Friday, Sept. 2 > #118 - No Matter How Low the Bar Is Set ...

[FYI: Did you ever wish that you could know about some of the wasteful spending taking place by our federal government WITH OUR TAX MONEY? Well, the Repuglicans in the House(who now control appropriations in the Congress]give you a chance to view such bills AND indicate your desire to cut them out of the budget. Please go to: http://majorityleader.gov/YouCut/]

P.S. - (Courtesy of MikeysFunnies.com)- I'm gonna miss Kadafi's outfits. He makes Lady Gaga look like Johnny Cash.

More Bad News for the Obama Economy
Posted By Mike Brownfield On August 25, 2011 - The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation - http://blog.heritage.org -

Americans’ confidence in the economy is sitting at its lowest point [1] since March 2009, and in every state in the country, a vast majority of Americans see the economy as getting worse. Meanwhile, the number of people claiming new jobless benefits rose again last week [2]. Under those circumstances, it’s no wonder the White House is doing everything it can to make even the most dismal economic news seem like a silver lining on a very dark cloud.

That shred of news came yesterday in the form of the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) mid-year assessment [3] of the budget and economic situation. In the report, the CBO lowered its projected 2011 economic growth rate from 3.1 percent in its January report [4] to only 2.3 percent–well below the growth rate needed to reduce the unemployment rate. The CBO also projects a deficit for 2011 of $1.284 trillion–slightly lower than the January deficit projection of $1.480 trillion. As for unemployment, the CBO didn’t have much good to say. In its estimation [5], the jobless rate will fall only to 8.9 percent by the end of this year but remain above 8 percent until 2014.

Economic growth that’s below what’s needed to reduce unemployment and a deficit still over a trillion dollars? How can that be good news? Well, it is if you set the bar for success low enough. And the White House has done just that. In a press briefing yesterday [8/24], White House spokesman Josh Earnest said [6] “the report sort of validates the progress that’s been made” while also crediting President Barack Obama’s policies for pulling America “back from the brink.”

While White House officials took the CBO’s report as a “validation” of their hard work, others have taken it as a warning–including House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan’s office says [7] that the CBO’s report shows that 2011 is the third straight year that deficits will be in excess of $1 trillion, and the debt held by the public will equal about three-quarters of the economy in 2013. Ryan noted [7]:

The Congressional Budget Office has again warned policymakers of the urgent need to get Washington’s fiscal house in order. This reports confirms again that years of reckless overspending have not produced the economic growth or the jobs that the President promised and that American families need. And while the CBO report offers some relatively positive news about deficits, even those estimates seem extremely optimistic based on the data the projections rely on, according to The Heritage Foundation’s J.D. Foster [8]. And as Heritage’s James Sherk and Rea Hederman write, “The recovery will take a long time under any imaginable circumstances”:

Economists estimate that the natural rate of unemployment is 5.2 percent. If the economy began growing immediately at the same rate the payroll survey reported during the tech bubble (+265,000 jobs per month), unemployment would not return to this level until mid-2014. More realistically, if employers began hiring at the same average rate they did during the 2003–2007 expansion (+176,000 jobs per month), unemployment would not return to its natural rate until 2018.

In September, President Obama is due to give a speech in which he will unveil a new plan to create jobs and get America’s economy growing again. The trouble is that the plan will likely be baked in the same oven that produced the policies that have left America’s economy where it is today. If America doesn’t want continued deficits and unemployment as far as the eye can see, then a new agenda is in order.[emphasis mine; [] notations refer to endnotes, check original posting]

Tues. Sept. 6, 2011 > # 120 - The Unemployment Empty Promise

[Did you ever wish that you could know about some of the wasteful spending taking place by our federal government WITH OUR TAX MONEY? Well, the Republicans in the House(who now control appropriations in the Congress]give you a chance to view such bills and indicate your desire to cut them out of the budget. You can get your opportunity to do so by going to> http://majorityleader.gov/YouCut/]

[NOTE: The following is a quote from Cal Thomas on President obama's latest choice to head his econonmic team: "Alan Krueger is the latest in a long line of professors and academics to populate this administration. Few, if any, have held real jobs in the private sector. They are mostly theorists, whose theories are often proved wrong. But in academia, as well as in government, being wrong rarely disqualifies one from a leadership post. Intentions are all that matter." For the complete article, go to: http://online.worldmag.com/2011/09/01/nightmare-on-pennsylvania-avenue/]

Posted By Mike Brownfield On August 30, 2011 // The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation - http://blog.heritage.org -

Sometime next week—we don’t quite know when—President Barack Obama is due to announce his latest jobs plan designed to lift America out of its unemployment doldrums. And though we also don’t know the exact details of the plan, there’s a pretty good chance it will include several key components we’ve heard before, one of which is the extension of unemployment benefits.

Much like the President’s other likely initiatives, this idea isn’t a new one, and the White House has made the argument before that unemployment benefits are the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to stimulating the economy. In a White House briefing earlier [last]month, press secretary Jay Carney explained the rationale :

["Extending unemployment benefits] is one of the most direct ways to infuse money into the economy because people who are unemployed and obviously aren’t earning a paycheck are going to spend the money that they get. They’re not going to save it; they’re going to spend it. And unemployment insurance, that money goes directly back into the economy dollar for dollar virtually. So it is—and when it goes back in the economy, it means that everywhere that those people—everyplace that that money is spent has added business. And that creates growth and income for businesses that then lead them to making decisions about jobs—more hiring."]

But according to a report by Heritage’s James Sherk and Karen A. Campbell [3], unemployment insurance actually leads to longer periods of unemployment and does not provide the promised stimulative effect. In their paper, they address a 2004 study which concluded that each dollar in additional unemployment insurance increased gross domestic product by $1.73. But, they say, that just isn’t so. Research shows that unemployment spending does not result in workers consuming more, and workers with extended unemployment insurance benefits remain unemployed longer. “A 13-week extension of unemployment benefits results in the average worker remaining unemployed for an additional two weeks,” they report.

Funnily enough, President Obama’s new top economist agrees. Yesterday, the President announced that Princeton University economist Alan Krueger will replace Austan Goolsbee as the White House’s chief economic adviser. And though Krueger will play a prominent role in crafting the White House’s economic strategy, Heritage’s Lachlan Markay reports that Krueger’s past research doesn’t mesh with the White House’s stance on the supposed stimulative benefits of extending unemployment insurance:

Krueger co-authored a paper for the Handbook of Public Economics in 2002 that seems to undercut the economic argument for extending unemployment benefits. The paper found that those benefits tend to increase the length of unemployment by discouraging the search for a new job, and may actually encourage layoffs. Conversely, the paper also found that unemployed persons who are ineligible for benefits search harder for a job and are therefore unemployed for less time. It’s anyone’s guess whether Krueger will change his tune now that he’s on the President’s team, but no matter. When the President launches his new jobs plan, and should he call for an extension of unemployment benefits, as expected, the reality remains the same, regardless of how Krueger addresses his earlier body of work: Unemployment benefits don’t stimulate the economy.

