saxby Chambliss have called it quits, respectively.”</p>
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“<i><b>Republicans get to play offense this cycle</b></i>. Democrats must defend 21 seats, compared with 14 for Republicans. The only GOP senator in a state Obama carried, Maine’s Susan Collins, is running again and should win handily.” <br></p>
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<div>
Here's my look at the Senate state-of-play 20 months before the election, with a review of all the key races: <a href="http://t.co/HLipcRBORb" class="">goo.gl/hbJIF</a>.James Hohmann</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-45287644157458862782013-03-27T22:28:00.001-04:002013-03-27T22:28:10.661-04:00Wednesday's Write-up<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfcBOG-vv-AtkukcJ7qGCpj4G1X_Xihpq3RxAuKaNtqLw60k2RcQV5tSCLAWVvKvBmQO2_-Fbrw5QKRsJSRxMLqK_rWwwPFFsERAT3SOxC1G6YuhULBlCi7pBIaB1ESCBjAJa6eXz3HfA/s1600/house+budget+proposals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfcBOG-vv-AtkukcJ7qGCpj4G1X_Xihpq3RxAuKaNtqLw60k2RcQV5tSCLAWVvKvBmQO2_-Fbrw5QKRsJSRxMLqK_rWwwPFFsERAT3SOxC1G6YuhULBlCi7pBIaB1ESCBjAJa6eXz3HfA/s400/house+budget+proposals.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><span><a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span class="screen-name">@natebeeler</span></a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDFO39KqharXj5jL8xKv1SsVzKXZZ0bkEuAjI7BQMMDU73iM2vP2bggdSRxf6VX9F4ReMh_yz8rFncAb88bmYwusIC8r66JqCiAbXWSL_wRSye92csqoK5jalWN4ZJW2H8Ht9dq1hxd_4/s1600/budget+smoke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDFO39KqharXj5jL8xKv1SsVzKXZZ0bkEuAjI7BQMMDU73iM2vP2bggdSRxf6VX9F4ReMh_yz8rFncAb88bmYwusIC8r66JqCiAbXWSL_wRSye92csqoK5jalWN4ZJW2H8Ht9dq1hxd_4/s400/budget+smoke.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><span><span><a href="http://syndication.washingtonpost.com/node/35">Lisa Benson</a></span></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zLcJ67PtwpTootkZGPseMNLS1mLsLTaBcjgXqxsUD0PlSeWfc6Vew43-T3F3HdSOfvjIdkVC38hR15W8rquDw0gxauPaFhwuueJAGHgVRG7APNbyNDQHsXhTNUPAwwfxkDWluJa_00w/s1600/ryan+vs+murray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zLcJ67PtwpTootkZGPseMNLS1mLsLTaBcjgXqxsUD0PlSeWfc6Vew43-T3F3HdSOfvjIdkVC38hR15W8rquDw0gxauPaFhwuueJAGHgVRG7APNbyNDQHsXhTNUPAwwfxkDWluJa_00w/s400/ryan+vs+murray.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://fodentoon.com/">Glenn Foden</a></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/wednesday-s-write-up-3-27-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/wednesday-s-write-up-3-27-13" target="_blank">View the story "Wednesday's Write-up (3/27/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Wednesday's Write-up (3/27/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Wed, Mar 27 2013 19:14:47</p>
<div>
WSJ Review & Outlook explains how Washington fools the public about spending “<i><b>cuts</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“Since 1974, Capitol Hill's ‘<i><b>baseline</b></i>’ has <i><b>automatically increased spending every year</b></i> according to Congressional Budget Office projections, which means before anyone has submitted a budget or cast a single vote. Tax and spending changes are then measured off that inflated baseline, <i><b>not in absolute terms</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The baseline scam also exists in many states, and no less a Democrat than New York Governor Andrew Cuomo denounced it in 2011 as a ‘<i><b>sham</b></i>’ and ‘<i><b>deceptive</b></i>.’ He wrote in the New York Post that state spending was ‘dictated by hundreds of rates and formulas that are marbleized throughout New York State laws that govern different programs—formulas that have been built into the law over decades, without regard to fiscal realities, performance or accountability.’ <i><b>Then he proceeded to continue baseline budgeting</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In Washington, Democrats designed this system <i><b>to make it easier to defend annual spending increases</b></i> and to portray any reduction in the baseline as a spending ‘cut’… <i><b>Republicans used to object to this game, but in recent years they seem to have given up</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If Republicans really want to slow the growth in spending, <i><b>they need to stop playing by Beltway rules</b></i> and start explaining to America why Mr. Obama keeps saying he's cutting spending <i><b>even as spending and deficits keep going up and up and up</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
The Budget Baseline ConIf the fiscal cliff talks make Lindsay Lohan look like a productive member of society, perhaps it's because President Obama and John Boeh...</div>
<div>
House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan [R-WI1, <b><a href="https://twitter.com/RepPaulRyan" class="">@RepPaulRyan</a></b>] writes that the goal to balance the budget in ten years can be reached, without new taxes, while increasing spending 3.4% a year instead of the current 5%. <p>
</p>
<p>
“Clearly, the budget process is broken. In four of the past five years, the president has missed his budget deadline. Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget in over 1,400 days. By refusing to tackle the drivers of the nation's debt—or simply to write a budget—<i><b>Washington lurches from crisis to crisis.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“House Republicans have a plan to change course… <i><b>We stop spending money the government doesn't have</b></i>. Historically, Americans have paid a little less than one-fifth of their income in taxes to the federal government each year. But the government has spent more.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Under our proposal, <i><b>the government spends no more than it collects in revenue</b></i>—or 19.1% of gross domestic product each year… On the current path, we'll spend <i><b>$46 trillion</b></i> over the next 10 years. Under our proposal, we'll spend <i><b>$41 trillion</b></i>. On the current path, spending will increase by 5% each year. <i><b>Under our proposal, it will increase by 3.4%</b></i>...”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Yet the most important question isn't how we balance the budget. <i><b>It's why</b></i>. A budget is a means to an end, and the end isn't a neat and tidy spreadsheet. <i><b>It's the well-being of all Americans</b></i>. By giving families stability and protecting them from tax hikes, <i><b>our budget will promote a healthier economy and help create jobs</b></i>. Most important, our budget will reignite the American Dream, the idea that anyone can make it in this country.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The other side will warn of a relapse into recession—just as they predicted economic disaster when the budget sequester hit. <i><b>But a balanced budget will help the economy</b></i>. Smaller deficits will keep interest rates low, which will help small businesses to expand and hire…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Anyone who attacks our Medicare proposal without offering a credible alternative is complicit in the program's demise</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“All we need is leadership. Washington owes the American people a balanced budget. <i><b>It isn't fair to take more from families so government can spend more</b></i>… We House Republicans have done our part. We're offering a credible plan for all the country to see. We're outlining how to solve the greatest problems facing America today.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Paul Ryan: The GOP Plan to Balance the Budget by 2023America's national debt is over $16 trillion. Yet Washington can't figure out how to cut $85 billion-or just 2% of the federal budget-wit...</div>
<div>
debt_130318_longterm_blogBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
Rasmussen Reports shares that neither congressional budget excites likely voters very much. However, most want the deficit reduced with spending cuts, like Ryan’s plan, and are not supportive of additional tax hikes, like the Senate Democrats’ plan. <p>
</p>
<p>
“A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that <i><b>35% of Likely U.S. Voters favor the Republican plan</b></i> proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan. Half (49%) of all voters oppose the Republican plan, but another 16% are not sure…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“However, <i><b>only 19% favor the Democrats' option</b></i> proposed by Senator Patty Murray. Sixty percent (60%) of voters oppose the Democratic plan. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Sixty-three percent (63%) of Republicans agree with the plan that balances the budget in 10 years without raising taxes. Seventy percent (70%) of Democrats and a plurality (49%) of voters not affiliated with either party are opposed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“However, <i><b>only 26% of Democrats support their party’s plan while 40% are opposed</b></i>. Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans and 64% of unaffiliated voters oppose the plan.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Seventy-two percent (72%) of Tea Party voters favor the GOP plan, and 89% oppose the Democratic plan</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Budget PollingBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
Voters Unhappy With Both Ryan and Murray Budget Plans - Rasmussen Reports™Voters Unhappy With Both Ryan and Murray Budget Plans Senate Democrats and House Republicans last week introduced widely different plans ...</div>
<div>
Steve Forbes warns that a financial infection prompted by ignoring the rule of law in cash-strapped Cyprus (a deposit shelter for wealthy Russians) could spread throughout the interconnected global economy and set another irresponsible policy precedent. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>What in the world is going through the minds of European officials with their crazy, destructive demands with Cyprus?</b></i> Seizing a portion of peoples’ bank deposits is the kind of thing one would expect from Argentina or other kleptocratic third-world governments. <i><b>It sets an awful precedent shredding the rule of law</b></i>, which is the bedrock of a free and vibrant society…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“What the Europeans are doing here guarantees that there will be <i><b>disastrous runs on banks and money market funds</b></i> when we have another financial crisis – which we will, since authorities today really don’t know what they are doing on the economic front…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Cyprus move is portrayed as a way to recapitalize that island’s shaky banks. But stealing deposits guarantees banks’ failures as soon as their doors re-open – if they ever do. After all, the Cypriot government may reject their agreement with the European Commission, European Central Bank and the IMF out of fear of both apoplectic voters and angry Russian depositors. <i><b>Make no mistake, this deal is about as voluntary as those famous gangster words, ‘We have an offer you can’t refuse.’</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The poor judgment of the political and economical leadership of the West today rivals that of their predecessors of the 1930s and 1970s. <i><b>Under their misguided policies the wealth-creating private sector is continually squeezed with growth-killing taxes and regulations and the power of Big Government expands</b></i>. Most countries have made, at best, small reforms when big ones – especially on the tax cutting front – are needed.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Cyprus May Be A Disaster For All Of Us! Here's Why: <a href="http://t.co/kiWAJmYGl2" class="">onforb.es/XVdVYf</a>Steve Forbes</div>
<div>
Jake Sherman reports that House Republicans intend to push for steep entitlement spending cuts or budgetary reforms in order to raise the debt ceiling this summer. <p>
</p>
<p>
“[I]f Republicans plan to place entitlements in their cross hairs, they will be risking <i><b>a high-profile and explosive fight</b></i> with President Barack Obama, who has said there is no way he’ll consider changes to entitlement programs without corresponding tax increases. <i><b>House Republicans have said they compromised on raising tax hikes in the fiscal cliff deal on Jan. 1</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“House GOP leadership is also eyeing several bills to hike the debt cap with different budgetary reforms — those bills might hit the floor as soon as May. <i><b>One option under discussion includes trying to tie tax reform to the debt ceiling</b></i>. Republicans are also mulling another path, which would tether entitlement reforms Obama has previously supported to the debt ceiling. <i><b>Those reforms include increasing the Medicare eligibility age, means testing Medicare and changing the formula for calculating government benefits</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Of course, the House is not alone in deciding how the debt ceiling issue is resolved… Obama has said he’s not interested in negotiating over the debt ceiling, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) still has control over his chamber. Reid’s strategy often lines up with Obama’s.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The House-side maneuvering on the debt ceiling also plainly displays that <i><b>the talk of a grand bargain, for now, is just that: talk</b></i>. The ability to come to some sort of massive fiscal deal is still a pipe dream, of sorts, for those who deal with the reality of legislating on Capitol Hill.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
House Rs also considering trying to tie tax reform to debt ceiling. <a href="http://t.co/tWwVZ8QvPu" class="">politi.co/Y56osa</a> Recent projection is debt ceiling fight in July.Jake Sherman</div>
<div>
Fox News reports that federal workers with tax liens may be fired under <i><b>The Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act</b></i>, which was recently approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “The very least an individual on the federal payroll can do is pay their taxes,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz [R-UT3, <b><a href="https://twitter.com/jasoninthehouse" class="">@jasoninthehouse</a></b>] said <b><a href="http://chaffetz.house.gov/press-release/three-chaffetz%E2%80%99-sponsored-bills-pass-through-oversight-committee" class="">in a news release</a></b>. “If you are thumbing your nose up at the American taxpayer by not paying your taxes, <i><b>you should be fired or not awarded a federal contract</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“This legislation would not only result in the <i><b>termination </b></i>of current tax delinquent federal employees, but would <i><b>prohibit the future hiring</b></i> of federal employees with tax liens.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The legislation also requires federal agencies to conduct reviews of public records <i><b>to determine if tax liens have been filed against current employees or applicants</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Nearly 312,000 federal workers and retirees owed <i><b>more than $3.5 billion in back taxes</b></i> as of Sept. 30, 2011, the (Internal Revenue Service) agency reported earlier this month…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The IRS says most residents who owe back income taxes file returns but cannot pay the full amount at tax time. Others have their tax bills increased through audits and cannot pay the higher bill.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
House committee votes to fire federal workers who owe back taxesFederal workers with tax liens may be fired under legislation approved by a House committee Wednesday. The Federal Employee Tax Accountab...</div>
<div>
Rasmussen Reports shares that half of Americans surveyed favor a plan to break up the twelve megabanks, which currently control about 69% of the banking industry. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Most Americans want to end government subsidies for these ‘too big to fail’ institutions, and half want to see those megabanks broken up</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The government currently provides nearly $100 billion in subsidies to the largest banks because they are deemed ‘<i><b>too big to fail</b></i>’. Just seven percent (7%) of Americans support continuing these subsidies, <i><b>while 76% are opposed</b></i>. Sixteen percent (16%) are undecided.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Fifty-three percent (53%)</b></i> still prefer a financial system with more competition and less regulation. Twenty-six percent (26%) would rather have more regulation and less competition in the financial system. Another 21% are not sure…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats and 51% of adults not affiliated with either major political party support breaking up the megabanks, <i><b>a plan that just 40% of Republicans favor</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
50% Favor Breaking Up Nation’s Largest #Banks... <a href="http://t.co/3yG8hAJAf6" class="">tinyurl.com/c6jvz5c</a> #megabanksScott Rasmussen</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-79678602226399201602013-03-25T22:36:00.003-04:002013-03-25T22:36:52.047-04:00Monday's Menagerie<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVr_GQWDTlAp-jdl73KFLWmeUAVz6Pwdo7SA6LjflbmW7x6ijnuC63TFHe7fl-yfVUfn1clLq8ppLCq95tdp7MU958h9Z-QQcHuZqL9aa2HR9dJjDQXUMK4WjKFk5p-dDy_Utt48pLE5I/s1600/debt+zombies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVr_GQWDTlAp-jdl73KFLWmeUAVz6Pwdo7SA6LjflbmW7x6ijnuC63TFHe7fl-yfVUfn1clLq8ppLCq95tdp7MU958h9Z-QQcHuZqL9aa2HR9dJjDQXUMK4WjKFk5p-dDy_Utt48pLE5I/s400/debt+zombies.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://bostonherald.com/holbert">Jerry Holbert</a></span></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqmo4caxuX6FizqlOhpBcVHf3LzxX7-ES0zVjZyeQNx1VjRXNAbwjgjJJFTUzPMjSYlRNknY1v4r_REh83V_1lb_yVC-79ns9fd9Px-Up4WXKFmrpK4OmThzIHRDSMJr2aLNE7CU4W_AY/s1600/Bernanke's+Fedbag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqmo4caxuX6FizqlOhpBcVHf3LzxX7-ES0zVjZyeQNx1VjRXNAbwjgjJJFTUzPMjSYlRNknY1v4r_REh83V_1lb_yVC-79ns9fd9Px-Up4WXKFmrpK4OmThzIHRDSMJr2aLNE7CU4W_AY/s400/Bernanke's+Fedbag.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h2 class="username">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://twitter.com/ColeToon"><span class="screen-name">@ColeToon</span></a></span></h2>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYY4M35LujUrxkoQzGCcLivsLpmX2gi76n2s4KCE6B5X3vH0NIWecpsvn4aUqZlxBmBPbGuw7IpgHtBX0i72Y_0vHLQXfgl06O6ziDZ8yHYjvzEXeD7DymqkXQea8XfAwWUiBiNabYZvU/s1600/market+on+steroids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYY4M35LujUrxkoQzGCcLivsLpmX2gi76n2s4KCE6B5X3vH0NIWecpsvn4aUqZlxBmBPbGuw7IpgHtBX0i72Y_0vHLQXfgl06O6ziDZ8yHYjvzEXeD7DymqkXQea8XfAwWUiBiNabYZvU/s400/market+on+steroids.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h2 class="username">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://twitter.com/ericallie"><span class="screen-name">@ericallie</span></a></span></h2>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZFDEW3v4kd56pFAvHFExOCzoJqrrBnWG1zXAzQq6yJ_JJemroQRZmdBLsuB4tYyj0ctumGx9vjsbckOVyUG2yMWBNxkLq_cSFyHOgY8eBW8bmQXcuFx8DG2csY0NuXNZVyXFBfAFC40/s1600/bums+with+401(k).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZFDEW3v4kd56pFAvHFExOCzoJqrrBnWG1zXAzQq6yJ_JJemroQRZmdBLsuB4tYyj0ctumGx9vjsbckOVyUG2yMWBNxkLq_cSFyHOgY8eBW8bmQXcuFx8DG2csY0NuXNZVyXFBfAFC40/s400/bums+with+401(k).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span><a href="https://twitter.com/AUG_RickMcKee">@AUG_RickMcKee</a></span></b></span></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-3-25-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-3-25-13" target="_blank">View the story "Monday's Menagerie (3/25/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Monday's Menagerie (3/25/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Mon, Mar 25 2013 19:23:37</p>
<div>
USA Today Editorial Board writes that like all good things, the Federal Reserve’s performance-enhancing policies must end. The Fed’s mortgage bond and U.S. Treasury buying spree (<i><b>quantitative easing</b></i>) is pushing stocks up artificially. <p>
</p>
<p>
“The turnabout (of the stock market) is testament to healthy corporate profits and the resilience of America's free enterprise system. And it's a huge relief to workers whose 401(k) plans are tied to equities. <i><b>But the risky little secret of the rebound is that it is powered in significant part by the easy-money policies of the Federal Reserve, which must one day end</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[T]he time is approaching to scale back the bond-buying spree and get ready to unwind some of the Fed's massive portfolio, <b><a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/" class="">which now tops $3 trillion</a></b>. The longer the policy lasts, <i><b>the more likely it will end unhappily</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Savers, particularly older ones trying to live on income from their investments, are starved for safe options. <i><b>They've been forced into stocks, which is one reason the market has been acting as if it's on steroids</b></i>. Further, with borrowing costs low, Congress and the White House have less incentive to rein in the national debt.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The market is ‘<b><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100488239" class="">hooked on the drug</a></b>’ of easy money, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher told Reuters… Fisher's comparison of Fed policies to a drug is apt. Markets might not like the idea of the drug being withdrawn now, when the Fed holds a portfolio of $3 trillion. <i><b>But the withdrawal symptoms will be a lot worse once the portfolio grows to $4 trillion, or more</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The longer the Fed's easy-money policies go on, the greater the risk they will <i><b>distort markets, create new bubbles and set the economy up for another fall</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Dow Jones high on Fed steroids: Our viewLike all good things, the performance-enhancing policies must come to an end. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. (Photo: Carolyn Kast...</div>
<div>
Daniel Halper (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/danielhalper" class="">@danielhalper</a></b>) blogs that while the White House closes to public tour groups to save money, <i><b>it still employs a staff of three calligraphers at more than $5,300 per week</b></i>. <p>
</p>
<p>
“With the White House closing its doors to public tour groups in order to save money for the sequester, it's worth remembering some of the other costs the White House incurs annually.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Like the ‘Chief Calligrapher,’ Patricia A. Blair, who has an annual salary of <i><b>$96,725</b></i>, and her two deputies, Debra S. Brown, who gets paid <i><b>$85,953</b></i> per year, and Richard T. Muffler, who gets paid <i><b>$94,372</b></i> every year.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<b><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianempric/galleries/72157632999314489/" class="">Other #CutWaste opportunities here</a></b><br></p>
</div>
<div>
Chief White House Calligrapher Gets Paid $96,725 Per Year: With the White House closing its doors to public to... <a href="http://t.co/gXBqq0x9nw" class="">bit.ly/VESJFT</a>weeklystandard</div>
<div>
Cut Waste: Vacant Federal Propertiesrepublicanconference</div>
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Cut Waste: EPA Grants to Foreign Countriesrepublicanconference</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/michael-tanner" class="">Michael Tanner</a></b>, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, writes that the new House budget has its flaws (Social Security is not really addressed), but real virtues, too. <p>
</p>
<p>
“Let’s be honest about one thing: The budget introduced yesterday has about as much chance of becoming law <i><b>as Nancy Pelosi does of being elected pope</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>But at least it is a budget</b></i>. It has now been more than four years since the Senate produced such a document. While Senate Democrats have pledged to do so this year, recent reports suggest that they are struggling to come up with a plan that can garner support from a majority of their members…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[T]he Ryan budget provides a view of Republican priorities and their vision for how to increase economic growth, reform entitlements, and balance the budget. <i><b>While timid and imperfect, Ryan’s plan shows that Republicans are at least looking in the right direction</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“On the spending side, Ryan would mostly retain the sequester, and would further reduce spending by $5.7 trillion from the current ten-year baseline, <i><b>bringing the budget into balance by 2023.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“However, while we can undoubtedly look forward to news stories about how Ryan would slash spending, his budget doesn’t actually cut spending at all; <i><b>it merely slows the rate of growth</b></i>. Indeed, under Ryan’s proposal, <i><b>federal spending would still grow by an average of 3.4 percent every year</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Ryan’s budget would leave us with roughly $20.85 trillion in debt in 2023</b></i>, which is $5.29 trillion lower than under the current baseline but still a $4.15 trillion increase over what we currently owe…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The budget would also block-grant Medicaid and food stamps (the latter would be reformed more gradually, as the unemployment rate decreases), and reform civil-service pensions by requiring increased contributions from federal workers.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“As Ryan says, ‘<i><b>balancing the budget is a means to an end</b></i>,’ that end being a growing economy and freer, more prosperous society.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
The Right Step from Ryan <a href="http://t.co/MzIvCdfT7c" class="">bit.ly/Xsn9NO</a> via @MTannerCatoCato Institute</div>
<div>
budget coverBrian_Empric</div>
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Weekly Republican Address 3/16/13: Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI)HouseConference</div>
<div>
Chris Moody reports that a balanced federal budget “would add <i><b>about 5 million more jobs</b></i> to the economy by 2023 compared with current spending levels…” <p>
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<p>
“Based on the premise that national economies grow by about 1 percent less when debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP, the president of the AAF (American Action Forum)—and former Congressional Budget Office director—<b><a href="http://americanactionforum.org/experts/douglas-holtz-eakin" class="">Douglas Holtz-Eakin</a></b> predicts that the Republican budget would allow for 5 percent more in economic growth than under current law,<i><b> translating to that estimated 5 million new jobs in 10 years</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“But despite the benefits of lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio, there is not widespread bipartisan agreement on whether balancing the budget should be a top priority. <i><b>Ryan's plan would balance the budget through spending cuts alone</b></i>. The Democratic plan calls for a combination of discretionary spending reductions, tax increases and boosting infrastructure spending, <i><b>but it does not balance the budget in the foreseeable future.</b></i></p>
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</p>
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“In <b><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/03/president-obama-wont-balance-budget-just-for-the-sake-of-balance/" class="">an interview with ABC News this week</a></b>, President Barack Obama said he was not interested in balancing the budget ‘just for the sake of balance. My goal is how do we grow the economy, put people back to work, and if we do that we are going to be bringing in more revenue.’” <br></p>
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<div>
Leading the #DailyDish (<a href="http://t.co/wIXx6Kt6Bl" class="">bit.ly/10MvDji</a>), @YahooNews on @AAF study: #balancedbudget would increase job growth: <a href="http://t.co/gaFNPxiDJp" class="">yhoo.it/Z1qrnV</a>AmericanActionForum</div>
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Daniel Halper blogs that the finally released Senate Democrat budget shows <i><b>dramatic spending jumps. </b></i><p>
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“<i><b>Over the next decade, spending under Murray's budget would increase by 62 percent</b></i>... As the chart shows, the budget would increase a bit each year, under the Democratic plan.”</p>
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</p>
<p>
“Murray’s budget spends $2.2 trillion more in 2023 (the last year of the budget window) than the 2013 levels – a 62% increase (<i><b>significantly outpacing inflation</b></i>),” says a staff member on the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. <br></p>
</div>
<div>
budget_previewBrian_Empric</div>
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Proposed Dem Budget Increases Spending 62% Over Next DecadeSenator Patty Murray, the Democratic chair of the Senate Budget Committee, finally released a budget today. Year over year, in this propo...</div>
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Christine Harbin (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/chrissyharbin" class="">@chrissyharbin</a></b>), federal policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity (AFP), compares the House Republican and Senate Democrat budget proposals and the important tax policy differences between the two. <p>
</p>
<p>
“Ryan’s plan is revenue neutral… meaning that it is not an overall tax hike. Senate Democrats say in <b><a href="http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=f832b08c-a516-4223-a4e6-e432991e4caa" class="">the Chairman’s Mark</a></b> that their budget includes ‘only’ $923 billion in higher taxes over the next 10 years, but it turns out to be much higher. Buried elsewhere in their budget is $580 billion in additional tax hikes, <i><b>bringing the total to $1.5 trillion</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
<p>
“Both budgets call for comprehensive tax reform, but they disagree on what that should look like. Chairman Ryan proposes <i><b>simplifying and streamlining the tax code</b></i>, highlighting the ‘maze’ of deductions, credits, limitations, and phase-outs that clutter the tax code. He also calls for rate reduction, on both the personal and corporate side… Representing a different vision, Senate Democrats want to ‘restore fairness to the tax code’ <i><b>by making it even more progressive</b></i>…”</p>
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“Although both plans call for eliminating loopholes, <i><b>both are woefully short on specifics</b></i>. Neither dives into the details of which deductions should be cut…”</p>
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</p>
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“Chairman Ryan proposes to simplify our broken tax code by turning our seven individual income tax brackets into two, and then <i><b>bringing down the marginal tax rates to 10% and 25%</b></i>... Murray’s budget doesn’t lower personal income tax rates…”</p>
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“<i><b>Chairman Ryan would cut the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent</b></i>, but Murray’s budget would leave it untouched. AFP supports cutting the corporate tax rate—which is currently the highest in the industrialized world, at 35 percent—since <b><a href="http://americansforprosperity.org/legislativealerts/afps-four-principles-of-optimal-taxation/" class="">low rates is a principle of optimal taxation</a></b> and it would produce myriad positive results for the economy. According to <b><a href="http://taxfoundation.org/article/growth-dividend-lower-corporate-tax-rate" class="">a brand-new study</a></b> from Tax Foundation, cutting the federal corporate tax rate to 25 percent would <i><b>incite economic growth, more wages and job creation, and higher tax revenue</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Closer look: Comparing Tax Plans in Chairman Ryan's and Senate Democrats' Budgets | Americans for ProsperityBy Christine Harbin This is the third in series of blog posts focusing on the federal budget proposals in Congress. The first post OVERAL...</div>
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Tax Increase ComparisonBrian_Empric</div>
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It's official - the President submitted his NCAA bracket before his budget.<br> <br> Did you get your work done? Okay good. Then fill out our Liberal Madness bracket here: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fow.ly%2Fjg75g&h=BAQGzD7jE&s=1" class="">http://ow.ly/jg75g</a>National Republican Congressional Committee</div>
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Daniel Henninger writes that the sequester proved that spending cuts are not a political third rail. <p>
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“So it looks like we've all been sentenced to spending at least two more years in budget hell with Barack Obama. Under the rules of budget hell set the past four years by the prince of Pennsylvania Avenue, you're not allowed to do anything real about federal spending. <i><b>You can only fight over federal spending. Forever</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“Amid the sequester smackdown with the White House, Republicans did something off-script: <i><b>They called the Obama bluff</b></i>. They let the sequester's spending cuts occur, and the apocalypse didn't descend. <i><b>The only thing that cracked was the president's approval rating</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“Ever since Ronald Reagan legitimized the efficacy of tax cuts, Democrats have sought to discredit his idea and restore the New Deal theory of a Keynesian multiplier, which dates to 1931. It holds that more public spending will revive a struggling economy… <i><b>No president has believed more in the miracle of the multiplier than Barack Obama</b></i>…”</p>
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</p>
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“(Economist Alberto Alesina, a professor at Harvard University) has identified the alternative. His, and others', work the past decade with how struggling economies revive suggests that <i><b>the Obama spend-more solution is the opposite of what the U.S. should be doing</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“The path back to stronger growth, argues Mr. Alesina, is a combination of <i><b>significant, permanent cuts</b></i> in public spending and relatively small tax increases, if any.”</p>
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</p>
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“Adjustments based upon spending cuts,” the economists concluded, “are much less costly in terms of output losses than tax-based ones. Spending-based adjustments”—that is, cuts—“have been associated with mild and short-lived recessions, in many cases with no recession at all. Tax-based adjustments”—tax increases—“<i><b>have been associated with prolonged and deep recessions</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“Fiscal plans based on large, permanent spending cuts are associated with renewed growth more than any alternative policy mix that has been tried. <i><b>Indeed, spending cuts without big tax increases look to be the only thing that really works</b></i>…” <br></p>
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<div>
Henninger: Escape From Spending Hell <a href="http://t.co/Rs1xvd8ErE" class="">on.wsj.com/YbQ03j</a>Opinion & Commentary</div>
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David Harsanyi writes that because no president, economist or technocrat can foresee the future, and the real debt amount is likely much higher than $16 trillion when unfunded liabilities are included, <i><b>it is clear that debt does matter a lot. </b></i><p>
</p>
<p>
“No worries, America. Debt is a preoccupation of the fringe, a mere distraction for anyone interested in progress. And anyway, as President Barack Obama <b><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/03/president-obama-there-is-no-debt-crisis/" class="">explained</a></b> this week, ‘we don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. <i><b>In fact, for the next 10 years, it’s going to be in a sustainable place.</b></i>’</p>
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</p>
<p>
“<i><b>That’s a pretty convenient position, wouldn’t you say, for a man who’s helped pile on trillions of dollars of new debt and created an entitlement that promises to escalate this non-crisis crisis of ours?</b></i>”</p>
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</p>
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“Right now, we’re spending more money to pay interest on debt <i><b>than we’ll spend on education, homeland security, transportation and veterans’ benefits combined this year</b></i>. Surely, there’s something better to spend that money on. And those interest payments are a significant tax on Americans — a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. <i><b>And just wait until interest rates rise, because at some point they will.</b></i></p>
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</p>
<p>
“Hey, I didn’t even come up with the previous paragraph. <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/2013/03/13/in-2006-obama-explained-why-debt-matter-heres-the-speech/" class=""><i><b>I cribbed it from a speech given on the Senate floor in 2006 by an up-and-comer named Barack Obama</b><b>.</b></i></a> He’s so articulate I couldn’t resist. But those were the stormy days when debt mattered because Republicans were … well, Republicans.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Of course, debt isn’t always a bad idea. We build things for the next generation, and they should chip in, no doubt. But right now, public debt is more than 75 percent of gross domestic product. <i><b>So when do we get to worry? At 100 percent?</b></i>” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
In Reality, Debt Matters. It Matters a Lot by @davidharsanyi <a href="http://t.co/I4fv8gAWgy" class="">humanevents.com/2013/03/13/in-…</a>Human Events</div>
<div>
Jay Cost writes that the Republicans and Democrats have to fight over the budget because <i><b>the status quo is irresponsible and untenable</b></i>, and the consequences of rising debt are ominous (high interest costs, raised taxes, reduced benefits/services, etc.). <p>
</p>
<p>
“Last month, the Congressional Budget Office released its revised baseline for spending, taxation, and deficits for the next decade. It is not pretty. The gross federal debt is expected to increase by nearly $10 trillion over 10 years, <i><b>from $16 trillion today to roughly $26 trillion in 2023.</b></i></p>
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</p>
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“<i><b>Beyond the 10-year horizon, the fiscal picture only gets worse</b></i>. Without major reforms, the government’s vast array of health entitlements—starting with Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and Obamacare—are set to grow from about 5 percent of gross domestic product today to 9 percent in 2033, 12 percent in 2053, <i><b>and 15 percent in 2073</b></i>. There is no way the nation can afford that bill, absent a shocking increase in taxation. What’s more, taxes would have to be raised again and again and again, <i><b>as health entitlements are expected to grow faster than the economy</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“Much has been written about the nation’s awful budgetary outlook, but one aspect that is often overlooked is <i><b>the effect the country’s debt and deficit will have on the American political landscape</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“Right off the bat, the looming debt crisis explains why House Republicans persist with a policy solution that has not been politically popular in the past. <i><b>Today’s House GOP believes it has no choice; the duties of responsible governing require a solution to this problem, even if such a solution is unpopular</b></i>… The fiscal situation also explains why Senate Democrats have failed to produce a budget in four years. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has a hyper-transactional approach to politics, always preferring to shield his members from tough votes, or sweeten the pot for them when he has no choice.”</p>
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</p>
<p>
“Together, the different approaches that House Republicans and Senate Democrats have taken in dealing with the nation’s fiscal mess illustrate the profound changes occurring in American politics. <i><b>Reid has chosen the fiscally irresponsible but politically easy path; Ryan the opposite</b></i>. It is either one or the other, because the two goals are now mutually exclusive. A responsible policy requires a departure from the status quo—meaning higher taxes, entitlement reforms, or both—<i><b>that will be politically dangerous</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“Politicians of generations past could pass a budget or agree to raise the debt ceiling without much trouble because they never really had to worry that the debt was out of control. <i><b>Today, they have no such luxury</b></i>. Hence the persistent fighting over what were once perfunctory tasks.</p>
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</p>
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“Until the public makes up its mind about what to do next, <i><b>all bets about American politics are off. </b></i>The near-term political outlook is messy, fraught with finger-pointing, demagoguery, and vitriolic rhetoric as both sides try to position themselves…”</p>
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</p>
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“<i><b>One thing, though, is clear: The political center as we know it today will no longer exist</b></i>. For generations, Americans have demanded more, more, more from their government, which has been able to supply it without burdening the citizenry with onerous taxes. No longer. <i><b>The time for painful choices is at hand</b></i>.” <br></p>
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<div>
"A Difference That Can't Be Split." My column for this week's magazine. <a href="http://t.co/GehFHbo3CS" class="">weeklystandard.com/articles/diffe…</a>Jay Cost</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-65642607904032483762013-03-22T17:26:00.002-04:002013-03-22T17:26:58.102-04:00Friday’s Florilegium<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9MJnq6gC4AIZSZ2CrgaSSkpKQGxt_vqO9S5ZaYtA-LH4YAePEB7GoBqwIFqJtbjtjen1BdCE3fI-NPcob8pxm59D7bNSU9efta2qF9HGqBVRDkoIP7pN0Bpz8CxJtWp8oUBGlkGS4YrQ/s1600/chavez+in+hell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9MJnq6gC4AIZSZ2CrgaSSkpKQGxt_vqO9S5ZaYtA-LH4YAePEB7GoBqwIFqJtbjtjen1BdCE3fI-NPcob8pxm59D7bNSU9efta2qF9HGqBVRDkoIP7pN0Bpz8CxJtWp8oUBGlkGS4YrQ/s400/chavez+in+hell.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.gocomics.com/glennmccoy/">Glenn McCoy</a></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWwlX0CV5E_cVD_LRgcL4oz-8JXN8Id9Ew2Zafe8YBErpVg5bhakgKLQ2Vi5EMkaXfLQnDeGAHl48afSVCaHjpwxNG3W5yzfArOfV95ZRcKptqiAUUJNkP6GliSMrwKb7ufWwBGOrbNE/s1600/foreign+policy+concerns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWwlX0CV5E_cVD_LRgcL4oz-8JXN8Id9Ew2Zafe8YBErpVg5bhakgKLQ2Vi5EMkaXfLQnDeGAHl48afSVCaHjpwxNG3W5yzfArOfV95ZRcKptqiAUUJNkP6GliSMrwKb7ufWwBGOrbNE/s400/foreign+policy+concerns.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/varvel">@varvel</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8s6isTtvewt_mCHDEhd6ySoRMkPgoUOMAlXuVPscoPPcozT1VYVKRpRhQIBgGWiaxx9hKxLGBRiO2PDurZUYSnlJTIqlvRn2I9CMT9xRIBiKl822zmybNthkX5sKwirxavbsAfkwt2AQ/s1600/Nuclear+Iran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8s6isTtvewt_mCHDEhd6ySoRMkPgoUOMAlXuVPscoPPcozT1VYVKRpRhQIBgGWiaxx9hKxLGBRiO2PDurZUYSnlJTIqlvRn2I9CMT9xRIBiKl822zmybNthkX5sKwirxavbsAfkwt2AQ/s400/Nuclear+Iran.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.investors.com/editorial-cartoons/michael-ramirez/">Michael Ramirez</a></td></tr>
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<br />
<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/friday-s-florilegium-i-3-22-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/friday-s-florilegium-i-3-22-13" target="_blank">View the story "Friday’s Florilegium I (3/22/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Friday’s Florilegium I (3/22/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Fri, Mar 22 2013 14:19:56</p>
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Adam Makary, Hamdi Alkhshali and Catherine E. Shoichet report that Egyptian authorities have been cracking down on hundreds of underground smuggling tunnels in the Sinai Desert into Gaza. A couple of weeks ago, an Egyptian court ordered the tunnels closed and demolished, <i><b>while security forces have begun flooding them with sewage. </b></i><p>
</p>
<p>
“In Gaza, many describe the tunnels as a vital lifeline. Thousands work in what has become a key trade route for the Hamas-controlled territory… In Israel, authorities have accused Hamas of <i><b>using the tunnels to smuggle missiles and other weapons used in militant attacks</b></i>… And in Egypt, authorities have blamed the tunnels for violence in the Sinai Peninsula.”</p>
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“After a surge of violent attacks in the Sinai Peninsula in August, Egypt's interior minister blamed the tunnels, <i><b>citing them as smuggling routes for terrorists and weapons</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“U.S. and Israeli officials say that <i><b>Iran has used the tunnels</b></i> to send arms and missile parts into Gaza.” <br></p>
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Egyptian court orders destruction of Gaza tunnels(CNN) -- An Egyptian court ordered authorities Tuesday to destroy tunnels between the country and Gaza -- the latest sign of a crackdown ...</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://english.safe-democracy.org/author/fabianbosoer/" class="">Fabián Bosoer</a></b> (opinion editor at <b><a href="http://www.clarin.com/" class="">Clarín</a></b>, the largest newspaper in Argentina) and <b><a href="http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty.aspx?id=15962" class="">Federico Finchelstein</a></b> (associate professor of history at the New School) write that Argentina’s president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is cozying up to Iran and her “misguided rapprochement” with them “will only compromise Argentina’s long-term national interests.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“On July 18, 1994, a van filled with explosives blew up outside the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds. It was the worst terrorist attack ever in Argentina, which has Latin America’s largest Jewish population, <i><b>and one of the deadliest anti-Semitic attacks since the Holocaust.</b></i></p>
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</p>
<p>
“In 2007, after more than a decade of investigations, Argentine prosecutors obtained Interpol arrest warrants for six suspects and <i><b>formally blamed Hezbollah for staging the attack and Iran for financing it.</b></i></p>
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</p>
<p>
“But bizarrely, Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, <i><b>abruptly switched course last month</b></i> and reached an agreement with the Iranian government that would set up a ‘truth commission’ of international legal experts to analyze evidence from the bombings…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Mrs. Kirchner’s decision to abandon Argentina’s longstanding grievances against Iran is particularly galling because it comes just weeks after Bulgaria, another country victimized by Iranian-sponsored terrorism, accused Hezbollah of staging a suicide attack on Israeli tourists in the Bulgarian town of Burgas last year. <i><b>That attack, like the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires, was part of a shadow war against Jewish civilians across the world</b></i>. Bulgaria’s government, unlike Argentina’s current administration, decided to stand up to Hezbollah and forthrightly accuse it of the crime.”</p>
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</p>
<p>
“Mrs. Kirchner’s decision could open the gates to a major foreign policy realignment in the near future. Her populist government is moving toward the pro-Iranian positions of Venezuela’s (deceased) president, Hugo Chávez, and further away from those of Brazil, the United States and Europe. According to the Argentine newspaper La Nación, <i><b>Argentina has started to collaborate on arms deals, including the development of missile technology, with Venezuela and indirectly with Iran</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Argentina has made grave foreign policy errors before. It is still coping with the fallout from its short 1982 war with Britain over the islands that Britain calls the Falklands and that Argentines call Las Malvinas. That conflict was an ill-advised move by a nationalist dictatorship. In contrast, the current treaty with Iran is being backed by a democratically elected president.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Why Is Argentina's President Cozying Up to Iran?ON July 18, 1994, a van filled with explosives blew up outside the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injurin...</div>
<div>
Reuters reports that Iran is building about <i><b>3,000 new-generation uranium-enrichment centrifuges</b></i> and installing them at its Natanz plant, “a development likely to add to Western concerns about Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“The announcement, which comes after talks between Iran and world powers in Kazakhstan about its nuclear work ended with an agreement to meet again, <i><b>underlines Iran’s continued refusal to bow to Western pressure to curb its nuclear program</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The final production line of these centrifuges has reached an end and soon the early generations of these centrifuges with low efficiency will be set aside,” said Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, earlier this month, according to the Fars news agency. <br></p>
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<div>
Iran Says 3,000 Centrifuges Being Built <a href="http://t.co/qMJgmCtN5k" class="">nyti.ms/Z8wfJP</a>New York Times World</div>
<div>
Associated Press reports that China has been defending its booming military spending, “saying vast investments in the armed forces have contributed to global peace and stability,” although their neighbors and the U.S. are concerned over “<i><b>sharpening territorial disputes</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“Chinese defense spending has grown substantially each year for more than two decades, and last year rose 11.2 percent to 670.2 billion yuan ($106.4 billion), an increase of about 67 billion yuan… <i><b>Only the United States spends more on defense</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Beijing has been unnerved by <i><b>the U.S. military's renewed focus on the Asia-Pacific</b></i>, including plans to station marines in northern Australia on training missions.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
China defends massive growth in military spendingBEIJING (AP) - China defended its booming military spending on Monday, saying vast investments in the armed forces have contributed to gl...</div>
<div>
Jim Clifton, Gallup chairman and CEO, blogs that China’s economy will soon overtake ours, but for job creation we need to focus more intense time and effort to <i><b>our best customers in Latin America</b></i>, Mexico specifically. <p>
</p>
<p>