There certainly can be other reasons for extending unemployment benefits. Under the Obama economy, the average length of unemployment hit a new record last month, surpassing 40 weeks for the first time ever. But no one—Congress, the President, or the American people—should be under the delusion that economic stimulus and new jobs will result. [emphasis mine]

Sept. 4, 2011 - #119- Sunday Special > Why Orthodoxy Matters

[Dont miss this week's : 1) "Truth That Transforms" [An expert speaks on the real history of the Islamic Jihad.](Sunday; 5pm, ch. 55.1, Orlando); 2)"Cross Examine* (Mon., 52.2, Orlando,) and 3)Worldmag.com editorial cartoons.]

The Way or Not the Way; Orthodoxy and Why It Matters By: Chuck Colson| May 18, 2011 Breakpoint.com

Can we truly live out the Christian faith if we don’t understand its foundational tenets? According to the Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 57 percent of self-identified Evangelical Christians agreed with this statement: “Many religions can lead to eternal life.” Think about the staggering implications of what you just heard: 57 percent of Evangelicals believe that many religions can lead to eternal life!

Yet Jesus Himself was very clear. "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Either Jesus was right, or he was wrong. What Christians, Muslims, and Jews say about the person and work of Jesus Christ can’t be reconciled. They may all be false, but they cannot all be true. It’s called the law of non-contradiction -- it goes back to Aristotle: If proposition A is true -- that is, if it conforms to reality -- then proposition B, making a contrary claim, cannot be true as well. If nearly six out of ten Evangelicals don’t believe the most basic tenets of the faith, it’s no wonder the Church is losing its influence over the culture. Because what we believe affects how we live.

Even a secular columnist for the New York Times understands this!... David Brooks recently wrote “The religions that thrive” historically have “communal theologies, doctrines and codes of conduct rooted in claims of absolute truth.” And those beliefs translate into acts of mercy and love: the kind that Brooks himself witnessed from conservative Christian missionaries reaching out to AIDS victims in Africa.

There is a remedy for this situation -- a remedy that an Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther discovered back in the sixteenth century. The Church in Luther’s day wallowed in its own corruption, sold indulgences, and refused to allow people to read the Bible in their own language. Luther compared the state of the Church to the Babylonian exile of the Israelites, when God punished Israel for disobeying God and worshiping false idols. So what did Luther do? He went back to the teaching of the apostles, the faith entrusted to the saints once for all. He studied the works of the ancient Church fathers, who wrote at a time when the Church’s faith was marked by unity. He studied the early councils of the Church. In short, he recovered the orthodox faith. This led to a Reformation that transformed not only the Church, but Western society and culture as well.

This is why I wrote my book, titled The Faith: Given Once, For All. It’s about the essentials of the faith that all true Christians have always believed -- the minimum, irreducible, non-negotiable tenets of Christianity, without which one cannot be a true Christian, and without which the Church cannot be the Church. I am convinced that this is what people need to defend and live the Christian faith these extraordinarily challenging times. So I urge you to purchase a copy of The Faith -- you can get it at BreakPoint.org. And by the way -- all the royalties go to the ministry of BreakPoint and Prison Fellowship.
The Church needs to know what it believes, why it believes it -- and why it matters.

Further Reading and Information
The Faith / Charles Colson & Harold Fickett | Colson Center Bookstore
Creed or Chaos/David Brooks | The New York Times | April 21, 2011
Pew US Religious Landscape Survey/Religions.PewForum.org

Sunday Funny (c/o MikeysFunnies.com) "Amazing! You hang something in your closet for a while and it shrinks 2 sizes!"

#117 - The Truth About Tea Parties /Enough Of the Baseless Attacks!

Note:<em> From the President's liberal surrogates calling them terrorists and racists, and with a leading African American Congresswoman recently even saying "The Tea Party can go to H--!", the venom and mischaracterization of these every day Amnericans, I felt it necessary to share the following perspective.

Tea Parties – Same Song, Second Verse David Barton [WallBuilders ]http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=69934

America’s first Tea Party in 1773 was not an act of wanton lawlessness but rather a deliberate protest against heavy-handed government and excessive taxation. 1 Its leaders took great care to ensure that nothing but tea was thrown overboard – no other items were damaged. The “Indians” even swept the decks of the ships before they left. 2

Tea Parties occurred not only in Boston but also in numerous other locales. 3 And those who participated were just ordinary citizens expressing their frustration over a government that had refused to listen to them for almost a decade. Their reasonable requests had fallen on deaf ears. Of course, the out-of-touch British claimed that the Tea Parties were lawless and violent, 4 but such was not the case.

Interestingly, in many ways, today’s Tea Parties parallel those of long ago. But rather than protesting a tax on tea, today they are protesting dozens of taxes represented by what they call the Porkulus/Generational Theft Act of 2009 (officially called the “American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act”). For Tea Party members (and for most Americans), that act and the way it was passed epitomizes a broken system whose arrogant leaders often scorn the concerns of the citizens they purport to represent.

Tea Party folks agree with the economic logic of our Founders.

“To contract new debts is not the way to pay off old ones.” 5 “Avoid occasions of expense…and avoid likewise the accumulation of debt not only by shunning occasions of expense but by vigorous exertions…to discharge the debts.” 6 GEORGE WASHINGTON

“Nothing can more [affect] national credit and prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to…extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possible the incurring of any new debt.” 7 ALEXANDER HAMILTON

“The maxim of buying nothing but what we have money in our pockets to pay for lays the broadest foundation for happiness.” 8 “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” 9 THOMAS JEFFERSON

These are not radical positions – nor are the others set forth in the Tea Party platform – that Congress should: (1) provide the constitutional basis for the bills it passes; 2) reduce intrusive government regulations; (3) balance the budget;(4) limit the increase of government spending to the rate of population growth; (5) and eliminate earmarks unless approved by 2/3rds of Congress. 10 Are these positions dangerous or extreme? Certainly not. In fact, polling shows that Americans support these Tea Party goals by a margin of two-to-one. 11

Citizens are angry about the current direction of government. As John Zubly, a member of the Continental Congress in 1775, reminded the British: “My Lord, the Americans are no idiots, and they appear determined not to be slaves. Oppression will make wise men mad.” 12 But does that anger automatically equate to violence? Of course not. It does equate to action, however; but instead of throwing tea overboard, modern Tea Parties are throwing out-of-touch politicians from both parties overboard.

The Tea Parties represent much of what is right in America – citizens reacquainting themselves with the Constitution and holding their elected officials accountable to its standards. Two centuries ago, Daniel Webster could have been talking to today’s Tea Party rallies when he said: “Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution!” 13 [emphasis mine]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Endnotes
1. George Bancroft, History of the United States of America (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), Vol. III, pp. 443-447. (Return)

2. George Bancroft, History of the United States of America (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), Vol. III, pp. 456-457; “Facts You May Not Know about the Tea Party,” Boston Tea Party Historical Society (at: http://www.boston-tea-party.org/unknown-facts.html) (accessed on July 21, 2010). (Return)

3. George Bancroft, History of the United States of America (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), Vol. III, p. 457 (Philadelphia, NY, SC). (Return)

4. George Bancroft, History of the United States of America (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), Vol. III, p. 460. (Return)

5. George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, John C. Fitzpatrick, editor (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1940), Vol. 37, p. 177, letter to James Welch, April 7, 1799. (Return)

6. George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, John C. Fitzpatrick, editor (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1939), Vol. 35, p. 230, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796. (Return)

7. Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Harold C. Syrett, editor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), Vol. XI, pp. 140-141. (Return)

8. Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. VI, p. 188, letter to Mr. Skipwith, July 28, 1787. (Return)

9. Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XV, p. 23, letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816. (Return)

10. “Contract From America,” TeaParty365.com, April 10, 2010 (at: http://www.teaparty365.org/contract-from-america). (Return)

11. See, for example, “Tea Party 48%, Obama 44%,” Rasmussen Reports, April 5, 2010 (at: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/april_2010/tea_party_48_obama_44); “Most Say Tea Party Has Better Understanding of Issues than Congress,” Rasmussen Reports, March 28, 2010 (at: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/march_2010/most_say_tea_party_has_better_understanding_of_issues_than_congress). (Return)

12. William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit; or Commemorative Notices of Distinguished American Clergymen or Various Denominations (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1858), Vol. 3, p. 221. (Return)

13. Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 108th Congress, Second Session (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 2004), Vol. 150, p. 17247, Representative Franks quoting Daniel Webster, July 22, 2004. (Return)

#116 - Sunday Special - Pulpit Freedom Sunday - A Call To End Terrorism By Tax-Exemption

[Dont miss this week's : 1) Sunday Special; 2) "Truth That Transforms" (Sunday; 5pm, ch. 55.1, Orlando); 3)"Cross Examine* (Mon., 52.2, Orlando,)and 4)Worldmag.com editorial cartoons.]

Pulpits and politics http://online.worldmag.com/2011/08/08/pulpits-and-politics/
by Janie B. Cheaney August 8, 10:19

,... there may come a time for pastors to speak to political issues. And one of those times may be Pulpit Freedom Sunday, scheduled for Oct. 2 this year.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) organized the first Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2008 as a way to challenge the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has exercised a creeping control over what pastors in the United States can say ever since 1954, when Lyndon Johnson found himself in a bruising Senate campaign. His opponent had the backing not of the local church but of right wing organizations that castigated Johnson for being soft on communism. Johnson’s amendment to the tax code prohibited any tax-exempt organization to support a particular candidate in elections, and it breezed through the Senate with no debate and no committee hearings. (Could it be that that august body of 98 incumbents saw the value of it for their own future campaigns?)

The whole issue of tax-exempt status may seem thornier than it really is. Some Christians, including me, have wondered whether churches shouldn’t just bite the bullet and pay the taxes in return for political freedom. Or maybe it’s just the Christian thing to do; as Paul says in another context, “Why not rather suffer wrong?” (1 Corinthians 6:7).

Presumably, the IRS, deep in its cold bureaucratic heart, believes it’s doing its best to accommodate free speech in churches. The agency has tried to delineate what nonprofit groups can do in the context of a political campaign. Every election cycle it sends a friendly reminder to pastors that they can advocate for issues (in a limited way) but not for candidates. What’s wrong with that?

The ADF sees potential disaster in that. “The power to tax is the power to destroy,” wrote John Marshall (1819) in the McCulloch v. Maryland case, which involved a bank, but the ADF applies Marshall’s statement to the Church—in fact, all faiths.

Regulations on speech from the pulpit reveal a fundamental misunderstanding about God-ordained institutions. The IRS sees its bestowal of tax-exemptions as a benefit it graciously grants. This puts the church under the heel of the state, no matter how lightly that heel rests. If the church is to be salt and light as an institution (I’m not speaking of individual Christians here) she must be free. The restrictions not only have a chilling effect on what pastors say from the pulpit, but they also hinder free discussion among Christians about what is appropriate.

Should a Baptist pastor, for example, tell his congregation that if they vote for a certain candidate they should leave the church? That’s a subject for legitimate debate among Christians, but if the IRS has already muscled in and revoked tax-exempt status, the issue is moot. The ADF does not approve all pastoral positions, but insists on the right for pastors to speak freely and subject their views to Christian judgment, rather than government.

That’s why Pulpit Freedom Sunday was established in 2008 with a handful of pastors, and expanded to include about 100 pastors last year. It’s a direct challenge to the principle of government restriction. On that Sunday, pastors record their sermons and send them to the IRS with a demand to be audited. So far the IRS has not responded, suggesting that its code is not as clear-cut as it claims. The ADF invites more pastors to participate this year, and in time hopes to force a reconsideration of the Johnson Amendment. Followed by its abolishment.

State churches (supported by taxes) were the pattern in Europe, eventually leading to empty churches. IRS restrictions could have the same effect here—if not empty churches, empty sermons. If the state claims the power to restrict speech on political issues, what will keep it from restricting doctrinal issues? As the personal becomes more political, nothing at all.

#115 - The Food Stamp Party is Stimulating Poverty

[Dont miss this week's : 1) Sunday Special; 2) Truth That Transforms (Sunday; 5pm, ch. 55.1, Orlando); and 3) Worldmag.com editorial cartoons.]

Posted by Daniel Horowitz [http://www.redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2011/08/17/the-food-stamp-party-is-stimulating-poverty/] Wednesday, August 17th

The loss of jobs is only half of the result of the government interventionist equation. The other casualty of an economy driven by taxation, regulation, litigation, subsidization, monetary intervention, and debt is the crippling cost of living for all Americans. [Yes, I was about to say middle class, but we would be wise to eradicate that sort of socialist innuendo from our vernacular.]