“It’s clear to me that the only way for America to get back into the game is simply to increase exports. <i><b>The country has to export or we’re screwed</b></i>. We also need to ramp up new business startups immediately. Right now, startups have fallen below 400,000 per year, in my estimate, and the country needs a bare minimum of 1 million new startups annually to keep the economy running.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“America’s total exports to China right now are running at about $100 billion annually, <i><b>while our annual exports to Latin American countries are a staggering $350 billion</b></i>… America’s trade partnership with Latin America is significantly more valuable than our trade partnership with China. Specifically, the trade partnership with Latin American countries probably creates <i><b>more than three times as many jobs</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Clearly, Latin America generally, and Mexico in particular, are very good friends of the United States. That friendship creates so many jobs and so much economic energy, <i><b>and yet our leaders rarely seem to mention Latin America, let alone Mexico</b></i>… through U.S. exports, there are more American jobs currently tied to Mexico, and Latin America more generally, than to China, Russia, and the Middle East combined. <i><b>It seems that nobody knows this</b></i>. Yet this information is vital, because America’s biggest problem right now is still job creation -- with unemployment stuck at around 8%, underemployment at 17% -- and no economic growth.” <br></p>
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<div>
America is losing jobs by ignoring its best trading partners: <a href="https://t.co/q7yzwhdp" class="">linkedin.com/today/post/art…</a>Gallup Biz Journal</div>
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In a Miami Herald editorial, they write that Chávez may have been an extraordinary politician, <i><b>but he was an abject failure as a national leader. </b></i><p>
</p>
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“Dead at 58, <i><b>Hugo Chávez leaves behind a country in far worse condition</b></i> than it was when he became president, its future clouded by rivals for succession in a constitutional crisis of his Bolivarian party’s making and an economy in chaos.”</p>
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“His skillful rhetoric, which filled supporters with utopian dreams, was used to justify the methodical destruction of Venezuela’s democratic institutions and the free market.”</p>
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“His Bolivarian regime rewarded supporters and punished opponents, <i><b>giving rise to enormous corruption and the creation of a new class of greedy oligarchs with political connections</b></i>. Unfortunately for Venezuela and for all his political skills,<i><b> the president was both an incompetent executive and a worse economist</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“In recent weeks, while Mr. Chávez was hospitalized, Venezuela was once again forced to devalue its currency, this time by one-third. This was the inevitable outcome of a series of disastrous economic decisions that included nationalizing the telephone company and other utilities, <i><b>which scared off foreign investors and spurred capital flight</b></i>.”</p>
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“Venezuela has become one of the most violent countries in the world, with nearly 20,000 murders recorded in 2011 and a homicide rate that some experts say is <i><b>four times greater</b></i> than in the last year before Mr. Chávez took power.</p>
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</p>
<p>
“On the international front, Mr. Chávez eagerly accepted Fidel Castro as his mentor, providing Cuba with cut-rate oil and making common cause with Iran and other rogue regimes. <i><b>His departure leaves the anti-American front leaderless on a hemispheric level and could eventually threaten the subsidy that Cuba relies on to keep its economy barely functioning</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
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“[W]ithout discarding ‘Bolivarian’ principles and restoring the country’s democratic institutions, no one will be able to stop <i><b>the downward spiral of Venezuela</b></i> that began the day Hugo Chávez was elected president.” <br></p>
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<div>
Our most popular story at this hour ... Editorial: Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and his legacy of plunder <a href="http://t.co/oxKxvkJuw6" class="">hrld.us/10c4y8V</a>The Miami Herald</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/may-clifford-d/" class="">Clifford D. May</a></b>, President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes that mixed- and alternative-fuel vehicles could be the solution to our oil dependence. <i><b>Petroleum-only vehicles give oil-exporting countries inordinate power, force us to pay more for oil, and increase our national debt. </b></i><p>
</p>
<p>
“<a href="http://www.iags.org/staff.htm" class=""><b>Anne Korin and Gal Luft</b></a>, co-directors of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (<b><a href="http://www.iags.org/" class="">IAGS</a></b>), have long argued that liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have all misdiagnosed why the West has become dependent on oil; <i><b>why the price of oil keeps rising no matter how much we drill, conserve, and boost miles per gallon</b></i>; why dependence on increasingly expensive oil is a dire threat; and what we can do to restore the health of our national and economic security…”</p>
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</p>
<p>
“Oil is unlike other products: It is a strategic commodity — a shorthand way of saying that America and other industrialized nations would collapse without it. <i><b>Our enemies know this as well as we do — better, actually</b></i>.”</p>
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</p>
<p>
“The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel, controls 78 percent of the world’s conventional oil reserves, yet accounts for only about 33 percent of global oil production. <i><b>The explanation: By conspiring to restrict production, OPEC members manipulate prices</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Yes, we can and should drill more in the U.S. <i><b>because that produces wealth and jobs here at home</b></i>. But we can’t drill enough to have an impact on prices — <i><b>OPEC can simply drill less</b></i> to offset our production and keep prices where it wants them. Similarly, we can build more fuel-efficient cars, drive them less, and raise taxes on gasoline, and it still won’t help because <i><b>OPEC can adjust their faucets and the price to its liking and our detriment.</b></i></p>
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</p>
<p>
“What specific government policy can break the oil monopoly and encourage the emergence of a free market in transportation fuels? Korin and Luft are convinced that all we need to do is move from single-fuel automobiles <i><b>to vehicles that are capable of running on a variety of liquid fuels</b></i>. The technology already exists. The additional cost is about $100 a car — less than the cost of an airbag.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“(Korin and Luft) are arguing for the opening of the market so that these and other fuels — both existing and not yet in production — can give oil a run for its money. <i><b>More fuel, more diverse fuel sources, and more consumer choice, they believe, will both lower and stabilize prices while reducing the political power of foreign oil producers.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“No one should be surprised that <i><b>the creation of a free market in fuels is opposed by OPEC</b></i> and others who benefit from the status quo. They are spending lavishly to undermine potential competitors, <i><b>not least through an elaborate disinformation campaign</b></i>. To take but one example: The United Arab Emirates recently <b><a href="http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/lobbying-through-the-silver-screen-7647" class="">funded</a></b> a feature film starring Matt Damon that raises alarms about the environmental risks of fracking.” <br></p>
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<div>
FDD's @CliffordDMay in @NRO: How to Beat OPEC <a href="http://t.co/cvlilr6bZW" class="">bit.ly/XUWg1p</a> #OPEC #energysecurityFDD</div>
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Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-73995213505492671312013-03-21T21:42:00.002-04:002013-03-21T21:42:59.502-04:00Thursday's Thoughts<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2l5lpZ3Y-s7pQwrkNFBiqK3Jbt_fvvxSR6SiXdv2XolhZpp-ZIJJwB1KytPRqjOevafGBLs3OTR3IYMNyYAgGXPwadeiDrjOOpvZkRCVkhf6u8FIQ5lk_-6mrfWA9PkOTT7iWKp2UvRw/s1600/rebranding+tattoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2l5lpZ3Y-s7pQwrkNFBiqK3Jbt_fvvxSR6SiXdv2XolhZpp-ZIJJwB1KytPRqjOevafGBLs3OTR3IYMNyYAgGXPwadeiDrjOOpvZkRCVkhf6u8FIQ5lk_-6mrfWA9PkOTT7iWKp2UvRw/s640/rebranding+tattoo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span><a href="http://syndication.washingtonpost.com/node/35">Lisa Benson</a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/thursday-s-thoughts-3-21-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/thursday-s-thoughts-3-21-13" target="_blank">View the story "Thursday's Thoughts (3/21/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>Thursday's Thoughts (3/21/13)</h1><h2>http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2><p>Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Thu, Mar 21 2013 18:42:22</p><div>Alex Isenstadt (<b><a href="http://twitter.com/politicoalex" class="">@politicoalex</a></b>) reports that Democrats need to win 17 seats from Republicans to gain the House majority in 2014, “but only a handful of Republicans are seen as vulnerable.” <p> </p> <p>“<i><b>Democrats are plotting an aggressive effort to defend their most imperiled House members in 2014</b></i>. On Tuesday (3/5/13), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will unveil its incumbent-retention program, known as <b><a href="http://dccc.org/blog/entry/dccc_chairman_steve_israel_announces_2013-2014_frontline_members/" class="">Frontline</a></b>, which will include 26 incumbents from districts across the country.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“President Barack Obama has promised to raise money for the House Democratic campaign arm, <i><b>and party officials say some of that cash will be directed to the vulnerable members</b></i>.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Democrats are starting the cycle facing stiff headwinds: Only four Republican incumbents are in seats that favor Democrats, <i><b>while 15 Democrats are in seats that lean toward the GOP</b></i>. And midterm elections typically favor the party that does not control the White House.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“<i><b>Republicans say the Frontline program rollout shows that Democrats are on defense at a relatively early point in the election cycle</b></i>. The National Republican Congressional Committee is expected to unveil its incumbent-retention effort, known as the Patriot Program, later this year.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Democrats started the year talking about how they were going to win the majority, yet now, they are releasing a list of 26 vulnerable incumbents they are not even confident will win,” said Andrea Bozek (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/AndreaBozek" class="">@AndreaBozek</a></b>), an NRCC spokeswoman. “<i><b>Doesn’t sound like Obama’s dream of Nancy Pelosi being speaker again is based in reality</b></i>.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Of the 26 incumbents in Frontline, 13 are in districts that favor Republicans, <i><b>and 17 won in 2012 by less than 5 percentage points</b></i>. Twenty-five are among the 34 Democrats The Cook Political Report has projected as the most at risk of losing in 2014… <i><b>The vast majority of those in Frontline — 19 — are freshmen</b></i>, a group of less established members that is traditionally among the most vulnerable in any election year.” <br></p> </div><div>Democrats launching plan for 2014 at-risk members - Alex IsenstadtDemocrats have no room for error to win the House next year: They need to net 17 seats, but only a handful of Republicans are seen as vul...</div><div>Michael Scherer reports on the creation of an organizational network of young Republicans, led by digital strategist <b><a href="http://www.engagedc.com/patrick/" class="">Patrick Ruffini</a></b> (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini" class="">@PatrickRuffini</a></b>), starting with the <i><b>Empower Action Group</b></i> as “a place for training and connecting young conservative talent,” which “will aim to increase the ranks of people with digital, data and organizing know-how working for the GOP.” <p> </p> <p>“They decided that the conservative movement simply did not have what liberals did: <i><b>An infrastructure to train and nurture the next generation of campaign operatives and develop cutting-edge techniques</b></i>. So they decided to take a shot at filling the void, by developing a proposal for a suite of new outside groups that would mimic, and eventually outpace, Democratic efforts. ‘We are not going to start a single group that is going to solve all the problems,’ said Ruffini, a former eCampaign director for the Republican National Committee who is now president of the consulting firm Engage. ‘<i><b>What it is going to involve is an ecosystem</b></i>.’”</p> <p> </p> <p>“But the Empower Action Group is just the first of four new organizations they hope to create. Another proposed effort, provisionally called The R&D Lab, would be a conservative response to the liberal Analyst Institute, <i><b>which develops and tests new techniques for progressive voter contact and persuasion</b></i>, all of which informed the Obama campaign in 2012…”</p> <p> </p> <p>“The group also hopes to create a new organization provisionally called The Venture Fund, which is meant to repeat the success of the liberal New Media Ventures, <i><b>a start-up incubator</b></i> founded by the Democracy Alliance, a coalition of wealthy progressive benefactors…”</p> <p> </p> <p>“The final effort envisioned by Ruffini and his colleagues would be a Club for Growth-style campaign fundraising organization, <i><b>which would promise donations to Republican campaigns that adopt data-driven techniques</b></i>…”</p> <p> </p> <p>“It is still too soon to know if these efforts will grab hold among the Republican fundraising community. Other efforts are underway, both by the Republican National Committee and Charles and David Koch’s network of organizations, to assess the reasons for the 2012 defeat and proposed fixes. <i><b>But the Ruffini effort does benefit from involving many of the young strategists who will likely be a part of any solution</b></i>.” <br></p> </div><div>Townhouse 2.0: Young Republicans to create a new groups to bring GOP into the digital, data and analytics future. <a href="http://t.co/BR3PUWCWvI" class="">tinyurl.com/c9asm8e</a>michaelscherer</div><div><b><a href="http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/b/robert-bluey" class="">Rob Bluey</a></b>, director of the digital media department at the Heritage Foundation, attended the recent annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference and writes that winning a campaign is just like winning a game: <i><b>Data is essential, but it's not enough. </b></i><p> </p> <p>“What, if anything, could a sports analytics conference teach a political junkie?</p> <p> </p> <p>“Since President Obama's reelection, we've heard countless stories about the startup nature of his campaign, <i><b>with its focus on digital, technology, and analytics to drive decisions about messaging and marketing</b></i>.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Obama's embrace of analytics has caused a reckoning, particular for conservatives. It's not that other campaigns ignored data, <i><b>but Chicago clearly made it a priority in a different way</b></i>.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Data is an incredibly valuable resource for organizations, <i><b>but you must be able to communicate its value to stakeholders making decisions</b></i> -- whether that's in the pursuit of athletes or voters.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Each night in the final stretch of the race, Obama's analytics team ran 66,000 simulations through its computers to have a fresh perspective on the battleground states. <i><b>That real-time data then drove decisions on how to spend money and make it count</b></i>.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“No political candidate in recent memory did a better job than Obama of using emotion to persuade voters -- and he did so while relying on team of self-described nerds in his Chicago headquarters. Whether optimizing emails, building polling models, developing a communications strategy, or creating a social-media army, <i><b>analytics made the campaign better</b></i>.</p> <p> </p> <p>“There's nothing stopping any campaign or organization from embracing analytics. Sports teams that fail to do so risk losing; the same lesson applies in politics. <i><b>As conservatives seek a comparative advantage, this is one approach worthy of closer examination</b></i>.” <br></p> </div><div>Winning a campaign is just like winning a game: Data is essential, but it's not enough. <a href="http://t.co/9Y5EYrSF0Y" class="">bit.ly/YQBrRE</a> via @TheAtlanticPOL #ssac13Rob Bluey</div><div>Rick Santorum shares a prescription to reshape the Republican Party after Obama’s re-election, and to connect with the nation by focusing on ways to deliver our vision of hope and opportunity for all working American families. <p> </p> <p>“One of the conclusions some of us have come to is that our problem is not just message or messenger, <i><b>but our own detachment from the needs of struggling, working families and our lack of vision and policies that address them</b></i>.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“What do we need to do to reposition the party, connect with Americans, and to address what Peggy Noonan so astutely observed – that it’s not that ‘they’ don’t like us, <i><b>but that ‘they’ don’t think we like them</b></i>?”</p> <p> </p> <p>“I tried to provide a vision for hard-working families I came across during my campaign. Middle America is hurting. But I didn’t always keep this in mind in a personal way. I remember being chastised by my staff when, during the second South Carolina debate, none of us expressed empathy toward the unemployed woman who asked us how we would address her health insurance needs. <i><b>We talked policy, but we did we really care about her?</b></i></p> <p> </p> <p>“I believe the conservative approach that focuses on <i><b>family, community, the private sector and a limited role of government</b></i> provides the better framework to develop policies that will address the realities of millions of struggling families. But we have to be much more intentional in applying them.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“The way forward is getting back to our basic principles but applied to the challenges we face today. <i><b>We must not be the party of plutocrats, country clubbers and corporate interests</b></i>…”</p> <p> </p> <p>“<i><b>We must represent and create opportunity for all Americans… We must be the champions for working taxpayers and families…</b></i>”</p> <p> </p> <p>“We must continue to be proponents of fundamental human rights and human dignity by affirming <i><b>the right to life</b></i> for the unborn, disabled and aging as well as protecting freedom of conscience and religion and freedom of speech and association.</p> <p> </p> <p>“<i><b>We must be advocates for vulnerable, at-risk children</b></i> by programs that strengthen marriage, fatherhood, vibrant supportive communities, quality health care and educational options.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“We haven’t shown America that <i><b>we have the tools to put the rungs back on the opportunity ladder</b></i> – the ladder up – to achieve the American dream. That must change.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I’m not convinced we can rely on the establishment of the Republican Party or today’s elected leaders in Congress to get us back. <i><b>And it’s not about moving to the left</b></i>; it’s about appealing to working Americans with a vision that represents <i><b>opportunity and a better life</b></i> and offering real solutions to their problems.” <br></p> </div><div>GOP must show that we have the tools to put rungs back on opportunity ladder to help people achieve American dream <a href="http://t.co/YCAGC2FbJd" class="">ht.ly/iKx27</a>Rick Santorum</div><div>Scott Rasmussen writes that Republican politicians misunderstand that the economy is about more than just growth, <i><b>and most Americans think that fairness is important too. </b></i><p> </p> <p>“Today, just <b><a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/economic_fairness" class="">35 percent of voters believe the economy is fair to middle-class Americans</a></b>. Only 41 percent believe it is <b><a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/february_2013/only_41_view_economy_as_fair_to_those_willing_to_work_hard" class="">fair to those who are willing to work hard</a></b>.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“If a CEO gets a huge paycheck after his company received a government bailout, that's a problem. People who get rich through corporate welfare schemes are seen as suspect. <b><i>On the other hand, 86 percent believe</i> <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/february_2013/60_believe_letting_entrepreneurs_get_rich_is_good_for_economy" class="">it's fair for people who create very successful companies to get very rich</a></b>.</p> <p> </p> <p>“In other words, it's not just the income; <i><b>it's whether the reward matched the effort</b></i>… The United States is supposed to be a land of opportunity, where everyone can pursue their dreams. Throughout our history, many have started with nothing and risen to the top. But those on top today are busy rewriting the rules to limit entry into their club.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Given a choice between a worker who gets more done and someone who has a higher level of education, only 9 percent think the person with the higher level of education should be paid more. <i><b>Seventy-one percent place a higher value on the person who gets more done</b></i>.” <br></p> </div><div>Read my latest commentary: Beware of the New Elites... <a href="http://t.co/xwWhtKnjAw" class="">tinyurl.com/c9f86ps</a>Scott Rasmussen</div><div>Neil King Jr. reports about Republican Rep. <b><a href="http://pearce.house.gov/" class="">Steve Pearce</a></b> (from southern New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District), and how he survives as a non-Hispanic House Republican representing a majority Hispanic district, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by six points and fewer than 40% are Anglo. <p> </p> <p>“As the national GOP seeks to improve its dismal standing with Hispanic voters, the 65-year-old former oil man has some advice.</p> <p> </p> <p>“<i><b>’You just have to show up, all the time, everywhere,’</b></i> he said, during a recent barnstorm tour of his district, which sprawls across the southern half of this border state. <i><b>‘Most Republicans don't bother. I do. I bother.’</b></i>”</p> <p> </p> <p>“[H]e contends that changes in policy platforms aren't enough to reverse the party's decline among voters like those in his district. <i><b>Republicans must spend time in Latino neighborhoods with the respectful attentiveness of a small-town mayor</b></i>.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Mr. Pearce's success among voters here, even those who disagree with him, underscores the hope and the difficulty of the task. Mr. Pearce said he logged more than 90,000 road miles in his district last year, a travel regimen that often separates him from his wife for weeks.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Bald and bespectacled, he has won the southern half of New Mexico five times since 2002. <i><b>In November, he nabbed around 42% of the Hispanic vote</b></i>, or nearly twice what Mitt Romney received nationally, and better than Republican Susana Martinez's share when she won the New Mexico governor's race in 2010, according to various polls.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Mr. Pearce favors drug tests for welfare recipients. He opposed the Dream Act, which would have helped the children of illegal immigrants gain legal status. He voted against the fiscal-cliff budget deal and was one of just nine House Republicans to oppose the re-election of John Boehner as House speaker.</p> <p> </p> <p>“The Boehner vote is one of several maverick positions that have made Mr. Pearce persona non grata among the GOP House leadership. As a result, Mr. Pearce complained, he has been kept out of GOP discussions about overhauling the immigration system, <i><b>despite being the sole House Republican serving a district on the U.S.-Mexico border</b></i>…”</p> <p> </p> <p>“During last year's presidential campaign, Mr. Pearce lured Mr. Romney to Hobbs, where the GOP presidential nominee rolled out his energy plan last fall. But Mr. Pearce said he failed to persuade Mr. Romney ‘to get out and really mix it up in the Hispanic community.’</p> <p> </p> <p>“Mr. Pearce said he kept telling Mr. Romney and his staff, <i><b>‘C'mon, man, get out there. Talk about it. Do it. But they never did.’</b></i>” <br></p> </div><div>Slow Headway With HispanicsBrian_Empric</div><div>From today's Wall Street Journal: The importance of always interacting with the people I'm honored to represent <a href="http://t.co/sU0lsaMSZG" class="">online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…</a>Steve Pearce</div><div>Paul Steinhauser & Ashley Killough report that 18 prominent grassroots conservative leaders are joining to send a letter to Karl Rove’s major donors, <i><b>urging them not to continue donating six- or seven-figure contributions to American Crossroads</b></i> after they “squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in what were arguably the most inept campaign advertising efforts ever.” <p> </p> <p>“Rove, the former top political adviser to President George W. Bush, generated strong pushback from tea party groups earlier this year when he announced the formation of another offshoot, ‘<i><b>Conservative Victory Project</b></i>,’ dedicated to helping electable candidates sail through Republican primaries.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“During the last cycle, American Crossroads and its non-profit arm, Crossroads GPS, spent more than $104 million on federal elections <i><b>with a success rate of 1.3%</b></i>, according to <b><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00487363" class="">the Center for Responsive Politics</a></b>. Regardless of its success rate in 2012, Crossroads played a major role in the election and in the 2010 mid-terms, when Republicans took back the House of Representatives.</p> <p> </p> <p>“<i><b>The letter, however, points to the multiple 2012 Senate races in which Crossroads spent money against the Democratic candidate, yet the Republican candidate failed to win</b></i>…”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Now, in an attempt to explain the <i><b>astonishingly low return</b></i> on the hundreds of millions of dollars investment in Crossroads, Karl Rove and others are attempting to blame conservatives and the tea party,” the letter read. <br></p> </div><div>tea party groups tell Crossroads donors not to donate to Crossroads: <a href="http://t.co/viGIjYCB0p" class="">on.cnn.com/ZQq5Sv</a>Paul Steinhauser</div></noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-84291143254782333652013-03-18T21:39:00.002-04:002013-03-18T21:39:43.990-04:00Monday's Menagerie<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqy2Uqd5FF5XegggTiCTYTqBl-7CRroOLv4ViKThbup7dmNE6USUts1Bm0uxZj314gXZIBc_npFNIYbra4UihdbMtKHXelDopA74WTkcQvAIUW6BwOpmnp3KHrodrkQb26lRbxO70_3lU/s1600/Cheshire+Cat+Obama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqy2Uqd5FF5XegggTiCTYTqBl-7CRroOLv4ViKThbup7dmNE6USUts1Bm0uxZj314gXZIBc_npFNIYbra4UihdbMtKHXelDopA74WTkcQvAIUW6BwOpmnp3KHrodrkQb26lRbxO70_3lU/s400/Cheshire+Cat+Obama.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.gocomics.com/glennmccoy/">Glenn McCoy</a></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNlpapSD1TwcoF_69lA9zYbS3gds0ST6NBUxzPVBck44iQqZM_EHOuho48QfTi0OA6yo10PQ_85TDtNOgUkU7vA5JWR2RrIg_FJEXSfUkpTZJSTduZrVBz9GSuQUaMY3wG88UE_tUfXA/s1600/corporate+profits+vs+jobs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNlpapSD1TwcoF_69lA9zYbS3gds0ST6NBUxzPVBck44iQqZM_EHOuho48QfTi0OA6yo10PQ_85TDtNOgUkU7vA5JWR2RrIg_FJEXSfUkpTZJSTduZrVBz9GSuQUaMY3wG88UE_tUfXA/s400/corporate+profits+vs+jobs.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/weyants-world"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="author">Chris Weyant</span></span></span></a></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWpQLPsJ3GDKaq8lsXwP47EPsQD6sEgTHyhljG9zXlKTfrAWv0qqT214mgREUlmGiiB9AGGUCw8QrTKpu9s-5uASBX6t9JvYUu5FQee9s26cLyYY-7uOXKQ5eDs-TzQNh5uAb0zvR7-Y/s1600/manufactured+crisis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWpQLPsJ3GDKaq8lsXwP47EPsQD6sEgTHyhljG9zXlKTfrAWv0qqT214mgREUlmGiiB9AGGUCw8QrTKpu9s-5uASBX6t9JvYUu5FQee9s26cLyYY-7uOXKQ5eDs-TzQNh5uAb0zvR7-Y/s400/manufactured+crisis.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.startribune.com/opinion/cartoons/">Steve Sack</a></span></span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGe0VMBacDnDOCk3Qg15fZRXMuqbqAlDXmprqh5n7TlqoqrsnJeD1HVm5U3GHDx7-EQNuLKNUJGUxj7cnsG8AgdsIJ5meLcVxIf3Ou9ct4f-GsloZZshLKmBujuFv-lh1_mRFUZVzsES8/s1600/wheel+of+distraction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGe0VMBacDnDOCk3Qg15fZRXMuqbqAlDXmprqh5n7TlqoqrsnJeD1HVm5U3GHDx7-EQNuLKNUJGUxj7cnsG8AgdsIJ5meLcVxIf3Ou9ct4f-GsloZZshLKmBujuFv-lh1_mRFUZVzsES8/s400/wheel+of+distraction.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/joeheller">Joe Heller</a></span></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-3-18-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-3-18-13" target="_blank">View the story "Monday's Menagerie (3/18/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Monday's Menagerie (3/18/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Mon, Mar 18 2013 18:27:23</p>
<div>
Peggy Noonan writes that just when we need a boost, we are stuck with Dr. Doom in the White House. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>There's an increasing sense in America now that the facades are intact but the machinery inside is broken</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The jobless rate, officially 7.7%, is almost twice that if you include those who have stopped looking, work part time, or are only ‘marginally attached’ to the workforce… Meanwhile, the president is stuck in his games and his history. <i><b>He should have seen unemployment entering a crisis stage four years ago, and he did not</b></i>. At that time I was certain he'd go for public-works projects, which could give training to the young and jobs to the experienced underemployed, would create jobs in the private sector and, in the end, yield up something needed—a bridge, a strengthened power grid. <i><b>He instead gave his first term to health care</b></i>. And now ObamaCare is being cited as a reason employers are laying people off and not hiring, according to a report from the Federal Reserve.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Right now his attention has turned to dinner with Republican senators and meetings with members of both parties on Capitol Hill. He is trying to show, after a hit in the polls, that he can reach out. <i><b>He's trying to convince America he's capable of making a deal.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The new engagement may work if in the past few days the president has changed his political style, approach and assumptions. <i><b>But people don't usually change overnight</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It is interesting that almost at the same time as the dinner the president's people had once again begun warning of doom. A blast email from Organizing for Action, signed by Stephanie Cutter, used these words: <i><b>‘Devastating,’ ‘obstructionism,’ ‘destructive,’ ‘this is real’…</b></i> Their whole approach is still stoke and scare—<i><b>stoke resentment and scare the vulnerable into pressuring Republicans</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Barack Obama really is a study in contrasts, such as aloof and omnipresent. He's never fully present and he won't leave. He speaks constantly, endlessly, but always seems to be withholding his true thoughts and plans. He was the candidate of hope and change, of ‘Yes, we can,’ <i><b>but the mood of his governance has been dire, full of warnings, threats, cliffs and ceilings, full of words like suffering and punishment and sacrifice</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Obama is making the same mistake he made four years ago. <i><b>We are in a jobs crisis and he does not see it</b></i>. He thinks he's in a wrestling match about taxing and spending, he thinks he's in a game with those dread Republicans. But the real question is whether the American people will be able to have jobs… <i><b>He's missing the boat on the central crisis of his second term</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
But it's a jobs crisis that's the central thing. And you see it everywhere you look. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628804578346680172271600.htmlPeggy Noonan</div>
<div>
Kathleen Parker (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/kathleenparker" class="">@kathleenparker</a></b>) writes that no one understands the media’s love of optics better than Obama. <p>
</p>
<p>
“Thus, he invited a gang of Republican senators to din-dins at the swank (and legendary) Jefferson Hotel, one of the city’s more discreet (and expensive) gathering places… Indeed, the president picked up the tab, a gesture of generosity or, one might speculate, a tiny deposit on a big investment, the returns of which are already rolling in: <i><b>the media extrapolation that the president is extending an olive branch to his adversaries in search of a solution</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Not to be cynical, but does anyone really suppose that a Republican representative or senator is going to go against the party <i><b>because Obama gave him a call?</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It was nothing but a PR move,” says one seasoned insider. “<i><b>Obama wants to run against obstructionist Republicans</b></i>. The fact of the matter is, unless something really bad happens, there’s no reason for [Republicans] at this point to cave on taxes. Why would [House Speaker] John Boehner ever cave on taxes at this point?”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Bottom line — for once a term aptly applied rather than a cliché — the only long-term deficit reduction involves serious entitlement reform, which everyone knows and Democrats don’t want to do... <i><b>Republicans simply are not going to budge on taxes without real entitlement reform</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Democrats will run against those terrible Republicans who refused to raise taxes. <i><b>Republicans will run on the Democrats’ record of no-growth and out-of-control spending</b></i>, assuming, that is, they can figure out how to effectively communicate the message that <i><b>no-growth is connected to Obama policies</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
The optical illusion of dinner with your adversariesUpon exiting, senators were greeted by a hungry throng of reporters and photographers, their appetites whetted no doubt by the cold. How ...</div>
<div>
Fred Barnes (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/FredBarnes" class="">@FredBarnes</a></b>) asks if Obama’s free ride is over; according to Barnes, there are “signs of trouble ahead” which the president and his team “appear not to have recognized.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Why do presidents get in trouble in their second terms?</b></i> They think they have a mandate when they don’t. They believe they’re stronger politically than they really are. They’re convinced they can get away with things other presidents couldn’t. They think too highly of themselves personally and act accordingly.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Sign number one is the sequester. It’s given Obama numerous opportunities to overreach, <i><b>and he seems determined to seize all of them</b></i>… Obama himself led the fear-mongering… But after the House and Senate rejected his vague plan for more tax increases than spending cuts, the president faces the temptation to further overreach and make his worst-case scenario come alive—<i><b>to vindicate his dire predictions</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“OFA (Organizing for Action) is<i><b> unprecedented</b></i>. No previous president had such an organization or even considered having one. It’s a kind of private political pressure group. Had President George W. Bush set one up, the media would have pounced and demanded he jettison it. <i><b>But Obama has gotten minimal pushback from the press</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>OFA is an invitation to crony capitalism and scandal</b></i>… In reality, it’s a subsidiary of the White House, answers to Obama, is run by his campaign aides, and is empowered by the campaign’s vast database of supporters and Obama followers on Twitter, almost 28 million strong.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Obama, from all appearances, isn’t worried about serious second-term difficulties. <i><b>He’s more full of himself than usual</b></i>. He’s made it clear he prefers hobnobbing with Hollywood celebrities to spending time with Washington’s political class. And he may be right in thinking his situation, postreelection, makes him immune to the woes of earlier presidents. But maybe not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It makes an enormous difference whether he stumbles badly over the next year. <i><b>If the president is forced on the defensive, Democratic prospects for winning the House in 2014 will evaporate and Republican hopes of gaining the Senate will soar again</b></i>. And Obama may realize he isn’t exempt from the normal workings of politics, as he once thought.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Second-Term BluesWhy do presidents get in trouble in their second terms? They think they have a mandate when they don't. They believe they're stronger pol...</div>
<div>
WSJ Review & Outlook editorializes that the Republican response to Obama’s recent political ploys should be “<i><b>don’t trust but verify</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“The big story of the moment is that President Obama has suddenly decided to talk with lesser political beings. The famously aloof President who began his second term as if the 2012 election campaign wasn't over is inviting Members of Congress, and even some of its evil Republicans, to lunch and dinner. <i><b>The question is whether this is merely a tactical feint</b></i> or if Mr. Obama really wants to accomplish something in the next two years and realizes he needs Republicans to do it.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Obama and his White House aides have made clear that <i><b>their highest priority is to return Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker in 2015</b></i>. He and 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina are already mobilizing donors toward that goal, and his inaugural address, State of the Union speech and budget proposals have framed the issues in a way that suggests <i><b>his priority is a grand liberal finale in his last two years.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The appearance of a new bipartisanship is perfectly consistent with such a partisan 2014 strategy. <i><b>The more reasonable he appears today, the better positioned he might be to blame Republicans for failure next year</b></i>. Independent voters love to see politicians working together, however haplessly, so Mr. Obama may figure he has nothing to lose by dropping his Democrats-only strategy for now. He can always sandbag the GOP again later. In particular, he'd love to carve out deals in the Senate that isolate House Republicans.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
A New Obama? http://on.wsj.com/10AkUZsOpinion & Commentary</div>
<div>
Stephen F. Hayes writes that we can forget about agreement on a version of “the grand bargain” that was discussed two years ago, because <i><b>Obama’s recent outreach is targeted at influencing the media and winning in 2014</b></i>, not at collaborating with the Republicans. <p>
</p>
<p>
“In my view, there’s little reason to believe that the president wants such a grand bargain—or at least that he wants it enough to jeopardize his second-term political strategy. That plan? <i><b>To win back the House of Representatives for Democrats, with heavy Obama involvement, by portraying Republicans once again as extremists</b></i>… Then, having secured control of Congress, the president can consolidate and build on his implementation of the progressive agenda he began in his first term and laid out in his second inaugural and most recent State of the Union Address.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“By ‘reaching out’ to Republicans, <i><b>he is attempting to position himself as the ‘reasonable’ party in Washington</b></i> even if his big ask—additional revenues—is something Republicans already gave him as part of the fiscal cliff deal.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The president has shown little appetite for real entitlement reform over his first four years in office, aside from a tweak to the calculation of inflation on Social Security and whispers to John Boehner during the original debt ceiling talks…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If the White House is bragging about its unwillingness to concede on entitlement reform, the one thing that could conceivably allow Republicans to be part of a ‘grand bargain,’ <i><b>how likely is it that the president is serious about getting a deal?</b></i>” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
More reason to believe that the WH "charm offensive" is a PR stunt, not a serious effort to reduce the deficit http://bit.ly/14Rp0JwStephen Hayes</div>
<div>
Mark Tapscott writes that Obama’s administration has failed to live up to his promise of transparency. <p>
</p>
<p>
“Thanks to the FOIA, the transparency issue will be widely discussed this week as journalists, non-profit advocates, academics and others celebrate <b><a href="http://www.sunshineweek.org/" class="">Sunshine Week</a></b> with speeches, news reports and features, forums, surveys and panel discussions across the country. The week is timed to coincide with the March 16 birthdate of First Amendment author James Madison, who was also the country's fourth president.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“A recent study by the <b><a href="http://foiaproject.org/2012/12/20/increase-in-foia-lawsuits-during-obama-administration/" class="">Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse</a></b> at Syracuse University found a 28 percent increase in the number of FOIA suits filed during the last two years of Obama’s first term, compared to the last two years of President George W. Bush’s second term, <i><b>from 562 to 720 cases</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[J]ournalists and activists will keep on fighting for more official transparency because, as the <b><a href="http://www.pogo.org/" class="">Project on Government Oversight’s</a> <a href="http://www.pogo.org/about/board-staff/staff-profiles/danielle-brian.html" class="">Danielle Brian</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/daniellebrian" class="">@daniellebrian</a>)</b> told <i>The Washington Examiner</i>, ‘<i><b>it is our job to push back and crack open those closed doors that hide corruption, mismanagement and other wrongdoing</b></i>.’”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“She called transparency ‘the most powerful tool citizens have to ensure government is operating ethically and effectively. Although there are some things that should remain secret, <i><b>the government tends to err on the side of over-classifying and hiding behind secrecy to keep nosy citizen activists and journalists out of its business</b></i> …’” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Transparency declines despite Obama promise of "most transparent administration" ever: http://tinyurl.com/annz3rv #SUNSHINEWEEK #FOIAMark Tapscott</div>
<div>
The New York Post editorializes that the Obama administration’s hypocrisy on taxes is striking. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Those who make the rules should play by them</b></i>. Especially a White House that lectures the rest of America about the importance of paying your ‘fair share’ of taxes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“So we were struck by IRS reports that no fewer than 40 aides to President Obama still <i><b>owe the federal government a combined $333,485 in back taxes</b></i>… This year, some 312,000 of Uncle Sam’s own employees owe the IRS <i><b>a whopping $3.52 billion</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>For all its sermons on fairness, this administration has never seemed too bothered when its own people somehow forget to send the IRS the check they owe</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
The 'Fair share' white house (Editorial) http://nyp.st/YoAFLSNY Post Opinion</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-36289091134459531462013-03-17T19:00:00.002-04:002013-03-17T19:00:35.535-04:00Sunday Synopsis - Health Care<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZWlgJKmCgrcqlxWmHXbPg1WhE3khgAjQsKH0UBCZI6ehRcsTlXP05QfSkS9Cc1or1SwrLU4xFnkBRkodr2NX5EHRQvR_aCkgin3HfltE3CPoOSGfPhhPcd07icJs9dE5YTkbXOtpLDQ/s1600/181374_423871044321344_1029209877_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZWlgJKmCgrcqlxWmHXbPg1WhE3khgAjQsKH0UBCZI6ehRcsTlXP05QfSkS9Cc1or1SwrLU4xFnkBRkodr2NX5EHRQvR_aCkgin3HfltE3CPoOSGfPhhPcd07icJs9dE5YTkbXOtpLDQ/s400/181374_423871044321344_1029209877_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://twitter.com/yogilove"><span class="screen-name">@yogilove</span></a></span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7byJuJ4VuMZFFu1Z3_2b7jglofFjkxHT0jTKsMka38oXJ0slm-3VDzOBm8_s3Tg5tWRS93-VN89_0g3HZyvSxY5f8e_buWub3DE05jesYAP2LyxibgW5JAmTGV99ZQy4ZJKY7TE2T48/s1600/ObamaCare+meteor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7byJuJ4VuMZFFu1Z3_2b7jglofFjkxHT0jTKsMka38oXJ0slm-3VDzOBm8_s3Tg5tWRS93-VN89_0g3HZyvSxY5f8e_buWub3DE05jesYAP2LyxibgW5JAmTGV99ZQy4ZJKY7TE2T48/s400/ObamaCare+meteor.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span class="screen-name">@natebeeler</span></a></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xScYbQotcjFMoJSY0yXymB3yOA4Hddis3MtPvMhwBtPk3yV50cvjl9oiLd2MwQONmgMY7urirer6kg1cTpZQNgFcj3zFhh1tlSu6rhSHMehcy85_cmf4QWdf7YU7nRb92msTEcG-DbY/s1600/557085_10151108709462049_1610640390_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xScYbQotcjFMoJSY0yXymB3yOA4Hddis3MtPvMhwBtPk3yV50cvjl9oiLd2MwQONmgMY7urirer6kg1cTpZQNgFcj3zFhh1tlSu6rhSHMehcy85_cmf4QWdf7YU7nRb92msTEcG-DbY/s400/557085_10151108709462049_1610640390_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><span><a href="http://syndication.washingtonpost.com/node/35">Lisa Benson</a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/health-care-sunday-3-17-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/health-care-sunday-3-17-13" target="_blank">View the story "Sunday Synopsis - Health Care (3/17/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Sunday Synopsis - Health Care (3/17/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sun, Mar 17 2013 15:48:42</p>
<div>
Based on a survey of likely voters earlier this month, Scott Rasmussen reports that only 24% rate our health care system as poor, <i><b>but 54% predict it is likely to deteriorate in the near future</b></i>. <p>
</p>
<p>
“That’s up six points from a month ago and <i><b>the highest level of pessimism to date</b></i>. Twenty-two percent (22%) think the system is more likely to get better, while 13% expect it to stay about the same.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Democrats remain much more upbeat about the direction of the health care system than Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party. <i><b>Eighty-four percent (84%) of GOP voters and 53% of unaffiliateds think the health care system is likely to get worse over the next couple of years</b></i>. At the same time, a plurality of Democrats (39%) expect it to get better.”</p>
</div>
<div>
54% Think U.S. #HealthCare System Likely to Worsen Over Next Couple Years... http://tinyurl.com/33lscbmScott Rasmussen</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://healthblog.ncpa.org/about-john-c-goodman/" class="">John C. Goodman</a></b>, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis (<b><a href="http://twitter.com/NCPA" class="">@NCPA</a></b>) and the “Father of Health Savings Accounts,” asks why the Republicans have been unable to propose an alternative to ObamaCare? <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Anyone can criticize. Where is the Republican alternative?</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Think about the special interests Republican politicians are likely to talk to. Doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, drug companies, device manufacturers, employers, etc. Their interests are all different. I doubt if you can come up with any significant health reform that won’t be vigorously opposed by at least one of these. <i><b>Since heath care is a $2.6 trillion industry, special interests are willing to spend megabucks to oppose reforms they don’t like</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Overall, think tanks on the right have a habit of ignoring each other. Often, they don’t even footnote each other. We proposed the idea of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) in the early 1990s... <i><b>Today, HSA plans are the fastest growing products in the health insurance marketplace</b></i> and I think it’s safe to say that the idea is no longer even controversial…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The <b><a href="http://www.ncpa.org/healthcare/" class="">NCPA web site</a></b> is about the only place on the Internet where you will find a continuing, ongoing interest in how <i><b>we can create a genuine market for medical care</b></i> in which providers compete for patients based on price, quality and convenience… In my ideal world, <i><b>health insurance companies would have a shrinking role</b></i> — eventually becoming no more active than a garden variety life insurance company.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The conservative think tank problem is not their belief in free markets. It is that each think tank seems to have a different idea about how markets can solve problems… <i><b>Bottom line: there is no common health policy vision on the right</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Conservative Think Tanks | John Goodman's Health Policy Blog | NCPA.orgBy John Goodman Filed under Health Alerts on February 18, 2013 with 41 comments Why have the Republicans been unable to propose an altern...</div>
<div>
Ben Smith writes that young people reelected Obama; <i><b>now they get to pay disproportionately for ObamaCare</b></i>. The individual mandate forces “Young Invincibles” to buy insurance they do not need, and another policy limits age-rating (the practice of charging different premiums to different ages). <p>
</p>
<p>