Earlier today, the latest wholesale inflationary numbers were released. The core PPI rose 0.4% in July, while year over year PPI is now close to a three year high at 7.2%. Additionally, food prices rose another 0.6% in July. These numbers are quite disconcerting, given the sharp slowdown in economic activity. The higher wholesale costs are inevitably passed down to consumers, forcing them to pay more for basic products, such as energy, food, and transportation.While there are many cyclical factors that affect the price of food and fuel, and by extension, everything else; nonetheless, clearly central planning from the government has kept prices artificially high.

The government has foisted the ethanol beast upon every consumer of food and fuel through mandates, subsidies, and tariffs. This has created such a market distortion that 44% of all corn grown in this country is diverted for the production of ethanol. Corn prices continue to spike, engendering a cascading effect on much of the food chain. Despite the universal understanding that these policies have raised the cost of most major food items and gasoline, big-government statists in both parties continue to exhibit contumacious arrogance by refusing to repeal them.

Aside for the ethanol boondoggle, the rest of Obama’s energy agenda speaks for itself; a no-energy agenda. The administration is using every tool at its disposal to impound our oil, gas, coal, and nuclear power resources. Concurrently, Obama has sucked out all the energy investments and diverted them for 14th century style productivity; green energy. Those investments have really turned out swell for Big Solar. This is perhaps the most regressive tax on “middle class” Americans because the cost of transportation affects food prices, in addition to gas prices.

Finally, we have the plethora of spending from both fiscal and monetary stimulus that has devalued the dollar, thereby contributing to the rise in commodity prices. While the Fed issues easy money and the Treasury borrows it by the trillions, the weak dollar is wiping out the savings of the current generation. The next generation won’t have to worry about savings because all of their income will be used to service the debt.

So what is the motive behind this perfidious destruction of our savings and purchasing power? What is the end game?

Not surprisingly, the solution to every government-induced problem is…another government solution. You see, in the inane and insane cycle of government, the statists gleefully anticipate the creation of poverty resulting from their economic interventions, so they can subsidize the poverty with handouts. In this vein, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s comments in praise of record food stamp enrollment should come as no surprise:

Liberals don’t view welfare and food assistance as necessary evils; they view them as necessary virtues that stimulate poverty, and in turn, dependency on the Democrat Party. Perhaps, we should start a war with aliens, and then hand out food stamps to fund the war – and we will enjoy the motherload of stimulus.

The factors that drive up the cost of living and reduce income will serve as the bread and butter issues of the campaign for the White House. Americans want a paycheck; not a food stamp. And hopefully, they will give a pink slip to those purveyors of economic ruin that currently occupy the White House.
[bold and italics emphases mine]

#113 - Needing A Leader, We Get A Blamer

Courtney Nash - Did you hear about that 16 year-old girl here in Central Florida who died over the weekend possibly from an amoeba she contracted while swimming in a river near her home? As I hope you'll pray for Courtney Nash's family and friends as they deal with her grief,I'd like to make two observations: 1) The suddenness of her death serves as a reminder of how none of us knows the length of our days. We can only pray that through her untimely death, many youth especially will be led to consider how transient life is and will consider their lives from a Biblical and eternal perspective. 2) It is said that at age 14 Courtney signed d an organ donor card. It is said that as a result 7 people have benefited from her life-giving ecision. It makes me wonder how anyone would not consider being an organ donor. [I believe Ive been an organ donor since I first learned to drive 44 years ago.]

May we all begin to pray DAILY that next year's election will yield us a leader who actually has proven strategies to help our economy finally recover from its destructive downturn and who will support a limited governement view that does not shred our Constitution.

Obama's Tour of Denial and Blame/ morningbell@heritage.org (The Heritage Foundation)

It's being billed as a listening tour—a three-state journey across the Midwest where President Barack Obama will hear directly from Americans about the economy and talk about his ideas for job growth. Instead, though, it has the characteristics of a political campaign swing, and the rhetoric the President has brought along for the ride is marked by a desperate effort to blame someone other than himself for America's economic woes.

The President's tour began yesterday in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, where in one breath he pointed his finger at Washington's broken politics and in the next he blamed "a string of bad luck ... a bunch of things taking place over the last six months that were not within our control."

'You had an Arab Spring in the Middle East that promises more democracy and more human rights for people, but it also drove up gas prices -- tough for the economy, a lot of uncertainty. And then you have the situation in Europe, where they're dealing with all sorts of debt challenges, and that washes up on our shores. And you had a tsunami in Japan, and that broke supply chains and created difficulties for the economy all across the globe.'

As much as the President would like to bill his three-state tour as an exhibition in listening or leadership, it's more of an exercise in cognitive dissonance—of blaming everything but his own policies for the reality of America's dire economic straits, rather than taking responsibility for his presidency. That reality has manifested itself in a big way. In every state, a vast majority of Americans see the economy as getting worse, according to a new Gallup poll. The only exception is in Washington, D.C., where taxpayer spending has feathered the nest of the federal government, creating a cushion from the harsh existence of 9.1 percent unemployment, an average duration of unemployment hitting a record high of 40 weeks, and a tepid pace of economic growth that could leave joblessness at permanently high levels. Contrast Obama's results with the promise of his presidency, as articulated in his inaugural address:

'The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift. And we will act, not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.'

Lest America forget, President Obama had two years of a Democrat-controlled Congress to effect that bold and swift action. And boy, did he take action. He and his liberal allies in the House and Senate gave America a $780 billion stimulus that the President promised would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. (He came up 7.3 million jobs shy.) And then there was the 2,700-page behemoth known as Obamacare, the 9,000-Earmark Omnibus Bill, $3.22 trillion in new debt, a $26.1 billion government union bailout in the summer of 2010, the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform bill.

Somehow, though, all that action was not enough. So in January, the President used his State of the Union Address to convey to America that he was singularly focused on job creation. And here America sits, seven months later, watching President Obama tour the Midwest delivering that same message, this time calling for piecemeal job creation policies including more stimulus and infrastructure spending, a renewal of the payroll tax cut that was initially passed in December last year, tax credits for companies who hire veterans, a trade deal that he fails to send to Congress yet blames them for not passing, and tax increases on job creators. Though the President calls his ideas new and bold, he's only delivering more of the same tired thinking that has left America in an economic rut.

On top of the spending and debt, the President has promulgated stifling regulation while calling for job-killing tax increases. Meanwhile, his Administration is going out of its way to work against job creation—the National Labor Relations Board has taken action against the Boeing Company for creating jobs in right-to-work South Carolina while also pushing for pro-union policies that harm employers and workers.

Fortunately, the President's way is not the only way. Rather than going back to the Keynesian well and relying on the hand of government, the President and Congress should restrain government and allow entrepreneurs to thrive. That doesn't require a listening tour and placing blame. That requires being a leader and recognizing that the policies of the past two and a half years have not worked—that it's time for a new way, and a new speech.
[bold and italics emphases mine]

#114 - 10 Top Reasons Obama Won't Win Re-Election

[Human Events]http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45480 08/13/2011

[Although the next Presidential election is not for more than 14 months, at this time there are many factors which point to President Obama being denied a second term in office. This is incredible as just 6 months ago this seemed most unlikely. Whether or not you are a supporter of the President, these are factors worth considering for now at least.] ...

1. Jobless rate too high: With the latest Labor Department report showing the unemployment rate at 9.1%, jobs will likely remain the No. 1 issue for voters. Well over 2 million jobs have been lost since Obama took office, and he wasted a trillion dollars on a stimulus bill that didn’t stimulate. Unfortunately for the American people, his policies will keep the jobless rate high, right up to November 2012.

2. Economy in doldrums: It’s not just jobs, but everything about the economy remains snake-bit. With housing slumping and the stock market tanking, all Americans are feeling the impact of the down economy. With the threat of a double-dip recession looming, don’t expect a turnaround in time to help Obama’s reelection.

3. ObamaCare looms: With health care costs continuing to rise, it is clear that ObamaCare wasn’t the answer. As the implementation of the highly unpopular health care measure nears, more workers will be dumped from their employers' health care plans, taxes will rise and fewer doctors will be available—giving voters more reasons to dump its architect.

4. Out-of-control debt and credit downgrade: The debt-ceiling deal did little to fix the long-term debt problem, as the U.S. is still on tap to borrow $7 trillion over the next decade, adding to the $4 trillion Obama has already racked up since taking office. With the S&P downgrade, Obama goes down in history as the first President to lose America’s AAA credit rating.

5. Depressed base:Progressives are having buyer’s remorse and are trying to convince everyone that Obama is not even much of a liberal. The anti-war left certainly won’t be out in force on Election Day. Nor will black turnout match 2008’s historical number. More of the young will stay home. The excitement of electing the first black President has worn off and even his staunchest supporters are disappointed that Obama hasn’t fulfilled their expectations.

6. Opposition energized: The Tea Party didn’t even exist in 2008, and the 2010 midterm elections showed the country rejects the President’s big-spending policies. No matter which Republican gains the party’s nomination, expect an energized grassroots opposition to Obama’s second term.

7. Changes in battleground states: The terrain that Obama faces in his reelection bid will be more difficult to navigate in 2012 than four years ago. He starts out by losing six Electoral College votes from states he carried in 2008 due to population changes registered by the 2010 Census. Then the 2010 midterm elections saw Republicans win governors’ races previously held by Democrats in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan—all states Obama won in 2008.

8. Foreign policy mess: From the ... mixed signals given to Middle East protesters, from the Russian “reset” to China’s economic belligerence, there is not much that Obama can tout as a foreign policy success. Now with deficit hawks setting their sights on the Pentagon, Obama is likely to preside over the dismantling of America’s superpower status.

9. Media less a adoring: Obama will still have most of the media on his side for his reelection bid, but they certainly won’t be getting thrills up their legs, admiring the crease in his pants, or writing how the seagulls were awed. Even Obamaphile Chris Mathhews has turned on the President, saying a recent Obama speech sounded like a Fox News commercial, a harsh epithet coming from the MSNBC host.

10. Aloof, inept: Now that America has seen the President up close for nearly three years, the magic that many believed in during his hope and change odyssey is clearly gone. His aloof personality and scolding partisanship will not endear him to the electorate this time. As his falling approval ratings attest, he increasingly looks pathetically inept and not up to the job he was elected to do.
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HUMAN EVENTS is the news source President Reagan called his "favorite newspaper" and we still hold high the Reaganesque principles of free enterprise, limited government and, above all, a staunch, unwavering defense of American freedom.

#112 - Sunday Special- When Riding A Roller Coaster, Scream First, Then ...

[Be sure to check out this week's broadcast of "Truth That Transforms" (formerly The Coral Ridge Hour) today (5 pm, ch. 55.1, Orlando) Also, check out the ediotrial cartoons at www.Worldmag.com]

Panic. Worry. Anger. Fear. Regret(should I have bought gold when it was way cheaper?). Or maybe "It's been lovely but I have to scream now." I'm sure that you can add a few words [I hope no expletives (: ] to that list that describes my emotions when the stock market tanked day after day this past week, giving the sensation of riding a roller coster. As a Christian, we do in our gut trust God but there are times when we want to scream,"Hey, did you really have to let that happen?!"

Well, over 30 years ago, I had something happen to me that might be instructive as well as encouraging for you. Being in full-time ministry, I was then going on a community college daily to meet with students and to share Christ with those with whom God gave me opportunity One day, I decided to take my camera to campus to take some pictures and carried it in my hands so that I would remember to use it. Toward the end of the day, I stopped by to talk with a student who was sitting on a bench. I somewhat remember placing the camera on the bench on my right and turned to my left to engage in conversation. After awhile, the conversation ended and I got up to walk off campus with the guy. When that walk ended up at the school parking lot, I just went to my car and went on home.

Shortly after walking through the front door, I suddenly looked at my hand and realized I was not carrying my camera. I immediately realized that I had left it on that bench back at the school. In a panic, I jumped in my car and sped to the campus and ran to that bench, but the camera was gone. After berating myself for being so careless, I suddenly had the thought of going to the administration office to see if someone might have found it and turned it in. When I explained what had happened, not only was I told no one had done that, but the woman actually broke out laughing, saying,"Do you really think that if someone found a camera they would turn it in? Of course, theyre just going to keep it." Suddenly, I not only felt stupid but felt humiliated and embarassed.By the I got home, I was really upset. After a few moments, I just sort of took a deep breah and said something like,"Okay Lord,I give up. I acknowledge that it was after all Your camera and so if you want to take it from me that's up to you." I remember opening my eyes then feeling a great peace and then started to do something else.

Just then, the phone rang and it was my Mom calling from many miles away at my parents' home. She immediately said, "Did you lose your camera?" to which I believe my jaw dropped open. When I asked her how she knew that, she said she just got a call from the school saying that someone had just turned in a camera with my name and old (their) phone number on it. I immediately drove back to the school and sure enough they had my camera. (Unfortunately, I don't recall being able to have it returned to me by that very office worker who had only an hour before laughed at me. Needless to say, that would have been so sweet!)