“Imminent elements of Obama's grandest policy move, the health-care overhaul known as ObamaCare, <i><b>are calculated to screw his most passionate supporters (the youth) and to transfer wealth to his worst enemies (the elderly)</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“And while one of ObamaCare's earliest provisions was a boon to the young, allowing them to stay on their parents' insurance through the age of 26, <i><b>what follows may come as an unpleasant surprise to many of the president's supporters</b></i>. The provisions required to make any kind of health insurance plan work — not just ObamaCare, but really any plan of its sort — require healthy young people to pay more in health insurance than they consume in services, <i><b>while the elderly… consume far more than they pay in…</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In an interview, AARP legislative policy director David Certner (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/DavidCertner" class="">@DavidCertner</a></b>) didn't contest the suggestion that young people would be forced to pay more, <i><b>but argued that it was a matter of the common good</b></i>, not simply the interest of his constituents.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It's about having a big insurance pool because everyone benefits from it,” Certner said. “If a younger, healthier person is spending a little more now, it's OK because at some point they're going to be a less healthy, older person too.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>This is a reasonable policy argument, though it's worth noting that every interest group argues its interests are identical to the common good…</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The near-total silence on this issue is a mark of a class that is either utterly selfless (hard to believe, honestly) or, as usual, <i><b>singularly bad at seeing and defending its interests</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Obama Prepares To Screw His Base http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/obama-healthcare-young-people via @buzzfeedBen Smith</div>
<div>
insurance age ratingBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
John Merline (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/jmerline" class="">@jmerline</a></b>) writes that community rating imposed on insurance companies via ObamaCare will create a “<i><b>sticker shock</b></i>” for younger and healthier people as their premiums are driven sky-high, in order for premiums for older and sicker consumers to be lowered. <p>
</p>
<p>
The supporters of the law think that subsidies will keep premiums down, while the mandate keeps them in the market to avoid penalties, <i><b>but the penalties are relatively weak and the subsidies will not be able to cover the premium increases</b></i>.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[A]s ObamaCare's official launch date approaches, even its backers are beginning to admit that the law could actually create powerful incentives for millions of people and thousands of businesses <i><b>to drop their coverage, despite the mandate</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“A <b><a href="http://americanactionforum.org/topic/premiums-and-aca-survey" class="">February survey</a></b> of major health insurance companies in five cities across the country found that they expect premiums for this (young & healthy) group to climb an average <i><b>169%</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“We are very concerned,” California Insurance Commissioner <b><a href="http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0500-about-us/0200-commissioner/" class="">Dave Jones</a> <a href="http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2012/12/state-insurance-officials-raise-concerns-about-rate-shock-for-young-people/" class="">told federal health officials</a></b> at a December meeting, “if there is so much rate shock for young people that they're bound not to purchase (health insurance) at all.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The five-city survey, for example, found that while the law will jack up rates for the young, <i><b>it will lower them an average 22% for older and sicker customers.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“At the same time, ObamaCare also forbids insurance companies from turning anyone down — a reform called ‘<i><b>guaranteed issue</b></i>’ — which also will provide an incentive for some to drop coverage, <i><b>knowing they can get it back any time</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The problem is that if the young and healthy drop coverage, the result would be what the industry calls a ‘<i><b>death spiral</b></i>.’ Premiums will climb as the pool of insured gets sicker, causing still more to cancel their policies… This is just what happened in states that imposed <b><a href="http://www.ahipcoverage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Updated-Milliman-Report.pdf" class="">strict community rating and guaranteed issue reforms</a></b> in the past. In fact, of the eight states that did so, most ended up either dropping the reforms or loosening the rules <i><b>after they saw enrollment decline and premiums climb</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[T]he annual penalty for not buying insurance will be as low as $95 in 2014, and even when the mandate penalty is fully phased in by 2016 <i><b>it will be modest relative to the cost of buying insurance</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The same problem threatens to undermine ObamaCare on the business side, <i><b>if companies decide that paying a penalty is cheaper than providing an increasingly expensive benefit to workers.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Congressional Budget Office now expects that employers will dump coverage for <b><a href="http://news.investors.com/020513-643239-obamacare-subsidy-cost-hiked-233-bil-in-new-cbo-score.aspx?p=full" class="">7 million workers</a></b> as a result of ObamaCare, nearly double its previous forecast. <i><b>And it says the figure could be as high as 20 million</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Will Only Suckers Buy Overpriced ObamaCare Insurance? http://ow.ly/hS9ru From today's a1 #tcot #hcrIBDeditorials</div>
<div>
Andrew Stiles (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewStilesNRO" class="">@AndrewStilesNRO</a></b>) reports that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has stated that <i><b>ObamaCare will increase the long-term federal deficit by $6.2 trillion. </b></i><p>
</p>
<p>
“Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala. and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, <b><a href="http://twitter.com/budgetgop" class="">@budgetgop</a></b>), who requested the report, revealed the findings... <i><b>The report, he said, ‘confirms everything critics and Republicans were saying about the faults of this bill…’</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The big-government crowd in Washington manipulated the numbers in order to get the financial score they wanted, in order to get their bill passed and to increase power and influence,” he said. “<i><b>The goal was not truth or financial responsibility, but to pass the bill. This is how a country goes broke.</b></i>” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
GAO: Obamacare will add $6.2 trillion to the long-term deficit #surprise - http://bit.ly/WcYrQTNational Review</div>
<div>
Jeffrey H. Anderson blogs that Mitt Romney has drawn the wrong conclusion about his loss if he believes that the “attractiveness” of ObamaCare was one of the reasons for his defeat. (I hate to say that I told you so, but I did write <b><a href="http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com/2012/03/obamacare-romneycare-and-thats-why-we.html" class="">this</a></b> on March 3, 2012)<br><p>
</p>
<p>
“Obamacare was the one issue that most pegged Obama as a big government liberal in the eyes of the American citizenry. <i><b>By refusing to emphasize it, Romney allowed Obama to move to the center in voters’ minds</b></i>. Obamacare was the centerpiece of Obama’s first term. <i><b>By not emphasizing it, Romney suggested to voters that it really wasn’t all that much of a concern — and hence neither was having Obama continue in office</b></i>. Obamacare was the least popular aspect of Obama’s first term. <i><b>By failing to hammer away at it, Romney handed Obama a pass</b></i>. Obamacare is a horribly misguided and statist attempt to deal with genuine health care concerns that sorely need to be addressed. <i><b>By failing to put forward (and to emphasize) a serious replacement, Romney prove to be the latest, and perhaps the most unfortunate, example in a long history of Republicans’ failure to make themselves heard on an issue that’s not only extremely important in its own right, but which (at least in the present day) probably has more bearing than any other issue on the size and scope of government.</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In short, there is nothing attractive about Obamacare. One hopes that in 2016 the Republican party will nominate someone who understands this, <i><b>and who will make Obamacare’s replacement a — perhaps the — centerpiece of his or her campaign</b></i>. If Republicans are to be the party of limited government and liberty, they must do nothing less.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Romney: ‘Obamacare Was Very Attractive’: When Chris Wallace asked Mitt Romney on Fox News Sunday why he lost t... http://bit.ly/ZWxApfweeklystandard</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-33316488425569876802013-03-17T11:33:00.000-04:002013-03-18T17:35:23.067-04:00Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Race<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span class="screen-name">@natebeeler</span></a></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/thomas-sowell-intellectuals-and-race.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/thomas-sowell-intellectuals-and-race" target="_blank">View the story "Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Race" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Race</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sun, Mar 17 2013 08:26:26</p>
<div>
I encourage you to take 30-45 minutes to read the entirety of <b><a href="http://www.tsowell.com/" class="">Thomas Sowell</a></b>'s four-part column from last week on "Intellectuals and Race" and also to listen to his interview on this subject with <b><a href="http://www.marklevinshow.com/home.asp" class="">Mark Levin</a></b> (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/marklevinshow" class="">@marklevinshow</a></b>) from Thursday, March 14th.<br><br>It is not unusual for races to be unequally represented across the achievement spectrum, and the Progressives/liberals start from the completely false premise that differences in outcome is abnormal.<br><br>At the beginning of the 20th century, intellectuals advanced disgusting racial inferiority theories; today, anybody who disagrees that differences in outcomes are normal is branded with the scarlet letter "R" for racist.<br><br><i><b>It is time for conservatives to be unafraid of speaking the truth and to reclaim our founding position as the defender of the minorities - there is no evil Republican force conspiring against them - by promoting American values, inclusion, assimilation and future prosperity.</b></i><br><br></div>
<div>
<p>
<b><u>FromSowell's columns:</u></b><br></p>
<p>
<br>"A hundred years ago, the factthat people from different racial backgrounds had very different rates ofsuccess in education, in the economy and in other endeavors, <i><b>was taken as proofthat some races were genetically superior to others.</b></i></p>
<p>
<br>"Some races were considered to be so genetically inferior that <i><b>eugenicswas proposed to reduce their reproduction</b></i>, and <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton" class="">FrancisGalton</a></b> urged 'the gradual extinction of an inferior race.'"<br></p>
<p>
<br>"<i><b>The leading crusaders fortheories of genetic superiority and inferiority were iconic figures on theleft, on both sides of the Atlantic.</b><br></i><br>"<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes" class="">John Maynard Keynes</a></b> helped create the CambridgeEugenics Society. Fabian socialist intellectuals <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells" class="">H.G.Wells</a></b> and <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw" class="">George Bernard Shaw</a></b> were among many other leftistsupporters of eugenics.</p>
<p>
<br>"It was much the same story on this side of the Atlantic. President <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson" class="">WoodrowWilson</a></b>, like many other Progressives, was solidly behind notions ofracial superiority and inferiority. He showed the movie '<b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004972/" class="">Birth of aNation</a></b>,' glorifying the Ku Klux Klan, at the White House, andinvited various dignitaries to view it with him."</p>
<p>
<br>"Now, instead of genes beingthe overriding reason for differences in outcomes, <i><b>racism became theone-size-fits-all explanation</b></i>. But the dogmatism was the same. Those who daredto disagree, or even to question the prevailing dogma in either era weredismissed -- as 'sentimentalists' in the Progressive era and as 'racists' inthe multicultural era."</p>
<p>
<br>"Among the many reasons for different levels of achievement is somethingas simple as age. The median age in Germany and Japan is over 40, while the medianage in Afghanistan and Yemen is under 20. Even if the people in all four ofthese countries had the same mental potential, the same history, the sameculture -- and the countries themselves had the same geographic features -- thefact that people in some countries have 20 years more experience than people inother countries would still be enough to make equal economic and other outcomesvirtually impossible."<br><br>"<i><b>Once we recognize that large differences in achievement among races,nations and civilizations have been the rule, not the exception, throughoutrecorded history, there is at least some hope of rational thought -- andperhaps even some constructive efforts to help everyone advance</b></i>."<br><br>"History has many dramatic examples of the rise and fall of peoples andnations, for a wide range of known and unknown reasons. What history does nothave is what is so often assumed as a norm today, <i><b>equality of groupachievements at a given point in time</b></i>."<br><br>"[T]oday we have bean counters in Washington turning out statistics thatare solemnly presented in courts of law to claim that, if the numbers are notmore or less the same for everybody, <i><b>that proves that somebody did somebodyelse wrong</b></i>."<br><br>"The desire of intellectuals for some grand theory that will explain complexpatterns with some solitary and simple factor has produced many ideas that donot stand up under scrutiny, but which have nevertheless had widespreadacceptance -- <i><b>and sometimes catastrophic consequences</b></i> -- in countries aroundthe world.<br><br>"The theory of genetic determinism which dominated the early 20th centuryled to many harmful consequences, ranging from racial segregation anddiscrimination up to and including the Holocaust. <i><b>The currently prevailingtheory is that malice of one sort or another explains group differences inoutcomes</b></i>..."<br><br>"Groups that lag behind have often blamed their lags on wrong-doing bygroups that are more successful. Since sainthood is not common in any branch ofthe human race, there is seldom a lack of sins to cite, including haughtinessby those who happen to be on top for the moment. <i><b>But the real question iswhether these sins -- real or imagined -- are actually the reason for differentlevels of achievement. </b></i></p>
<p>
<br>"Intellectuals, whom we might expect to counter mass hysteria with rationalanalysis, have all too often been in the vanguard <i><b>of those promoting envy andresentment of the successful</b></i>."</p>
<p>
<br>"Both the intellectuals' theoryof genetic determinism as the reason for group differences in outcomes andtheir opposite theory of discrimination as the reason <i><b>have created racial andethnic polarization</b></i>. So has the idea that it must be one or the other.</p>
<p>
<br>"The false dichotomy that it must be one or the other <i><b>leaves moresuccessful groups with a choice between arrogance and guilt</b></i>. It leaves lesssuccessful groups with the choice of believing that they are inherentlyinferior for all time or else that they are victims of the unconscionablemalice of others."</p>
<p>
<br>"Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that havepolarized societies over the centuries and around the world, <i><b>few have been moreirrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas ofmulticulturalism</b></i>."<br><br>"Multiculturalism is a tempting quick fix for groups that lag by simplypronouncing their cultures to be equal, or 'equally valid,' in some vague andlofty sense. <i><b>Cultural features are just different, not better or worse,according to this dogma</b></i>."<br><br>"In other words, members of minority groups that lag educationally,economically or otherwise are to continue to behave in the future as they havein the past -- <i><b>and, if they do not get the same outcomes as others, it issociety's fault</b></i>. That is the bottom line message of multiculturalism."<br><br>"[I]ntellectuals see themselves as friends, allies and defenders of racialminorities, <i><b>even as they paint them into a corner of cultural stagnation</b></i>. Thisallows the intelligentsia to flatter themselves that they are on the side ofthe angels against the forces of evil that are conspiring to keep minoritiesdown."<br><br>"Multiculturalism, like the caste system, paints people into the cornerwhere they happened to have been born... Multiculturalism not only serves theego interests of intellectuals, it serves the political interests of electedofficials, <i><b>who have every incentive to promote a sense of victimhood, and evenparanoia, among groups whose votes they want, in exchange for both material andpsychic support</b></i>."<br><br>"The biggest losers in all this are those members of racial minorities whoallow themselves to be led into the blind alley of resentment and rage, <i><b>evenwhen there are broad avenues of opportunity available</b></i>. And we all lose whensociety is polarized."</p>
</div>
<div>
Mark Levin interviews Thomas Sowellintransigentbte</div>
<div>
Intellectuals and RaceThere are so many fallacies about race that it would be hard to say which is the most ridiculous. However, one fallacy behind many other ...</div>
<div>
Intellectuals and Race: Part IIOnce we recognize that large differences in achievement among races, nations and civilizations have been the rule, not the exception, thr...</div>
<div>
Intellectuals and Race: Part IIIThe desire of intellectuals for some grand theory that will explain complex patterns with some solitary and simple factor has produced ma...</div>
<div>
Intellectuals and Race: Part IVEditor's note: This is Part IV in a series. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here. Among the ma...</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-55478869560478098072013-03-15T22:06:00.001-04:002013-03-15T22:06:45.538-04:00Friday’s Florilegium II<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span class="screen-name">@natebeeler</span></a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></span></a><a href="https://twitter.com/AUG_RickMcKee">@AUG_RickMcKee</a></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/friday-s-florilegium-ii-3-15-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/friday-s-florilegium-ii-3-15-13" target="_blank">View the story "Friday’s Florilegium II (3/15/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Friday’s Florilegium II (3/15/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Fri, Mar 15 2013 18:46:48</p>
<div>
Jonathan Easley reports that RNC chairman Reince Priebus (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/Reince" class="">@Reince</a></b>) is staking his legacy on improving Republican performance with minorities. <p>
</p>
<p>
“In the 2012 election, President Obama won 93 percent of the black vote, 71 percent of the Hispanic vote and 73 percent of the Asian vote, <i><b>helping him coast to a victory over Republican Mitt Romney</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Democrats are already whispering about how demographics could quickly turn traditionally red states like Arizona and Texas blue. Asians and Hispanics are the fastest-rising electoral groups in the country.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“’Our legacy is going to be that <i><b>we were the RNC that actually turned the talk into action</b></i> and cared most about moving the dial, not a couple of good stories that we could spin out and have a few good days here and there, but have a long-lasting change for the future of our party and our country,’ he said in an interview.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The chairman argues that by appealing more to minority voters, <i><b>Republicans can broaden the electoral playing field</b></i>. Right now, he says the GOP is too dependent on running the table in a handful of states.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The RNC’s <i><b>Growth and Opportunity Project</b></i> is taking a two-pronged approach in addressing these challenges – one that focuses on micro-targeted community-based outreach, and one that communicates a more positive broader message that voters can connect with emotionally.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“On the grassroots side, Priebus acknowledged that ‘our contacts are lousy,’ and that for too long the party has executed a ‘<i><b>get out the vote effort four months before the election</b></i>,’ while Democrats have cultivated long-term relationships at the local level.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The second initiative is improving the GOP’s message to and image with minority groups… ‘In order to start winning presidential elections, <i><b>I think we have to start winning over people’s hearts</b></i>,’ Priebus said.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“I don’t think it’s something that’s going to happen in two months,” he said. “I think it could take a couple of years, two years, four years, <i><b>this is a long view</b></i>…” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
RNC chairman stakes his legacy on winning over minority voters http://j.mp/Yg9iq1 by @JonEasleyThe Hill</div>
<div>
Maggie Haberman asks if the Republican finger pointing and blame-shifting following the 2012 elections will ever end. It may be concluding soon, because David M. Drucker at Roll Call <b><a href="http://atr.rollcall.com/rnc-12-autopsy-due-march-18-will-address-debates/" class="">reports</a></b> that the RNC’s internal review <i><b>will be released on Monday, March 18th</b></i>. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Each week brings a new diagnosis of the party’s woes</b></i>. Karl Rove says it’s candidate quality. Mitt Romney chief strategist Stuart Stevens argues Democrats have won over minority voters through government programs like Obamacare. Some Bush White House vets say it’s the GOP’s trouble understanding how to approach a changing electorate. Techy conservatives blame the party’s inferior social media presence and outdated voter targeting and data-mining.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“There’s a split between those who believe the party’s problem is cosmetic, those who believe it’s data-based and those who think it’s ideological and policy-based. <i><b>Within those camps, there’s no common ground on what a better approach would look like</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[T]he Republican National Committee is moving ahead with what Chairman Reince Priebus has at times called an 'autopsy' into 2012… (Republican pollster David) Winston (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/dhwinston" class="">@dhwinston</a></b>) said he hopes and assumes that the RNC critique will ‘<i><b>define what went wrong so you can get everybody focused on what the solution should look like</b></i>.’”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“I think there will always be tension between moderates in the party and the conservative base, <i><b>but that has existed for decades and only goes away after we win an election</b></i>. It went away for a bit after Reagan, and it went away for a bit after Bush 41,” said conservative strategist Greg Mueller (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/gregmcrc" class="">@gregmcrc</a></b>). <i><b>“But in losing,” he added, “it’s back with some intensity.”</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Reince is ‘hamstrung, because he was a good man for the moment. … someone who would put his head down and rebuild’ the RNC, said one Priebus supporter… But ‘<i><b>now it’s a problem because the party needs to start running ahead of where the congressional leadership is</b></i>,’ the source added, saying Priebus needs to take his approach to running the committee to the next level to help the party navigate a path forward.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The state of affairs has allowed Rove to remain a strong force in the party — despite his critics sensing vulnerability after raising $300 million to run ads that failed to move the needle. He emerged from 2012 dinged up by the results, but until someone unifies the party, he will remain one of its top strategists.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Everyone agrees that <i><b>there are several areas that must be improved upon</b></i> including better messaging, engaging with minority groups, improving our digital capabilities and a multiyear sustained ground and engagement effort,” said RNC spokesman Sean Spicer (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/seanspicer" class="">@seanspicer</a></b>).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Mueller, the conservative strategist, argued that <i><b>Republicans need to focus more on the use of social media and data gathering</b></i> — the latter in particular being an area where the party can fill a void.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“There now is a growing impulse that the generational shift that is occurring at the candidate level <i><b>is also needed at the consultant level</b></i>,” said pollster Kellyanne Conway (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/KellyannePolls" class="">@KellyannePolls</a></b>). “It won’t matter which fresh faces the GOP runs for the presidency if the same folks are pulling the strings and calling the shots.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
The GOP looks for a leader, Reince Priebus is facing a new test, and the party can't agree on what went wrong http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/gop-sniping-over-2012-failures-still-going-strong-88405_Page2.htmlmaggie haberman</div>
<div>
Jay Cost writes that Republicans need to stop the advance of the Obama agenda, while “<i><b>deflecting his demagogic attacks</b></i>” and promoting the farm team, to win in the midterm elections and beyond. <p>
</p>
<p>
“Nearly four months after the election, most everybody seems to agree that something is amiss with the GOP. This consensus has provoked a stream of free advice for how Republicans can get back on their feet. <i><b>Some of it is constructive and helpful… But much of the ‘advice’ amounts to a victory lap by liberal Democrats and their friends in the media</b></i>, many of whom seem to think that a successful Republican party would be one that closely resembles the Democrats.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>On the plus side of the ledger, we have the party’s strength in the states</b></i>… All told, Republicans have unified control of 25 states, with 53 percent of the nation’s population. Compare that with the Democrats, who control 13 states with 30 percent of the American public… Republicans also control the House of Representatives and retain enough seats to filibuster in the Senate.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Finally, the Republican coalition is reasonably united. Naturally, there are fissures—notably, the divide between the so-called establishment wing of the party and the Tea Party ‘opposition.’ Nevertheless, historical perspective is appropriate here. While the media like to play up today’s divisions, <i><b>the party remains generally united around a set of policy goals</b></i>—tax reform and sensible deregulation to jump-start the economy, entitlement reform to solve the debt crisis, the expansion of domestic energy production, and so on.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“When a party does not control the White House, <i><b>it is largely incapable of achieving collective goals because no one person or group is ‘in charge.’</b></i> Today, no single Republican—not House speaker John Boehner, not Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, not party chairman Reince Preibus, or anyone else—has the power to induce the various factions within the party to cooperate… This means that there are limits to the kinds of reform the Republican party can undertake…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Another liability is President Barack Obama himself. <i><b>He is not a good partner for constructive governance, even in areas where there might be agreement… How can he be trusted?</b></i> At any moment, he could scuttle a deal, then hold a press conference to blame Republicans.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“While it is fortunate that the GOP controls (the House of Representatives) because it can veto the liberal agenda, <i><b>it is a perfect straw man for this president</b></i>. And indeed, President Obama has used the bully pulpit masterfully, convincing the public that congressional Republicans are to blame for the breakdown in Washington governance…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“House conservatives unfortunately are in no position to enact a conservative alternative (to Obama’s agenda). Nor, for that matter, can they even force President Obama to reject it; Senate Democrats will reliably table anything that makes Obama look bad well before it gets to his desk. <i><b>However, they can stop the advance of the left. This is not nothing, considering the ambitions of the president…</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Hindsight is 20/20, and it appears clear in retrospect that congressional Republicans made a mistake in trying to force President Obama to deal responsibly with the country’s fiscal problems. <i><b>He is not interested in leading (or following) on this issue</b></i>. Worse, he has used the megaphone of the presidency to cast Republicans as the irresponsible party… This is probably the GOP’s number one danger moving forward. <i><b>It cannot allow President Obama to create the impression that Republicans are too radical or dangerous to govern…</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“While avoiding unproductive confrontations in Washington, Republicans should turn their attention to the states as the main arena for conservative reforms. <i><b>Which state leaders have been successful? Why have they succeeded? How can these lessons be translated to the national stage?</b></i> Republicans should be optimistic about their future because, with so many leaders on the state level, it is possible for the GOP to get answers to these questions between now and 2016. Put another way, the GOP is like a baseball team that just missed the playoffs, <i><b>but is fortunate to have an excellent system of farm clubs</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Insofar as the party is capable of collective action, its efforts should focus on finding quality candidates, both for 2014 and 2016. A lot of this simply comes down to convincing the top tier of would-be Republican officeholders that the country’s problems are too dire for them to refuse the call to service…” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
ICYMI: My latest Weekly Standard article on how the GOP can/should reform itself. http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/how-win-2014_703135.htmlJay Cost</div>
<div>
Michael Gerson (former policy adviser and chief of speechwriting for President George W. Bush) & Peter Wehner (senior fellow at the <b><a href="http://www.eppc.org/default.asp" class="">Ethics and Public Policy Center</a></b>) join forces to answer the relevant questions for the Republican Party: “How deep is the trouble? How much of it is self-inflicted and how much is a function of circumstance? <i><b>Can the problem be repaired, and if so, by what means?</b></i>” <p>
</p>
<p>
“The 2012 election was not only a dismal showing for the Republicans but the continuation of a dismal, 20-year trend. <i><b>Out of the last six presidential elections, four have gone to the Democratic nominee, at an average yield of 327 electoral votes to 210 for the Republican</b></i>. During the preceding two decades, from 1968 to 1988, Republicans won five out of six elections, averaging 417 electoral votes to the Democrats’ 113. In three of those contests, the Democrats failed to muster even 50 electoral votes.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The first factor is America’s changing demographics. Much has been written on this topic, but the essential datum is the long-term shrinking of those demographic groups, especially white voters, who traditionally and reliably favor the GOP: <i><b>from 89 percent of the electorate in 1976 to 72 percent in 2012</b></i>… In any given contest, the GOP can overcome this obstacle. Over time, however, the obstacle will grow ever larger… <i><b>Republicans, in short, have a winning message for an electorate that no longer exists</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Another factor lies in the realm of foreign policy… With the end of the Cold War in 1989, <i><b>this potent issue was largely taken off the table…</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Then there is the quality of the candidates fielded by the two sides. Democrats have nominated two candidates—Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—endowed with formidable political skills. The former is one of the most naturally gifted politicians in modern American history; <i><b>the latter is one of the most ruthlessly efficient ones</b></i>. Republican presidential candidates, in contrast, have sometimes shown a marked inability to connect with the concerns of working- and middle-class voters <i><b>or to convince such voters that Republican policies will help improve their prospects in life…</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Reasonable tax rates and sound monetary policy remain important economic commitments. But America now confronts <i><b>a series of challenges</b></i> that have to do with globalization, stagnant wages, the loss of blue-collar jobs, exploding health-care and college costs, and the collapse of the culture of marriage.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“As much as at any time in recent history, <i><b>America needs a strong, vibrant party on the right</b></i> to speak for the civilizing ideal of limited government. Barack Obama has put in place an agenda of unreconstructed progressivism that is at war, not only with Reaganism, but also with Clintonism. He has exacerbated a massive fiscal imbalance, added a poorly designed entitlement that further destabilizes the health sector, and sounded an uncertain trumpet of global leadership. <i><b>If Republicans urgently need to recalibrate, and they do, it is because the stakes are so high.</b></i></p>
<i><b> </b></i><p>
</p>
<p>
“Among some party loyalists, there is a natural tendency to maintain that the GOP is simply suffering from a ‘communications problem,’ <i><b>that if only Republicans spoke more loudly, more insistently, and with greater purity and passion, they would broaden their appeal and proceed to sweep national elections</b></i>. But that counsel, appealing as it might be to a shrinking segment of the electorate, is surely not adequate to present circumstances. More is needed than pumping up the volume.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Gerson & Wehner compile a list of five necessary steps to breathe new life into the GOP and enlarge its appeal while sticking to core principles:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<i><b>1. Focus on the economic concerns of working-and middle-class Americans</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>[M]any (working-and middle-class Americans) now regard the Republican Party as beholden to ‘millionaires and billionaires’ and as wholly out of touch with ordinary Americans</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In developing a response to these perceptions, <i><b>Republicans should not downplay their traditional strengths</b></i>. Given the feeble path of economic growth, reasonable tax rates and a rational tax code are prerequisites for future job creation at sufficient levels. Given the unsustainable path of health-oriented entitlement spending—which threatens to crowd out every other form of federal spending—some party must rise to responsibility. And given the vast potential economic advantage of newly discovered energy sources—both natural gas and shale oil—Republicans should stand for their responsible exploitation.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Republicans could begin by becoming <i><b>visible and persistent critics of corporate welfare</b></i>: the vast network of subsidies and tax breaks extended by Democratic and Republican administrations alike to wealthy and well-connected corporations. Such benefits undermine free markets and undercut the public’s confidence in American capitalism. They also increase federal spending... ‘Ending corporate welfare as we know it’: <i><b>For a pro-market party, this should be a rich vein to mine</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“America’s five largest banks hold assets equal to 60 percent of our economy, a highly dangerous concentration and source of undue political power. <i><b>These mega-banks—both ‘too big to fail’ and ‘too complex to manage’—are the unnatural result of government subsidies, not market forces</b></i>. By supporting the breakup of the big banks, Republicans would encourage competition and create a decentralized system more likely to survive future economic earthquakes.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Rather than being exclusively focused on budget numbers or individual economic rights</b></i>, Republicans would be demonstrating a limited but active role for government: helping individuals attain the skills and values—the social capital—that allow them to succeed in a free economy…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<i><b>2. Welcome rising immigrant groups</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Instead of signaling that America is a closed society, which it is not and never has been, Republicans would do better to <i><b>stress the assimilating power of American ideals</b></i>—the power whereby strangers become neighbors and fellow citizens.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<i><b>3. Express and demonstrate a commitment to the common good</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>There is an impression—exaggerated but not wholly without merit—that the GOP is hyper-individualistic</b></i>. During the Republican convention, for example, we repeatedly heard about the virtues of individual liberty <i><b>but almost nothing about the importance of community or social solidarity</b></i>, and of the obligations and attachments we have to each other. Even Republican figures who espouse relatively moderate policy prescriptions often sound like libertarians run amok.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In pointing to dangers of an expanding central government, Republicans can rightly cite not only the constraints it places on individual initiative <i><b>but also its crowding-out of civil society and citizen engagement</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>American society comprises more than private individuals on the one hand, government on the other</b></i>. Republicans and conservatives can and should take their policy bearings from that crucial fact.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<i><b>4. Engage vital social issues forthrightly but in a manner that is aspirational rather than alienating</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Addressing the issue of marriage and family is not optional; it is essential</b></i>. Far from being a strictly private matter, the collapse of the marriage culture in America has profound public ramifications, affecting everything from welfare and education to crime, income inequality, social mobility, and the size of the state. Yet few public or political figures are even willing to acknowledge that this collapse is happening.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Yes, the ability of government to shape attitudes and practices regarding family life is very limited. But a critical first step is to be clear and consistent about the importance of marriage itself—as the best institution ever devised when it comes to raising children, the single best path to a life out of poverty, <i><b>and something that needs to be reinforced rather than undermined by society</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<i><b>5. Harness policy views to the findings of science</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“This has been effectively done on the pro-life issue, with sonograms that reveal the humanity of a developing child…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“To acknowledge climate disruption need hardly lead one to embrace Al Gore’s policy agenda… Republicans could back <i><b>an entrepreneurial approach to technical and scientific investment</b></i> as opposed to the top-down approach of unwieldy government bureaucracies offering huge subsidies to favored companies such as Solyndra.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Gerson & Wehner recognize that these five steps are “neither comprehensive nor definitive, but is intended as a starting point for discussion.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Its aim is to locate a means of broadening the appeal of the GOP without violating the party’s core principles of life and liberty</b></i>...”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“These corrections will be the work of many hands, including governors, members of Congress, and policy entrepreneurs… This movement, right now, lacks a headquarters.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Any fair-minded survey of rising Republican leaders… suggests that the GOP possesses impressive political talent</b></i>. Their challenge is both to refine and relaunch the Republican message, to propose policies that symbolize values and cultural understanding, to reconnect with a middle America that looks different than it once did, and to confront old attitudes, not from time to time, but every day.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Have you read the preview from our March issue yet? "How to Save the Republican Party" by @MJGerson and @Peter_Wehner http://ow.ly/hXNbvCommentary Magazine</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.claremont.org/scholars/scholarid.25/scholar.asp" class="">Angelo M. Codevilla</a></b>, Professor Emeritus of international relations at Boston University and senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, argues that a substantial portion of America (<i><b>the “country class”</b></i>) finds itself orphaned and un-represented due to GOP Establishment leaders willing to contradict the identity of Republican voters and go along with the Democrats in <i><b>the “ruling class.”</b></i> Ultimately, this division into political classes is inherently unstable. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a ‘country class.’</b></i> Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based ‘ruling class.’ They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, <i><b>but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. <i><b>This marks these political orphans as a ‘country class.’</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Republican leadership’s kinship with the socio-political class that runs modern government is deep. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. Yet far has it been from the Republican leadership to defend them. <i><b>Whenever possible, the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“While the ruling class is well represented by the Democratic Party, <i><b>the country class is not represented politically – by the Republican Party or by any other</b></i>. Well or badly, its demand for representation will be met.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“To be represented, to trust that one’s own identity and interests are secure and advocated in high places, is to be part of the polity... No one doubts that the absence, loss, or perversion of that function <i><b>divides the polity sharply between rulers and ruled</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Though America’s ruling class is neither as narrow as that of Communist regimes nor as broadly preclusive as that of the European Union, the Republican leadership’s preference <i><b>for acting as part of the ruling class rather than as representatives of voters who feel set upon</b></i> has begun to produce the sort of soft pre-emption of opposition and bitterness between rulers and ruled that occurs necessarily wherever representation is mocked.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Political partisanship became a more important feature of American life over the past half-century largely because the Democratic Party, which has been paramount within the U.S. government since 1932, <i><b>entrenched itself as America’s ruler</b></i>, and its leaders became a ruling class. <i><b>This caused a Newtonian ‘opposite reaction,’ which continues to gather force</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In our time, the Democratic Party gave up the diversity that had characterized it since Jeffersonian times… <i><b>it came to consist almost exclusively of constituencies that make up government itself or benefit from government</b></i>… Democrats, formerly the party of slavery and segregation, secured the allegiance of racial minorities by unrelenting assertions that the rest of American society is racist.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The civilization of the ruling class does not concede that those who resist it have any moral or intellectual right, and only reluctantly any civil right, to do so. <i><b>Resistance is illegitimate because it can come only from low motives</b></i>. President Obama’s statement that Republican legislators – and hence the people who elect them – don’t care whether ‘seniors have decent health care…children have enough to eat’ is typical.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Republican leaders neither parry the insults nor vilify their Democratic counterparts in comparable terms <i><b>because they do not want to beat the ruling class</b></i>, but to join it in solving the nation’s problems. <i><b>How did they come to cut such pathetic figures?</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Republican Party never fully adapted itself to the fact that <i><b>modern big government is an interest group in and of itself</b></i>, inherently at odds with the rest of society, that it creates a demand for representation by those it alienates, and hence that <i><b>politicians must choose whether to represent the rulers or the ruled</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>In sum, the closer one gets to the Republican Party’s voters, the more the Party looks like Goldwater and Reagan. The closer one gets to its top, the more it looks like the ghost of Rockefeller</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Whoever chooses to represent the country class might have right and reason on their side. <i><b>Nevertheless they can be certain that the ruling class media will not engage those reasons but vilify the persons who voice them as ignorant, irresponsible, etc</b></i>. Asserting moral-intellectual superiority, chastising and intimidating rather than persuading opponents is by no means the least of the ruling class’ powers…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Recent Presidential elections have shown that <i><b>contemporary Establishment Republicans elicit scarce, unenthusiastic support</b></i> even from longtime Republican voters because they are out of synch with their flock… This of course is what happened to the Whig party after 1850.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Since America’s first-past-the-post electoral system produces elections between two parties,<i><b> it was natural for any and all groups who oppose the ruling class to gravitate to the Republican Party</b></i>. But the Party’s leaders, reasoning that ‘they have nowhere else to go,’ refused to notice that voters were lending their votes out of allegiance to causes rather than to the Party, and that Republican candidates increasingly sought votes through the medium of groups that advocate these causes rather than through the Party Establishment…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“A new party is likely to arise because the public holds both Republicans and Democrats responsible for the nation’s unsustainable course… <i><b>One half of the population cannot continue passively to absorb insults without pushing back</b></i>. When – sooner rather than later – events collapse this house of cards, it will be hard to credibly advocate a better future while bearing a label that advertises responsibility for the present.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
MUST READ! (And share it ...)... http://fb.me/2zUKKEoJCMark R. Levin</div>
<div>
Jonathan Martin reports that some conservative thinkers are agitated with elected GOP officeholders and their leadership for “<i><b>not taking bold steps to bring a 1980s-style Republican platform into the 21st century</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“Almost daily, there is a fresh op-ed or magazine piece from the class of commentators and policy intellectuals urging Republicans to show a little intellectual leg and offer some daring and innovation beyond the old standbys of cutting income taxes and spending. It’s not that the eggheads are urging moderation — it’s more like relevance. <i><b>The standard plea: The GOP will rebound only when it communicates to working-class and middle-class voters how its ideas will improve their lives</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>With few exceptions, most of the GOP leadership in Washington is following a business-as-usual strategy</b></i>. The language and tactics being used in this winter’s battles with President Barack Obama are tried-and-true Republican maxims that date back to the Reagan era or before. And that, say the wonks, spells political danger and more electoral decline.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>What irritates, and mystifies, so many conservatives is that now would be the obvious time for Republican officeholders to be a little audacious</b></i>. Losing consecutive presidential elections, it would stand to reason, should prompt some ambitious GOP politician to follow the Jack Kemp model of the Carter years: stepping out of line – Kemp wasn’t even on the House Ways and Means Committee — and proposing some new ideas that could help rebrand the party.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[N]o other issue illustrates the ideas and chutzpah gap between the wonks and the officeholders than the matter of financial regulation… Since the election, conservative columnists from George Will to Peggy Noonan have written about the need for Republicans to take a harder line on the banks… But despite the intellectual cover offered by such columns and stories <i><b>there’s been mostly just silence from Republican officeholders</b></i> on one of the issues that made it easier for President Barack Obama to brand Mitt Romney as a handmaiden of Wall Street.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“With ambitious politicians trekking to Wall Street to raise cash and frequently sending their former staffers to lobby for the banks on K Street, <i><b>the ardor elected Republicans may have for cracking down on financial institutions is diminished</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
GOP wonks to pols: it's not just spending, stupid. My story > http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/gop-smackdown-wonks-vs-pols-88482.htmljmartpolitico</div>
<div>
Anna Palmer takes an in-depth look at <b><a href="http://concord51.netboots.net/" class="">Concord 51</a></b>'s efforts to raise more than $500,000 for the group’s PAC in order to mobilize young voters into a national movement around their core principles. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Concord 51, the brainchild of a group of young fiscal conservatives in New York City in their late 20s, among others, is looking to mobilize Republicans under 35 into a national movement</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“They’re building enthusiasm around a set of conservative values that are more appealing to younger voters, they say — more inclusive of gays, minorities and women — the bigger tent that the GOP needs to build if it wants to win national elections.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“While much of the GOP’s public soul searching has been over the use of technology, how outside groups spent money and the need to draw Hispanics into the fold, <i><b>Republicans also have fallen behind in drawing younger voters</b></i>… Concord 51’s founders hope to change that.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The group has built out city chapters in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Charlotte, Oklahoma City and Dallas and has a presence at five universities, including Fordham, Washington and Lee, and Emory. And, this year they have plans to launch in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston. Their goals are as big as their ambition. Organizers plan to roll out a page on their website for young Republicans interested in running for office. <i><b>If potential candidates fit the Concord 51 mold, organizers say they want to help train, support and cultivate them to run for public office</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The group has targeted their policy positions on fiscal responsibility, energy advancement and a strong defense. And welcomes conservatives who may have varying beliefs on social issues</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Not your fathers Republican Party. Young GOPers look to broaden tent, create national movement http://politi.co/YQs98mAnna Palmer</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-36985107916917854992013-03-15T20:30:00.000-04:002013-03-15T20:30:16.215-04:00Friday’s Florilegium I<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj81vyhkdG-s-xCSRJQkAjFi8BARFctywUlkv7upiutJ-W3v3XbYi-NzyOMGHgLAnH2w2e6w-oZ79xCvxCB59tvyBauUwDTRZLmaa19DkC0PF9k0egTiGIQPTPlXpWtMiYQtT4kBCti18c/s1600/debt+sinkhole+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj81vyhkdG-s-xCSRJQkAjFi8BARFctywUlkv7upiutJ-W3v3XbYi-NzyOMGHgLAnH2w2e6w-oZ79xCvxCB59tvyBauUwDTRZLmaa19DkC0PF9k0egTiGIQPTPlXpWtMiYQtT4kBCti18c/s400/debt+sinkhole+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="username">
<a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span class="screen-name">@natebeeler</span></a></div>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/friday-s-florilegium-3-15-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/friday-s-florilegium-3-15-13" target="_blank">View the story "Friday’s Florilegium I (3/15/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Friday’s Florilegium I (3/15/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Fri, Mar 15 2013 17:14:07</p>
<div>
Apparently old habits die hard. This week, Senate Democrats return to the budget stage true to form--raising taxes and offering no real solutions to tackle our nation's debt and deficit crisis. After 4 years of ducking responsibility, isn't it time for Democrats to get serious about cutting spending?Republican National Committee</div>
<div>
Kimberley A. Strassel (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/KimStrassel" class="">@KimStrassel</a></b>) writes that Michigan congressman <b><a href="http://waysandmeans.house.gov/about/chairman.htm" class="">Dave Camp</a></b>, the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/RepDaveCamp" class="">@RepDaveCamp</a></b>), has recently unveiled the news that <i><b>comprehensive tax reform</b></i> will be Republicans’ signature policy initiative in 2013. <p>
</p>
<p>
“House Speaker John Boehner's confirmation that <i><b>the vaunted title of H.R. 1</b></i> will go to comprehensive tax reform is notable because it wasn't assured. As the GOP has publicly waged a sequester fight, it has privately spent the past months in an intense internal debate over tax reform...”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“A simple code sounds pleasant, <i><b>but getting there means tough votes on dangerous topics</b></i>. Want to lose friends fast? Chop the charitable deduction, squeeze mortgages, take away that tax perk for the biggest job creator in your district. Business will howl. Voters might freak. Democrats will pounce. Indeed, the White House may turn those votes into a central plank of its campaign to take back the House.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“To remain silent on tax reform was for the GOP to cede a signature issue, even as it gave Mr. Obama leverage in the budget fight. <i><b>How long could the party hold out for the president's call for ‘reform’ without a plan of its own?</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“One: Any House bill will be ‘revenue-neutral,’ meaning money raised gets plowed back into lowering rates. Two: Any House bill will simultaneously reform both the individual and corporate codes…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“There is a glum GOP awareness that the party's role of late has been that of responsible bearer of bad news. It has had to warn about deficits, advocate cuts, tackle entitlements. <i><b>Somewhere along the way it lost its tax punch, and it has been outflanked by a president who has used class warfare to position himself as protector of the middle class</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“There is no better way to recapture the party's core issues of taxes, the middle class and the economy” than tax reform, says one senior GOP aide. “<i><b>It is the one silver bullet that hits all of those pieces</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Strassel: The GOP Takes Back Tax Reform http://on.wsj.com/12eTTvNOpinion & Commentary</div>
<div>
Speaking of the middle class, and considering how Obama has tried to take over the role of its protector from the GOP, Scott Rasmussen reports that his recent survey shows that <i><b>fewer likely voters than ever think that our economy is fair to the middle class</b></i>. <p>
</p>
<p>
“A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that <i><b>35%</b></i> of Likely Voters believe the economy is at least somewhat fair to middle-class Americans, but that includes only six percent (6%) who think it’s Very Fair. Sixty-two percent (<i><b>62%</b></i>) think the economy is not fair to the middle class, with 20% who feel it’s Not At All Fair.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“There's general partisan agreement when it comes to the fairness of the overall economy, but GOP voters (42%) are more likely to believe the economy is fair to middle-class Americans than Democrats (31%) and voters not affiliated with either major party (31%).”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<b><a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/jobs_employment/january_2013/69_now_describe_themselves_as_middle_class" class="">Sixty-nine percent (69%) of working Americans now describe themselves as middle class</a></b>, the highest level in nearly four years.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
35% Think U.S. #Economy Fair to #MiddleClass...http://tinyurl.com/dxgzb67Scott Rasmussen</div>
<div>
Jed Graham reports that Americans paid out a record amount of taxes in January 2013, “as payroll-tax relief expired and tax rates rose on higher earners.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“Personal and social insurance taxes totaled <i><b>just over $2.6 trillion</b></i> at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, Commerce Department data out Friday (3/1/13) showed…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Higher taxes have acted as a steady head wind for disposable income… Real personal spending rose an ‘anemic’ 0.1%...”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Personal income dived 3.6% in January, with disposable income down 4%</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Congressional Budget Office has projected that federal tax receipts, including corporate taxes, will rise from 15.8% of GDP in fiscal 2012 to 16.9% this year… In 2014, CBO sees revenue returning to 18% of GDP, close to the historical average.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Americans Pay Record TaxesBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
Americans Paid Record Amount Of Taxes In January http://dlvr.it/31dTS8Investors.com</div>
<div>
Investor’s Business Daily editorializes that it may be “<i><b>mattress-stuffing time</b></i>” as the broke and broken federal government is taking an interest in our retirement savings, with the new <b><a href="http://www.consumerfinance.gov/" class="">Consumer Financial Protection Bureau</a></b> (CFPB) “planning to ‘help’ people manage the $19.4 trillion they've managed to save for their retirement.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“CFPB director and longtime Democratic politician Richard Cordray earlier this month told Bloomberg News that managing retirement savings is ‘<i><b>one of the things we've been exploring ... in terms of whether and what authority we have</b></i>.’”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“What business, exactly, does a U.S. government that has rung up over $16.6 trillion in red ink have giving consumers advice on how to save money?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>What can a consumer learn about frugality and responsibility from a corrupt, insatiable Washington leviathan that screams about the sky falling when just 2% in automatic spending cuts kick in?</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“What doesn't work is the government, which should be told to stuff its offer of help at managing people's money. Better to have <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary" class="">Typhoid Mary</a></b> run the Centers for Disease Control.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Broke U.S. Government Eying Your Retirement SavingsPresident Obama stands with Sen. Chris Dodd Rep. Barney Frankafter signing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection fina...</div>
<div>
Rasmussen writes that Mainstream Americans and Washington’s Political Class who want to protect government spending “have become two nations separated by a common language.” The separation was highlighted by a <b><a href="http://www.people-press.org/2013/02/22/as-sequester-deadline-looms-little-support-for-cutting-most-programs/" class="">recent Pew Research Center poll</a></b> that appeared at first to show that voters “like spending cuts in the abstract but not in specific programs,” but they actually would prefer what the Political Class calls budget cuts. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The Pew results actually show support for what official Washington would consider massive spending cuts</b></i>… The problem is with the way the numbers were reported.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“To most Americans, maintaining spending at current levels would mean spending the same amount in 2013 as we spent in 2012. However, to those experienced in the mysterious ways of Washington, maintaining spending at current levels means spending $3.5 trillion this year and $4.5 trillion in five years. <i><b>To most Americans, that's a trillion dollars in spending growth.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Political Class, on the other hand, would consider holding spending unchanged at current levels to be a massive spending cut. <i><b>Why?</b></i> Because it wouldn't allow for the trillion dollar spending growth that is already built into the budget.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Consider the Pew numbers for roads and infrastructure projects: 38 percent want more spending, and only 17 percent favor a spending cut. But a plurality (43 percent) wants to hold infrastructure spending steady. <i><b>Since the Political Class would consider holding spending steady to be a ‘cut’ in spending, 60 percent in the Pew poll favors what official Washington calls cuts.</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Using this understanding, the Pew data shows that voters prefer what the politicians call budget cuts <i><b>in 17 out of 19 programs</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“So when politicians claim that sound polling data like the Pew study shows a lack of public support for spending cuts, <i><b>they're either wrong or deliberately trying to deceive us</b></i>. Voters shouldn't need a translator to understand what the Political Class is saying. But those in the Political Class bubble just don't speak plain English anymore.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Read my latest commentary: Let's Speak Plain English About Spending Cuts... http://tinyurl.com/cbzy7tdScott Rasmussen</div>
<div>
Erik Wasson (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/elwasson" class="">@elwasson</a></b>) reports that President Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2014 is expected to be delivered on March 25 – the longest delay of any incumbent president (<i><b>seven weeks late</b></i>), after Congress has adjourned for Easter, and just two days before a possible government shutdown. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Normally, the president’s request is the beginning of the annual budget process</b></i> and Congress relies on its detailed spending information to come up with its own budget resolution.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) plans to put out <b><a href="http://budget.house.gov/fy2014/" class="">his own budget</a></b> — one that balances in 10 years… That budget is also slated to get a House vote before the House embarks on a two-week Easter recess March 22.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Senate will be putting together its own budget plan for the first time in four years this month. Under ‘no budget, no pay’ legislation enacted in January, <i><b>it must pass a budget resolution by April 15 or senators' pay will be withheld</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[W]hile the President speaks of his deep concern for American workers and families, <i><b>he fails to even submit to Congress his financial plan to help those workers and families</b></i>,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala. and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, <b><a href="http://twitter.com/budgetgop" class="">@budgetgop</a></b>) said in a <b><a href="http://budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=3eb50c5e-1ec5-4a8a-a6ba-787a3865a263" class="">statement</a></b>. <br></p>
</div>
<div>
President's budget coming in late March - The Hill's On The MoneyPresident Obama's delayed budget for next year is now expected to be delivered on March 25. Congressional sources have been informed by t...</div>
<div>
Kevin Smith, Communications Director for <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerBoehner" class="tweet-url twitter-atreply pretty-link">@<b>SpeakerBoehner</b></a>, posts that President Obama “has proven he doesn’t take trillion-dollar deficits seriously enough to submit a budget on time.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“Under the law, the president must submit his budget request no later than the first Monday of February. <i><b>Last month, the Obama Administration announced that for the fourth time in five years it would fail to meet this deadline</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In just one term, President Obama has missed the budget deadline <i><b>more than any other president</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“All presidents from Harding through Reagan’s first term met the statutory budget submission deadline in every year…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Since the statutory deadline was extended to the first Monday in February, with the exception of the first budget for a new president, this deadline has only been missed three times: <i><b>Clinton FY 1998, Obama FY 2012, and Obama FY 2013</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Every family must balance its budget</b></i>. Washington should too, and it’s time for President Obama and Senate Democrats to embrace this common-sense goal.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Has anyone seen POTUS' budget? On track to be the longest budget delay of any incumbent president in history http://www.speaker.gov/general/longest-budget-delay-any-incumbent-president-historyKevin Smith</div>
</noscript>
Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-66952051669439702432013-03-10T17:42:00.002-04:002013-03-10T17:42:51.738-04:00Social Policy Sunday<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSSAiquQ3ta5jsvvfor02vxXDQjlnGJSpT26Xhq7yUWdbShuSLy7i9RJHjtfGrccfFpnPN1_HSOQVgUClNnO30kkKhI_3cX9XDfnb7iABSQe7z2YmIHZtsJ6F-3iU5e0H6bXiihwNTWfQ/s1600/Minimum+Wage+side+effects.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSSAiquQ3ta5jsvvfor02vxXDQjlnGJSpT26Xhq7yUWdbShuSLy7i9RJHjtfGrccfFpnPN1_HSOQVgUClNnO30kkKhI_3cX9XDfnb7iABSQe7z2YmIHZtsJ6F-3iU5e0H6bXiihwNTWfQ/s400/Minimum+Wage+side+effects.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<br />
<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/social-policy-sunday-3-10-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/social-policy-sunday-3-10-13" target="_blank">View the story "Social Policy Sunday (3/10/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Social Policy Sunday (3/10/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sun, Mar 10 2013 14:36:39</p>
<div>
Are you awake yet?The Scarlett Sage</div>
<div>
Joel Kotkin (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/joelkotkin" class="">@joelkotkin</a></b>) writes that widespread movement away from traditional religious values, along with individual free-market choices between career and family, has undermined familialism, <i><b>and there are concerns about being able to sustain a post-familial future</b></i>. <p>
</p>
<p>
See this link for the full 56 page report: <b><a href="http://www.newgeography.com/files/The%20Rise%20of%20Post-Familialism%20(ISBN9789810738976).pdf" class="">The Rise of Post-Familialism: Humanity's Future?</a></b></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“For most of human history, the family — <i><b>defined by parents, children and extended kin</b></i> — has stood as the central unit of society…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Today, in the high-income world and even in some developing countries, <i><b>we are witnessing a shift to a new social model</b></i>. Increasingly, family no longer serves as the central organizing feature of society. An unprecedented number of individuals — approaching upwards of 30% in some Asian countries — are choosing to eschew child bearing altogether and, often, marriage as well.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The reasons for this shift are complex, and vary significantly in different countries and cultures. In some countries, particularly in East Asia, the nature of modern competitive capitalism often forces individuals to choose between career advancement and family formation. <i><b>As a result, these economies are unwittingly setting into motion forces destructive to their future workforce, consumer base and long-term prosperity</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The new emerging social ethos endorses more secular values that prioritise individual personal socioeconomic success as well as the personal quest for greater fulfilment.</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The change in the role of women beyond sharply defined maternal roles represents one of the great accomplishments of modern times. Yet this trend also generates new pressures that have led some women to reject both child-bearing and marriage. Men are also adopting new attitudes that increasingly preclude marriage or fatherhood.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The current weak global economy, now in its fifth year, also <i><b>threatens to further slow family formation</b></i>. Child-rearing requires a strong hope that life will be better for the next generation. The rising cost of urban living, the declining number of well-paying jobs, and the onset of the global financial crisis has engendered growing pessimism in most countries, particularly in Europe and Japan, but also in the United States and some developing countries.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Societal norms, which once almost mandated family formation, have begun to morph</b></i>. The new norms are reinforced by cultural influences that tend to be concentrated in the very areas — dense urban centres — with the lowest percentages of married people and children…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>A society that is increasingly single and childless is likely to be more concerned with serving current needs than addressing the future oriented requirements of children… We could tilt more into a ‘now’ society, geared towards consuming or recreating today, as opposed to nurturing and sacrificing for tomorrow</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[F]or many people, the basic motivation for hard work is underpinned by the need to support and nurture a family. <i><b>Without a family to support, the very basis for the work ethos will have changed, perhaps irrevocably</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Seeking to secure a place for families requires us to move beyond nostalgia for a bygone era and focus on what is possible… Amidst all the social change discussed above, <i><b>there remains a basic desire for family that needs to be nurtured and supported by the wider society</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
The Rise of Post-Familialism: Humanity's Future? | Newgeography.comThis piece is the introduction to a new report on post-familialism from Civil Service College in Singapore, Chapman University, and Field...</div>
<div>
Kotkin and Harry Siegel write that more and more Americans are childless by choice, but what makes sense for the individual may spell disaster for the country as a whole. “<i><b>Crudely put, the lack of productive screwing could further be screwing the screwed generation</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“First, for many younger Americans and especially those in cities, <i><b>having children is no longer an obvious or inevitable choice</b></i>. Second, many of those opting for childlessness have legitimate, <i><b>if perhaps selfish</b></i>, reasons for their decision.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Postfamilial America is in ascendancy as the fertility rate among women has plummeted, since the 2008 economic crisis and the Great Recession that followed, to its lowest level since reliable numbers were first kept in 1920. <i><b>That downturn has put the U.S. fertility rate increasingly in line with those in other developed economies—suggesting that even if the economy rebounds, the birthrate may not</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The global causes of postfamilialism are diverse, and many, on their own, are socially favorable or at least benign. The rush of people worldwide into cities, for example, has ushered in prosperity for hundreds of millions, allowing families to be both smaller and more prosperous. <i><b>Improvements in contraception and increased access to it have given women far greater control of their reproductive options, which has coincided with a decline in religion in most advanced countries</b></i>. With women’s rights largely secured in the First World and their seats in the classroom, the statehouse, and the boardroom no longer tokens or novelties, children have ceased being an economic or cultural necessity for many or an eventual outcome of sex.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>A plurality of Americans—46 percent—told Pew in 2009 that the rising number of women without children ‘makes no difference one way or the other’ for our society</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It’s time for us to consider what an aging, increasingly child-free population, growing more slowly, would mean here. As younger Americans individually eschew families of their own, <i><b>they are contributing to the ever-growing imbalance</b></i> between older retirees—basically their parents—and working-age Americans, potentially propelling both into a spiral of <i><b>soaring entitlement costs</b></i> and <i><b>diminished economic vigor</b></i> and creating a culture marked by <i><b>hyperindividualism and dependence on the state</b></i> as the family unit erodes.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Forty-four percent of millennials agree that marriage is becoming ‘obsolete.’</b></i> And even among those who support tying the knot (including many of those who say it’s obsolete), just 41 percent say children are important for a marriage—down from 65 percent in 1990… On the flip side of the coin, the percentage of adults who disagreed with the contention that people without children ‘lead empty lives’ has shot up, to 59 percent in 2002 from 39 percent in 1988.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>In 2007 the fertility rate in America was 2.12 and had been holding nearly steady for decades at about replacement rate—the highest level of any advanced country. In just half a decade since, the rate has dropped to 1.9, the lowest since 1920 (when reliable records began being kept) and just half of the peak rate in 1957, in the midst of the baby boom, according to the Pew Research Center.</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In the short run, the falling birthrate has coincided with the emergence, for the first time, of the single and childless as <i><b>a self-aware, powerful, and left-leaning political constituency</b></i>. Yet what’s proven good for the Democratic Party may not be so good for the country in the long term. Even using the more optimistic 2008 projections, the proportion of retirees to working Americans—sometimes called the ‘<i><b>dependency ratio</b></i>’—is likely to rise to 35 retirees for every 100 workers in 2050, twice today’s ratio. <i><b>That sets the stage for a fight over debt, austerity, benefits, and government spending that will make the vicious battles of the last four years seem more like, well, a tea party</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The strong correlation between childlessness and high-density city living has created essentially two Americas: child-oriented and affordable areas, and urban centers that have become increasingly expensive and child-free over the last 30 years—not coincidentally the same span over which middle-class incomes have stagnated…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>This trend is likely to reshape American politics in the coming decades</b></i>. As the number of single women swelled by 18 percent in the last decade, <i><b>they have emerged as a core constituency of the Democratic Party</b></i>, a group pollster Stan Greenberg has identified as ‘the largest progressive voting bloc in the country’ and a key part of demographer Ruy Teixeira’s ‘emerging Democratic majority.’ That majority emerged with a vengeance in the 2012 presidential contest, as married women narrowly favored Mitt Romney, according to exit polls, <i><b>while two out of three single women backed Barack Obama</b></i>—and their overwhelming support accounted for the president’s margin of victory in the popular vote.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“But if singletons are swelling as a voting bloc and interest group now, <i><b>the demographics of childlessness mean that they’re likely to lose out in the long term</b></i>. Already, retirees have bent government to their will, with people 65 and older receiving $3 in total government spending for every dollar spent on children younger than 18 as of 2004…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>There are several steps our government could take that might mitigate postfamilialism without aspiring to return to some imagined ‘golden age’ of traditional marriage and family</b></i>. These include such things as reforming the tax code to encourage marriage and children; allowing continued single-family home construction on the urban periphery and renovation of more child-friendly and moderate-density urban neighborhoods; creating extended-leave policies that encourage fathers to take more time with family, as has been modestly successfully in Scandinavia; and other actions to make having children as economically viable, and pleasant, as possible…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In the coming decades, <i><b>success will accrue to those cultures that preserve the family’s place</b></i>, not as the exclusive social unit but as one that is truly indispensable. It’s a case we need to make as a society, rather than counting on nature to take its course.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Is the lack of productive screwing further screwing the screwed generation? #longread from Joel Kotkin & me @newsweek http://thebea.st/Xmm5ouHarry Siegel</div>
<div>
Rick Santorum reassures hard-working Americans of the '<i><b>possibility of a better life</b></i>.' <p>
</p>
<p>
“While the Harrisons are a fictional family, they are like many of the families I met as I traveled the country in my campaign last year. Not only are there harsh economic realities stacked against the Harrisons, <i><b>but the message they hear from Washington and hear and read in the media doesn’t offer much hope</b></i>. In communities that once thrived on the strength of the economic base, strong institutions and strong families, <i><b>our leadership in Washington makes climate change and gay marriage its priority</b></i>. Our liberal leaders go out of their way to protect teacher unions and environmentalists while stepping up regulation on promising new industries.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Instead of addressing the widely accepted root causes of poverty head on – <i><b>having out-of-wedlock children and dropping out of high school</b></i> – we get the message that family structure is unimportant. Promoting marriage and creating incentives through our tax code is now politically incorrect. And encouraging our young people to postpone sex is treated by the mainstream media as right-wing nuttiness. Hollywood doesn’t help, of course, and seemingly celebrates the rejection of the American family and the once strong communities of the heartland.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The solutions that will create hope and opportunity for the Harrisons and those who remain on their block will not be bigger and fatter federal entitlement programs that provide gasoline in the engine of dependency and poverty</b></i>. Obamacare is not going to save the Harrisons. And they don’t want food stamps. What will give the Harrisons’ sons a better life will be a vision and policies that address their community – incentives for manufacturers and small businesses, tax policies that encourage and reward marriage and strong families, education that is affordable and practical and rhetoric from the top that inspires.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
My latest: Keeping up withThe Harrisons http://ptrtvoic.es/XBbruqRick Santorum</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.aei.org/scholar/arthur-c-brooks/" class="">Arthur C. Brooks</a></b> (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/arthurbrooks" class="">@arthurbrooks</a></b>), president of the <b><a href="http://www.aei.org/" class="">American Enterprise Institute</a></b>, writes that conservative promotion of traditional values and the economy are worth less than caring and concern for the helpless; “<i><b>the answer is to make improving the lives of vulnerable people the primary focus of authentically conservative policies</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“There is only one statistic needed to explain the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. An April YouGov.com poll—which mirrored every other poll on the subject—found that <i><b>only 33% of Americans said that Mitt Romney ‘cares about people like me.’</b></i> Only 38% said he cared about the poor.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Conservatives rightly complain that this perception was inflamed by President Obama's class-warfare campaign theme. <i><b>But perception is political reality, and over the decades many Americans have become convinced that conservatives care only about the rich and powerful</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“As New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has shown in his research on 132,000 Americans, <i><b>care for the vulnerable is a universal moral concern in the U.S.</b></i>… citizens across the political spectrum place a great importance on taking care of those in need and avoiding harm to the weak... <i><b>Raw money arguments, e.g., about the dire effects of the country's growing entitlement spending, don't register morally at all</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The irony is maddening</b></i>. America's poor people have been saddled with generations of disastrous progressive policy results, from welfare-induced dependency to failing schools that continue to trap millions of children… <i><b>Meanwhile, the record of free enterprise in improving the lives of the poor both here and abroad is spectacular</b></i>… It occurred because billions of souls have been able to pull themselves out of poverty thanks to global free trade, property rights, the rule of law and entrepreneurship.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The left talks a big game about helping the bottom half, <i><b>but its policies are gradually ruining the economy, which will have catastrophic results once the safety net is no longer affordable</b></i>. Labyrinthine regulations, punitive taxation and wage distortions destroy the ability to create private-sector jobs. Opportunities for Americans on the bottom to better their station in life are being erased.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Raging against government debt and tax rates that most Americans don't pay gets conservatives nowhere, and it will always be an exercise in futility to compete with liberals on government spending and transfers</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[T]he core problem with out-of-control entitlements is not that they are costly—it is that the impending insolvency of Social Security and Medicare <i><b>imperils the social safety net for the neediest citizens</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“By making the vulnerable a primary focus, conservatives will be better able to confront some common blind spots. <i><b>Corporate cronyism should be decried as every bit as noxious as statism, because it unfairly rewards the powerful and well-connected at the expense of ordinary citizens</b></i>. Entrepreneurship should not to be extolled as a path to accumulating wealth but as a celebration of everyday men and women who want to build their own lives, whether they start a business and make a lot of money or not…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“With this moral touchstone, conservative leaders will be able to stand before Americans who are struggling and feel marginalized and say, ‘<i><b>We will fight for you and your family, whether you vote for us or not</b></i>’—and truly mean it. In the end that approach will win. But more important, <i><b>it is the right thing to do</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Arthur Brooks: Republicans and Their Faulty Moral Arithmetic http://on.wsj.com/15rSwaSOpinion & Commentary</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.bermanco.com/rick-berman/" class="">Richard Berman</a></b>, executive director of the <b><a href="http://www.unionfacts.com/" class="">Center for Union Facts</a></b>, writes that labor contracts are often tied to the minimum wage law, which reduces the competition for lower-paying jobs. While Obama is proposing a 24% increase of the minimum wage, <b><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/8/pelosi-demands-1010-hour-minimum-wage/" class="">House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently demanded a whopping 39% increase</a></b>. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Organized labor's instantaneous support for President Obama's recent proposal to hike the minimum wage doesn't make much sense at first glance</b></i>. The average private-sector union member—at least one who still has a job—earns $22 an hour according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a far cry from the current $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage, or the $9 per hour the president has proposed. Altruistic solidarity with lower-paid workers isn't the reason for organized labor's cheerleading, either.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The data indicate that a number of unions in the service, retail and hospitality industries <i><b>peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage</b></i>… The two most popular formulas were setting baseline union wages as a percentage above the state or federal minimum wage or mandating a flat wage premium above the minimum wage.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Minimum-wage hikes are beneficial to unions in other ways</b></i>. The increases restrict the ability of businesses to hire low-skill workers who might gladly work for lower wages in order to gain experience. Union members thus face less competition from workers who might threaten union jobs.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Such considerations are worth keeping in mind when contemplating the president's wage proposal and the fervent Democratic support for similar and often more ambitious measures, such as Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin's bill to raise the minimum wage to $9.80. <i><b>Labor unions spent an estimated $174 million on the 2012 election, with 91% of the money going to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics</b></i>. Now many union members could see their paychecks grow as the result of a Democrat-backed mandate—even though the overwhelming majority of scholarly evidence says that these wage increases have a negative effect on employment.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Richard Berman:Why Unions Want a Higher Minimum Wage http://on.wsj.com/13c5cV1Opinion & Commentary</div>
<div>
W. James Antle III, editor of The Daily Caller News Foundation, reports that the gay marriage debate within the Republican Party “illustrates a wider rift between Republicans who believe their party is on the wrong side of history on gay rights generally and those who feel the GOP is marginalizing the social issues…” <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>A growing push to get Republicans to alter their position on same-sex marriage could put some of the party’s major donors and political strategists in conflict with social conservative activists who make up a large part of the GOP at the grassroots level</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The bipartisan Respect for Marriage Coalition has already released a pair of ads seeking to sway Republicans in favor of gay marriage… More than 130 Republicans signed an amicus brief advising the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, California’s popularly enacted ban on gay marriage.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“A November 2012 <b><a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/159089/religion-major-factor-americans-opposed-sex-marriage.aspx?ref=more" class="">Gallup poll</a></b> found that <i><b>53 percent</b></i> of Americans ‘believe same-sex marriages should be recognized by law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages.’ That was tied for the highest public approval of gay marriage since Gallup began polling on the issue… <i><b>But only 30 percent of Republicans supported gay marriage, while 69 percent were opposed</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“’Only an elite that believes the Republican Party can exist in abandoning traditional marriage,’ <b><a href="http://www.nationformarriage.org/site/c.omL2KeN0LzH/b.7511259/k.71DB/Brian_Brown_President.htm" class="">(National Organization for Marriage president Brian) Brown</a></b> told The Daily Caller News Foundation, saying that support for gay marriage is limited to ‘<i><b>the country club wing</b></i>’ of the party and that <i><b>alienating social conservatives would be like ‘severing a limb’ from the GOP</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Social conservatives nevertheless say that the Republican movement for same-sex marriage is exaggerated. Most of the Respect for Marriage Coalition members are, <b><a href="http://www.respectformarriage.org/pages/the-coalition" class="">according to their website</a></b>, liberal interest groups…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In fact, some social conservatives liken it to 1980s and early ’90s attempt by GOP strategists, donors, and blue state elected officials like then New Jersey Gov. (Christine Todd) Whitman and Massachusetts Gov. William Weld to delete the pro-life plank from the Republican platform.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, for example, has said that while he opposes same-sex marriage, <i><b>it should be a state issue</b></i>… A Supreme Court decision could nationalize the issue and <i><b>renew social conservative calls for a federal marriage amendment</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
A gay marriage fight is brewing inside the GOP. http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/04/gay-marriage-fight-brewing-inside-gop/Jim Antle</div>
<div>
gallup gay marriage validityBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
gallup gay marriage validity (demographics)Brian_Empric</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-89753731456890004142013-03-10T15:37:00.000-04:002013-03-10T15:37:01.084-04:00Weekend Potpourri<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyiwcYFSCATKp1toH9hJPH7jUIJZQOuNjB0l2KPW_MV2RNYQjnCQmEHB5l9WFOsskNWK2gdKZWuZWkK33nlpf4dH5EioZE2YGGPv1aHZ1S92bJRkpQmmdkgg-AsNBDFwEjJgHHvW_AHX8/s1600/BHO+cries+GOP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyiwcYFSCATKp1toH9hJPH7jUIJZQOuNjB0l2KPW_MV2RNYQjnCQmEHB5l9WFOsskNWK2gdKZWuZWkK33nlpf4dH5EioZE2YGGPv1aHZ1S92bJRkpQmmdkgg-AsNBDFwEjJgHHvW_AHX8/s400/BHO+cries+GOP.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fodentoon.com/">Glenn Foden</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI_KATiCyKMpgqLVXq6spP2JFbKwRf4_u6LPILbgtKwf-hxx9QOqGknPBAnUOZ9ZECrBrFa3yTRAa_3FkJZ72yi6CDX4lIUpIrS3bbc4G07wTvrKFfGInga738U1zxF9IMYQota5XWfrg/s1600/white+house+tours+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI_KATiCyKMpgqLVXq6spP2JFbKwRf4_u6LPILbgtKwf-hxx9QOqGknPBAnUOZ9ZECrBrFa3yTRAa_3FkJZ72yi6CDX4lIUpIrS3bbc4G07wTvrKFfGInga738U1zxF9IMYQota5XWfrg/s400/white+house+tours+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.investors.com/editorial-cartoons/michael-ramirez/">Michael Ramirez</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVSGkHnzq_mRA6MiX5hMF76UMBxM63j1c4MOuteDghB0yKTTlffdv67SuYEL1MeAXv2z1mI3eJlt2E-Dpc3JYvNyJKH4G299YbS4eNjHZ_Ju1bZ_9P5tH37NtaRrqI95BwAQz7bGX6-Ig/s1600/white+house+tours.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVSGkHnzq_mRA6MiX5hMF76UMBxM63j1c4MOuteDghB0yKTTlffdv67SuYEL1MeAXv2z1mI3eJlt2E-Dpc3JYvNyJKH4G299YbS4eNjHZ_Ju1bZ_9P5tH37NtaRrqI95BwAQz7bGX6-Ig/s400/white+house+tours.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="username">
<a href="https://twitter.com/bokbluster"><span class="screen-name">@bokbluster</span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy6k80uCDROq3tX1qONEqqqXDkHg9FYo8mAwdWTbnuqpUkTGmItgfxBmgYdwy9c0MLScxxNKLZXgNfRN074uvCK3bIZx5ccLzAXuslYhMWRbMWu64rJcHRAHXssDgHI7VSpGVt5DzbtA8/s1600/tiger+%2526+obama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy6k80uCDROq3tX1qONEqqqXDkHg9FYo8mAwdWTbnuqpUkTGmItgfxBmgYdwy9c0MLScxxNKLZXgNfRN074uvCK3bIZx5ccLzAXuslYhMWRbMWu64rJcHRAHXssDgHI7VSpGVt5DzbtA8/s400/tiger+%2526+obama.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.columbiatribune.com/opinion/darkow_cartoons/">John Darkow</a></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/weekend-potpourri-3-9-13-3-10-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/weekend-potpourri-3-9-13-3-10-13" target="_blank">View the story "Weekend Potpourri (3/9/13-3/10/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Weekend Potpourri (3/9/13-3/10/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sun, Mar 10 2013 12:16:24</p>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.tsowell.com/" class="">Thomas Sowell</a></b> notes that “so many oppressive and even catastrophic government policies were cheered on by the intelligentsia.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“Implicit in the wide range of efforts on the left to get government to take over more of our decisions for us is <i><b>the assumption that there is some superior class of people who are either wiser or nobler than the rest of us.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Yes, we all make mistakes. <i><b>But do governments not make bigger and more catastrophic mistakes?</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“One of the key differences between mistakes that we make in our own lives and mistakes made by governments is that <i><b>bad consequences force us to correct our own mistakes</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Too many among today's intellectual elite see themselves <i><b>as our shepherds and us as their sheep</b><b>… </b><b>Tragically, too many of us are apparently willing to be sheep</b></i>, in exchange for being taken care of, being relieved of the burdens of adult responsibility and being supplied with ‘free’ stuff paid for by others.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
People Make Mistakes, But Government Makes Deadly Errors http://bit.ly/13bFFLqIBDeditorials</div>
<div>
Investor’s Business Daily editorializes about the First Lady’s appearance at the Oscars to announce the best picture award, and how it “<i><b>raises the ugly specter of a state political stamp of approval for the arts</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“It's no secret that President Obama and his glamorous wife Michelle have <i><b>worked hand in glove with Hollywood's power structure</b></i> for years — from the White House's unauthorized access of classified information for the makers of ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ which was nominated for Best Picture, to the vast fundraisers President Obama holds in Beverly Hills.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“… Hollywood these days <i><b>is all about obtaining crony capitalist benefits</b></i> from Obama's state. (Filmmaker Harvey) Weinstein even hired an Obama operative to drum up support for one of his movies to win the Best Picture award.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[A]longside the politicization of Hollywood, <i><b>the Hollywoodization of politics is happening too</b></i>… The Obama administration, unable to sell its socialist, statist ideas to the public, instead uses Hollywood's willing leftist filmmakers and actors <i><b>to give its failures a patina of glamour and success</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Michelle Obama's Hollywood Oscar Politics http://bit.ly/13c3p29IBDeditorials</div>
<div>
The Comical Conservative</div>
<div>
Glenn Thrush (<b><a href="http://twitter.com/Glennthrush" class="">@Glennthrush</a></b>) and John Bresnahan (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/BresPolitico" class="">@BresPolitico</a></b>) report that despite their claims to like each other on a “guy-to-guy level,” the President and the Speaker of the House <i><b>cannot even stand “sitting across from the other at a negotiating table.”</b></i> <p>
</p>
<p>
“It’s not beyond repair, advisers to both men maintain, <i><b>but hardball politics have bred a share of hard feelings</b></i> — leaving the two farther apart than any recent speaker or president in recent memory.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“People close to the speaker say Boehner also thinks Obama is a nice guy — <i><b>but the kind of nice guy addicted to the sound of his own voice</b></i>, prone to long delivering pedantic ‘lectures,’ boasting about his superior political skills and fond of telling Boehner how to run his own political affairs.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The high point in the Obama-Boehner saga is easy to identify. After a shaky start — shortly after taking office, Obama rankled Boehner’s team by joking that the perma-tanned congressman was ‘a person of color’ — the pair agreed to negotiate a ‘grand bargain’ on deficits and entitlements following 18 holes of golf in June 2011… <i><b>The low point is even easier to mark: It’s right now.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Both men have all but ditched the idea of direct talks, after a revolt by conservatives against Boehner during December’s fiscal cliff talks. <i><b>The speaker has declared that negotiations with the White House are pointless</b></i> and Obama agrees, opting for a strategy of marshaling public opinion against the GOP in a series of campaign-style events.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Another Boehner pal is even blunter in bashing Obama, and it is clear that whatever goodwill once existed between the two men, <i><b>it is rapidly disappearing</b></i>… According to this GOP lawmaker, Boehner sees Obama as ‘<i><b>absolutely unable to make a decision. ... He’s indecisive and doesn’t know how to lead</b></i>.’” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Barack Obama and John Boehner: The way they wereBarack Obama and John Boehner have repeatedly, emphatically and publicly claimed they like each other on a guy-to-guy level - never mind ...</div>
<div>
Scott Wilson & Philip Rucker report that Obama is focused on the <i><b>Democrats winning back the House in 2014</b></i>, despite the fact that it is rare for the president’s party to pick up House seats in the midterm election of his second term. <p>
</p>
“Obama, fresh off his November reelection, began almost at once executing plans to win back the House in 2014, which he and his advisers believe <i><b>will be crucial to the outcome of his second term and to his legacy as president</b></i>…” <p>
</p>
<p>
“The goal is to flip the Republican-held House back to Democratic control, <i><b>allowing Obama to push forward with a progressive agenda</b></i> on gun control, immigration, climate change and the economy during his final two years in office, according to congressional Democrats, strategists and others familiar with Obama’s thinking.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Democrats would have to gain 17 House seats to win back the majority they lost in 2010</b></i>, and their challenge involves developing a persuasive argument for why the party deserves another chance controlling both Congress and the presidency. In the last election, American voters reaffirmed the political status quo in Washington, choosing to retain a divided government.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Obama has committed to eight fundraisers for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year, compared with just two events in 2009. The Democrats lost the House the following year, and Obama’s legislative agenda has largely stalled since then.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In early January, (Rep. Steve) Israel (chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) said, he met in Washington with Jim Messina, Obama’s reelection campaign manager and now head of Organizing for Action, also known as OFA. The subject was the 2014 midterms.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Two former Obama White House officials used the same word — ‘hubris’ — to describe what they viewed as the administration’s highly public and sometimes misleading turn against congressional Republicans in the days heading into the sequester</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Most (second-term presidents) have about two years to secure a domestic agenda before lame-duck status sets in. But Obama is laying out an argument for a new Congress that, if successful, <i><b>could give him his last two years in office to cement his legacy</b></i>.” <br><br><br><br></p>