As I overflowed with thankfulness when I got back h0me, I sat for a moment to think about what had happened. I felt the Lord reminding me that I was merely a steward of my posessions and that in truth God is always the real owner. It was though God took the camera from me to check my understanding of that truth, and when I was finally willing to entrust it to him rather than get upset at "my" loss, He not only gave me His peace but He even returned the camera. I always recall that incident to remind me to hold on to my posessions - yes, especially my savings - loosely. After doing my best to care for the things I am steward over, I need to rest in however He sovereignly chooses to dispose of those posessions. As I once told someone who asked me if I was sure I had enough money saved up to live out my life, even if I lose every dime I am steward of, it just may be God's way of giving me the opportunity to minister to the homeless as one of them!

So, my friend, do your best to invest your money wisely - as God gives you wisdom - and then, when you experience economic uncertainty, scream first, but then remember to hold on to your posessions lightly, remember that you are but stewards of them, and entrust them to the care of God, who is the ultimate owner of all things, and leave the results to Him. As the Scripture teaches, "Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." (I Pet. 5:7)

(Postscript: It's similar to when i inherited a huge sum of money when my parents died. Someone at church said that I must be excited. I evidently shocked her when I paused and said, "No, I'm acatually afraid." when she incredulously asked me how that could be, I said, "Because I know the money all belongs to God and I'm responsible for how I spend every penny of it.")

#111 - The London Riots - Living Without God; Making Too Much?

[I present below 2 articles I've come across that address what has been behind the riots taking place in London. The first one presents a Christian view whereas the second one speaks more of how there are parallels for what has been happening in America. I believe they are both worth your time.]

P.S.- Please be sure to check my Sunday Special on my essay on a Christian response to economic uncertainty.

[bold and italics emphases below MINE]

No Shock that London is Burning - Dale Hurd CBN News Sr. Reporter; http://blogs.cbn.com/hurdontheweb/archive/2011/08/09/no-shock-that-london-is-burning.aspx August 9, 2011

"Why, exactly, is it wrong to loot and to burn?" Imagine hearing this question from one of the London rioters, if you were to stop them as they were lifting a sweet flat screen from a shop in Brixton or Hackney, and if they didn’t just give you a violent shove out of their way instead. If they did ask you this question, it might even be sincere, accompanied by a puzzled look. When you live on the bottom strata in a post-Christian moral vacuum, it’s not about right or wrong, but simply about have or have not.

The destruction began after a shooting involving London Police and has spread to several cities. Some news agencies and politicians have tried to tie the rioting to unrest over welfare cuts. This paints a respectable political veneer over top what is a feral mass crime spree. There undoubtedly is some political expression within the looting and burning, and that would be rage and revenge against a society and a system that the poor feel is stacked against them. To quote one rioter, "(We're) showing the rich we do what we want." One cannot pick on Britain exclusively, because America has this problem as well, and the crisis du jour in Britain is a crisis of the whole Western world, and it’s coming to a city near you. It is a crisis of faith.

Britain is a nation now so secular that when former Prime Minister Tony Blair wanted to end a speech to the nation with “God bless you,” it was nixed by his staff for fear of offending too many people. Some years ago, when a Mori poll for the BBC's Heaven & Earth program asked the British to name an 'inspirational' figure - Jesus finished at the bottom, not even close to "none of the above" or Britney Spears. The only real operating “moral” code in a post-Christian nation like Britain is a very vague, conditional sense of the Golden Rule used to reinforce the new national creed of selfishness and hedonism. The other is the threat of jail.

This is true across Europe and in many parts of America. One cannot expect young people, taught to believe that Christian morals are evil and oppressive, and that the only final reality is material and energy shaped by pure chance, to decide to honor law or property or their fellow man. Without God, it becomes the law of the jungle.

The Ministry of Making Too Much by John Hayward (HumanEventsDaily@email.humanevents.com) August 9, 2011

After I was critical of the tactics used by striking union members against Verizon, I received several responses to the effect that vandalism and violence are justified because Verizon makes too much profit, and its executives make too much money. One correspondent defended union lawbreaking by citing Verizon executive Ivan Seidenberg’s $18 million annual compensation package. That sure is a lot of money, so I guess cutting fiber optic lines and stealing electronic equipment is justified. I know some young people in Britain who would enthusiastically agree. The BBC recorded an interview with two giggling teenage girls who explained,“It’s the rich people who have got all the businesses. That’s why all this is happening, because of the rich people. We’re showing the rich we do what we want.”

If you’ve been following the British riots at all, you’ve noticed the targets of looting and robbery have not been exclusively “rich people,” by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps we could avoid confusion, both in America and England, by setting up a Ministry of Making Too Much, to declare the exact point at which increasing wealth completely erases the rights of an individual.The Ministry will need a large staff and lots of funding, because it’s got a big job ahead of it. There are many nuances that must be ironed out. Will the salaries of union executives and politicians be regulated too? Do entertainers and athletes also make too much money? Will the lifetime earnings of each individual and corporation be considered, or just how much they pulled down last year?

Since all the smart people inside the Beltway assure us that moving back to a system of greater economic liberty is impossible, maybe it’s time we went the other way, and created a powerful bureaucracy staffed by selfless public servants to strictly codify envy. At least we wouldn’t have to wait for Presidential speeches, rowdy union demonstrations, and riots to find out who we’re supposed to hate.

- For more about this action agsintst Verizon, check: Striking Union Extremists Imprison Verizon Replacement Workers In Pennsylvania, http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/08/11/striking-union-extremists-imprison-verizon-replacement-workers-in-pennsylvania/

#110 - Credit Rating Downgrade - Why You Can't Blame the Republicans/Tea Party

Prayer Alert - Please continue to remember the families and comrade-in-arms of the nearly 3 dozen of our brave fighting men who perished in Afghanistan this past Saturday, and whose bodies are being returned to the US today. Pray that knowing Him will comfort them and that this tragedy will especially draw those who have yet to come into a relationship withh Him.

Left Rushs to Blame the GOP for S&P Downgrade
Posted by Erick Erickson http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/08/05/left-rushs-to-blame-the-gop-for-sp-downgrade/ Friday, August 5th

The S&P has downgraded American credit from AAA to AA+, the first time in history. The left is scrambling to blame the GOP for this and is fixated on one paragraph

The issue here, however, is that while present law presumed the GOP tax cuts would go away, the policy presumption is that they would get extended. Likewise, this is not blaming the GOP. This is a statement of reality that the GOP wasn’t going to "Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. Key macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3% and consumer price inflation near 2% annually over the decade." raise taxes.Consequently, because the GOP refused to raise taxes, the alternative needed to be more cuts.

And S&P clearly believes that the cuts the debt deal made were not enough. And who opposed big cuts? Why yes, a guy named Barack Obama and the Democrats.