<p>
WSJ Review & Outlook <b><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323494504578340562616234822.html" class="">notes</a></b> that the White House was quick to push back against this report, “but that looks like an attempt at damage control after the Post blew the White House's cover… <i><b>It's important to understand how extraordinary this is. Presidents typically try to secure major bipartisan deals in their fifth or sixth years, before their political capital ebbs</b></i>… Bipartisan failure is their strategy.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Stymied by a GOP House, Obama looks ahead to 2014 to cement his legacy http://wapo.st/13y2IjvThe Washington Post</div>
<div>
Organizing for Acce$$americancrossroads</div>
<div>
Senior political analyst Michael Barone (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelBarone" class="">@MichaelBarone</a></b>) asks if we have a president or a perpetual candidate? <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>[H]is campaign rhetoric undercuts his credibility with politicians of the opposite party and perhaps of his own.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It's not that these people resent being criticized. They understand that that is part of the game… <i><b>But the substance of the criticism suggests the president is not serious about public policy</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Demagoguery about preschool and corporate jets is not going to convince Republicans that Obama can be a reliable negotiating partner… <i><b>Instead, it reinforces the evidence that he never will be</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Michael Barone: For Obama, politics always trumps governing | WashingtonExaminer.comDo we have a president or a perpetual candidate? It's not an entirely unfair question. Even as Barack Obama was warning of the dreadful c...</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.drudgereport.com/" class="">Drudge Report</a></b> editor Joseph Curl writes that like The Joker in “The Dark Knight,” <i><b>Obama wants to watch the world burn</b></i> (see video below). <p>
</p>
<p>
“No one can continue to assert that President Obama is simply incompetent. <i><b>Yes, he is indeed that</b></i>. Into his fifth year as president, America is worse under his command: Millions are still out of work — unemployment stands exactly where it was the day he took office; millions more are on food stamps; and despite his claim otherwise, the U.S. is less respected in the world than ever before.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“There is little merit in arguments against spending cuts, and not a speck of support for the theory that America can tax itself out of its growing sinkhole. The federal government has simply grown too large, spends too much. We’re now borrowing 35 cents of every dollar we spend. Like any family faced with a shortfall of cash, the first — and, really, only — solution is to reduce spending. It’s not rocket science. And Americans are doing just that every day.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Rush Limbaugh has been saying for months that the president is not the least bit interested in the welfare of the country — instead, he wants to kill the Republican Party for good. And he’s right…</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The last thing he cares about is the plight of American families. <i><b>No, the president wants to gut the Republican Party so he can win back a majority in Congress in 2014 — and secure his legacy. And he’s fully prepared to spur chaos to get what he wants</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
He thought it good sport. Some men aren't looking for anything logical. Some men just want to watch the world burn. #SequesterMovieLinesjoseph curl</div>
<div>
The Dark Knight - Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burndfoots</div>
<div>
Niall Stanage (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/NiallStanage" class="">@NiallStanage</a></b>) & Amie Parnes (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/amieparnes" class="">@amieparnes</a></b>) report that the start of Obama’s second term, from debates on spending, immigration, and the role of government, is “<i><b>being built around a simple premise: No caving</b></i>.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“It is a clear change for a president who, during his first term, faced criticism from his left flank for being too conciliatory toward the GOP on healthcare reform and, later, during deficit battles. Liberal voices argued that Obama was mistaken in thinking the Republicans had any real interest in finding common ground.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Conservatives accuse Obama of being happier making airy claims and promises at campaign-style events than engaging in the nitty-gritty of governance</b></i>. In particular, they suggest that his purported willingness to compromise to avert the sequester was vague at best and bogus at worst.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Of late, perhaps liberated by his relatively comfortable reelection win, <i><b>Obama’s attitude is more akin to that of a general leading his forces into battle, confident that he can decimate the enemy</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Voices on the left have now, for the most part, fallen into contended silence. <i><b>In their stead, Republicans are protesting about Obama’s supposed triumphalism.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“On the day after Obama’s second inaugural address, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told a meeting of <b><a href="http://www.riponsociety.org/" class="">the centrist Ripon Society</a></b> that he believed the administration’s goal is to ‘<i><b>annihilate the Republican Party</b></i>.’”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Tony Fratto (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/TonyFratto" class="">@TonyFratto</a></b>), a former deputy press secretary for President George W. Bush, said that any evaluation of Obama’s second-term approach needs to acknowledge these nuances (with Obama’s strategy).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<i><b>“I don’t think it’s some kind of second-term infusion of courage,” he said. “It’s very tactical in the way they deal with issues.” </b></i><br></p>
</div>
<div>
New Obama strategy: Take no prisoners - The HillThe first months of President Obama's second term are being built around a simple premise: No caving. From the sequester to immigration r...</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-58780729828902622812013-03-06T23:14:00.002-05:002013-03-06T23:14:14.786-05:00Wednesday's Write-up<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizygbQ4lGNuyFmyWDpTJGsoAVoIwaS9wrpF5gqBS5Ql-8lURwlZeLWGyfDIHms9aihu-F6lAU97ME3nv0h_CuOrGBIOkZdRRP9bLPpUrjhDMhGzZ0mDEXf_7ApIIchLXMvW7RwUZ6vgo/s1600/sequestration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizygbQ4lGNuyFmyWDpTJGsoAVoIwaS9wrpF5gqBS5Ql-8lURwlZeLWGyfDIHms9aihu-F6lAU97ME3nv0h_CuOrGBIOkZdRRP9bLPpUrjhDMhGzZ0mDEXf_7ApIIchLXMvW7RwUZ6vgo/s400/sequestration.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/Bishtoons">@Bishtoons</a></span></span></span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="username">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/varvel">@varvel</a></span></span></span></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijOO8ZgxsyWZ8L5tX8eN3BnFVHG5dMcSrGWtMwcX0C5n4UW4uYKa2mo_g8D5cdZTl9ooOKskuUpX7ZLxhUOGtgXwKcZ6r2-ktvdWEX4Dy9GHRqz8iUC0cKUPPnRUysbxL2z_bkaTepNjk/s1600/4+horsemen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijOO8ZgxsyWZ8L5tX8eN3BnFVHG5dMcSrGWtMwcX0C5n4UW4uYKa2mo_g8D5cdZTl9ooOKskuUpX7ZLxhUOGtgXwKcZ6r2-ktvdWEX4Dy9GHRqz8iUC0cKUPPnRUysbxL2z_bkaTepNjk/s400/4+horsemen.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><a href="http://www.gocomics.com/glennmccoy/">Glenn McCoy</a></span></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/wednesday-s-write-up-3-6-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/wednesday-s-write-up-3-6-13" target="_blank">View the story "Wednesday's Write-up (3/6/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Wednesday's Write-up (3/6/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Wed, Mar 06 2013 19:58:04</p>
<div>
W. James Antle III, editor of The Daily Caller News Foundation, notes that Howard Dean and Paul Krugman have reluctantly revealed that <i><b>taxes will eventually need to be raised across the board</b></i>. <p>
</p>
<p>
“There’s debt denial and debt denial denial, but there is one wave of liberal truth-telling sweeping the land. We are increasingly hearing admissions that paying for the promises the federal government has made <i><b>will require higher taxes on everyone, not just the rich</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>[L]iberals who don’t need votes from the American people are still allowed to do math</b></i>. To pay for the social programs they want, they will ultimately need more tax revenue from the middle class as well as high earners.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Since the 1980s, the two parties have had a tacit agreement. <i><b>We get the Republicans’ tax rates in exchange for the Democrats’ spending programs</b></i>. There were some upward adjustments of the top rates under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in the early ’90s and in the fiscal cliff deal at the end of last year, but this has basically held. <i><b>The price has been chronic deficits</b></i>… Now those deficits are becoming unsustainable and the major entitlement programs will soon be in the red.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The plain fact is that big government has actually limited the political options available to the American people, <i><b>leaving them with only unpleasant options</b></i>. But at least we can be honest that the bill is about to come due.”</p>
</div>
<div>
Even Howard Dean knows middle-class taxes will rise if govt. spending is untouched. http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/19/the-tax-man-is-coming-for-the-middle-class/Jim Antle</div>
<div>
Using the data from the Treasury Department’s annual financial report, John Williams (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/shadowstats" class="">@shadowstats</a></b>) reports that the actual federal deficit for 2012 was a record <i><b>$6.6 trillion</b></i> based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which “differs markedly from the headline cash-based accounting version” of a $1.1 trillion deficit. <p>
</p>
<p>
“Using GAAP-based accrual accounting, though, <i><b>as typically used by private corporations</b></i>, the government’s day-to-day operations were shown to have suffered a shortfall of $1.3 trillion, with an additional $5.3 trillion shortfall in the year-to-year increase of unfunded liabilities in social programs, such as in Medicare and Social Security…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Based on the same official GAAP numbers, the federal government’s total obligations as of September 30, 2012, stood at $85.4 trillion…</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Suggestions that somehow the total GDP can cover the government’s deficit, debt and obligations problems are <i><b>nonsense</b></i>. With decades of practice and fine-tuning, <i><b>the U.S. government has reached the practical limits of the net cash it can siphon out of the income-producing private sector</b></i>. The system has reached that delicate balance, where the government’s raising taxes actually reduces the government’s cash receipts, where higher taxes reduce economic activity enough to reduce tax revenues.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Often, before a large company goes bankrupt, creditors can see the financial collapse coming and tighten up on credit, freeze credit, or move to collect a debt while there still may be time. The same thing happens at the level of sovereign states, <i><b>and the global financial markets increasingly have indicated waning patience for the United States to address its longer-range solvency issues</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“With limited tax-raising options, massive spending cuts have to be put in place and the social programs recast so as to be solvent, if there is to be any hope of restoring long-term solvency for the United States government… <i><b>There is no political will apparent among those currently controlling the White House and Congress to do so</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
No. 500: SPECIAL COMMENTARY U.S. Government GAAP-Based 2012 Financial DataU.S. Government GAAP-Based 2012 Financial Data February 5, 2013 __________ GAAP-Based Federal Budget Deficit Hit Record $6.6 Trillion in ...</div>
<div>
GAAP vs Cash AccountingBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
GAAP debt vs GDPBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
It's official. President Obama has added over 6 TRILLION dollars to the national debt since taking office. But remember when he condemned increases to the debt as "irresponsible" and "unpatriotic"? Unfortunately the President seems to have forgotten. Click "like" if you agree actions speak louder than words--it's time to end the reckless spending, Mr. President.Republican National Committee</div>
<div>
Don Seymour, Digital Communications Director for Speaker Boehner, posted this interesting infographic, comparing <b><a href="http://www.usdebtclock.org/" class="">the US National Debt per Citizen</a></b> to other things you could do with that money. <i><b>Keep in mind that the real number is closer to $270,000 per citizen, based on John Williams’ reporting. </b></i><p>
</p>
<p>
“In the nearly four years since Senate Democrats last passed a budget (on 4/29/2009), government spending has driven our national debt up past $16 trillion (and rising). <i><b>That’s more than $52,000 for every man, woman, and child</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“While our debt continues to grow, President Obama and Senate Democrats are demanding more tax hikes to fuel more ‘stimulus-style spending. That’s why Speaker John Boehner says we don’t need higher taxes – <i><b>‘It’s time to focus on the real problem here in Washington, and that is spending.’</b></i>”</p>
</div>
<div>
Our new infographic marks #1400days since Senate Ds passed a budget, shows what you could do w/your share of the debt http://www.speaker.gov/general/spendingistheproblem-what-could-you-do-your-52k-share-national-debtDonSeymour</div>
<div>
52grand share of debtBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.nationalaffairs.com/authors/detail/yuval-levin" class="">Yuval Levin</a></b>, editor of National Affairs and a <b><a href="http://www.eppc.org/scholars/scholarID.84/scholar.asp" class="">fellow</a></b> at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writes that Obama’s second term is unlikely to yield the required fundamental entitlement and tax system reforms, but there may be common ground that can be seized to do something meaningful to address our unfunded liabilities. <p>
</p>
<p>
“The search for an elusive grand bargain — more taxes, fewer benefits — may be blinding us to the potential for incremental progress. <i><b>The two parties fundamentally disagree over the future of our welfare state, but there may be space for common ground</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Both sides should agree at least to spend less money on the wealthy — <i><b>via means testing</b></i>. It may surprise some Americans to learn that the United States spends quite a lot on the affluent, especially through the entitlement programs at the heart of the budget fight: Social Security and Medicare… <i><b>Means-testing — allocating benefits according to need — might offer both sides a way out</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“First, <i><b>give less to the wealthy</b></i> rather than take more from them… Second, <i><b>assess wealth based on lifetime earnings</b></i> rather than on income or assets… Basing benefits on lifetime earnings… would encourage saving over time, would be far more difficult to game and, provided it was based on pre-retirement earnings, would not discourage older Americans who are able to work from continuing to do so.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Some on the left might complain that curtailing our entitlement programs’ universal character would undermine their social purpose and political support. But targeting benefits to those who most need them is surely better than reducing payments to providers (many of whom will drop out of Medicare), as President Obama’s 2010 law does. Some on the right might complain that such reforms would punish success. <i><b>But surely rewarding achievement with government aid is no one’s idea of conservatism</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Old and Rich? Less Help for YouOUR paralyzed government is lurching toward an agonizing series of budget deadlines. Without some kind of deal, nearly $1 trillion in acr...</div>
<div>
Fred Barnes writes that on Obama’s scorecard every government program is a winner. <p>
</p>
<p>
“Liberalism has its advantages. It puts government in the driver’s seat and <i><b>encourages the creation of more and more government programs</b></i> that sound good and seem nice. Who could be against them?”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If programs lifted from the liberal book of dreams are enacted, Obama and his allies will be thrilled. If conservatives—congressional Republicans in this case—block those programs, that’s fine too. <i><b>Democrats can exploit GOP opposition to winsome new programs to recapture the House in 2014 and transform Washington into a liberal juggernaut for the president’s final two years.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If you think this tactic cannot work, think again. <i><b>We’ve just seen it work brilliantly in Obama’s reelection campaign</b></i>. The election was less a referendum on Obama’s first term—the norm for reelections—and more a negative verdict on Mitt Romney, the challenger. The Obama team cast Romney as a heartless corporate buccaneer and made him the centerpiece of its campaign…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In effect, (Obama)’s accepted a slow growth, high unemployment, high tax, large debt economy, but he can’t acknowledge it for obvious reasons… Nor can he turn to the most effective tools for stirring economic growth and job creation—that is, cutting tax rates on individual income and capital gains and reducing government spending. He just raised rates on income and capital gains and wants to increase spending. <i><b>Besides, Obama is loath to unleash the private sector to boost the economy. That way, government loses control.</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“For Republicans, the response may be easier than they think. <i><b>It’s simple: Forget the politics and do what’s right</b></i>. Obama thinks the public loves government programs and wants more, whatever the cost. <i><b>If he’s right, Republicans are doomed regardless of what they do politically. If he’s wrong, a Republican comeback is slouching toward Washington.</b></i>” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
The Obama Scorecard - Every gov't program is a winner. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/obama-scorecard_701319.htmlFred Barnes</div>
<div>
WSJ Review & Outlook reviews Obama’s typical gambits: the Washington Monument ploy, the recession scare, and a tax increase disguised as tax reform… “<i><b>Americans can expect more such melodrama in the coming days</b></i>, so as a public service we thought we'd break down the President's three biggest political tricks.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“Americans need to understand that Mr. Obama is threatening that if he doesn't get what he wants, <i><b>he's ready to inflict maximum pain on everybody else</b></i>. He won't force government agencies to shave spending on travel and conferences and excessive pay and staffing. He won't demand that agencies cut the lowest priority spending as any half-competent middle manager would… It's the old ploy to stir public support for all government spending by shutting down vital services first.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Obama just whacked the economy with a roughly $160 billion tax increase in 2013 that he says will do no harm, <i><b>but he wants us to believe that $85 billion in spending cuts will trigger a recession</b></i>… Mr. Obama has taken government spending from 21% to 24% of GDP, yet we've had the weakest economic recovery in three generations.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>For 30 years bipartisan tax reform has meant lowering tax rates in return for closing loopholes</b></i>. But having already raised rates, Mr. Obama now wants fewer loopholes for those he dislikes while keeping the higher rates. This is nothing but a grab for more revenue so he and Democrats <i><b>can keep spending</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If Mr. Obama really wants to eliminate the sequester, Republicans are ready to negotiate. But if he won't drop his tax increase and negotiate in good faith, as he hasn't during his Presidency, then the sequester is the only way that any spending is going to be cut. <i><b>The economy will be better for it</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
President Armageddon http://on.wsj.com/VuyDN6Opinion & Commentary</div>
<div>
Byron York reports that “defense spending will increase in every year, even with sequestration cuts.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“The major objection most Republicans have to the coming sequestration budget cuts is that the cuts will fall disproportionately on the Department of Defense. That’s true; defense spending is about one-fifth of the federal budget but will take about half of the sequester cuts.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“But even for the Pentagon, the cuts are only to the rate of growth for the defense budget in coming years. <i><b>They are not actual cuts that make spending decline</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[A]ssume that U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan does end in the next year or so, and that war spending goes down or even disappears altogether. <i><b>Even in that scenario, defense spending is scheduled to increase in every year except one, even with sequestration cuts</b></i>…” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Defense spending with sequester cuts but no war, 2014 to 2021: $510 billion to $576 billion. http://ow.ly/hYZbrByron York</div>
<div>
<p>
Bob Woodward notes that during the campaign last fall Obama blamed Republicans in Congress for proposing and then insisting upon the sequester; however, Woodward’s reporting in his book “<i><b>The Price of Politics</b></i>” showed that the sequester was initiated by Jack Lew and Rob Nabors in the White House.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>What is the non-budget wonk to make of this? Who is responsible? What really happened?</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“A majority of Republicans did vote for the Budget Control Act that summer, which included the sequester. Key Republican staffers said they didn’t even initially know what a sequester was — because the concept stemmed from the budget wars of the 1980s, when they were not in government.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Why does this matter?</b></i> … First, months of White House dissembling further eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans… Second, Lew testified during his confirmation hearing that the Republicans would not go along with new revenue in the portion of the deficit-reduction plan that became the sequester…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 <i><b>included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester</b></i> in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts</b></i>…” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Obama's sequester deal-changerThe finger-pointing began during the third presidential debate last fall, on Oct. 22, when President Obama blamed Congress. "The sequeste...</div>
<div>
Yep:IBDeditorials.com</div>
<div>
WSJ Review & Outlook makes clear that Obama has the legal power to avoid damage from the sequester, but his “<i><b>invocations of plagues and pestilence</b></i>” are more interesting to the media. <p>
</p>
<p>
“And when the Republicans opened the seventh seal of the sequester, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black and the stars fell unto the Earth; and our nation's ability to forecast severe weather, such as drought events, hurricanes and tornados, was seriously undermined. Lo, and the children were not vaccinated, and all the beasts starved in the zoos, and the planes were grounded.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>But if any of these cataclysms do come to pass, then they will be mostly Mr. Obama's own creation</b></i>. The truth is that the sequester already gives the White House the legal flexibility to avoid doom, if a 5% cut to programs that have increased more than 17% on average over the Obama Presidency counts as doom.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>This White House has never been fussy when a statutory text or even the Constitution interferes with its political ambitions</b></i>. (See ObamaCare, immigration executive orders, recess appointments and much else.) Could it be that Mr. Obama is exaggerating the legal stringency of the sequester in a gambit to force Congress to shut it off?”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If air traffic control and airport security really are the models of government efficiency that anyone who has ever traveled knows they are not, perhaps Homeland Security could begin by targeting some of the programs identified by Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn this week. <i><b>These include necessities such as grants for a security conference in San Diego that featured ‘zombie apocalypse training’ or funds for towns like Keene, New Hampshire (pop. 23,000) to purchase armored tank-like vehicles called Bearcats. Seriously.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Before furloughing park rangers, maybe start with the 10% of the 75,000 Department of the Interior employees who are conserving the wilderness of Washington, D.C. <i><b>Before slashing cancer research, stop funding the $130-million-a-year National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine that studies herbs and yoga</b></i>. Cut after-school funding only after consolidating the 105 federal programs meant to encourage kids to take math and science classes.”<br></p>
</div>
<div>
The Sequester Revelation http://on.wsj.com/YX44PhOpinion & Commentary</div>
<div>
Barack Obama's Dead Fly</div>
<div>
Joel Kotkin (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/joelkotkin" class="">@joelkotkin</a></b>) writes that low-tax, energy-rich regions in the heartland charge ahead as economies on both coasts sing the blues. <i><b>The U.S. economic future will be dominated by the Great Plains, the Intermountain West, the Third Coast, and the Southeastern industrial belt. </b></i><p>
</p>
<p>
See also: <b><a href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/cr_75.pdf" class="">AMERICA'S GROWTH CORRIDORS: The Key to National Revival</a></b></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Overall, these corridors account for 45% of the nation's land mass and 30% of its population. Between 2001 and 2011, job growth in the Great Plains, the Intermountain West and the Third Coast was between 7% and 8%—nearly 10 times the job growth rate for the rest of the country. Only the Southeastern industrial belt tracked close to the national average.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Energy, manufacturing and agriculture are playing a major role in the corridor states' revival. The resurgence of fossil fuel–based energy, notably shale oil and natural gas, is especially important</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Since 2000, the Intermountain West's population has grown by 20%, the Third Coast's by 14%, the long-depopulating Great Plains by over 14%, and the Southeast by 13%. Population in the rest of the U.S. has grown barely 7%...”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The corridors' growing success is a testament to the resiliency and adaptability of the American economy. <i><b>It also challenges the established coastal states and cities to reconsider their current high-tax, high-regulation climates if they would like to join the growth party</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Joel Kotkin: America's Red State Growth Corridors http://on.wsj.com/YTmrodOpinion & Commentary</div>
<div>
growth corridor 1&2Brian_Empric</div>
<div>
growth corridor 3&4Brian_Empric</div>
<div>
George F. Will explains how <i><b>the Federal Reserve has failed both of its’ dual mandate missions</b></i> – stable prices and maximum employment – and by keeping interest rates low, it will fail once again when those rates rise due to economic growth. <p>
</p>
<p>
“A display case in the lobby of the Federal Reserve Bank (in Richmond, VA) might express humility. The case holds a 99.9 percent pure gold bar weighing 401.75 troy ounces. Minted in 1952, when the price of gold was $35 an ounce, the bar was worth about $14,000. In 1978, when this bank acquired the bar, the average price of gold was $193.40 an ounce and the bar was worth about $78,000. Today, with gold selling for around $1,600 an ounce, it is worth about $642,800. <i><b>If the Federal Reserve’s primary mission is to preserve the currency as a store of value, displaying the gold bar is an almost droll declaration: ‘Mission unaccomplished.’</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Fed failed to cure the (Great Depression), and today’s unprecedentedly anemic recovery — approximately 3 million fewer people are working than were five years ago — has failed to cure the (Great Recession): If the workforce participation rate were as high as it was when Barack Obama was first inaugurated, the unemployment rate would be 10.8 percent.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Will Rogers said, ‘Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.’</b></i> Today we are not paying for all the government we are getting, and the political class benefiting from this practice should be thankful for the Fed’s low interest rate policy, <i><b>which makes running deficits inexpensive</b></i>. In addition to making big government cheap, this causes a flight of investors from interest-paying assets into equities — <i><b>the rising stock market primarily benefits the wealthy</b></i> — and commodities, rather than job-creating investments.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Fed policy, which has failed so far, can also fail by succeeding. If strong economic growth begins, interest rates will rise substantially, and the cost of debt service will cause the deficit to explode</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
The Federal Reserve's not-so-golden ruleRICHMOND A display case in the lobby of the Federal Reserve Bank here might express humility. The case holds a 99.9 percent pure gold bar...</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-69432592074049095072013-03-04T14:27:00.005-05:002013-03-04T14:28:20.041-05:00Monday's Menagerie<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhitP6vsTjXXZRwPr4bLInS2oDP-AJ6K3Fk2qzn-VxziuME0hvZnl2S3bqwIiw4Gi3wj_dEpGGj2IeUHeE5NyzhGop8GhXqtz2sPz9hWmcu3ZkRxEYA2SAXQjURtt6_pLmpYzwIVs0U05E/s1600/white+house+for+sale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="433" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhitP6vsTjXXZRwPr4bLInS2oDP-AJ6K3Fk2qzn-VxziuME0hvZnl2S3bqwIiw4Gi3wj_dEpGGj2IeUHeE5NyzhGop8GhXqtz2sPz9hWmcu3ZkRxEYA2SAXQjURtt6_pLmpYzwIVs0U05E/s640/white+house+for+sale.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><a href="http://www.investors.com/editorial-cartoons/michael-ramirez/">Michael Ramirez</a></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gkX1RFHebj0W4x_hPpnobVCvyvtsTVrex-GV2I354rzbHWUX5F4JowKCCfErVDMaqmJ8akzdpzwwK3dQBJ8SDKJGQVoG3KAq630aPeiw6Sl1XtDrTx9R-eoVg2YTY7VboWHHwDNAH-I/s1600/democrat+unicorn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="483" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gkX1RFHebj0W4x_hPpnobVCvyvtsTVrex-GV2I354rzbHWUX5F4JowKCCfErVDMaqmJ8akzdpzwwK3dQBJ8SDKJGQVoG3KAq630aPeiw6Sl1XtDrTx9R-eoVg2YTY7VboWHHwDNAH-I/s640/democrat+unicorn.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h2 class="username">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://twitter.com/ericallie"><span class="screen-name">@ericallie</span></a></span></h2>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-3-4-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-3-4-13" target="_blank">View the story "Monday's Menagerie (3/4/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Monday's Menagerie (3/4/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Mon, Mar 04 2013 11:10:44</p>
<div>
Niall Stanage & Amie Parnes report that Barack Obama “will never again be an election candidate but, for now at least, he has the look — <i><b>and the rhetorical sound</b></i> — of a man on the campaign trail.” <p>
</p>
<p>
“[T]here is a more general sense that Obama, sleeves rolled up and taking his case to the people, <i><b>wants to avoid letting Republicans up off the mat</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Democratic strategist <b><a href="http://www.jamalsimmons.com/" class="">Jamal Simmons</a></b> (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/JamalSimmons" class="">@JamalSimmons</a></b>) said that stump-style appearances are ‘what he’s best at. It’s why he got elected twice. <i><b>It is his core strength</b></i>. People voted for him because they wanted him to shake things up and go in a different direction and that’s exactly what he’s doing.’”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Obama faces the dilemma that confronts all second-term presidents. <i><b>He needs to accomplish as much as possible before lame-duck status kicks in — and postpone that day for as long as possible</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Obama’s current strategy might not only help him advance toward those goals; it could also assist Democrats in their battles to hold onto their Senate majority and even seize control of the House of Representatives in the 2014 midterm elections… There are no guarantees that the Democrats can buck precedent, <i><b>which indicates that the party of a second-term president usually loses seats in midterm elections</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The risk of an endless campaign is neglecting the task of running government</b></i>,” GOP strategist <b><a href="http://sixthstreetgroup.com/About.html" class="">Ken Lundberg</a></b> (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/newscall" class="">@newscall</a></b>) told The Hill. “All the affiliated rhetoric, brow-beating and posturing will produce very few tangible results because it alienates potential allies and energizes political adversaries.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“There is another, simpler part of Obama’s current approach, however. The president sometimes has a thinly veiled impatience with the ways of Washington in general and the idiosyncrasies of Congress in particular. Supporters and independent observers note that, temperamentally, <i><b>he is more suited to the stump than to legislative sausage-making</b></i>.”</p>
</div>
<div>
#ICYMI from Friday morning, Obama waging an 'endless campaign' http://j.mp/YjrMVt by @amieparnes & @NiallStanageThe Hill</div>
<div>
Nicholas Confessore (<b><u><a href="https://twitter.com/nickconfessore" class="">@nickconfessore</a></u></b>) reports that Obama’s “<b><a href="http://www.barackobama.com/about/about-ofa/" class="">Organizing for Action</a></b>,” a tax-exempt, 501(c)(4), social welfare group, is attempting to raise <i><b>$50 million</b></i> to create a powerhouse national advocacy network that will promote Obama’s second-term policy priorities. <p>
</p>
<p>
“In private meetings and phone calls, Mr. Obama’s aides have made clear that the new organization will rely heavily on a small number of deep-pocketed donors, not unlike the ‘super PACs’ whose influence on political campaigns Mr. Obama once deplored.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“At least half of the group’s budget will come from a select group of donors <i><b>who will each contribute or raise $500,000 or more</b></i>, according to donors and strategists involved in the effort.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[I]t is not bound by federal contribution limits, laws that bar White House officials from soliciting contributions, or the stringent reporting requirements for campaigns.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The money will pay for salaries, rent and advertising, and will also be used to maintain the expensive voter database and technological infrastructure that <i><b>knits together Mr. Obama’s 2 million volunteers, 17 million e-mail subscribers and 22 million Twitter followers</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Next month, Organizing for Action will hold a ‘<i><b>founders summit</b></i>’ at a hotel near the White House, where donors paying <i><b>$50,000 each</b></i> will mingle with Mr. Obama’s former campaign manager, Jim Messina, and Mr. [Jon] Carson [OFA’s new executive director], who previohttp://storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-3-4-13/editusly led the White House Office of Public Engagement.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Giving or raising $500,000 or more puts donors on a national advisory board for Mr. Obama’s group and <i><b>the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the president</b></i>, along with other meetings at the White House. Moreover, the new cash demands on Mr. Obama’s top donors and bundlers come as many of them are angling for appointments to administration jobs or ambassadorships.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Organizing for Action appears to be an extension of the administration</b></i>, stocked with alumni of Mr. Obama’s White House and campaign teams and devoted solely to the president’s second-term agenda.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Organizing for Action said it would accept unlimited personal and corporate contributions</b></i>, but no money from political action committees, lobbyists or foreign citizens. Officials said they would focus — for now — on grass-roots organizing, amplified by Internet advertising…”</p>
</div>
<div>
Obama's Backers Seek Deep Pockets to Press AgendaBut the rebooted campaign, known as Organizing for Action, has plunged the president and his aides into a campaign finance limbo with few...</div>
<div>
Maggie Haberman reports that for the first time in a dozen years, <i><b>Karl Rove’s critics smell blood</b></i> and he is facing criticism from wealthy (but skeptical) donors as well as grassroots conservative activists. <p>
</p>
<p>
“After his electoral wipeout in November — and motivated by years of resentment that’s spilling over — <i><b>Rove’s credibility within his own party is at an all-time low</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“He’s been re-signed by Fox, which guarantees him a powerful bully pulpit going forward. But, while it might be a stretch to say he’s gone from guru to goat, <i><b>he will have to spend months making a case to skeptical donors</b></i>, several Republican fundraisers conceded.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“’He’s got a donor backlash and he’s got an activists backlash,’ said one prominent Republican donor. <i><b>Several people who cut big checks to Crossroads feel burned</b></i>, this person said, adding some believe Rove is letting his group off too easy with his insistence that the problem last year was bad candidates.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>A few rich Republicans have flatly rejected solicitations from Rove since Election Day</b></i>, according to a GOP strategist who works with donors.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Nobody played more ironclad hardball than Karl for a long, long time,” said one operative. “When you don’t have all the power or cards, don’t be surprised [that] <i><b>when you make mistakes … that long knives come out</b></i>.”<br></p>
</div>
<div>
Sensing weakness, Karl Rove’s critics pounce, @maggiepolitico reports: http://politi.co/11W9Si4POLITICO</div>
<div>
Republicans vs. ObamaBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
William Kristol writes, “resistance in Washington today has to be central to the agenda for a conservative future tomorrow.” <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nJ9pt-_SUI" class="">In the infamous words of Rev. Al Sharpton, “resist, we much…”</a></b> (see video below)<br><p>
<br>“In the states, Republicans are governing successfully. At the think tanks, conservatives are arguing intelligently. Around the country, activists are organizing energetically. <i><b>All well and good. And important. But not enough</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If Republicans in Congress lack the nerve to stand up to President Obama, or the moxie to do so effectively, <i><b>all other admirable efforts could end up being for naught</b></i>. The federal nanny state could be so expanded, its tentacles could become so much more deeply embedded in the fabric of American life, that it would prove almost impossible for the next administration, however well-intentioned, to extricate us from it…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>It may be that resistance is less edifying than reform</b></i>. It’s perhaps true that resistance is less intellectually stimulating than devising remedies. It could well be the case that resistance is less inspiring than reviving a party or rebuilding a movement. And there may well be occasions where emergencies and the national interest will call us to work with the president. <i><b>But the chief duty for Republicans over the next four years will be resistance</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“This is a moment, as we face Obama, to emphasize the superiority of conservatism’s facts even at the expense of the accusation of meanness. <i><b>There will be time, in 2016, to leave the meanness behind. But fact-based resistance is needed now</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The British have known for centuries that it’s not enough to hope for happy and glorious days in the future. It’s also necessary, with God’s help, to act in the present to scatter our enemies and make them fall. <i><b>It’s necessary to confound their politics and frustrate their knavish tricks</b></i>.”</p>
</div>
<div>
Resistance Is Not FutileIn the states, Republicans are governing successfully. At the think tanks, conservatives are arguing intelligently. Around the country, a...</div>
<div>
Al Sharpton is a linguist.bunker91</div>
<div>
While dissecting a recent <b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-rinos-need-to-take-back-the-republican-party/2013/02/19/b915d74a-7ad3-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html" class="">column by Kathleen Parker</a></b> (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/kathleenparker" class="">@kathleenparker</a></b>) in the Washington Post, Matt Purple asks, “<i><b>What is it that moderate Republicans want?</b></i>” <p>
</p>
<p>
“I’m told we’re living in a Moderate Moment. After Mitt Romney lost the election, moderate Republicans started emerging from every corner of the country, <i><b>from Northwest Washington, D.C. to Arlington, Virginia</b></i>. It was time, they declared, for calm voices to prevail in the Republican Party. The Tea Party, the right-wing, the ‘Conservative Entertainment Complex’ — <i><b>all this must be cast overboard for the GOP to win again</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Parker calls for a RINO uprising, a new faction on the right to counter the Tea Party. That’s all well and good. There are genuine differences of opinion on the right, and a little inward dialectic never hurt anyone… <i><b>But how would her brand of Republicanism differ from the conservative base she derides?</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Since the election, we’ve heard a lot of nebulous chatter from self-styled moderates about how the GOP must reach out to the middle class, appeal to Latino voters, change, <i>modernize.</i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>But how exactly do we do that?</b></i> So far the only concrete answer seems to be softening the conservative stance on immigration. But according to the Pew Hispanic Center, education, jobs and the economy, health care, and the deficit all rate as bigger concerns for Latinos than immigration. Well then, counter moderates, conservatives need to gear their message towards jobs instead of deficit reduction. <i><b>But Romney talked about jobs constantly during the campaign (‘Mr. President, where are the jobs?’)</b></i>. And many conservatives believe job creation is directly linked to reducing the debt and regulatory burdens on small businesses. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Beyond that one line about policy, her column is little more than a train of supercilious advice about how to distinguish RINOs from righties. <i><b>Righties are ‘the fringe.’</b></i> RINOs are ‘defiantly proud, aggressively centrist and unapologetically sane.’ Righties carry ‘gigantic photos of aborted fetuses to political conventions.’ <i><b>RINOs are ‘too busy Being Normal to organize.’</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Parker’s primary objection seems to be one of culture and temperament rather than substance</b></i>. Those tri-cornered-hat-wearing Tea Partiers are embarrassing all the normal and well-bred people out there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>This is the dichotomy established by many moderate Republicans: shrill, rigid, movement conservatives on one side and open-minded RINOs on the other</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In reality, the conservative movement consists of traditionalists, libertarians, and hawks; politicians, writers, scholars, and radio hosts; angry and wonky, loud and soft, following in the tradition of Burke and the politics of Reagan, <i><b>but disagreeing vibrantly on both issues and techniques</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The RINO movement consists of…well, people who say they’re RINOs. <i><b>They’re pro-library-voices and anti-tri-cornered hats and pro-middle-class. Beyond that it’s hard to tell. But the left seems to approve</b></i>.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
RINOBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
What do #RINO s actually believe? Matt Purple tells us. #tcot http://bit.ly/11ZpvFlAmerican Spectator</div>
<div>
Following a recent national survey, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reports that <i><b>the Republican Party’s image is at a historic low</b></i>. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>62% of the public says the GOP is out of touch with the American people, 56% think it is not open to change and 52% say the party is too extreme.</b></i>”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Republican Party’s image has been hit hard over the past decade. In January, <i><b>just 33% said they viewed the party favorably</b></i>, among the lowest marks of the last 20 years. The GOP’s favorable rating has not been above 50% since shortly after George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Republicans are more critical of their party than Democrats are of theirs on most issues. <i><b>For example, 36% of Republicans say the GOP is out of touch with the American people</b></i>. Just 23% of Democrats say their party is out of touch…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“However, Republicans overwhelmingly credit their party for having strong principles; 85% say the GOP has strong principles while 13% say it does not. <i><b>And 80% of Republicans say their party is looking out for the country’s long-term future</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Among Republicans themselves,<i><b> 69% had a favorable impression (of the GOP)</b></i>, down from a recent high of 89% reported after the GOP convention.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
R/D favorabilityBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
62% of public says the GOP out of touch with Americans,56% think say it's not open to change; 52% call it too extreme http://pewrsr.ch/13eRIaVPew Research Center</div>
<div>
While Republicans flesh out an appealing economic agenda, <b><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/author/56473/bio" class="">National Review editor Rich Lowry</a></b> writes that reducing our debt can’t be the only plan, and opines that they should prepare themselves for more discontent. <p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The national party is leaderless and nearly issue-less, but besides that, is thriving and in fine fighting trim.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“It used to be that the Republicans were nasty people <i><b>because they exploited ‘wedge issues,’</b></i> which was the pejorative way to describe issues that were popular with the public but made Democrats uncomfortable. The phrase has been long-ago retired. Even if it hadn’t been, it’s not clear what Republican issue it would apply to anymore.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Once, taxes and national security were the party’s pillars, supplemented by domestic issues like welfare reform and crime and by symbolic issues like the Pledge of Allegiance and flag burning. <i><b>Now, the pillars are in a state of despair</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has Democrats leading on the following issues: looking out for the middle class, Medicare, health care, reducing gun violence, Social Security, immigration, taxes and the economy. <i><b>The good news for Republicans is that they lead on everything else. The bad news is that everything else is only spending, the deficit and national security.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The problem with the deficit as an issue is that <i><b>people care about economic growth more</b></i>, and the problem with spending cuts is that <i><b>people like them more in the abstract than in reality</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The House Republicans mainly have blocking power… Woe to the republic if they didn’t.</b></i> But if you block things, you’re easily labeled an obstructionist and wouldn’t you know it, people don’t like obstructionists.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Their only hope to deflect the nation a bit from its profligate budgetary path is <i><b>confrontations coinciding with key fiscal inflection points</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Two hundred and thirty members of the House don’t have a chance against a president, <i><b>let alone a celebrity</b></i>. This won’t change anytime soon. It is way too early to have a presidential candidate or even a presidential field, so the party lacks a head and therefore a unified voice.” <br></p>
</div>
<div>
Rich Lowry argues that reducing America's debt cannot be the only Republican agenda. "The Unpopular Party": http://bit.ly/XKc3hjNational Review</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-92083417086128194802013-03-02T23:00:00.004-05:002013-03-02T23:00:35.343-05:00Foreign Policy Outlook<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPQLLhO5GhQtyeU1JlQ6dGWr4BGiMYcUPkDsjwqkRHc7iauH25ivNPa6AaI5xmVraEn0ebhXf9H6WN_SfE0ANQ9T39785cW674dmnw8gF8ydidBD60KxjBgi0PhHeNPnwohTgS31E_wLs/s1600/chinese+hackers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPQLLhO5GhQtyeU1JlQ6dGWr4BGiMYcUPkDsjwqkRHc7iauH25ivNPa6AaI5xmVraEn0ebhXf9H6WN_SfE0ANQ9T39785cW674dmnw8gF8ydidBD60KxjBgi0PhHeNPnwohTgS31E_wLs/s640/chinese+hackers.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h2 class="username">
<a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span class="screen-name">@natebeeler</span></a></h2>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/foreign-policy-outlook-3-2-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/foreign-policy-outlook-3-2-13" target="_blank">View the story "Foreign Policy Outlook (3/2/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Foreign Policy Outlook (3/2/13)</h1>
<h2>
http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
<p>
Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sat, Mar 02 2013 19:56:39</p>
<div>
<p>
<b><a href="http://nesa-center.org/profile/richard-russell" class="">RichardL. Russell</a></b>, Professor of National Security Affairs at the <b><a href="http://nesa-center.org/" class="">Near East South Asia Center for StrategicStudies</a></b>, warns us not to be too sure that there will not be another war involvingthe U.S. in the Middle East.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[I]f it's conventional wisdom that the UnitedStates will not, or should not, intervene militarily in the Middle East orSouth Asia after it draws down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, <i><b>it's also likelydead wrong</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps the most significantfactor that portends against further intervention in the Middle East and SouthAsia <i><b>is increased political resistance -- and outright opposition -- from thecountries in the region</b></i>. That resistance is likely to come from the new regimesemerging from the Arab uprisings, as well as a number of Gulf monarchies.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Old authoritarian regimes seemto be passing the way of the dodo bird, but the new regimes taking shape <i><b>areheavily influenced by militant Islamic ideology</b></i> that will make them less likelyto engage in security or military cooperation with the United States.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Democracy optimists argue thatthese ideological regimes, once entrenched in power, will have to moderatetheir zeal in order to govern. Pragmatism will ultimately trump ideology. <i><b>Thatline of reasoning, however, is based on the assumption that the policy decisionsof such regimes can be explained by rational choice economic theory</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Already, several Gulf stateshave begun to translate their displeasure into policy independence fromWashington. In 2011, for example, a coalition of Gulf states led by SaudiArabia intervened in Bahrain to quell domestic unrest in the island country… Bahraintoday is for all intents and purposes a province of Saudi Arabia, even if it isnot polite to say so in diplomatic circles. Since the Iranian revolution,Bahrain -- like the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar -- haspursued close ties with the United States, <i><b>in significant measure tocounterbalance Iran and Saudi Arabia</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In the future, the UnitedStates will not be able to take for granted unchallenged surges of naval, air,and ground forces into regional theaters via logistics hubs. These hubs -- likethe American naval presence in Bahrain -- are large, readily identifiable, <i><b>andwill be increasingly vulnerable to future targeting by nuclear weaponry</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Although American policymakersand military commanders might feel confident that they could surge forces intothe Gulf despite Iranian nuclear threats because of the American nucleardeterrent, <i><b>Gulf security partners might be more nervous and less willing tocooperate</b></i>. As a result, they might not grant access to U.S. air, naval, andground forces out of fear of angering Iran.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Even without nuclear weapons,Gulf states have seen, in their view, <i><b>a long history of American reluctance tothreaten or use force against Iran</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“One of the great strategiclessons drawn from the long history of conflict in the Middle East is this: <i><b>Donot go to war without nuclear weapons</b></i>, as Saddam Hussein did when he invadedKuwait. <i><b>The corollary is: Do not allow the United States to methodically buildup forces in the Gulf prior to invading</b></i>, as Saddam did both in the run-up tothe 1991 re-conquest of Kuwait and in 2003, before the drive to topple theregime in Baghdad.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Drawing upon these lessons,Iran will likely do everything in its power to deny the United States theability to surge conventional forces into the region -- <i><b>and that might includethreatening to target U.S. forces with nuclear weapons</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Meanwhile, the Gulf states, ledby Saudi Arabia, <i><b>are likely to look for their own nuclear deterrents</b></i>… SaudiArabia and the smaller Gulf states will worry that the United States would bedeterred from coming to their defense in future regional crises by Iran'snuclear weapons.”</p>
<p>
</p>
“As Gulf monarchies seek to reduce theirdependence on American military power, <i><b>they will increasingly look to China forsecurity assurances</b></i>. China does not have a political agenda devoted topromoting democratization, and it maintains political and diplomatic ties withboth Arab states and Iran. China's military activity in the region is modestbut increasing, as evidenced by its recent peacekeeping dispatches to theregion and naval port visits in the Gulf. Beijing is likely to send more navalforces to the Gulf to increase its presence there and enhance its ability to protectthe sea lanes which bring oil to China's thirsty economy. <i><b>China is keenly awarethat the United States has naval supremacy in the Gulf, but will be working toerode that strategic edge in the future</b></i>.”</div>
<div>
NESA Professor @DrRLRussell published "We Shall Return" in @ForeignPolicy, discussing future regional intervention. http://www.nesa-center.org/news/2013/02/19/professor-richard-russell-published-we-shall-return-foreign-policyThe NESA Center</div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/claudia-rosett/" class="">Claudia Rosett</a></b>, journalist-in-residence with the<i> </i><b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/" class="">Foundation for Defense of Democracies</a></b>, writes that North Korea is unlikely to “<i><b>learn some manners</b></i>” under Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian regime and their trajectory must be stopped. <p>
</p>
<p>
“North Korea’s third and latest nuclear test is certainly a threat to Asian security, <i><b>but the dangers go way beyond Asia</b></i>. For decades, North Korea has been one of the world’s most enterprising and unscrupulous suppliers of weapons to the Middle East. <i><b>Among North Korea’s chief and most enduring clients is the world’s leading terrorist-sponsoring, nuclear-aspiring state, Iran</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“For years, North Korean weapons tests have effectively doubled as marketing displays, rolling out the latest round of North Korea’s lethal wares. ‘<i><b>North Korea will sell anything to anybody</b></i>,’ says <b><a href="http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/bbechtol/" class="">Bruce Bechtol</a></b>, a political scientist and former senior defense intelligence analyst specializing in North Korea. Bechtol adds that <i><b>Iranian officials have been present at every major North Korean missile test, as well as both previous nuclear tests</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“North Korea has created a niche for itself as <i><b>a full service back shop for rogue states</b></i>, offering an unblinking willingness to violate any and all international norms in exchange for cash, oil and yet more weapons technology. Not only does North Korea’s regime supply its clients with weapons; it also has a history of providing weapons experts, military training, procurement and smuggling services, money-laundering facilities and in some cases, help with weapons production.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In the case of Iran, <i><b>North Korea’s dealings go back to the early years of the Islamic Republic</b></i>, in the 1980s. At that stage, North Korea had reverse-engineered Soviet Scud B short-range ballistic missiles, which North Korea supplied along with submarines and guns to Iran during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War… In 2003, a high-ranking North Korean defector, a missile scientist, testified to Congress about an official trip he made to Iran in 1989. <i><b>The mission was to fire a North Korean missile for the Iranians, and then come home to make more</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In the 1990s, North Korea joined <i><b>Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network</b></i>, swapping missiles for nuclear technology. Through this network, North Korea then found customers for some of its other wares.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“In 2003-2004, under U.S. pressure, Pakistan rolled up A.Q. Khan’s operations. But that hardly put Pyongyang out of the nuclear proliferation racket. By then, North Korea was collaborating with Syria to build a covert nuclear reactor on the Euphrates River. <i><b>According to a 2008 CIA report, not only was this a copy of North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor, not only were North Korean officials present in Syria to assist, but after the Israelis destroyed the reactor in a 2007 air strike, North Koreans returned to the site to help the Syrians cover up the wreckage</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“With North Korea’s two long-range missile tests last year — a fizzle in April, a success in December — and now a nuclear test, young Kim’s regime has effectively announced to the world that <i><b>North Korea will stick to its old ways</b></i>...”</p>
</div>
<div>
ICYMI: FDD's Claudia Rosett in @Forbes: North Korea's Middle East Webs and Nuclear Wares http://onforb.es/VaAI3f #NorthKorea #nukes #IranFDD</div>
<div>
<p>
<b><a href="http://www.aei.org/scholar/john-r-bolton/" class="">AmbassadorJohn R. Bolton</a></b>, former U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations,writes that China dreads seeing North Korea with nuclear arms, and that it istime for Beijing to support peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Predictably, those who urgedfor years that Pyongyang could be negotiated out of its nuclear objective nowargue that the world must accept reality and rely on deterrence andcontainment. Just as they claimed sanctions would prevent the North fromcrossing the nuclear threshold, they now say that sanctions will prevent itfrom selling these arms and technologies world-wide.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Military force isn't an optionas long as Seoul remains resolutely opposed, understandably fearing that SouthKoreans would be targets for Pyongyang's retaliation through nuclear, chemicalor biological weapons. <i><b>The South might change its view because ofever-more-belligerent conduct by the North</b></i>. But for now South Koreanpoliticians are again demanding that the South develop nuclear weapons. Similararguments are being made <i>sotto voce </i>inJapan.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>It is simply not in America'sinterest to see nuclear weapons proliferate, even into seemingly safe hands</b></i>.But if President Obama pursues his dream of a ‘nuclear zero’ world, Japan,South Korea and other countries long sheltered under America's atomic umbrella<i><b>will have urgent second thoughts</b></i>. Mr. Obama has never seemed to comprehend thatunilateral U.S. strategic-weapons reductions <i><b>are as likely to encourage nuclearproliferation as reduce it</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If China continues insisting onmaintaining North Korea as a buffer state, Kim Jong Eun's dictatorship willsurvive. But if, as is increasingly true for younger Chinese leaders, <i><b>Beijingcomes to see the North as the albatross it is</b></i>, the possibilities for changebecome palpable.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Beijing condemns Pyongyang'snuclear program but doesn't exercise its extraordinary leverage, notablysupplying 90%-plus of the North's energy and substantial amounts of food andhumanitarian aid…”</p>
<p>
</p>
“North Korea is an unnatural relic of a ‘temporary’Moscow-Washington arrangement following Japan's defeat. <i><b>It has no historicalclaim to legitimacy as a separate state</b></i>. Its citizens have never freelyconsented to it. And its continued existence leaves 23 million people perenniallyclose to starvation…”</div>
<div>
"North Korea has never been so close to being able to make good on its 'final destruction' threats" @AmbJohnBolton http://ow.ly/hTxP4AEI</div>
<div>
<p>
<b><a href="https://twitter.com/HerbKeinon" class="">@HerbKeinon</a></b>reports that Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calls the findings fromlast week’s confidential International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report “<i><b>verygrave</b></i>” and the report proves that Iran is moving swiftly toward the red line heset out five months ago. <i><b>Iran now has65%-70% of the enriched uranium it needs for a nuclear weapon.</b></i></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Iran has begun installingadvanced centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment plant, a UN nuclear reportsaid on Thursday. In response, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that <i><b>Iranis closer today than ever before to obtaining the necessary enriched uraniumfor a nuclear bomb</b></i>. The White House said that the window remains open fordiplomacy with Iran but will not stay open <i><b>indefinitely</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The Prime Minister's Office saidthat <i><b>preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons will be the first issue onthe agenda</b></i> when US President Barack Obama comes to visit in less than a month'stime.”</p>
<p>
</p>
“The report also said Iran had increased to 167kg (367 pounds) its stockpile of uranium refined to a fissile purity of 20percent - a level it says it needs for conversion into reactor fuel. About240-250 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium is needed for one atomic bomb ifrefined to a high degree.”</div>
<div>
Netanyahu: Centrifuge report shows Iran nearing 'red line'Centrifuges unveiled in Natanz Photo: REUTERS VIENNA - Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment plan...</div>
<div>
netanyahu red lineBrian_Empric</div>
<div>
<p>
<b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/dubowitz-mark/" class="">MarkDubowitz</a></b>, executivedirector of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and <b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/schanzer-jonathan/" class="">Dr.Jonathan Schanzer</a></b>, vice president for research at FDD, write that the EuropeanCentral Bank’s Target2 payment system has become critical to the Iranian regimeever since the United States financial sanctions curtailed its dollar business.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The United States has blockedIran from easily accessing greenbacks as a means to slow down the IslamicRepublic's nuclear program. <i><b>But those financial sanctions only go so far</b></i>. WithIranian nuclear physics still outpacing Western economic pressure, Washingtonis looking to prevent the mullahs from accessing their second favoritecurrency: <i><b>the euro</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“If you've ever conducted a transactionin euros, you've probably used Target2—<i><b>unless, of course, you're doing cashdeals out of the back of your car</b></i>. The system facilitates untold numbers oflegitimate euro transactions each year. But it also can be used unwittingly toaid Iranian sanctions-busting schemes…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Tehran has transferred billionsof dollars in foreign exchange reserves into euros, the world's second largestand most liquid currency reserve holding. The regime also has denominated asubstantial portion of Iranian international trade contracts in euros.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The ECB's own guidelines baraccess to Target2 by those engaged in ‘money laundering and the financing ofterrorism, proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities and the development ofnuclear weapons delivery systems.’ <i><b>This describes the Iranian regime to theletter</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“[I]n light of new evidence thatIran is accessing euros via Target2's payment system, some ECB officials haveindicated that <i><b>they are prepared to bar Iran from the system</b></i> for violating theexplicit prohibitions in the central bank's guidelines.”<br><br>“A recent report by the Project on U.S.-Middle East Nonproliferation Strategyestimates that mid-2014 is when Tehran could reach the ‘<i><b>critical capability</b></i>’ toproduce enough weapons-grade uranium—or sufficient separated plutonium—for abomb before such production could ‘reasonably be expected to be detected by theInternational Atomic Energy Agency or Western intelligence services.’ <i><b>Irancould reach this undetectable breakout earlier if it succeeds in operating theadvanced centrifuges that it is adding to its existing enrichment facilities</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
“Before Iran achieves its nuclear objectives,<i><b>the international community has a small window of opportunity</b></i> to make one finalpush to make sanctions work. Target2 could play an important role in thatsuccess.”</div>
<div>
Targeting Tehran's Euros. My @WSJOpinion w/ @dubo1968 on how EU Central Bank's Target2 is crucial to Iran sanctions. http://m.wsj.com/articles/a/SB10001424127887324162304578301923244240266?mg=reno64-wsjJonathan Schanzer</div>
<div>
<p>
<b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/may-clifford-d/" class="">CliffordD. May</a></b>, president of the Foundation for Defense ofDemocracies, writes that waging serious economic warfare with Iran isabsolutely essential – even though it will almost certainly fail to stop themfrom developing nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>The alternative to sanctionswould be doing business as usual</b></i> — while representatives of Iranian commercialenterprises trot around the globe buying, selling, and trading even as Iran’ssupreme leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps sponsor terrorism,threaten genocide, plot terrorism, and brutally persecute domestic dissidents,Christians, Baha’is and gays…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The ongoing debate oversanctions usefully focuses public attention on the fact that <i><b>Iran is ruled by auniquely dangerous and oppressive regime</b></i>…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“<i><b>Sanctions are debilitatingIran’s economy</b></i> — causing hyperinflation, unemployment, steep currencydevaluations, and capital flight…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“As my colleagues Reuel MarcGerecht and Mark Dubowitz recently <b><a href="http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/is-iran-creating-a-health-crisis-to-evade-sanctions-.html" class="">wrote</a></b>,sanctions are ‘<i><b>the only nonmilitary means of coercing a regime in Tehran thatwill break any agreement and evade all kinds of inspections</b></i>.’”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“The U.S. Congress is nowconsidering ratcheting up the economic pressure — <i><b>perhaps enough to cause theIranian rial to collapse within 18 months</b></i>. That would be the point at whichIran’s rulers would have to decide whether their nuclear ambitions are morelikely to increase their power or jeopardize it…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“Sanctions may be most useful<i><b>after a strike against Iran’s nuclear-weapons facilities</b></i>. At that point,American and other Western diplomats will need all the leverage they can get.Their job will be to insist that Iran’s rulers verifiably end thenuclear-weapons program, halt terrorism sponsorship, and ease domestic oppression.In return: no further damage and the sanctions lifted…”</p>
<p>
</p>
“If sanctions pressures <i><b>increase </b></i>and if there isa <i><b>credible threat of military force behind them</b></i>, a peaceful diplomaticresolution of the nuclear standoff becomes a possibility.”</div>
<div>
The Sanctions ParadoxClifford D. May writes on NRO: Two points are vital to understanding the sanctions being imposed on Iran: They are unlikely to succeed - ...</div>
<div>
<p>
<b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/emanuele-ottolenghi/" class="">Dr.Emanuele Ottolenghi</a></b>,<i> </i>seniorfellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes that<i><b>Iran has a serious drug problem</b></i>, with “almost 400,000 heroin users and morethan 500,000 opium users according to official statistics,” and they areplaying both sides of the drug war between the west and the cartels.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“For years, Iran has marketeditself as a frontline state in the war against the drug lords. Recently the NewYork Times even described the regime in Tehran as the ‘<b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/world/middleeast/iran-fights-drug-smuggling-at-borders.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&" class="">West’sstalwart ally in the War on Drugs</a></b>.’ The problem is that while the Iranianregime is fighting drug lords on its eastern borders, <i><b>much of the drugs itseizes are being sold by the Revolutionary Guards to the same people they areasking for additional funding to fight the drug trade—the Europeans</b></i>.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
“According to a 2012 HumanRights Watch report, from 2000 to 2009, the UK gave Iran more than $4.7 millionas part of its anti-drug assistance programs. From 2007 and 2011, ‘Belgium,France, Ireland, Japan, and the United Kingdom provided $3.4 million throughUNODC [United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime] to establish border liaisonoffices as well as for body scanners and sniffer dogs to be used atcheckpoints, major airports, and the Iran-Afghanistan border.’ <i><b>But, supplied tofight drugs, the equipment was diverted to kill Israelis</b></i>. The Europeansprovided night-vision equipment, which Israeli troops later found in abandonedHezbollah bunkers during their July 2006 war with the Shiite militia.”</p>
<p>
</p>
“<i><b>Iran has connections to the drug trade thatspan the globe</b></i>. The Qods Force plot in October 2011 to kill the Saudiambassador in Washington revealed a link between the QF and a Mexican drugcartel. And last March, Treasury designated Qods Force general GholamrezaBaghbani for allowing ‘Afghan narcotics traffickers to smuggle opiates throughIran.’”</div>
<div>
My latest on Iran: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/irans-drug-problem_703113.html, or how in war on drugs Tehran plays arsonist while asking intl community to play and pay firemenEmanuele Ottolenghi</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-39289684510516191522013-02-25T14:48:00.000-05:002013-02-25T14:48:38.359-05:00Florida Medicaid Monday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/florida-medicaid-monday-2-25-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/florida-medicaid-monday-2-25-13" target="_blank">View the story "Florida Medicaid Monday (2/25/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Florida Medicaid Monday (2/25/13)</h1>
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http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
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Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Mon, Feb 25 2013 11:42:45</p>
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<a href="http://www.jamesmadison.org/" class=""><strong>James Madison Institute</strong></a> polled 600random registered Florida voters and found the following (margin of error +/-4%):<br><br>• 85% are either <strong><em>“very or somewhat” concerned</em></strong> about government healthcarespending as it drives our long-term debt problem<br>• Although the response was within the margin of error, more respondents wantto <strong><em>reform Medicare/Medicaid</em></strong> than preserve these government programs (264-257)<br>• About 56% were less likely to support extending Medicaid eligibilityrequirements once they understood that <strong><em>Medicaid spending ($21 billion) is about30% of Florida’s budget</em></strong>, and the Medicaid expansion will cause that program tobecome an even higher percentage of overall state spending<br>• Almost 60% were less likely to support the Medicaid expansion when told that<strong><em>experts predict it will cost the state an additional $3 billion to $20 billionover the next decade</em></strong><br>• About 60% were less likely to support the Medicaid expansion when offered thechoice between expanding the program and <strong><em>either additional taxes or lessspending on other things</em></strong> (like education, roads, and law enforcement)<br>• About 59% thought that we should opt not to expand Medicaid and keeptaxes/spending on current trajectories, <strong><em>instead of having resultant taxhikes/spending cuts</em></strong><br>• 65% opposed expanding Medicaid coverage if the effect would be to pull manyout of private coverage <strong><em>and into the taxpayer funded program</em></strong><br>• Almost 56% believe that <strong><em>Florida should improve the private insurance market</em></strong>to increase coverage to the uninsured instead of expanding Medicaid<br>• Almost 54% were less likely to support expanding Medicaid coverage once theyknew that <strong><em>the ObamaCare individual mandate will require Florida to spend moreon Medicaid</em></strong><br>• About 63% are concerned that <strong><em>the federal government will eventually changethe Medicaid program</em></strong>, and reduce the amount it reimburses to Florida, <strong><em>whichwould add additional expenses to taxpayers</em></strong><br><br>See also: <a href="http://www.jamesmadison.org/wp-content/uploads/Florida-Statewide-Medicaid-Poll.pdf" class=""><strong>Florida Statewide Medicaid Poll</strong></a></div>
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JMI NEWS Latest Poll of #Florida Voters Shows Majority Oppose #Medicaid Expansion http://bit.ly/15xse83 #sayfie #ssnslerts @newsserviceflaJames Madison Inst</div>
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Tia Mitchell and Steve Bousquet report that Florida GovernorRick Scott (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott" class=""><strong>a former health care executive at Columbia/HCA</strong></a>,<a href="https://twitter.com/FLGovScott" class=""><strong>@FLGovScott</strong></a>) has nevertheless decidedlast week to support expanding Medicaid, in “<strong><em>a significant policy reversal</em></strong>” and“a stunning about-face for a small-government Republican <strong><em>who was one of theloudest voices</em></strong> in an aggressive, and ultimately unsuccessful, legal strategy tokill a law he derided as ‘Obamacare.’”<br></p>
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“Whilethe federal government is committed to pay 100 percent of the cost, I cannot,in good conscience, deny Floridians the needed access to health care,” Scottsaid at a hastily called news conference at the Governor’s Mansion.</p>
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<br>“Throughout his 2010 campaign for governor, as Scott sought support from teaparty members, <strong><em>he called the law a ‘job-killer’ that would hurt Florida.</em></strong>”</p>
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<br>“Scott was careful to point out that <strong><em>the Republican-controlled FloridaLegislature will ultimately decide</em></strong> whether or not his proposal is worthimplementing. That is far from certain, particularly in the more partisanHouse.”</p>
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<br>“Gov. Scott has made his decision and I certainly respect his thoughts,” saidHouse Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel (<a href="https://twitter.com/willweatherford" class=""><strong>@willweatherford</strong></a>). “However, theFlorida Legislature will make the ultimate decision. <strong><em>I am personally skepticalthat this inflexible law will improve the quality of health care in our stateand ensure our long-term financial stability</em></strong>.”</p>
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<br>“Scott said he would support an initial three-year expansion of Medicaid butmade clear <strong><em>he would not twist legislators’ arms to make it happen</em></strong>… Under thegovernor’s proposal, the Legislature — after three years — would have to voteto reauthorize the program to keep it going.”</p>
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<br>“For weeks, Scott has said the debate on expanding Medicaid was directly tiedto the state’s application for waivers it needs to allow private companies torun the program.</p>
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<br>“His endorsement of the expansion came hours after the federal governmentagreed to grant Florida a conditional waiver to privatize Medicaid statewidefor the state’s more than 3 million current recipient, more than half of whomare children or people under age 21.”</p>
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<br>“Medicaid, a joint state-federal, government-run health care program, isvoluntary for states… <strong><em>The federal government covers about 55 percent of allMedicaid costs in Florida and covered about 68 percent in recent years withadditional stimulus funding</em></strong>.”</p>
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<br>“The health care law tried to entice states to expand eligibility to Medicaidby raising income eligibility limits. To do so, the federal government agreedto fund 100 percent of the cost for states to expand Medicaid for three budgetyears. <strong><em>The federal government would then cover 95 percent of the costs in 2017,94 percent of the costs in 2018, 93 percent of the costs in 2019 and 90 percentof the costs in 2020 and beyond.</em></strong>”</p>
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TALLAHASSEE: Florida Gov. Rick Scott supports Medicaid expansion - Florida - MiamiHerald.comWEB VOTE After getting a waiver from the federal government to privatize Medicaid, Gov. Rick Scott now says he will expand healthcare for...</div>
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<a href="http://americansforprosperity.org/florida/slade-obrien/" class=""><strong>Slade O’Brien</strong></a>,the state director of Americans for Prosperity-Florida, had the followingcomments after Governor Scott flip-flopped from his previous opposition toMedicaid expansion.<br></p>
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“GovernorScott’s announcement today <strong><em>is extremely disappointing</em></strong>. Scott had been anational leader in the fight against President Obama’s healthcare takeover. <strong><em>Hewas elected because of his principled conservative leadership againstObamaCare’s overreach</em></strong>, and led the charge, with Attorney General Pam Bondi, totake ObamaCare to the Supreme Court. But today he came out in support of theMedicaid expansion he vowed to oppose.”</p>
<br>“<strong><em>At every level of government, it is too easy for politicians to spend otherpeople’s money</em></strong>. For far too long, states have fallen for the promises of ‘free’federal money ignoring the insidious federal strings and the long-term effectson state budgets. Florida’s Medicaid program already costs the taxpayers more than$20 billion a year, <strong><em>and the financial burden will only grow if a million newpeople are added to the program</em></strong>. Hopefully our legislative leaders will notfollow in Governor Scott’s footsteps and will reject expansion of this brokensystem.”</div>
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@SladeOBrien on Scott's announcement: Support of Expansion a huge threat to Florida’s financial future http://bit.ly/VLrOJH #sayfieAFP Florida</div>
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Adam C. Smith (<a href="https://twitter.com/adamsmithtimes" class=""><strong>@adamsmithtimes</strong></a>),political editor at the Tampa Bay Times, blames Obama’s victory in Florida lastNovember, abysmal poll numbers, a “diminished” tea party and twenty months oflooming re-election campaigning for Governor Scott’s change of heart.<br></p>
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“Twoyears ago nobody would have dreamed that Rick Scott, the multimillionairepolitical outsider crusading against Obamacare, would end up heading into are-election campaign looking like the sort of pragmatic, moderate Republicantea party activists loathe… <strong><em>But that's where Scott has awkwardly positionedhimself — as another politician without clear convictions</em></strong>.”</p>
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<br>“<strong><em>With his Medicaid decision this week, Scott officially and forever cast offhis image as a tea party standard-bearer</em></strong>.”</p>
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<br>“Scott is the seventh Republican governor to support the federal-drivenexpansion of Medicaid. But Scott also is a special case, having spent millionsof dollars of his own fortune fighting the Affordable Care Act and launchinghis own campaign for governor <strong><em>attacking Obamacare at every opportunity</em></strong>.”</p>
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<br>“This is going to be devastating for patients, devastating for taxpayers. It'sgoing to be the biggest job-killer ever," Scott said on Fox News after the U.S. Supreme Court upheldthe law (see video below). "<strong><em>We're not going to implement Obamacare inFlorida. We're not going to expand Medicaid, because we're going to do theright thing.</em></strong>”</p>
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<br>“Statewide elections in Florida are usually won in the moderate middle, not thehard right or left, and <strong><em>Scott is now lunging as fast as he can toward thecenter</em></strong>.”</p>
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<br>“Only 38 percent of Florida voters approved of Scott's performance in a JanuaryQuinnipiac poll. <strong><em>His recent policy reversals may have burned bridges with thelast sliver of the electorate that had been enthusiastic about him</em></strong>.”</p>
<br>“Former Attorney General Bill McCollum, who launched the lawsuit to overturnthe health care law and whom Scott cast as too moderate in their 2010gubernatorial primary campaign, said he was ‘<strong><em>very disappointed</em></strong>’ by Scott'sdecision.”</div>
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Rick Scott's new ideology? 'Getting re-elected,' some say | Tampa Bay TimesTwo years ago nobody would have dreamed that Rick Scott, the multimillionaire political outsider crusading against Obamacare, would end u...</div>
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Gov. Rick Scott: We are not going to implement Obamacare in Floridafloridagop</div>
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The Associated Press reports that <a href="http://edr.state.fl.us/Content/" class=""><strong>the Office of Economic and Demographic Research</strong></a>meets today in Tallahassee to discuss the cost of expanding Medicaid inFlorida.</p>
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<br>“Medicaid expansion cost projections have varied widely, <strong><em>but the latestprojection would cost the state $3 billion over the next decade</em></strong>… Stateeconomists estimate about 80 percent of those eligible would apply.”</p>
<br>“A House committee meets Thursday to discuss the issue. A Senate committee isalso still weighing a decision and plans to have a recommendation in earlyMarch.”</div>
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Fla. economists discuss cost of Medicaid expansionFORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Legislative economists will discuss the cost of expanding Medicaid days after Gov. Rick Scott signaled he wanted ...</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-1908005476292322642013-02-24T12:10:00.000-05:002013-02-24T12:10:14.951-05:00Sequester Sunday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/sequester-sunday-2-24-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/sequester-sunday-2-24-13" target="_blank">View the story "Sequester Sunday (2/24/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Sequester Sunday (2/24/13)</h1>
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http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
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Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sun, Feb 24 2013 08:51:11</p>
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Contrary to popular belief (and Ghostbusters), if we accept the sequester, we <u>are not</u> heading for a disaster of biblical proportions...<br></div>
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Biblical Proportionsscottmyshkin</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.gretchenhamel.com/" class="">Gretchen Hamel</a></b>, executive director of <b><a href="http://thepublicnotice.org/about/staff/" class="">Public Notice</a></b>, a nonprofit group focused on the economy and how government policy affects Americans' financial well-being, writes that Obama’s White House is in denial on the federal government’s spending problem – but sequestration, though imperfect, would help as “<i><b>a step in the right direction toward fiscal responsibility, absent offsetting spending cuts</b></i>.”<br><br>“The shameful shift from honest concern about spending to denial is more than political opportunism — it reflects an unwillingness to confront the most serious economic challenge facing our nation… <i><b>The result is an ongoing series of budget crises, short-term ‘fixes’ and emergency deadlines</b></i>.”<br><br>“The White House has been on the offensive recently outlining how devastating those cuts will be, <i><b>but has failed to provide offsetting cuts elsewhere in the budget</b></i>.<br><br>“And how much would they have to find to offset the sequester for this year? About $85 billion. Based on spending last year of $3.6 trillion, <i><b>that means cutting roughly three cents out of every dollar the federal government spends</b></i>.”<br><br>“With the White House's stubborn insistence on another round of tax increases, <i><b>(the sequester) might be the best worst option</b></i>… The budget restraint that sequestration would bring would forestall long-term damage to the economy, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.”<br><br>“A January poll conducted by the Tarrance Group for Public Notice found that <i><b>almost 75% of respondents agree that federal spending is too high</b></i>, with 79% saying government spending is the biggest problem holding back economic growth.”</div>
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So, let's get this straight - Washington can't find 3 cents in every dollar to cut? http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-viewpoint/021513-644708-spending-cuts-of-just-3-would-put-budget-back-on-track.htm #ShowUsYourCuts #ThisWeekgretchen hamel</div>
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Aaron Blake reports that recent polling shows that Republicans “would bear more of the blame for a failure to reach a deal” and compromise on the sequester, but <i><b>most Americans “are tuned out of the debate and many don’t oppose allowing the cuts to go into effect.”</b></i><br><br>“This isn’t all that surprising… Obama is much more popular than both Congress and the Republican Party, which means he’s likely to come out on top in the blame game.”<br><br>“<i><b>Just 27 percent of Americans say they have heard ‘a lot’ about the cuts</b></i>, while 43 percent have heard ‘a little’ and 29 percent have heard ‘nothing at all.’ Because Americans aren’t paying attention, they revert to their overall impressions of the two sides.”<br><br>“The poll suggests many Americans <i><b>don’t see the cuts as being so bad</b></i>, which means there might not be a huge amount of blaming going on — at least initially.”</div>
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GOP losing sequester blame game - The Fix http://wapo.st/XOOcw3Aaron Blake</div>
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sequester falloutBrian_Empric</div>
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Scott Rasmussen writes that the sequester was intended to cause voters to “rise up and protest the automatic spending cuts with such vehemence that it would force Republicans and Democrats to work together. <i><b>But it hasn't happened</b></i>.”<br><br>“The president proposed replacing the across-the-board spending cuts with a combination of tax hikes and specific spending cuts. Only 39 percent favor that proposal. <i><b>Forty-two percent oppose it and prefer the automatic spending cuts, instead</b></i>.”<br><br>“When the sequester gimmick was first proposed, just 29 percent thought it would be a good idea to have such arbitrary cuts implemented. But after watching the nation's elected politicians perform for the last year and a half, while voters still see the automatic cuts as bad policy, <i><b>they see them as less bad than the other options</b></i>.”<br><br>“<i><b>The last time spending went down from one year to the next was 1954</b></i>. Voters are now catching on. Only 17 percent believe the March 1 cuts will really reduce government spending. <i><b>Fifty-eight percent correctly recognize that they will merely reduce the growth of spending</b></i>.”<br><br>“As for the reports spilling out of the nation's capital about the harm that the automatic cuts will do to the economy, they're unlikely to resonate with most voters. <i><b>After all, 68 percent believe that cutting government spending is the best thing the government could do to help the economy</b></i>.”</div>
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Read my latest commentary: Sequester Puts Elected Washington on Trial... http://tinyurl.com/b5s9mksScott Rasmussen</div>
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Consequently, Molly K. Hooper reports that <i><b>House Republicans do not fear political blowback</b></i> if Congress fails to prevent the sequester from triggering next week.<br><br>“Rank-and-file Republicans say they’re not worried their leverage could be cut once the spending cuts are triggered, though they acknowledge Obama is a tough political adversary.”<br><br>“It’s hard to compete with the bully pulpit that the president has,” acknowledged Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo., <b><a href="https://twitter.com/RepDLamborn" class="">@RepDLamborn</a></b>). “<i><b>The bigger concern is what is good for the country</b></i>.”<br><br>“Republicans are also getting ready to battle by reminding voters <i><b>it was the White House that conceived of the sequester</b></i> — the $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions, including lower interest payments, that were included as part of the deal in 2011 to raise the debt ceiling.<br><br>“The cuts were meant to serve as an incentive for a supercommittee of lawmakers to produce a different deficit-reduction plan. If the supercommittee failed, sequester would happen, and it was designed to impose painful cuts on both defense and non-defense spending <i><b>so that both Republicans and Democrats would feel political pain</b></i>.”<br><br>“It was his [Obama’s] idea — we know that there are elections coming in 2014 — we know that the president and the party will be all out to reclaim the House, <i><b>but we have acted in good faith</b></i>, so the president can put all this on Republicans all he wants, <i><b>but that's just not the fact</b></i>,” sophomore Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark., <b><a href="https://twitter.com/rep_stevewomack" class="">@rep_stevewomack</a></b>) said in an interview with The Hill.<br><br>“If [Republicans] don't shy away from this, if they don't run from their own shadows and they don't [buckle] at the last minute, I think <i><b>it's a battle they can win</b></i>,” conservative Heritage Action spokesman Dan Holler (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/danholler" class="">@danholler</a></b>) said.</div>
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Who's afraid of the sequester's ax? Not us, say Republican lawmakers http://j.mp/XsQtiX by @mollyhooperThe Hill</div>
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Speaker Boehner reiterates that Obama invented the sequester in the summer of 2011 during the debt limit negotiations. Instead of continuing to avoid facing up to the federal government’s obvious spending problem, Obama should let the country know what spending he is willing to cut to replace the sequester, <i><b>because the tax debate is closed</b></i>.<br><br>For the record, <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Control_Act_of_2011" class="">the Budget Control Act of 2011</a></b> passed the House by 269-161 and the Senate by 74-26, before it was signed by Obama. In Congress, 70% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats supported the bill.<br><br>“Most Americans are just hearing about this Washington creation for the first time: the sequester. What they might not realize from Mr. Obama's statements is that <i><b>it is a product of the president's own failed leadership</b></i>.”<br><br>“By law, the sequester focuses on the narrow portion of the budget that funds the operating accounts for federal agencies and departments, including the Department of Defense.”<br><br>“With the debt limit set to be hit in a matter of hours, Republicans and Democrats in Congress reluctantly accepted the president's demand for the sequester, and a revised version of the Budget Control Act was passed on a bipartisan basis.”<br><br>“<i><b>Both parties today have a responsibility to find a bipartisan solution to the sequester</b></i>. Turning it off and erasing its deficit reduction isn't an option. What Congress should do is <i><b>replace it with other spending cuts</b></i> that put America on the path to a balanced budget in 10 years, without threatening national security.<br><br>“Having first proposed and demanded the sequester, <i><b>it would make sense that the president lead the effort to replace it</b></i>. Unfortunately, he has put forth no detailed plan that can pass Congress, and the Senate—controlled by his Democratic allies—hasn't even voted on a solution, let alone passed one. <i><b>By contrast, House Republicans have twice passed plans to replace the sequester with common-sense cuts and reforms that protect national security</b></i>.”<br><br>“The president's sequester is the wrong way to reduce the deficit, but it is here to stay until Washington Democrats get serious about cutting spending. <i><b>The government simply cannot keep delaying the inevitable and spending money it doesn't have</b></i>.”</div>
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In @WSJ, the real story of Pres Obama's sequester & #GOP efforts to replace it http://j.mp/W9VURQ #obamaquester #spendingistheproblemSpeaker John Boehner</div>
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Matt Purple, assistant managing editor at The American Spectator, writes that the Republicans are “<i><b>sort of</b></i>” cutting spending, and warns not to give them too much credit.<br><br>“Washington, after years of talking about its budget problems, will finally set aside short-term political concerns and slash spending. At last some backbone – some gumption – from our elected officials. <i><b>Huzzah, gentlemen! ... If only it were that dramatic</b></i>.”<br><br>“Sequestration amounts to $1.2 trillion in shrinkage over the next nine years – or an average of $133 billion per year. Further <i><b>they aren’t even real cuts</b></i>, as Sen. Rand Paul pointed out in his State of the Union response, since they only slow the rate of spending growth, not actual spending.”<br><br>“Spending reductions are finally going to take effect and the major players in Washington are treating them like a hacky-sack, frantically kicking the sequester to the next person in the circle.”<br><br>“The House GOP’s budget guru, Rep. Paul Ryan, has taken to bashing President Obama for the sequester, even though he previously praised it and voted for it. <i><b>Ryan should be out there explaining how sequestration doesn’t even skim the surface of our problem. Instead he’s heading for the hills</b></i>.”<br><br>“<i><b>None of this bodes well for the spending battles looming in the future</b></i>. Already House and Senate appropriators are working quietly to avoid another high-profile government shutdown fight in March when the current stopgap budget expires. The debt ceiling will have to be raised again in May. If Republicans are queasy about sequestration, <i><b>will they really stand up and demand serious cuts in coming months?</b></i>”<br><br>“The more you look at the sequester, <i><b>the more trivial it seems</b></i>. And yet both sides of the aisle are running around in circles, screaming and pointing at each other. <i><b>How can anyone with this mentality be trusted</b></i> to raise the Social Security retirement age, or turn down the higher education faucet?”<br><br>“Boehner and the current crop of House Republicans have fought harder for spending cuts than any Congress since Newt Gingrich accepted the gavel. So why is it that now, when a few measly ‘cuts’ (<i><b>and they are measly</b></i>) are finally about to take place, they speak in portentous tones and point the finger at President Obama?”<br><br>“Politics is life in Washington. <i><b>But this particular round is worrisome</b></i>. The GOP has spent years proposing hypothetical spending cuts that haven’t actually happened. Now we have an actual round (however diminutive and poorly targeted) of cuts in the hopper, and the Republican reaction is to fret and blame the president for how people will be affected. But people will be affected by any set of cuts. <i><b>Will a GOP that reacts thusly to the sequester really have the stomach to reform entitlements?</b></i> Even after the interest groups start complaining? <i><b>It’s one thing to propose cuts; it’s another to actually implement them</b></i>.”</div>
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#Sequestration: The Requisite, Incremental, Autopiloted, Politically Safe, Fake Spending Cuts We Deserve #tcot http://bit.ly/VvtbK0American Spectator</div>
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More #Sequestration Depression: the @johnboehner op-ed http://bit.ly/11VcGfeAmerican Spectator</div>
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spending without-with sequesterBrian_Empric</div>
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David Limbaugh writes that Republicans must hold to their guns this time, because “<i><b>if we don't start cutting fast… we won't have the money to support a military at all, much less anything else</b></i>.”<br><br>“President Obama's <i><b>demagoguery and fear-mongering</b></i> on his sequester cuts are breathtaking, even for him… Obama's ordinary MO is to stir people against one another, to stoke the flames of envy among some against others in lieu of rational argument to rally support for his causes.”<br><br>“<i><b>Obama will not offer any plan to reduce spending, especially entitlements</b></i>. He just keeps going back to his crusade against the rich, from whom he's already extracted a higher tax rate and eliminated personal exemptions and deductions. He promised he wanted a balanced approach, but he refuses to balance his punitive tax hikes with spending cuts and entitlement reform.”<br><br>“Obama and his Democratic senators <i><b>will not pass a budget</b></i>, and they will not participate in entitlement reform. Instead, Obama is back railing against the Republicans for their alleged unwillingness to further tax the rich, whom they have already reluctantly agreed to discriminatorily tax.”<br><br>“Now he complains about (the sequester’s) draconian cuts -- not about cuts to the military but about cuts to his sacred domestic programs. <i><b>But in fact, even with the sequester cuts, we will be spending more in fiscal year 2013 than we have in any other fiscal year in American history, save 2011</b></i>. He is simply misleading the public because he wants to further punish the rich -- even if it means holding hostage our military and accelerating the nation's imminent bankruptcy.”<br><br>“He believes that only he and his central planners in the omniscient federal government can cause economic growth and that from that high mountain of government largesse will trickle down economic activity for the ignorant, impotent private sector and the economy at large.”</div>