"We view the act’s measures as a step toward fiscal consolidation. However, this is within the framework of a legislative mechanism that leaves open the details of what is finally agreed to until the end of 2011, and Congress and the Administration could modify any agreement in the future. Even assuming that at least $2.1 trillion of the spending reductions the act envisages are implemented, we maintain our view that the U.S. net general government debt burden (all levels of government combined, excluding liquid financial assets) will likely continue to grow."

The Democrats can spin this as blaming the GOP all they want since they clearly got outplayed and still saw a downgrade, but the S&P downgrade has nothing to do with any specific policy. In fact, S&P says "Standard & Poor’s takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might conclude is appropriate for putting the U.S.’s finances on a sustainable footing."

The whole focus is on the debt burden. And if taxes are not going to go up, as is reality, spending must go down.The left, spinning otherwise, is simply trying to escape blame.

Only the Tea Party Had a $4 Trillion Plan
Posted by Erick Erickson http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/08/05/only-the-tea-party-had-a-4-trillion-plan/ Friday, August 5th

Here was the question to S&P exec John Chambers, and his reply:
Q: “There’s been a figure of $4 trillion dollars circulating as an example of the scope of fiscal consolidation measures that could work to stabilize the U.S. debt-gdp ratios. Could you explain how that figure was arrived at since it was mentioned in S&P’s reports and where it figures in S&P analysis?”
A: “First of all, that figure comes initially from the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission, and it was embraced by President Obama in his April 13 speech and Paul Ryan in his counter-budget proposal. And so you had policy makers converging around the amount. Now actually the $4 trillion, depending on whether it is front-loaded or back-loaded, is not going to do the trick in terms of stabilizing U.S. government debt-to GDP ratios. But it takes you pretty far along. And I think a grand bargain of that nature would signal, you know, the seriousness of policy makers to address the fiscal issues of the United States, to actually stabilize the debt-to-GDP. The IMF says it takes 7.5% of GDP consolidation. I think we have more than that.”The U.S. annual budget deficit is now around 9% of GDP.

Chambers adds: "But $4 trillion would be a good down payment. We thought that..if policy makers could deliver the goods on that, then that would be a strong sign on our political scores and eventually on our projections on the fiscal side.” S&P has already said it may slash the Triple-A rating if a debt ceiling deal is not accompanied by what it deems is a credible plan to cut the $14.3 trillion federal [debt] by $4 trillion. The plan has “to have bipartisan support,” Chambers said. “If you have a plan that is only backed by one side or the other, even if you got it through, you would be faced with the prospect of it being unwound.”

So, S&P’s Chambers is saying the ratings agency wants to see at least a $4 trillion deal, one that would come with bipartisan support, too, because the ratings agency fears without that support, Congress will upend any debt-cutting plan. There was only ever one plan that did what S&P said was required — $4 trillion in cuts with bipartisan support. That’d be Cut, Cap, and Balance — a plan that cut $4 trillion and got bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

As Democrats tonight, and some Republicans, lash out and blame the Tea Party for causing the United States to lose its credit rating, it is worth pointing out that only the Tea Party offered up a plan to avoid what happened.This is precisely why the GOP should have held the line.[emphais here mine]

Friday Aug. 19, 2011 - #114 - When Celebrities Pontificate...

[Dont you just get tired of celebrities who pontificate as experts about this or that social cause (such as scream about global warming and those greedy corportate people and then hypocritidally go on to burn up tons of fuel in their private jets), even to testifying before Congress?! Give me a break! When entertainers try to persuade us that their fame makes them experts, they surely play us for fools. Rather than advancing their cause they often just embarass it and themselves. Case in point - read this article:]

"Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such power as it has to ensure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work. - H.L. Menken

Schooling Matt Damon by Michelle Malkin http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45327 08/05/2011

Actor Matt Damon? is a walking, talking public service reminder to immunize your children early and often against La-La-Land disease.In Damon's world, all public school teachers are selfless angels. Government workers and Hollywood entertainers are impervious to economic incentives. And anyone who disagrees is a know-nothing, "corporate reformer" ingrate who hates education.

Last weekn [In late July], the liberal box-office star addressed a "Save Our Schools" march in Washington at the behest of his mother, a professor of early childhood education. He attacked standardized tests. He praised all the public school teachers who "empowered" him and unlocked his creative potential by rejecting "silly drill and kill nonsense." Speaking on behalf of "an army of regular people," Damon decried the demoralization of teachers by ruthless, results-oriented free marketeers whom he mocked as "simple-minded."

What Damon's superficial tirade lacked, however, was any real-world understanding of the deterioration of core curricular learning in America. Students can't master simple division or fractions because today's teachers -- churned out through lowest common denominator grad schools and shielded from competition -- have barely mastered those skills themselves. Un-educators have abandoned "drill and kill" computation for multicultural claptrap and fuzzy math, traded in grammar fundamentals for "creative spelling," and dropped standard civics for save-the-earth propaganda.

Consequence: bottom-basement U.S. student scores on global assessments over the past two decades. Blaming the tests is blaming the messenger. The liberal education establishment's response to its abject academic failures? Run away. This is why the Save Our Schools agenda championed by Damon calls for less curricular emphasis on math and reading -- and more focus on social justice, funding and "equity" issues.

Out: Reading is fundamental. In: Feeling is fundamental.

After his drippy pep talk absolving teachers of any responsibility for America's educational morass, Damon then lashed out at a young libertarian reporter who had the audacity to ask him about the negative impact of lifetime teacher tenure. "In acting there isn't job security, right?" Reason.tv's Michelle Fields asked Damon. "There is an incentive to work hard and be a better actor because you want to have a job. So why isn't it like that for teachers?"

It's elementary that people will work longer and harder if they know they will be rewarded. There's nothing anti-teacher about the question. (And before teachers-unions goons go on the attack, I am the child of a public school teacher and the mother of two children in an excellent public charter school by choice.) But Damon's hinges came undone when confronted with the mild question.

"You think job insecurity makes me work hard?" he retorted. "That's like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when she has tenure." Gathering all the creative potential he could muster, Damon unleashed crude profanities on Fields. "A teacher wants to teach," Damon fumed with his mother next to him. "Why else would you take a sh**ty" salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really loved to do it?"

Never mind that most out-of-work Americans would find nothing "sh**ty" about earning an average $53,000 annual salary plus health and retirement benefits for a 180-day work year.

Damon went on to deride standard, mainstream behavioral economic principles as "intrinsically paternalistic" and "MBA-style thinking." And when the young reporter's cameraman pointed out that there are bad apples in the teaching profession as in any profession, Damon called him "sh**ty," too.