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Shame on me. In a brief departure from my customary self-absorption, I forgot to post a link to my latest tirade: http://townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/2013/02/22/gop-must-not-cave-to-the-bully-on-his-sequestration-n1517767David Limbaugh</div>
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Rich Lowry writes that Obama has spun a lurid fairy tale, resorting to scare-mongering instead of proposing mutually acceptable alternative solutions.<br><br>“Prepare for the end of food safety as we have known it. For a breakdown in public order. For little children languishing in ignorance. If only <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon" class="">Edward Gibbon</a></b> were here to chronicle the devastation. <i><b>On March 1, the fabric of our civilization begins to unwind</b></i>.”<br><br>“In Hans Christian Andersen terms, <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_Pea" class="">Obama is the princess and the sequester is the pea</a></b>. Over the next 10 years, the sequester amounts to a $1.16 trillion cut, or roughly 3 cents on every federal dollar. If we can’t squeeze a couple of pennies out of every dollar, <i><b>we might as well begin our great national bankruptcy proceedings right now</b></i>.”<br><br>“Even with the sequester, nondefense discretionary spending will still be up almost 10 percent since 2008. Even with the sequester, federal spending is projected to be a robust 22.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2023. Even with the sequester, the debt will hit 100 percent of GDP just two years later than it would otherwise, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.”<br><br>“<i><b>(The sequester) is a classic instance of Washington coming up with a stupid kick-the-can compromise and then proceeding to have an even stupider debate over what to do next</b></i>.”<br><br>“Ideally, Congress and the president would agree on more targeted and intelligently crafted savings. <i><b>But the President insists on more tax increases</b></i>. The other day he said a cuts-only replacement for the sequester would be as absurd as a taxes-only agreement on overall deficit reduction. Yet he exacted a taxes-only agreement from Republicans over the fiscal cliff, with nary a concern about making the deal more ‘balanced.’”</div>
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"The Great Sequester Panic." http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/the-great-sequester-panic-87880.html?ml=po_rRich Lowry</div>
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<br />Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-69849411380252580762013-02-19T20:53:00.001-05:002013-02-19T20:53:14.558-05:00Tuesday's Tidbits<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.politicalcartoons.com/artist/Gary+McCoy.html">Gary McCoy</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyf65__BdeF9Sb2TLwjItmT70M98tpcaSz-PWun1R1_QVO98AfqTanF0Lz9cWQVXIjBRzf5PjDbdlChJX_zZdw5GWqf5l8JQykOBmybJAj_0uLa5cSgoJflYiXKFJRebzoZ02FOXD6Q-g/s1600/we+love+free+stuff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyf65__BdeF9Sb2TLwjItmT70M98tpcaSz-PWun1R1_QVO98AfqTanF0Lz9cWQVXIjBRzf5PjDbdlChJX_zZdw5GWqf5l8JQykOBmybJAj_0uLa5cSgoJflYiXKFJRebzoZ02FOXD6Q-g/s400/we+love+free+stuff.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.investors.com/editorial-cartoons/michael-ramirez/">Michael Ramirez</a></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/tuesday-s-tidbits-2-19-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/tuesday-s-tidbits-2-19-13" target="_blank">View the story "Tuesday's Tidbits (2/19/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Tuesday's Tidbits (2/19/13)</h1>
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http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
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Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Tue, Feb 19 2013 17:26:22</p>
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<b><a href="http://www.victorhanson.com/" class="">Victor Davis Hanson</a></b> (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/VDHanson" class="">@VDHanson</a></b>) writes that history has shown that a government slicing up a shrinking pie breeds class envy, <i><b>then ruin</b></i>.<br><br>“<i><b>The gradual decline of a society is often a self-induced process of trying to meet ever-expanding appetites</b></i>, rather than a physical inability to produce past levels of food and fuel, or to maintain adequate defense. Americans have never had safer workplaces or more sophisticated medical care — and never have so many been on disability.”<br><br>“Given our unsustainable national debt — <b><a href="http://www.usdebtclock.org/" class="">nearly $17 trillion and climbing</a></b> — America is said to be in decline, although we face no devastating plague, nuclear holocaust, or shortage of oil or food.<br><br>“<i><b>Americans have never led such affluent material lives</b></i> — at least as measured by access to cellphones, big-screen TVs, cheap jet travel and fast food. Obesity rather than malnutrition is the greater threat to national health. Flash mobs go after electronics stores, not food markets. Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria.”<br><br>“<i><b>By any historical marker, the future of Americans has never been brighter</b></i>. The United States has it all: undreamed new finds of natural gas and oil, the world’s pre-eminent food production, continual technological wizardry, strong demographic growth, a superb military and constitutional stability.<br><br>“<i><b>Yet we don’t talk confidently about capitalizing and expanding on our natural and inherited wealth</b></i>. Instead, Americans bicker over entitlement spoils as the nation continues to pile up trillion-dollar-plus deficits. <i><b>Enforced equality rather than liberty is the new national creed</b></i>. The medicine of cutting back on government goodies seems far worse than the disease of borrowing trillions from the unborn to pay for them.”</div>
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HANSON: Why do societies give up? - Washington Times: http://wtim.es/W5uTipWashington Times Op</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/richard-rahn" class="">Richard W. Rahn</a></b>, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and Chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/RichardWRahn" class="">@RichardWRahn</a></b>), writes that big capitalist economies like ours, the United Kingdom and France are rapidly becoming more government-controlled, with high debt-to-GDP ratios and no economic growth. “<i><b>Rich countries do not naturally become poor. They only become poor when they have poor leadership</b></i>.”<br><br>“An upside down world. Here I am, in my London hotel room, watching an English-language financial program being broadcast from Moscow on RT (Russian TV). The program host is correctly berating the heads of the major Western central banks for acting like socialists in setting interest rates and ignoring the fact that free markets will do a better job. He notes that both China and Russia are on a gold-buying spree in order to strengthen their currencies, while the Europeans, Japan and the United States are in a race to weaken theirs. <i><b>Finally, he goes on a rant against the Western governments for their continuing fiscal irresponsibility</b></i>.”<br><br>“The United Kingdom, France and the United States do not have a credible plan to bring their deficits down to a level below realistic expected growth rates, <i><b>which is what is needed to avoid a financial meltdown</b></i>. The three governments have what they politely call a ‘<i><b>moving target</b></i>’ for spending, deficits and economic growth. <i><b>The moving target is one that never gets any closer</b></i>.”<br><br>“Many of the central banks are trying to do the impossible: <i><b>To increase inflation while keeping interest rates very low</b></i>. They want to raise inflation to erode the real value of the debts their governments have been creating, but they are fearful that raising interest rates will make the costs of servicing both private and public debt unmanageable.”<br><br>“What do you think President Obama will do if the Chinese, Japanese and others suddenly stop buying U.S. bonds and private buyers start demanding far higher interest rates? <i><b>Do you think he will accept the responsibility for his own economic mismanagement, or will he find some group to demonize and then try to take their assets?</b></i>”</div>
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Continuing DownfallBrian_Empric</div>
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Rich countries do not naturally become poor. They only become poor when they have poor leadership. http://j.mp/XirnEGCato Institute</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.hoover.org/fellows/9018" class="">Bruce Thornton</a></b>, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, writes that we need to focus on the nature of America’s political “<i><b>receivers</b></i>” – specifically those who voted for Obama and those who did not bother voting at all. “If those voters are not receptive to the Republican message, <i><b>it doesn’t matter much how brilliant the messenger or the packaging of the message</b></i>.”<br><br>“Nearly 3 months after the presidential election the Republicans are still trying to fix what they think went wrong. A popular culprit is the Republicans’ alleged failure to communicate forcefully or persuasively a message that would move voters presumably receptive to conservative policies and principles.”<br><br>“<i><b>Only the stupid or willfully inattentive haven’t heard that we face a financial abyss waiting at the end of our entitlement road</b></i>, that entitlements need to be reformed, that we have an exploding debt and deficit crisis, that a ‘tax the rich’ policy only produces chump-change for solving that problem, that Obama’s economic policies have bloated the federal government at the expense of jobs and growth, and that Obama himself is the most left-wing, duplicitous, partisan, and incompetent president in modern history.”<br><br>“The fact is, <i><b>many voters know full well this dismal catalogue of failure</b></i>, and they either don’t care, or they believe the fatuous rationalizations, lies, excuses, and economic magical thinking offered by the Democrats.”<br><br>“If you disagree, remember what happened to Paul Ryan last year. He identified the problem of entitlement-driven deficits and crafted a response that made a modest start at reform. But after several months of demonization by the Democrats that included an ad with a Ryan look-alike pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over a cliff, the only narrative with traction by election day was the lie that Republicans ‘want to end Medicare as we know it’ and ‘shred the safety net’ and keep the ‘rich’ from ‘paying their fair share.’ <i><b>You could have resurrected Ronald Reagan and had him deliver the counter-message and the outcome would’ve been the same</b></i>.”<br><br>“Dig deeper into the ideas behind the policies and you’ll find out why the Democrats’ narrative is so much more appealing to such voters than is that of the Republicans. <i><b>The conservative message is predicated on beliefs about ordered liberty, self-reliance, equality of opportunity, individualism, limited government, entrepreneurship, and all those other virtues and principles that indeed have made the United States the wealthiest, freest, most open great power in all of history</b></i>. But those virtues necessarily entail a tragic view of human life. Individual freedom requires as well personal responsibility and accountability for bad choices. Equality of opportunity is no guarantee of success. Talent, character, initiative, brains, and luck are not evenly distributed among people. Limiting government means individuals, families, churches, and communities must see to their own needs and wants and find some way to pay for them. Many businesses are going to fail, but that is part of capitalism’s ‘creative destruction’ that has made free-market economies so successful. We can’t have every good we want without paying a price or making a trade-off or accepting some level of risk… In short, a flawed human nature, the law of unforeseen consequences, and the limits of human knowledge all mean that we have to accept an imperfect world in which life isn’t fair: <i><b>there are no winners without losers, there’s no free lunch, and we can’t eat our cake and have it</b></i>.<br><br>“The progressive Democrats, in contrast to the timeless wisdom even an illiterate peasant once understood, endorse a therapeutic view of human life… <i><b>Contrary to those cranky ‘mean’ conservatives, there is such a thing as a free lunch, and we can eat our cake and still have it</b></i>.”<br><br>“So what if history shows that <i><b>every attempt to create the progressive utopia has ended in disaster and failure</b></i>, so what if the math says the entitlement state ends in bankruptcy, so what if our national character is being insidiously corrupted by getting something we haven’t earned but think is a human right, so what if, as Tocqueville warned 170 years ago, empowering the state to achieve these utopian boons comes at the cost of our freedom and autonomy. <i><b>We want our free stuff now, and somebody else can pay the cost, whether the ‘rich’ or our grandchildren</b></i>.”<br><br>“Better messages and better messengers <i><b>are not going to overcome human nature</b></i>. The melancholy truth is that our debt, deficit, and entitlement problems will not be seriously addressed until <i><b>a critical mass of citizens</b></i> feels the pain of these self-interested, shortsighted, catastrophic policies.”<br><br>“[P]rofessional marketers start by understanding their target audience. Music companies don’t spend a lot of money trying to sell rap music to senior citizens, and denture cream manufacturers pretty much ignore the 18-35 demographic. <i><b>When it comes to politics, we forget this critical dimension of marketing</b></i>. We just assume that a critical mass of voters, including the millions who voted for the other guy, want to buy our product.”<br><br>“Starting with the earliest critics of democracy, the tendency of voters to put their private interests over the long-term well being of the state was a consistent criticism… [T]he American Founders shared the ancient view of human nature <i><b>as motivated by passion and self-interest</b></i>, and similarly feared democracy as the form of government that gave the widest scope to those passions and interests.”<br><br>“Our problem today is that our government has evolved to something closer to ancient Athenian democracy than the Founders ever imagined… So unless one believes that human nature has evolved beyond passion and self-interest so that today a critical mass of voters will consider principle and the good of the whole even at the cost of their own interests, <i><b>we still face the same problem that troubled earlier critics of democracy</b></i>.”<br><br>“[T]his doesn’t mean that conservatives should adopt the fatalistic attitude that there’s nothing to be done. By all means, identify talented leaders, and think about more effective ways to communicate. <i><b>But let’s not pretend that it won’t take the folly of progressive policies hitting hard people’s material interests and political freedom</b></i>––which will happen, without question, under Obama and the Democrats–– to make voters receptive to those messengers and messages.”</div>
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It’s Not the Message, It’s Not the Messenger, It’s the Voter: The nightmares we face won't be ad... http://tinyurl.com/al98mxd #news #politicsFrontPage Magazine</div>
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Messengers, Messages, and Voters, Part 2At their retreat in Williamsburg a few weeks ago House Republicans continued the post-mortem of November's debacle. A big topic was how t...</div>
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Steve Forbes, a two-time candidate for the Republican nomination for the Presidency, writes that this year marks the unfortunate centennial of the federal income tax (Feb. 3rd) and the Federal Reserve System (Dec. 23rd), “<i><b>both of which today are doing immeasurable harm</b></i>.”<br><br>“Income taxes punish the very things we want more of: <i><b>productive work, risk-taking and success</b></i>. We can’t say this enough: A tax on income is the price you pay for working; a tax on profits, the price you pay for success; and a tax on capital gains, the price you pay for taking risks that work out.”<br><br>“[T]he justifications for punitive rates have been demolished. The literature undercutting the rationales for absurd levels–that they produce more government ‘investment,’ that they don’t hurt economic activity–continues to grow. The truth is that on the national level those higher taxes are slowing down an already sluggish economy.”<br><br>“Research by Art Laffer and other economists has demonstrated that over time states that have no income tax perform better than states with high income taxes… Before the enactment of the 16th Amendment, which permitted Washington to impose an income tax, states were in the vanguard of putting taxes on income. <i><b>Today they are doing just the opposite</b></i>.”<br><br>“Republicans must begin to realize that they should don <i><b>an optimistic pro-growth mantle</b></i> instead of sounding like dyspeptic accountants.”<br><br>“The harm the Federal Reserve does is less appreciated but no less real. Amazingly, our central bank <i><b>has no concept of the proper role for such an institution</b></i>, which is to give us a stable currency and deal with financial panics quickly and decisively.”<br><br>“When the dollar is weakened, investment is misdirected. Less goes into financing productive activities and more into defensive hard assets.”<br><br>“[T]he Fed’s interest rate activities are suppressing the availability of credit to smaller businesses. Bank loans to unincorporated businesses–which are huge job creators in a normal economy–have actually declined during the last two years. Meanwhile, the federal government gets all the cash it wants at virtually no cost. <i><b>Call it deficits without tears</b></i>.”</div>
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See my piece, Two Awful Anniversaries: Income Tax and Federal Reserve - Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2013/02/13/two-awful-anniversaries/2/Steve Forbes</div>
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<b><a href="http://www1.spa.american.edu/listings.php?ID=103" class="">Bradley R. Schiller</a></b>, emeritus professor of economics at American University, writes that Congress is <i><b>not good at not spending</b></i>.<br><br>“Uncle Sam spends more money every year than he takes in. The resulting budget deficits are financed by issuing more Treasury bonds (IOUs), adding to the pile of debt. Annual deficits balloon when wars or recessions cause spending to surge and/or tax revenues to decline. <i><b>Deficit spending makes debt reduction impossible</b></i>. Opinion polls suggest Americans want government to stop the deficit spending, so Washington is now fixated on deficit reduction. The CBO says the current debt trajectory will shave 1.7 percent off GDP by 2022.<br><br>“The U.S. Senate hasn’t passed a budget in four years. Congress sidesteps fiscal responsibilities by passing continuing resolutions that provide ‘temporary’ and ‘emergency’ funding for Uncle Sam. Without those budget Band-Aids, <i><b>the government would have to shut down</b></i>, as it did on 17 occasions from 1976 to 1996.”<br><br>Congress has proven to be incapable to reduce deficits through regular annual budgeting, requiring budget enforcement/deficit reduction mechanisms like sequestration, <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Rudman%E2%80%93Hollings_Balanced_Budget_Act" class="">the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985</a></b>, <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Enforcement_Act_of_1990" class="">the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990</a></b>, and the debt ceiling.<br><br>“Persistent budget deficits keep pushing the debt against that limit, which means Congress either must raise the debt ceiling or shut down the government. <i><b>It always raises the debt ceiling</b></i>. It has done so 77 times since 1962.<br><br>“The ultimate budget enforcement mechanism is <i><b>a constitutional amendment that forbids deficit spending</b></i>. Economists warn that such a budget straitjacket is unenforceable and potentially disastrous. Still, it has enormous popular appeal. If two-thirds majorities of both chambers pass it, it goes to the states for ratification with a three-fourths majority.”<br><br>“The public is fed up with soaring debt and Congress‘ inability to exercise fiscal restraint. <i><b>People have near-zero confidence in Congress</b></i>, which spills over into their perceptions of the economy. They see runaway deficits, soaring debt and a complete lack of fiscal leadership. These perceptions restrain investment spending, deter consumer purchases, constrain bank lending and slow foreign investment. <i><b>The end result is slower economic growth and persistently high unemployment</b></i>.”</div>
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SCHILLER: A history of the national debtAlexander Hamilton, America's first secretary of the Treasury, issued the first U.S. Treasury bonds on Sept. 18, 1789. The Continental Co...</div>
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Amity Shlaes (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/AmityShlaes" class="">@AmityShlaes</a></b>), who directs The 4% Growth Project, shares an anecdote that Calvin Coolidge had two lion cubs sent to him from an admirer in South Africa, which he named Budget Bureau (a forerunner to today's Office of Management and Budget) and Tax Reduction. <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States" class="">Many historians rate Coolidge as a weak president</a></b>, but he held back the Progressives for 5½ years and had the determination to advance the fiscal policy that conservatives would like to see today.<br><br>“A New Englander and former Massachusetts governor, Coolidge came to Washington as vice president and moved into the White House only in 1923 after the sudden death of President Warren Harding. He later won the office himself and served until 1929. The 30th president cut the top income-tax rate to 25% (lower than the 28% of the historic Reagan cut of 1986). <i><b>Coolidge reduced the national debt and balanced the budget</b></i>. When he departed the White House for his home in Northampton, Mass., <i><b>he left a federal budget smaller than the one he found</b></i>.<br><br>“Three factors gave Silent Cal the ability to cut as he did, each suggesting a governing approach that would be useful today… The first advantage was a gift from his predecessor, President Harding: <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_and_Accounting_Act" class="">the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921</a></b>… The second advantage was one Coolidge himself supplied: the discipline to use budget tools, new and old… Coolidge's third advantage was insight into what might be called fiscal trust. The president understood that ambitious budget cuts would be accepted if he could ‘align’ them with ambitious tax cuts.”<br><br>“Coolidge and (Treasury secretary Andrew) Mellon carefully underscored the technical evidence, and there was plenty, that greater revenues might follow tax rate cuts. <i><b>But they still insisted on twinning tax cuts with budget cuts, so voters and markets would never be betrayed</b></i>.”<br><br>“President Reagan recognized Coolidge's achievement, and upon taking office in 1981 he had a neglected Coolidge picture restored to a place of honor near Lincoln and Jefferson in the Cabinet Room. It is too much to hope that President Obama would take Coolidge's example to heart. <i><b>But those who are even now pondering presidential runs for 2016 would do well to heed Silent Cal's deeds</b></i>.”</div>
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Amity Shlaes: The Coolidge Lesson on Taxes and Spending http://on.wsj.com/ZbQmbSOpinion & Commentary</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/robert-levy" class="">Robert A. Levy</a></b>, chairman of the Cato Institute, writes that two of the three steps in the battle for gun rights have been accomplished; the Supreme Court has decided the meaning of the Second Amendment and where it applies, and the next major task <i><b>is to determine the scope and limitations of those rights</b></i>.<br><br>“The Second Amendment does not guarantee a 12-year-old's right to possess a machine gun in front of the White House when the president is walking on the lawn. Some persons, some weapons and some circumstances may be regulated… <i><b>Reasonable persons should be able to fashion reasonable restrictions</b></i>—a framework for gun control in the aftermath of Newtown—without violating core Second Amendment rights.<br><br>“Here is the key principle: Both Heller and McDonald corroborated that the right to bear arms is ‘<i><b>fundamental</b></i>’; i.e., it is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty and deeply rooted in our nation's traditions and culture. Consequently, the Constitution establishes a presumption of individual liberty. That means <i><b>government bears a heavy burden</b></i> to justify any regulations that would compromise the right.”<br><br>Levy examines several of the current proposed concepts, like banning high-capacity magazines, re-enacting an assault weapons ban, increasing background checks for private sales at gun shows, legalizing drugs, detecting/treating mental illness earlier, and hiring armed guards at schools (or allowing volunteer teachers/principals to access weapons).<br><br>“If regulators can show that the benefits of banning high-capacity magazines exceed the costs, I have little doubt that such a ban would survive a Second Amendment court challenge.”<br><br>“Evaluation of an assault weapons ban, like that of a magazine ban, <i><b>should be based on empirical evidence</b></i>… The task is to identify those firearms or attachments that are not commonly used or needed for self-defense, and would improve public safety if they were banned. The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban went too far; but a better-crafted, limited version might be warranted.”<br><br>“Gun control advocates occasionally misuse the phrase ‘<i><b>close the gun-show loophole</b></i>’ to urge that all private sales be subject to background checks. Two clarifications: First, sensible proposals to extend background checks would not reach all private sales, but only those at gun shows. Second, most sales at gun shows are through licensed dealers that already have to conduct such checks.”<br><br>“Here are the figures for a recent year: The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) denied 79,000 would-be buyers. Of those, 105 were prosecuted and 43 were convicted. <i><b>That's a conviction rate of 5/100ths of one percent</b></i>. Either the remaining denials were false positives – legitimate purchases unjustly blocked by NICS – or, if the denials were proper, <i><b>then 99.95 percent of the 79,000 rejected applicants escaped punishment</b></i>. Neither conclusion offers much hope for an expanded system of background checks.”<br><br>“The single most effective option—which is not being discussed at all—would result in a huge reduction of gun violence: Legalize drugs… [B]ecause drugs are illegal, participants in the drug trade cannot go to court to settle disputes and enforce contracts. As a result, disputes are resolved by force.”<br><br>“I do believe that early detection and treatment (of mental illness) can be a legitimate function of government. It's part of a state's police power to protect residents against rights-violating activities, such as the criminal use of firearms.”<br><br>“In the United States, there are approximately 100,000 public schools, so staffing should not be prohibitively expensive. About 28 percent of those schools already employ security officers who carry firearms. For the remaining schools, retired police and military personnel would be obvious recruits. The focus should be on entrance security, which reduces manpower requirements… <i><b>Gun-free school zones have been a magnet for the mentally deranged</b></i>.”<br><br>“With just two exceptions, every public mass shooting in this country over the past 60 years has taken place where citizens are banned from carrying guns.”<br><br>“Our framers intended that the states serve as experimental laboratories. <i><b>Residents who disapprove can vote with their feet</b></i>. Even the indisputably anti-gun Washington Post editorialized: Armed guards are ‘not unreasonable where local schools feel they need [them].’”<br><br>While I disagree with Levy on drug legalization, I do agree that there is no reason why we cannot rationally debate and have another look at our gun laws. An unemotional, fact-based process should be our guide, keeping in mind that random multi-victim killings are a minor fraction of murders, there is no reliable evidence that gun control regulations reduce violent gun crime, and gun ownership is already heavily regulated.<br><br>“Overall, I am skeptical about the efficacy of gun regulations that are <i><b>imposed almost exclusively on persons who are not part of the problem</b></i>… With regard to further regulations, the Supreme Court has directed government to certify two essential points: First, the proposals will make us safer. Second, the same ends could not be attained without unduly compromising individual rights that are secured by the Second Amendment.”</div>
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Reflections on Gun Control by a Second Amendment Advocate http://j.mp/X2LWFc by Robert A. LevyCato Institute</div>
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Andrew Malcolm reports that the Obama administration “has been buying and storing vast amounts of ammunition in recent months, with the Department of Homeland Security just placing <i><b>another order for an additional 21.6 million rounds</b></i>.”<br><br>“According to one estimate, just since last spring <i><b>DHS has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets</b></i>, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. <i><b>That's sufficient firepower to shoot every American about five times</b></i>. Including illegal immigrants.<br><br>“To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. <i><b>At that rate, DHS is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war</b></i>.”<br><br>“The lack of a credible official explanation for such awesome ammunition acquisitions is feeding all sorts of conspiracy theories, mainly centered on federal anticipation of some kind of <i><b>domestic insurrection</b></i>.”</div>
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ICYMI Why are the feds loading up on so much ammo? http://dlvr.it/2wGZ1d #TCOT Bookmark--> http://Investors.com/AndrewMalcolmAndrew Malcolm</div>
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Chuck Raasch reports that retailers are seeing rising demand for ammunition from gun owners who are stockpiling bullets due to potential gun control legislation, and customers are now competing over the supply with the federal government.<br><br>“<i><b>Prices have more than doubled over past year in some shops</b></i>, retailers are putting limits on the amount a customer can buy, and some common types of ammunition, such as .22-caliber long rifle shells, are hard to get.”<br><br>“[R]etailers say much of the demand is from gun owners who are stockpiling in case certain weapons are banned, <i><b>who believe that economic chaos may be coming</b></i>, or who are driven by rumors of inevitable background checks or rising taxes on ammunition.”<br><br>“The run on ammunition comes amid Internet discussion about recent purchases of ammunition by the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration.”</div>
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Gun dealers report shortages of ammunition http://usat.ly/Wz2cfW via @USATODAYChuck Raasch</div>
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Jim VandeHei & Mike Allen write that Obama “is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House” with old tricks on steroids. The White House uses softball interviews, weekend document dumps, restricted access to administration officials, mastery of “scrutiny avoidance,” and even bullying to influence the media coverage.<br><br>“The results are transformational. With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, <i><b>the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government</b></i>. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly.”<br><br>“The president has shut down interviews with many of the White House reporters who know the most and ask the toughest questions. Instead, he spends way more time talking directly to voters via friendly shows and media personalities.”<br><br>“Obama boasted Thursday during a Google+ Hangout from the White House: ‘This is the most transparent administration in history.’ <i><b>The people who cover him day to day see it very differently</b></i>.”<br><br>“The way the president’s availability to the press has shrunk in the last two years <i><b>is a disgrace</b></i>,” said ABC News White House reporter Ann Compton, who has covered every president back to Gerald R. Ford. “The president’s day-to-day policy development — on immigration, on guns — <i><b>is almost totally opaque</b></i> to the reporters trying to do a responsible job of covering it. There are no readouts from big meetings he has with people from the outside, and many of them aren’t even on his schedule. This is different from every president I covered. This White House goes to extreme lengths to keep the press away.”<br><br>“<i><b>Obama’s aides are better at using technology and exploiting the president’s ‘brand.’</b></i> They are more disciplined about cracking down on staff that leak, or reporters who write things they don’t like. And they are obsessed with taking advantage of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and every other social media forums, not just for campaigns, but governing.”<br><br>“Conservatives assume a cozy relationship between this White House and the reporters who cover it. Wrong. Many reporters find Obama himself strangely fearful of talking with them <i><b>and often aloof and cocky when he does</b></i>. They find his staff needlessly stingy with information and thin-skinned about any tough coverage. He gets more-favorable-than-not coverage because many staffers are fearful of talking to reporters, even anonymously, and some reporters inevitably worry access or the chance of a presidential interview will decrease if they get in the face of this White House.”<br><br>“This administration loves to boast about how transparent they are, but they’re transparent about things they want to be transparent about,” said Mark Knoller, the veteran CBS News reporter. “<i><b>He gives interviews not for our benefit, but to achieve his objective</b></i>.”</div>
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w/ @JimVandeHei, "Obama, puppet master": Golf is the least of it -- Quotes @MarkKnoller, @PeterBakerNYT #POLITICObtc http://politi.co/Y5okhiMike Allen</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-64490506791927454532013-02-18T21:48:00.002-05:002013-02-18T21:48:31.006-05:00Monday's Menagerie<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/natebeeler"><span><span class="st">@natebeeler</span></span></a></span></span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/varvel">@varvel</a></span></span></span></h2>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-2-18-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/monday-s-menagerie-2-18-13" target="_blank">View the story "Monday's Menagerie (2/18/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>
Monday's Menagerie (2/18/13)</h1>
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http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2>
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Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Mon, Feb 18 2013 18:35:54</p>
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<b><a href="http://www.hcz.org/about-us/about-geoffrey-canada" class="">Geoffrey Canada</a></b> (president of the Harlem Children's Zone), <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Druckenmiller" class="">Stanley Druckenmiller</a></b> (former president of Duquesne Capital) and <b><a href="http://www.hoover.org/fellows/77701" class="">Kevin Warsh</a></b> (former Federal Reserve governor) collaborate across the political spectrum to agree that <i><b>government spending levels are unsustainable</b></i>.<br><br>They focus on three main infirmities plaguing Washington and threatening the next generation: the entitlement programs are unfair to young Americans, few elected officials act for the “long term,” and too many politicians “appear more eager to divide the spoils of electoral victory among their own than to increase the size of the economic pie for all.”<br><br>“One of us is a Democrat; one, an independent; another, a Republican. Yet, together, we recognize several hard truths: Government spending levels are unsustainable. <i><b>Higher taxes, however advisable or not, fail to come close to solving the problem</b></i>. Discretionary spending must be reduced but without harming the safety net for our most vulnerable, or sacrificing future growth (e.g., research and education). Defense and homeland security spending should not be immune to reductions. <i><b>Most consequentially, the growth in spending on entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare—must be curbed</b></i>.<br><br>“These truths are not born of some zeal for austerity or unkindness, <i><b>but of arithmetic</b></i>. The growing debt burden threatens to crush the next generation of Americans… The failure to be forthright on fiscal policy is doing grievous harm to the country's long-term growth prospects. <i><b>And the greatest casualties will be young Americans of all stripes who want—and need—an opportunity to succeed</b></i>.”<br><br>“A typical third-grader will get back (in present value terms) <i><b>only 75 cents for every dollar</b></i> he contributes to Social Security over his lifetime. Meanwhile, many seniors with greater means nearing retirement age will pocket a handsome profit… the status quo is, in fact, tantamount to <i><b>saddling school-age children with more debt, weaker economic growth, and fewer opportunities for jobs and advancement</b></i>.”<br><br>“<i><b>Elected officials continue to allow the immediate to trump the important</b></i>. Washington appears poised to forego fundamental reform at the altar of the expedient, yet again.”<br><br>“The benefits of rising stock prices accrue to those who have already amassed wealth <i><b>at the expense of those who are struggling to save</b></i>. And failing to deal with runaway spending will burden the country's children with higher interest rates and a debt bomb that will come due in their lifetimes.”<br><br>“Crony capitalism and corporate welfare aren't just expenses we cannot afford. <i><b>They are an anathema to economic growth</b></i>. They deny opportunities to aspiring people and companies who seek to better their lot. They ration opportunity based on things other than merit and hard work.”</div>
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Canada, Druckenmiller and Warsh: Generational Theft Needs to Be Arrested http://on.wsj.com/YbPJMxOpinion & Commentary</div>
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Erik Wasson reports that former Republican vice presidential candidate and current House Budget Committee <b><a href="http://paulryan.house.gov/" class="">Chairman Paul Ryan</a></b> criticized Barack Obama last week for failing to focus on the deficits and debt during his State of the Union address.<br><br>“<i><b>It seems as if they think the heavy lifting on debt reduction, deficit reduction is behind us</b></i>, we have just a little bit left and then we’re done,” Ryan said. “I really worry that our partners in government, here — two-thirds of it, the Senate and the White House — are <i><b>deluding themselves in thinking this thing is taken care of</b></i>.”<br><br>“Ryan cited CBO’s finding that publicly-held debt had doubled from 36 percent of the economy before Obama took office <i><b>to 73 percent in 2012</b></i>.”<br><br>“Even if we got every tax increase the president has called for we are not even scratching the surface,” Ryan said. “The other problem is growth. <i><b>If we keep chasing higher spending with higher taxes we will hurt growth</b></i>.”</div>
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.@RepPaulRyan: Obama delusional on debt #SOTU http://j.mp/XLsUkJ by @elwassonThe Hill</div>
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SOTUBrian_Empric</div>
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Douglas Kellogg and Pete Sepp from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) write that Obama’s agenda proposals added up to <i><b>$83.4 billion</b></i>, according to their line-by-line analysis of the State of the Union address.<br><br>Download a PDF of the NTUF’s cost analysis of Obama’s most recent State of the Union address <b><a href="http://www.ntu.org/ntuf/pdf/ntuf_sotu_cost_analysis_2013.pdf" class="">here</a></b>.<br><br>“This figure could grow much higher depending on what the President aims to do to avoid the sequester. In either case, if the President intends to follow through on his promise that his speech would not ‘<i><b>add a dime to the deficit</b></i>,’ individuals and businesses may be facing <i><b>another round of tax increases</b></i>.”<br><br>“The speech gave the President the opportunity to preview his forthcoming budget,” said <b><a href="http://www.ntu.org/about-ntu/staff/demian-brady.html" class="">NTUF Director of Research Demian Brady</a></b>. “And although he said his agenda items would not increase the deficit, he spent far more time detailing new spending initiatives than how they would be <i><b>‘paid for.���</b></i>”<br><br>“By far the most costly single agenda item was ‘<i><b>combating climate change</b></i>’; a version of the ‘cap-and-trade’ bill to which Obama referred in his speech was priced at <i><b>$282.4 billion total</b></i>, or $56.5 billion per year.”<br><br>“More than half of the 40 proposals NTUF analyzed in the speech had fiscal impacts that could not be quantified, while just four were classified as generating offsets.”<br><br>“This year’s speech will continue to have a significant impact as lawmakers and taxpayers sift through the President’s most ambitious State of the Union Address so far and look out for what may be heading their way,” Brady concluded. “The President’s upcoming budget proposal could clarify just how significant the fiscal fight between the two parties in Congress will be this year.”</div>
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NTUF #SOTU Analysis: Agenda Adds Up to $83.4 Billion, Does Deficit Pledge Mean More Tax Hikes? http://bit.ly/XBzUCu #tcotNatl Taxpayers Union</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.edbutowsky.com/ed-butowsky/" class="">Ed Butowsky</a></b>, Managing Partner at Chapwood Capital Investment Management, writes that devaluation of our dollar, by printing and spending money “<i><b>out of thin air</b></i>,” causes imported items to cost more. This is excessively detrimental for the middle class, and contributes to high unemployment and anemic GDP.<br><br>“When the president says that the country needs more ‘<i><b>investment</b></i>’ it is crucial to note that this is <i><b>code for more printing of money</b></i>. What that means is further and significant devaluation of our dollar, which will disproportionately hurt the middle class.”<br><br>“<i><b>Want to help middle class? Cut tax rates and stimulate the economy</b></i>. This is a much better way to get our country back to a GDP growth rate of 5%, where it needs to be to really help the middle class.”<br><br>“Additionally, when the president uses in the state of the union the term ‘<i><b>investment</b></i>’ this means increasing our debt, which puts our credit rating on watch for a downgrade -- again. This will in turn require the United States -- at some point -- to raise the interest rate we pay on our debt to countries like China in order to make our debt more attractive to those we want to loan us money to finance our nation's ongoing affairs. <i><b>T</b><b>his will increase our annual deficit, which in turn will directly require us to pay more money in interest, which will put our country at risk in many ways, including national defense</b></i>.”<br><br>“At some point this race to the bottom will hurt corporate earnings and we will see rates rise on fixed income, coupled with stock prices decreasing.”</div>
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Hot off the presses - please read/share. What the Govt redefines what Investment is.. (via @edbutowsky on #FoxBusiness) http://ow.ly/hKzbZEd Butowsky</div>
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Robert J. Samuelson writes that everyone wants more jobs. “<i><b>Scarce jobs are the nation’s first, second and third most important economic and social problem</b></i>.”<br><br>Nevertheless, job creation is weak and unemployment is high, as consumers and businesses have retreated from extra spending. This withdrawal produces <i><b>a self-fulfilling prophecy of pessimism and economic sluggishness</b></i>, which is perpetuated by constant political feuds in Washington.<br><br>“What’s especially disheartening and mystifying is that, until now, job creation was considered an inherent strength of the U.S. economy. Despite some years of recession-induced joblessness, unemployment averaged 5.6 percent from 1950 to 2007. <i><b>The Congressional Budget Office doesn’t expect it to fall below 7.5 percent until 2015</b></i>. That would make six years above 7.5 percent — the longest stretch of high joblessness in 70 years. It has defied massive budget deficits and ultra-low interest rates.”<br><br>“<i><b>We have gone from being an expansive, risk-taking society </b><b>to a skittish, risk-averse one</b></i>. Before the 2008-09 financial crisis, the bias was toward more spending. The inclination was to surrender to immediate gratification. Want a new car? Sure, why not? More meals out? Great idea! Businesses behaved similarly. Banks made the next loan; companies hired the next worker and approved the next investment project. An ever-expanding economy justified optimism, and optimism supported an ever-expanding economy. Hello, bubble.”<br><br>“The caution and risk-aversion aren’t so great as to cause a recession, but on the margin they have limited the economy’s expansion to rates — lately, 1 percent to 2 percent — too weak to absorb most jobless. Pessimism produces a sluggish economy; a sluggish economy produces pessimism. <i><b>That’s the main explanation of poor job creation</b></i>.”<br><br>“We are hostage to a stubborn, restraining psychology. <i><b>There’s no obvious fix for slow job growth</b></i>, precisely because it requires a change in public mood or some autonomous source of added demand — a burst of exports, investment in new technologies — not easily predicted or controlled.”</div>
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Robert Samuelson: Why job creation is so hard - President Obama and the Democrats want more jobs. So do Republicans.... http://ow.ly/2uWjLdWashPostNewsMedia</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.npr.org/people/4646803/adam-davidson" class="">Adam Davidson</a></b> asks if deporting all of the illegal immigrants, who now compete with American workers for low-end jobs, would mean “more jobs, lower taxes and a stronger economy?” <i><b>Apparently, deportations would help our undereducated and unskilled native-born labor force, but not everyone else.</b></i><br><br>This is one debate where <b><a href="http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com/2013/01/immigration-reform-no-to-amnesty.html" class="">the economic and political arguments do not coincide</a></b>. Regardless of the consensus economist agreement that immigrants benefit the overall economy, there is also the historical fact that <i><b>amnesty has not helped Republicans politically</b></i>. Furthermore, there is a moral dilemma with purposefully punishing our own less-educated citizens – <b><a href="http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com/2013/01/mondays-menagerie_28.html" class="">27.7 million of which do not currently have a job, while 7-8 million illegal immigrants do</a></b> - by tacitly allowing unrestrained immigration.<br><br>“As Congress debates the contours of immigration reform, many arguments have been made on economic grounds. <i><b>Undocumented workers, some suggest, undercut wages and take jobs that would otherwise go to Americans</b></i>. Worse, the argument goes, many use social programs, like hospitals and schools, that cost taxpayers and add to our $16 trillion national debt.”<br><br>“Illegal immigration does have some undeniably negative economic effects. Similarly skilled native-born workers are faced with a choice of either accepting lower pay or not working in the field at all. Labor economists have concluded that undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a high-school diploma <i><b>— 25 million of them — by anywhere between 0.4 to 7.4 percent.</b></i><br><br>“The impact on everyone else, though, <i><b>is surprisingly positive</b></i>. <b><a href="http://old.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gperi/" class="">Giovanni Peri</a></b>, an economist at the University of California, Davis, has written a series of influential papers comparing the labor markets in states with high immigration levels to those with low ones. He concluded that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instead, they complement them. Economies, as Adam Smith argued in ‘Wealth of Nations,’ work best when workers become specialized and divide up tasks among themselves… <i><b>In states with more undocumented immigrants, Peri said, skilled workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s productivity grew</b></i>.”<br><br>“There are many ways to debate immigration, but when it comes to economics, there isn’t much of a debate at all. <i><b>Nearly all economists, of all political persuasions, agree that immigrants — those here legally or not — benefit the overall economy</b></i>. ‘That is not controversial,’ <b><a href="http://www.epi.org/people/heidi-shierholz/" class="">Heidi Shierholz</a></b>, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. Shierholz also said that ‘there is a consensus that, on average, the incomes of families in this country are increased by a small, but clearly positive amount, because of immigration.’”<br><br>“The problem, though, is that undocumented workers are not evenly distributed… Immigrants use public assistance, medical care and schools. Some immigrant neighborhoods have particularly high crime rates.”<br><br>“Immigrants bring diffuse and hard-to-see benefits to average Americans <i><b>while imposing more tangible costs on a few</b></i>, Shierholz says. The dollar value of the benefits far outweigh the costs, so the government could just transfer extra funds to those local populations that need more help.”</div>
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My column this week: Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy? http://nyti.ms/XyflD7Adam Davidson</div>
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N.C. Aizenman reports that many young, healthy Americans could face <i><b>a health insurance price surge</b></i> due to their insurer’s compliance with ObamaCare. <b><a href="http://www.aetna.com/about-aetna-insurance/aetna-corporate-profile/corporate-bios/bertolini.html" class="">Aetna chief executive Mark T. Bertolini</a></b> has cautioned that premiums could <i><b>more than double for the young and healthy</b></i>, to subsidize the older and sicker people paying lower premiums.<br><br>“Insurers point to several reasons that premiums will rise. They will soon be required to offer more-comprehensive coverage than many currently provide. Also, their costs will increase because they will be barred from rejecting the sick, and they will no longer be allowed to charge older customers sharply higher premiums than younger ones.”<br><br>“<i><b>The danger of rate shock has also become the favored weapon of conservative opponents of the law, repeated in a drumbeat of op-eds and policy papers in recent weeks</b></i>.”<br><br>“Most of the new rules that could push up premiums will not apply to plans sponsored by large employers, only to those sold to individuals and small businesses. These policies will be available on insurance marketplaces, or ‘exchanges’… The law will require insurers to offer a generous package of benefits for exchange plans, including coverage of maternity care, prescription drugs and treatment for mental illness… Many 20-somethings who buy their own insurance have plans that are considerably skimpier. <i><b>So, under the new rule, they will be getting and paying for more, whether they want the added coverage or not</b></i>.”<br><br>“The price of a policy for a young, healthy man in, for instance, Milwaukee, <i><b>could triple from $58 per month to $175</b></i>, according to a survey of insurers released by <b><a href="http://americanactionforum.org/experts/douglas-holtz-eakin" class="">Douglas Holtz-Eakin</a></b>, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.<br><br>“Insurers argue that such increases could prompt many healthy young adults to opt out of coverage, <i><b>skewing the insurance market so heavily toward the old and sick that it implodes</b></i>.”<br><br>“[M]any 20-somethings today buy stripped-down insurance, and that changes the picture. Eighty percent would spend more on exchange policies in 2014 than they do on their current, often bare-bones, plans, even when subsidies are taken into account, according to the New York-based consulting firm <b><a href="http://www.oliverwyman.com/index.html" class="">Oliver Wyman</a></b>, which does work for AHIP (the trade group <b><a href="http://www.ahip.org/" class="">America’s Health Insurance Plans</a></b>).<br><br>“If these young and healthy people find the pinch to their wallets too painful, they could either go without insurance and pay a tax penalty or take advantage of a provision in the law that allows those younger than 30 to buy a high-deductible ‘catastrophic’ plan that will presumably be cheaper.”</div>
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Will young adults face 'rate shock' because of the health-care law?Insurers point to several reasons that premiums will rise. They will soon be required to offer more-comprehensive coverage than many curr...</div>
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<b><a href="http://corp.gsn.com/corporate-info" class="">David Goldhill</a></b>, President and CEO of Game Show Network, writes that many Americans are unaware of how much of their compensation is eaten up by health care costs. “[T]his share will grow as long as the increase in health costs exceeds growth in gross domestic product. <i><b>That’s just math</b></i>.”<br><br>Health care expenses are not just the employee paid deductible, premium and taxes – <i><b>they are the employer paid costs that might otherwise be provided to the employee as salary</b></i>. Goldhill’s solution to lower costs through competition, while improving quality and service, includes HSAs for routine/expected care, and insurance for major/unpredictable expenses.<br><br>“Even after decades of financial engineering, including both the already-implemented and the planned aspects of the Affordable Care Act, <i><b>the American health care system can be called successful mainly in its ability to hide its enormous cost</b></i>.”<br><br>“Clearly, personal health insurance is not the only way our employees pay into our health care system. There is the 1.45 percent of every paycheck that goes to Medicare, as well as the portion matched by the employer. Furthermore, a large slice of her general taxes are, in fact, health care costs: roughly 20 percent of federal spending and 10 percent of state spending support Medicare and Medicaid.”<br><br>“Before the Affordable Care Act became law, President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers warned that its projections to 2040 showed that ‘essentially all of the rise in average compensation due to increasing productivity over time would go to health insurance, <i><b>and essentially none would go to take-home wages</b></i>.’”<br><br>“In the world of health care analysis, there are basically two schools of thought. The first is that health care is so fundamentally different from other goods and services that a normal market can’t drive down its prices… An alternative to the conventional wisdom is that <i><b>consumer ignorance is what differentiates health care from other industries</b></i>. This results in a lack of discipline <i><b>that allows for pervasive excess care and exorbitant prices</b></i>.”<br><br>“[I]n our exquisitely responsive political system, government intervention in health care has often allowed for giveaways to powerful industry interests.”<br><br>“Here’s a completely different idea, one that might actually work. Let’s give every American health insurance, but only for truly rare, major and unpredictable illnesses. <i><b>In other words, let’s cover everyone but not everything</b></i>. It would take a generation to transition fully to such a system, but eventually the most routine and expected medical treatments, from checkups and minor illnesses all the way to common chronic conditions and expected end-of-life care, <i><b>would be funded from our individual health savings</b></i>; only the most major needs — for example, cancer, stroke and trauma — would be paid out of insurance.”</div>
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Opinion: The Health Benefits That Cut Your Pay http://nyti.ms/VnuASQNYT Opinion</div>
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Tom Howell Jr. reports that 26 states (<b><a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/February/15/state-federal-exchange-partnership-deadline.aspx" class="">actually 25, according to Kaiser Health News</a></b>) let the deadline pass last week to apply to HHS for a health insurance exchange state-federal partnership, and have chosen to let the federal government run this online market instead.<br><br>“The exchanges, <i><b>which are designed to let those without employer-based insurance compare and buy plans with the help of tax credits</b></i>, are a crucial part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that passed in 2010 and was largely upheld by the Supreme Court in June.”<br><br>“The Obama administration says it will be ready to run exchanges in more than half of the states, <i><b>even though a bevy of Republican governors and lawmakers flouted their intentions by saddling them with the task</b></i>… State leaders who deferred to the federal government cited numerous reasons for their choices; among them, they wanted to distance themselves from Mr. Obama’s first-term achievement, could not obtain enough information to make an informed decision or ran out of time after Mitt Romney lost the presidential election.”<br><br>“From the start, HHS advised states to run the exchanges so they could tailor them to their residents’ needs. <i><b>But the majority said no</b></i>.”</div>
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After Obamacare health exchange deadline passes, 26 states opt in with feds - Washington Times: http://wtim.es/15kF9KzTom Howell Jr.</div>
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The deadline was 2-15 to apply for a health insurance exchange state-federal partnershipBrian_Empric</div>
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Chief Congressional Correspondent Susan Ferrechio (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/susanferrechio" class="">@susanferrechio</a></b>) reports that vulnerable red-state Senate Democrats may be unwilling to support Obama’s State of the Union proposals regarding assault-style weapons, “cap and trade,” immigration reform, minimum wage, and higher spending and taxes.<br><br>“While Democrats cheered frequently during the speech, for some, <i><b>the proposals present political danger</b></i>. Analysts believe nine Democratic Senate lawmakers will face challenging re-election battles, most of them from red states including Arkansas, Alaska, Minnesota and North Carolina, where voting for many of Obama's ideas, particularly a tax on carbon emissions or major gun control initiatives, <i><b>could be career-ending</b></i>.”<br><br>“Some of the president's key ideas will be hard to pass because it will be difficult to keep the entire Democratic caucus together,” said <b><a href="http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/contributors/nathan-gonzales" class="">Nathan Gonzales</a></b>, deputy editor of the Rothenberg Political Report.<br><br><b><a href="http://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/" class="">Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.</a></b>, said, “I think the hardest job for Democrats to defend in 2014 is why we are not doing anything about the debt, or about the Medicare program that is not going to be able to pay the hospital bills in a few years.”</div>
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Red-state Democrats may doom Obama's liberal agenda | WashingtonExaminer.comPresident Obama's ambitious second-term agenda could hit roadblocks in the Senate, where vulnerable red-state Democrats up for re-electio...</div>
</noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-12117664363259451512013-02-17T21:35:00.001-05:002013-02-17T21:35:06.810-05:00Weekend Potpourri - Part 2<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFCnPYo-FFmRu7oNugELGWrinJ15XPKPNfECkXf4FEGK9tQCj6-U6rKXzVS8iMaypR-fHUUDgWT91zpbfVv85TALEGcG5Z2coOzKmvkYZPh0219VDSnydU2oLJxJioDk6GzwN45JKyTqs/s1600/drones+or+waterboarding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFCnPYo-FFmRu7oNugELGWrinJ15XPKPNfECkXf4FEGK9tQCj6-U6rKXzVS8iMaypR-fHUUDgWT91zpbfVv85TALEGcG5Z2coOzKmvkYZPh0219VDSnydU2oLJxJioDk6GzwN45JKyTqs/s400/drones+or+waterboarding.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://twitter.com/AUG_RickMcKee">@AUG_RickMcKee</a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGVUbUHrOHuOUgeTEH3g1_utpvQdjd3-DQSDETOkP9wPNtvKQwyBckIz4CGoFgGmbdfb3pl01KJqXx3N55nZa0TZkVpdvYPeSx8xCJfBO01KN3_ru_AMDuiufqrDd84ihJg89_uEhOaQM/s1600/SOS+Dorothy+Kerry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGVUbUHrOHuOUgeTEH3g1_utpvQdjd3-DQSDETOkP9wPNtvKQwyBckIz4CGoFgGmbdfb3pl01KJqXx3N55nZa0TZkVpdvYPeSx8xCJfBO01KN3_ru_AMDuiufqrDd84ihJg89_uEhOaQM/s400/SOS+Dorothy+Kerry.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.bnd.com/glenn-mccoy/">Glenn McCoy</a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/weekend-potpourri-part-2-2-16-13-2-17-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/weekend-potpourri-part-2-2-16-13-2-17-13" target="_blank">View the story "Weekend Potpourri - Part 2 (2/16/13-2/17/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>Weekend Potpourri - Part 2 (2/16/13-2/17/13)</h1><h2>http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2><p>Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sun, Feb 17 2013 18:33:47</p><div><b><a href="http://www.hoover.org/fellows/8792" class="">James Huffman</a></b> writes that rural and small-town Americans are losing the right to govern themselves and their own communities in each passing election, starting with an ill-conceived 8-1 decision by the Supreme Court in 1964 that struck down state senate inequality.<br><br>The county by county map of the 2012 presidential election reveals, “<i><b>that portraying states as either blue or red obscures much of what we might want to know about the states</b></i>” and their voting inhabitants, and “clearly portrays the irony and unfairness of a nation of predominantly red communities governed by a blue, urban, national majority.”<br><br>“<i><b>On this map, we see that most of the blue states are in fact mostly red</b></i>. The reality of vast expanses of red in some of the bluest of states should concern us if we truly care about self-governance.”<br><br>“[T]he erosion of self-governance in rural America is also the result of a generally well intentioned but simplistic understanding of democracy and the associated elimination of institutional protections of local democratic governance.”<br><br>“Notwithstanding the sometimes wildly fluctuating views of the electorate, as evidenced by pre- and post-election polls, <i><b>elections have increasingly come to justify claims of total victory for the winner</b></i>. The winner sees no need for compromise, making it the loser’s role to obstruct such triumphalism in every way possible, and hope to prevail in the next election.”<br><br>“The designers of America’s democratic republic well understood the shortcomings of direct democracy, <i><b>notably the risk of majoritarian tyranny</b></i>. Among their constitutional protections against the tyranny of the majority was the creation of a federal system that recognized <i><b>multiple majorities as legitimate law makers</b></i>, majorities that would also moderate the selection of the president and the enactment of laws by Congress.”<br><br>“Prior to <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims" class="">the 1964 United States Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. Sims</a></b>, most state legislatures included one house apportioned on the basis of population and a second chamber apportioned on the basis of counties or other geographical regions. <i><b>Many of the former had not been reapportioned for decades</b></i>, leaving growing urban areas with less representation per capita than rural regions. <i><b>On the basis of the principle of one person/one vote</b></i>, the Court found that the failure of most states to regularly reapportion their lower houses put them in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.”<br><br>“Of course, reapportionment of the upper houses of state legislatures on the basis of population did not eliminate county and town governments, but as state legislatures became increasingly homogenous and urban-centric, states gradually intervened in more and more matters that were once of purely local concern. <i><b>Inexorably, the values and ambitions of urban America have been imposed on small town and rural communities</b></i>. Despite the often broad agreement among their citizens, the rural communities of red county America have gradually lost control of their own destinies <i><b>at the hands of statewide majorities marching to a different drummer</b></i>… because of their minority status in statewide population terms and their lack of representation as communities, rural Americans are denied full self-governance. <i><b>They have become the objects of what might be called the soft tyranny of others desires and expectations</b></i>.”<br><br>“Democratic government at its best must be about more than the arithmetic of nose counting. <i><b>Communities require representation if they are to survive in an ever more centralized world</b></i>. Not the political interest groups we now call communities, but the real communities in which people raise their children, pursue their livelihoods, and nourish their friendships. These are the communities people call home, <i><b>and they are slowly decaying with the loss of control over their own destinies</b></i>.”</div><div>The Disenfranchisement of Rural America: Many Americans are losing the right to self-govern, By James Huffman http://ow.ly/hFRPi #tcotHoover Institution</div><div>2012 County results mapBrian_Empric</div><div><b><a href="http://www.aei.org/scholar/peter-j-wallison/" class="">Peter J. Wallison</a></b>, former general counsel of the Treasury and White House counsel in the Reagan administration, poses a great confirmation hearing question for the senators to ask of Obama’s Treasury secretary nominee, Jack Lew.<br><br><i><b>Namely, will Lew tell Obama that a serious review of Dodd-Frank, the harshest regulatory law ever imposed on any industry, is necessary to get this economy growing?</b></i><br><br>“Mr. Lew, after the recession ended in June 2009, the U.S. gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent until July 2010, when the president signed the Dodd-Frank Act into law. <i><b>Since then, the annual rate of G.D.P. growth has been 2 percent or less</b></i>. The reasons for this are not hard to find.”<br><br>“<i><b>To be operational, (Dodd-Frank) requires almost 400 new regulations</b></i>. Of these, fewer than half have been finalized in the two years since the law’s enactment. The most important regulations, like the Volcker rule and the regulations that will govern the mortgage market, have generated so much conflict among the regulatory agencies that these rules have not been promulgated in final form.”<br><br>“The president sees this as a major success of his first term. But in light of its adverse effects on the economy, <i><b>shouldn’t you be prepared to tell the president that a serious review of Dodd-Frank is necessary?</b></i>”</div><div>Mr. Lew, what will you do about Dodd-Frank? http://ow.ly/1SegmCAEI</div><div>Suzy Khimm reports that <i><b>eleven states and three private groups</b></i> (Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, State National Bank of Big Spring, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and 60 Plus Association) have “signed onto a lawsuit claiming that broad swaths of Dodd-Frank are illegal” and <i><b>unconstitutional</b></i>.<br><br>“The suit claims that <i><b>major parts of Dodd-Frank violate the Constitution’s separation of powers</b></i>, including the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau; a new council with the discretion to determine which non-bank financial firms are ‘too big to fail’ and subject to additional regulation; and the government’s new ‘Orderly Liquidation Authority’ to force failing financial companies to dissolve ‘with little or no advance warning,’ according to the lawsuit.”<br><br>“[The] attorneys general argue that the OLA, in particular, <i><b>violates states’ property rights</b></i> because of the investments that states have made in financial firms that could be dissolved by the federal government.”<br><br>“However, even those who believe there are major constitutional problems with Dodd-Frank believe the lawsuit is premature and say it’s unlikely to move through the courts until the government actually uses its new authority to force a failing financial institution to dissolve.”</div><div>Could Dodd-Frank be unconstitutional? I talk to a few legal scholars who think so. http://wapo.st/15igSVcSuzy Khimm</div><div>Current AGsBrian_Empric</div><div><b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/may-clifford-d/" class="">Clifford D. May</a></b>, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, asks, “Why shouldn’t the American public get to read Obama’s <i><b>classified targeted-killing memos</b></i>, and find out their government’s legal reasoning?”<br><br>“Let me waste no time in putting my drone cards on the table: Al-Qaeda and other self-described jihadist groups have declared war on America, and are waging war against America. Congress has passed an <b><a href="http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010918-10.html" class="">Authorization for the Use of Military Force</a></b> that gives the president the power to capture and kill members of AQ and allied groups. <i><b>He should do so aggressively and unapologetically</b></i>.”<br><br>“<i><b>Enemy belligerents, including those who hold American passports, should not be mistaken for criminal defendants. Judges should not be confused with generals.</b></i><br><br>“I do think there ought to be <i><b>congressional review and oversight of drone operations and ‘kill lists.’</b></i> And members of Congress — and the public, too, I believe — should be allowed to consider the process the administration has in place for targeted killings, not least those involving American citizens.”<br><br>“President Bush tasked his Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to study relevant domestic and international laws to determine which coercive interrogation techniques were permissible and which were not… <i><b>‘Waterboarding’ was used on exactly three individuals: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and two other senior al-Qaeda commanders (Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri)</b></i>. All had information vital to America’s national security. None was giving it up easily.”<br><br>“<i><b>When you bring in someone like KSM, you don’t want him to know how far you can go. The more fearful he is of what awaits him, the more likely he’ll talk without the need for any harsh methods</b></i>… KSM was smart enough to figure out that the there was a time limit on waterboarding. ‘Pretty quickly, he recognized that within 10 seconds we would stop pouring water,’ said Jose Rodriguez, who ran the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. ‘He started to count with his fingers, up to 10, just to let us know that the time was up.’”<br><br>“Obama has used drones to kill terrorists with a frequency I doubt his predecessor ever imagined — <i><b>more than 2,500 individuals</b></i> eliminated in Pakistan and Yemen according to <b><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/bill-roggio/" class="">Bill Roggio</a></b>, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who carefully tracks drone operations.”<br><br>“In response to a demand from senators of both parties, the White House last week announced that it will release the targeted-killing memos to the House and Senate Intelligence committees… Obama’s lawyers believe that lethal force can be used only if a terrorist attack is ‘<i><b>imminent</b></i>’ and if capture of the targeted individual is ‘<i><b>infeasible</b></i>.’”<br><br>“<i><b>[H]as it really been infeasible to capture any of the terrorists Obama has used drones to kill?</b></i> The president has made clear that he does not want to add to the detainee population at Guantanamo. Could that disinclination be playing a role in his kill-vs.-capture decisions? If so, would that mean that the administration, based on its own reading of the law, is killing people illegally — <i><b>not to mention losing the opportunity for obtaining intelligence that could be used to defend American lives and property?</b></i>”</div><div>Check out my latest in @NRO on why the public should be able to read the "Targeted-Killing" Memos http://bit.ly/XF4GKK @followFDD #dronesClifford D. May</div><div>John Yoo, who served in the Office of Legal Counsel in President George W. Bush's Justice Department and helped draft memos concerning the legality of CIA interrogation of terrorist detainees, writes that the Obama administration has “<i><b>replaced the clarity of the rules of war with the vague legal balancing tests that govern policemen on the beat</b></i>.”<br><br>“According to the Justice Department white paper obtained by NBC News, the U.S. can kill a citizen who is ‘continually planning attacks’ for al Qaeda when an ‘informed, high-ranking’ official decides that the target ‘poses an imminent threat’ and capture is ‘infeasible.’”<br><br>“Those of us in the Bush administration who worked on the response to 9/11 understood that <i><b>the country was involved in a new kind of war</b></i>, one that demanded the covert use of force abroad, detention of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay without criminal trials, tough interrogations, and broad electronic surveillance. <i><b>But Mr. Obama and many of those who would become his advisers never fully accepted—or credited—the Bush administration's difficult decision to consider 9/11 an act of war</b></i>.”<br><br>“<i><b>U.S. citizenship doesn't create a legal force field around Americans who treasonously join the enemy</b></i>… But instead of relying on the traditional authority to kill the enemy, the leaked memo reveals how a legal fog threatens to envelop U.S. soldiers and agents on the front lines.”<br><br>“The legal system doesn't generally allow the government to stop the potentially dangerous before they commit crimes… <i><b>The military's mission is quite the opposite</b></i>. U.S. armed forces and intelligence agencies exist to pre-empt enemy attacks, not to apprehend the guilty afterward.”<br><br>“While suggesting that al Qaeda terrorists have constitutional rights, the memo makes no room for judicial review of a strike, as would be required for any actual government deprivation of due process. <i><b>All we have are scarcely believable accounts that Mr. Obama selects targets from CIA lists with the guidance of St. Thomas Aquinas's writings on what constitutes a just war</b></i>… By including terrorists among those afforded constitutional protections, the president's policy risks stretching those protections a mile wide and an inch deep—<i><b>weakening them for all Americans</b></i>.”<br><br>“Rather than capture terrorists—<i><b>which produces the most valuable intelligence on al Qaeda</b></i>—Mr. Obama has relied almost exclusively on drone attacks, and he has thereby been able to dodge difficult questions over detention. <i><b>But those deaths from the sky violate personal liberty far more than the waterboarding of three al Qaeda leaders ever did</b></i>.”</div><div>John Yoo: The Real Problem With Obama's Drone Memo http://on.wsj.com/Ye93JwOpinion & Commentary</div><div>Meenal Vamburkar reports on the tough questioning that Obama faced this week during a Google+ “fireside hangout.” Specifically, conservative blogger <b><a href="http://kiradavis.net/" class="">Kira Ayn Davis</a></b> (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/kiradavis422" class="">@kiradavis422</a></b>) was able to ask him to reconcile his campaign promises of transparency with the recent issues of drone strikes and Benghazi. <i><b>Amazingly, Obama seemed to rationalize a lack of transparency on Benghazi as merely “campaign stuff.”</b></i><br><br>“With more details about President Obama‘s drone program emerging, many have criticized what they perceive to be a double standard — in terms of transparency and accountability. Under George W. Bush, goes the argument, such a program would have faced more scrutiny.”<br><br>“’You ran on a platform of really trying to become one of the most transparent administrations in American history. However, with recent leaked guidelines regarding drone strikes on American citizens and Benghazi and closed door hearings on the budget and deficit, <i><b>it just feels a lot less transparent than I think we all hoped it would be</b></i>,’ Davis remarked, asking: ‘How has the reality of the presidency changed that promise? And what can we do moving forward to kind of get back to that promise?’<br><br>“Obama replied that the administration is indeed the ‘most transparent’ in history — be it in terms of White House visitors or information about legislation. <i><b>Benghazi, however, ‘is not a good example’ because it ‘was largely driven by campaign stuff.’ Congress is ‘sort of running out of things to ask,’ he added.”</b></i></div><div>Obama Faces Toughest Grilling About Drones, Not From The Media, But In A Google+ Hangout (VIDEO) http://bit.ly/12pY6faMediaite</div><div><b><a href="http://www.hoover.org/fellows/104826" class="">Lt. Col. Joel Rayburn</a></b>, a US Army strategic intelligence officer with twenty years’ experience in national security and political-military affairs (focusing on the greater Middle East), imagines a <i><b>Shia-Sunni sectarian conflagration</b></i>, fueled by Al Qaeda, raging across <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_Crescent" class="">the Fertile Crescent</a></b>.<br><br>“In the days of the Ottoman Empire, British diplomats referred to the Arabic-speaking territories of the empire as ‘<i><b>Turkish Arabia</b></i>.’ It was these Arabic-speaking lands that Britain and France, in the aftermath of the First World War, divided into the modern Arab states we know today: <i><b>Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon</b></i>. Those arbitrary colonial boundaries have endured for the better part of a century, but the people within them have never fully acknowledged the legitimacy of the lines that British and French officials drew for them.”<br><br>“The revolt that began in Syria in early 2011—itself inspired by events elsewhere in the Arab world—<i><b>is on the verge of becoming a sectarian war spanning the entirety of Turkish Arabia</b></i>. The most powerful of the Syrian revolutionary forces, <i><b>the Nusrah Front</b></i>, has been formed around a core of what we have previously known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, the insurgent and terrorist organization once led by the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.”<br><br>“For Al Qaeda in Iraq, then, the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts are one theater of war, <i><b>where Al Qaeda and its allies seek a common objective</b></i> of beating back the forces of what its leaders consider an Iranian-led coalition of Shia sectarian parties from Iraq, the Assad regime, and Lebanese Hizballah.”<br><br>“We can envision, then, a sectarian war raging across the whole of the Fertile Crescent, drawing in all the former territories of Turkish Arabia. <i><b>The prospect will be a frightening one for the region’s major powers</b></i>. Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia could one day find chaos rather than functioning states on their permeable borders. If Al Qaeda/Nusrah can establish a base in Jordan, Saudi Arabia will find itself threatened by Al Qaeda franchises on both north and south that will be well-positioned to resume the pursuit of <i><b>Al Qaeda’s core goal of toppling the Saudi monarchy</b></i> and ‘liberating’ the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.”<br><br>“The rulers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran are surely not blind to this nightmare scenario. As the situation in Turkish Arabia continues to unravel, <i><b>those regional powers will be compelled to become ever deeper involved in an attempt to keep the tide of war from breaking on their own lands</b></i>. This conflict could very well touch us all, perhaps becoming an engine of jihad that spews forth attackers bent on bombing western embassies and cities or disrupting Persian Gulf oil markets long before the fire burns out.”</div><div>The Coming War in the Middle East: Imagine a sectarian conflagration, fueled by Al Qaeda, raging across the region http://ow.ly/hsY8SHoover Institution</div></noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1028897665888635638.post-8622118899653488272013-02-17T20:35:00.004-05:002013-02-17T22:46:52.148-05:00Weekend Potpourri<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkfSv8ZGDex8JzcHy0VzePrjRb5W4bwwaAg_zDopnPCIiXwLS6sAXPaudlhltsNvtpsD0uzHrTYHMDKrSDtmnHGgQ87mT44rAwkkINkQbACY3WunAorJ7hofqp58Vrw42dml2F3RJHqIY/s1600/Incoming+deficit+asteroid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkfSv8ZGDex8JzcHy0VzePrjRb5W4bwwaAg_zDopnPCIiXwLS6sAXPaudlhltsNvtpsD0uzHrTYHMDKrSDtmnHGgQ87mT44rAwkkINkQbACY3WunAorJ7hofqp58Vrw42dml2F3RJHqIY/s400/Incoming+deficit+asteroid.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://twitter.com/AUG_RickMcKee">@AUG_RickMcKee</a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikrB6mKDf7lppCEL1brLKaeH4yu4cyctOKsXzrgX7rN_FjhC91xEBVQUq9zbkkdsHfEFV3CiRfC907yyD8kJpHIvxq7fkB6xWxIVs6RFG7HkDU1rfDvQJJdzBNnLKaOLlqFMS4E96RgEI/s1600/Congress+sits+like+a+rock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikrB6mKDf7lppCEL1brLKaeH4yu4cyctOKsXzrgX7rN_FjhC91xEBVQUq9zbkkdsHfEFV3CiRfC907yyD8kJpHIvxq7fkB6xWxIVs6RFG7HkDU1rfDvQJJdzBNnLKaOLlqFMS4E96RgEI/s400/Congress+sits+like+a+rock.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/joeheller">Joe Heller</a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<script src="//storify.com/brian_empric/weekend-potpourri-2-16-13-2-17-13.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/brian_empric/weekend-potpourri-2-16-13-2-17-13" target="_blank">View the story "Weekend Potpourri (2/16/13-2/17/13)" on Storify</a>]<h1>Weekend Potpourri (2/16/13-2/17/13)</h1><h2>http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com</h2><p>Storified by <a href="http://storify.com/brian_empric">Brian Empric</a>· Sun, Feb 17 2013 17:26:09</p><div>Alex Burns reports on the pair of PR firms, <b><a href="http://www.crcpublicrelations.com/" class="">CRC Public Relations</a></b> and <b><a href="http://www.sbpublicaffairs.com/home.php" class="">Shirley & Banister Public Affairs</a></b>, who are working with their clients to advance the conservative grassroots uprising against the national GOP establishment.<br><br>“During almost any given controversy, there’s a barrage of indignant subject lines from both firms cementing the backbone of what the national press calls the ‘anti-establishment’ message of the day. <i><b>Call them the anti-establishment establishment</b></i>.”<br><br>“The founders of both firms are <i><b>conservative true believers</b></i>, whose biographies are intertwined with the rise of the modern activist right and with each other’s careers.<br><br>“In fact, the current leadership of CRC and S&B looks a bit like the Pat Buchanan alumni association: CRC founder Greg Mueller (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/gregmcrc" class="">@gregmcrc</a></b>) worked with Banister on Buchanan’s insurgent 1996 campaign. Craig Shirley (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/SBPublicAffairs" class="">@SBPublicAffairs</a></b>), the S&B partner, worked for the Reagan-era Republican National Committee and for the National Conservative Political Action Committee in 1984, and has more recently become a kind of court historian for the Age of Reagan.”<br><br>“Over the past decade and a half, they’ve dived in — together or separately — to <i><b>countless conservatives-versus-Washington fights and political campaigns</b></i>… Indeed, choose at random a conservative activist, author or organization thundering against Washington, and there’s a decent chance you’ll come up with a client of one firm or both.”</div><div>Fun note in that "anti-establishment establishment" story: both CRC and S&B are led by Buchanan '96 alums http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/the-anti-establishment-establishment-87643.html?hp=t2_3Alex Burns</div><div>On the website of the magazine founded by William F. Buckley, Jr., Neal B. Freeman explains what supporting “<i><b>the rightwardmost viable candidate</b></i>” meant in Buckley’s lexicon. Freeman was present at the formulation of the Buckley Rule in 1964, when National Review was deciding whether to support Barry Goldwater or Nelson Rockefeller.<br><br>“These intramural arguments, as I say, were protracted, begun in the winter and carrying on into the early spring. WFB sat at the head of the table, encouraging others to speak, keeping his own counsel. In early June, after Rockefeller had won the Oregon primary and Goldwater had won California, after all of us had had our say, after rumors had begun to creep out of 35th Street that NR might shift its support to Nelson Rockefeller — the equivalent, today, of word leaking out of 15th Street that the Washington Post might endorse Michele Bachmann — Bill, who rarely proposed, decided that it was time to dispose. <i><b>With each of us in our assigned seat and with six pairs of eyeballs staring at him unblinkingly, Bill announced that ‘National Review will support the rightwardmost viable candidate.’</b></i><br><br>“Victory for Team Goldwater! We all knew what ‘viable’ meant in Bill’s lexicon. It meant somebody who saw the world as we did. Somebody who would bring credit to our cause. <i><b>Somebody who, win or lose, would conservatize the Republican party and the country</b></i>. It meant somebody like Barry Goldwater.”<br><br>“Bill Buckley was careful with words. If he had opted on that June day for the words ‘rightwardmost <i><b>electable </b></i>candidate,’ we would all have recognized it as a victory for Team Rockefeller. And life might look very different today. If there had been no Goldwater, National Review might not have become so influential, <i><b>and if there had been no Goldwater, no National Review, there might have been no Reagan</b></i>.”<br><br>“We all understand that it is Karl Rove’s mission to promote the Republican party. It was the mission of Bill Buckley to promote the conservative cause. <i><b>There should be no confusion between the two</b></i>.”</div><div>The Buckley rule - an originalist interpretation: http://bit.ly/ZalLiHNational Review</div><div>Nate Cohn writes that the House Republican obstructionism “fever” did not break after Obama’s re-election, but safe, gerrymandered districts are not to blame like Obama has argued. <i><b>The wide ideological divide between conservatives and liberals is why Obama has not been able to “break the fever.”</b></i><br><br>“It's not surprising that Obama holds this view, since much of the mainstream media does, too. <i><b>But the president is </b><b>wrong</b></i>: Republicans aren't in safe districts because of gerrymandering; <i><b>increasing the number of competitive districts wouldn't necessarily make Republicans more likely to support the president's agenda</b></i>; and it's even possible that the number of moderate Republicans has been inflated by gerrymandering in blue states.”<br><br>“It's difficult to draw competitive districts in a deeply polarized country. Americans are geographically segregated along a variety of demographic lines, and most demographic groups side decidedly with one party or the other… Since ‘fair’ congressional districts preserve geographic integrity and tend to promote homogenous districts, <i><b>even a fair redistricting process would leave Republicans in deeply conservative districts</b></i>.”<br><br>“The combination of de facto segregation, extreme racial polarization, and the Voting Rights Act (which requires the creation of minority-majority districts) ensure that Republicans preside over extraordinarily red districts in the former Confederacy.”<br><br>“Even if a gerrymander created a modest number of artificially balanced districts, it might not moderate the House Republican caucus. <b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/03/gerrymandering-is-not-whats-wrong-with-american-politics/" class="">In a useful if underreported piece</a></b>, John Sides used data from political scientists Simon Jackman and Nolan McCarty to show that there is only a weak relationship between the partisanship of a district and the partisanship of its representative. Put differently: <i><b>The Republicans from blue states just aren't much more moderate than their peers from blood-red districts</b></i>.”<br><br>“Partisan gerrymandering works by piling your opponent's voters into a small number of deeply partisan districts, and then dividing the rest of the state into a larger number of less partisan districts that lean in the direction of the gerrymandering party. Because the party in charge is spreading its votes over a larger number of districts, their districts are relatively competitive.”</div><div>Obama's got it all wrong: @electionate explains why gerrymandering doesn't explain the GOP fever http://on.tnr.com/XOMqwCThe New Republic</div><div>Mike Murphy writes that Obama has great theatrical campaign skills, but “<i><b>a strategy based on doing what is comfortable rather than what is difficult will doom his second term</b></i>.”<br><br>“President Obama has started his second term as if his re-election campaign had never ended. <i><b>That is a titanic mistake. </b></i>White House aides are fundamentally misreading the political landscape if they think a barrage of fiery stump speeches and campaign-style advocacy will achieve anything in Washington. In reality, the it-is-always-a-campaign thinking will subvert any chance for a meaningful Obama success in his second term.”<br><br>“<i><b>Unlike his congressional opponents, President Obama faces a merciless countdown clock</b></i>. In about 18 months, the national political agenda will become hostage to the 2014 midterm elections. After that, a high-stakes 2016 presidential-nomination contest will shift into high gear inside both parties. The President has little time to waste.”<br><br>“Showing the hubris of all things Obama, the White House has forgotten that while he won re-election fair and square with about 66 million votes, 61 million (<i><b>63 million</b></i>) other Americans voted to fire the President. Many of those anti-Obama voters live and vote in the 232 (<i><b>234</b></i>) congressional districts firmly held by Republicans. It is terribly naive to think that stuffing e-mail inboxes and presidential hectoring on the stump will persuade those voters — and their members of Congress — to support the President’s decidedly left-tilting second-term agenda. <i><b>When the President threatens the Republicans in Congress with ‘or else,’ they just roll their eyes and wonder ‘or else what?’ In their precincts, he is not even a paper tiger.</b></i>”<br><br>“<i><b>So the President must choose</b></i>: Does he want a second term of rhetoric without results while the rest of us suffer under an exploding federal debt and endless recession? Or does he want to actually get big, important things like immigration and entitlement reform done?”</div><div>"Organizing for Failure" - @MurphyMike on President Obama's second term this week in @TIME - http://ti.me/Y9eN6OTIME Communications</div><div>Lydia Saad reports that federal government and private sector hiring has faltered the most in recent months. The Gallup Job Creation Index – the percentage of employers hiring new people minus percentage letting people go – <i><b>averaged +16 last month</b></i>, the lowest monthly index level in 11 months.<br><br>“January's results are based on <i><b>32%</b></i> of U.S. adult workers saying their employers are hiring and expanding the size of their workforces, and <i><b>16%</b></i> saying their employers are letting workers go and reducing the size of their workforces.”<br><br>“January also saw the continuation of <i><b>a decline in hiring in the federal and nongovernment sectors</b></i> of the economy, a trend that started in November. At the same time, hiring reported by state and local government employees has been fairly steady at the highest levels in more than four years.”<br><br>“As has been typical since late 2010, the Midwest continues to show slightly stronger hiring than the other regions. Net hiring is currently +18 in the Midwest, versus +17 in the West, +15 in the South, and +14 in the East.”<br><br>“Most of the decline in net hiring in the past few months is due to a weakening of reported hiring by employees working in the private sector as well as in the federal government, <i><b>while reported hiring by employees of state and local government has held fairly steady</b></i>.”</div><div>U.S. Job Creation Index Dips to 11-Month Low in January... http://www.gallup.com/poll/160313/job-creation-index-dips-month-low-january.aspx?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=gallupnews&utm_campaign=syndication #Jobs #JobCreationgallupnews</div><div>gallup job creation indexBrian_Empric</div><div>gallup jci by employer typeBrian_Empric</div><div>Phil Galewitz reports that illegal immigrants are usually prohibited by federal law from being covered by Medicaid, but <i><b>about $2 billion is spent each year</b></i> on more than 100,000 patients for Emergency Medicaid. Primarily, this money is being spent to reimburse hospitals for delivering “<i><b>anchor babies</b></i>” in their emergency rooms, which encourages people to cross the border for care. <i><b>In 2011, Florida spent $214 million on 31,000 Emergency Medicaid patients ($6,900/each).</b></i><br><br>“The funding -- which has been around since the late 1980s and is less than 1 percent of the cost of Medicaid -- underscores the political and practical challenges of refusing to cover an entire class of people. Congress approved the program after lawmakers required hospitals to screen and stabilize all emergency patients regardless of their insurance or citizenship status.”<br><br>“<i><b>Hospitals can't ask patients whether they're illegal immigrants</b></i>, but instead determine that after checking whether they have Social Security numbers, birth certificates or other documents.”<br><br>“A 2007 medical article in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that <i><b>99 percent</b></i> of those who used Emergency Medicaid during a four-year period in North Carolina <i><b>were thought to be illegal immigrants</b></i>.”<br><br>“<b><a href="http://www.fairus.org/" class="">The Federation for American Immigration Reform</a></b>, which seeks to limit immigration, said the funding led more women to give birth in the United States, especially since they knew that children born here would be American citizens. <i><b>The group believes that tens of thousands of ‘anchor babies’ are born each year to illegal immigrants who hope that giving birth to children recognized as citizens will help the women gain legal status themselves.</b></i>”<br><br>“Last year, for instance, Florida changed its policy to pay for emergency services for eligible undocumented immigrants only until their conditions had been ‘stabilized.’ Previously, its policy was to pay for care that was ‘medically necessary to relieve or eliminate the emergency medical condition’… <i><b>An administrative law judge ruled in December that Florida had enacted the change improperly because it didn't go through a public hearing process; the state is appealing</b></i>.”</div><div>$2 Billion Medicaid Program Helps Mostly Illegal Immigrants, @PhilGalewitz has the story: http://khne.ws/XB20xPKaiser Health News</div><div>Jonathan Weisman writes that Senator Ted Cruz (<b><a href="https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz" class="">@SenTedCruz</a></b>) is running counter to the Senate’s courtly ways. Cruz was instrumental in blocking the passage of a cloture motion to nominate Chuck Hagel for defense secretary, and the obstruction “was due in no small part to the very junior senator’s relentless pursuit of speeches, financial records or any other documents with Mr. Hagel’s name on them going back at least five years.”<br><br>“In just two months, Mr. Cruz, 42, has made his presence felt in an institution where new arrivals are usually not heard from for months, if not years. Besides suggesting that Mr. Hagel might have received compensation from foreign enemies, he has tangled with the mayor of Chicago, challenged the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat on national television, voted against virtually everything before him — including the confirmation of John Kerry as secretary of state — and raised the hackles of colleagues from both parties.<br><br>“<i><b>He could not be more pleased. Washington’s new bad boy feels good.</b></i>”<br><br>“<i><b>Comity does not mean avoiding the truth</b></i>,” Cruz said. “And it would be wrong to avoid speaking the truth about someone’s record and past policy positions, even if doing so inevitably subjects me to personal criticism from Democrats and the media.”<br><br>“Chris Chocola, the president of the Club for Growth, a conservative free-market political action committee that strongly backed Mr. Cruz in his victory last year against the establishment’s favorite, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, said <i><b>the new senator was doing precisely what he had expected</b></i>. The growing caucus of ardent conservatives — Mr. Cruz, Mr. (Rand) Paul, Marco Rubio of Florida, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Tim Scott of South Carolina — has begun reshaping what it means to be a Republican in the Senate, he said.”<br><br>“<i><b>’The last thing we need is another status quo senator or congressman who will go along to get along,’</b></i> said former Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who pumped money into Mr. Cruz’s campaign, then left the Senate to lead the conservative Heritage Foundation.”</div><div>Very Junior Senator’s Bomb-Throwing Debut; Shaking status quo "what I intend to do, have done in every way possible" http://nyti.ms/Vnb1fMJonathan Weisman</div><div>Romina Boccia, a Research Coordinator in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, confirms that America is on a dangerous budget path, <i><b>with high debt today and even higher debt projected in the future</b></i>. Solutions include raising the Social Security and Medicare eligibility age, correcting the cost-of-living adjustment, and phasing out benefits for upper-income retirees.<br><br>“Current spending and debt are dangerously high, and future spending and debt are on track to rise even higher in large part due to increasing entitlement spending. <i><b>Academic research shows that advanced economies like the United States are at risk of significant and prolonged reductions in economic growth when public debt reaches levels of 90 percent of GDP</b></i>. High public debt threatens to drive interest rates up, to crowd out private investment, and to raise price inflation. The implications would be severe and pronounced for all Americans, but most especially for the poor, the elderly, and the middle class.”<br><br>“Recent economic research, especially <b><a href="http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.26.3.69" class="">the work of Carmen Reinhart, Vincent Reinhart, and Kenneth Rogoff</a></b>, confirms that federal debt at such high levels puts the United States at risk for a number of harmful economic consequences, including <i><b>slower economic growth, a weakened ability to respond to unexpected challenges, and quite possibly a debt-driven financial crisis</b></i>.”<br><br>“The federal government is quickly exhausting its ability to manage its bills, with debt having already reached the statutory debt ceiling. The resulting debate should focus on the need to <i><b>reduce federal spending immediately</b></i> and over the long term by making <i><b>necessary and prudent reforms to the nation’s major entitlement programs</b></i>, and thus reduce the continued buildup of debt and the expected harmful consequences increasingly confirmed by academic research.”<br><br>“America’s entitlement programs, by definition, span generations. It is vital in assessing their sustainability to consider their long-term implications. <i><b>Over the 75-year long-term horizon, the combined unfunded obligations arising from promised benefits in Medicare and Social Security alone exceed $48 trillion (net-present value).</b></i>”<br><br>Debt overhang – where the debt exceeds the future capacity to repay it - reduces economic growth significantly and for a prolonged period with <i><b>higher interest rates</b></i> (which hurts middle-class borrowers), <i><b>higher inflation</b></i> (which hurts the poor and those on fixed incomes), and <i><b>crowding out of private investment</b></i> (which lowers innovation and productivity).<br><br>“Creditors may lose confidence in the country’s ability to service its debt and demand higher interest rates to offset the additional risk… Higher interest rates on government bonds also lead to higher rates for other domestic investments, <i><b>including mortgages, credit cards, consumer loans, and business loans</b></i>.”<br><br>“The government could, through the Federal Reserve, inflate the money supply. The resulting increase in the rate of price inflation would devalue the principal of the remaining public debt. <i><b>The resulting inflation would also destabilize the private economy, increase uncertainty, increase real interest rates, and slow economic growth markedly</b></i>.”<br><br>“Government deficit spending and its associated debt subtracts from the amount of private saving available for private investment, leading to slower economic growth. <i><b>Unlike what staunch believers of government spending for economic stimulus claim, </b><b>government stimulus spending does the opposite of growing the economy</b></i>. Less economic growth caused by high government spending and debt results in fewer available jobs, lower wages and salaries, and fewer opportunities for career advancement.”<br><br>Boccia concludes with a clear message: “<i><b>The Time to Act Is Now</b></i>”<br><br>“By neglecting the regular budget order—the institutional schedule to assess government spending and allocate taxpayer dollars with prudence—<i><b>Congress and the President are increasingly failing to govern</b></i>… As U.S. debt is quickly approaching economically damaging debt levels, U.S. lawmakers should delay no more.”</div><div>New paper just out: How the United States’ High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans: http://tinyurl.com/bg3yktbRomina Boccia</div><div>Entitlements and Interest Drive Future Spending SurgeBrian_Empric</div><div>High Public Debt Levels Depress Economic GrowthBrian_Empric</div></noscript>Brian Emprichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12989067199637646959noreply@blogger.com0