Tinseltown stars can afford to put emotion over logic, progressive fantasy over practical reality. The rest of us are stuck with the bill. And those whom bleeding-heart celebrities purport to care most about -- the children -- suffer the consequences of bad ideas.
Interminable teacher tenure in America's largest school districts, from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles, has produced a rotten corps of incompetent (at best) and dangerous (at worst) educators coddled by Big Labor. As the D.C.-based Center for Union Facts reports, "In many major cities, only one out of 1,000 teachers is fired for performance-related reasons. ... In 10 years, only about 47 out of 100,000 teachers were actually terminated from New Jersey's schools."

By contrast, as the educational documentary "Waiting for Superman" (produced by avowed liberal turned reformer Davis Guggenheim) pointed out, one out of every 57 doctors loses his or her license to practice medicine, and one out of every 97 lawyers loses their license to practice law. In Los Angeles, it's not just meanie tea party terrorists making the case for abolishing teacher tenure. When the Los Angeles Times exposed how the city's tenure evaluation system rubber-stamped approvals and ignored actual performance, the district superintendent admitted: "Too many ineffective teachers are falling into tenured positions -- the equivalent of jobs for life." USC education professor Julie Slayton acknowledged: "It's ridiculous and should be changed."

Pop quiz: Would multimillionaire Matt Damon apply the same warped employment practices and dumbed-down curricular standards to his own accountants that he champions for America's public school teachers? Film at 11[emphases mine] [emphases mine]

Mrs. Malkin is author of Unhinged (Regnery) and "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2009).

#109 - Sunday Special > The Atom Bombings - A Matter of Regret, Not Apology

Prayer Alert - Let's all be sure to remember the families and comrade-in-arms of the nearly 3 dozen of our brave fighting men who perished yesteday in Afghanistan. Pray that knowing Him will comfort them and that this tragedy will especially draw those who have yet to come into a relationship withh Him.

Now, I am sure you are used to seeing the annual ceremonies in Japan marking the atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in World War II. Of course, there is no decent person who takes any pleasure that so many hundreds of thousands of lives perished as a result. And in checking the wikipedia site
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki) there is much information regarding the bombings, including some of the debate that has continued about the bomgings. There are some good arguments on both sides of the debate, but I find those who go so far as to accuse the United States of war crimes just go too far. I was startled when a year ago a friend who was a native of Japan but is now a US citizen said things such as that the bombs was denoted over a children's hospital in Hiroshima, as though that was the target of the bombing. What disturbed me even more in the newsletter he sent out as now the pasor of a Japanese American Church was that God has not opened the hearts of the japanese people to the gospel because America has never apologized for the bombing!

Of course, I can understand how he would have such emotions but find it hard to accept his conclusions. Also, with the distance from the actual event itself, I think it is easy for Americans today to forget about the context of the bombing. For those who can only see America as the big villian, I think it's helpful to put some context to the bombings. First of all, let me state what I believe everyone should know: the United States was thrust into World War II because of the Japan's unprovoked attack on our naval facility at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in which nearly 3,000 of our servicemen were killed. Prior to this and continuing throughout the war, Japanese troops marched through Manchuria, China, the Korean penninsula, through the Pacific and IndoChina killing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians all to claim the natural resources of those countries. Aside from it's criminal treatment of prisoners of wars (tens of thousands having died in captivity), they were also responsible for actions similar to those of the Nazis against many people groups throughout Europe. For instance,

****At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731, you will learn about something called Unit 731. This was ..."was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel." Also, "According to the 2002 International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000. According to other sources, the use of biological weapons researched in Unit 731's bioweapons and chemical weapons programs resulted in possibly as many as 200,000 deaths of military personnel and civilians in China.

****Also, at the Wikipedia site on the Battle of Okinawa > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa : "... the Japanese Army showed indifference to Okinawa's defense and safety, and the Japanese soldiers used civilians as human shields against the Americans. Japanese military confiscated food from the Okinawans and executed those who hid it, leading to a mass starvation among the population, and forced civilians out of their shelters. Japanese soldiers also killed about 1,000 Okinawans who spoke in a different local dialect in order to suppress spying. The museum writes that "some were blown apart by shells, some finding themselves in a hopeless situation were driven to suicide, some died of starvation, some succumbed to malaria, while others fell victim to the retreating Japanese troops." "... Ryukyu Shimpo, one of the two major Okinawan newspapers, wrote in 2007: 'There are many Okinawans who have testified that the Japanese Army directed them to commit suicide. There are also people who have testified that they were handed grenades by Japanese soldiers" to blow themselves up. Some of the civilians, having been induced by Japanese propaganda to
believe that U.S. soldiers were barbarians who committed horrible atrocities, killed their families and themselves to avoid capture.' (In the Wikipedia article, you can read of how Japanese governement officials as recently as 2007 tried to have textbooks revised to not say the Japanese military encouraged the suicides until a court finally ruled against them in 2008.)

[from the Wikipedia article on the bombings themseves] "..For six months before the atomic bombings, the United States intensely fire-bombed 67 Japanese cities. Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945. The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum. By executive order of President Harry S. Truman,the U.S. dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945,followed by the detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki on August 9."

"Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan: Kyūshū was to be invaded in October 1945 and Ho"nshū five months later. Some estimate Allied forces would have suffered 1 million casualties in such a scenario, while Japanese casualties would have been in the millions. Although thousands of Japanese were taken prisoner, most fought until they were killed or committed suicide. According to Risa Brooks and Elizabeth A. Stanley, "One scholar estimated that kamikaze attacks could have sunk or damaged a full third of the invasion armada destined for Kyūshū." As the chief commander of the Japanese army, Korechika Anami was outspoken against the idea of surrender. Even after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Anami opposed talk of surrender, and proposed instead that a large-scale battle be fought on the Japanese mainland causing such massive Allied casualties that Japan would somehow be able to evade surrender and perhaps even keep some of what it had conquered.Eventually, his arguments were overcome when Emperor Hirohito directly requested an end to the war himself."

"Those who oppose the bombings, among them many US military leaders as well as ex-president Herbert Hoover, argue that it was simply an extension of the already fierce conventional bombing campaign.This,together with the sea blockade and the collapse of Germany (with its implications regarding redeployment), would also have led to a Japanese surrender - so the atomic bombings were militarily necessary. On the contrary, according to Kyoko Iriye Selden, "The most influential text is Truman's 1955 Memoirs, which states that the atomic bomb probably saved half a million US lives— anticipated casualties in an Allied invasion of Japan planned for November. [US Secretary of War] Stimson subsequently talked of saving one million US casualties,and Churchill of saving 1 million American and 1/2 that number of British lives."

I shared the details indicated with **** above to emphasize that the Japanese armies throughout the war were responsible for unspeakable atrocities and what could accurately be called war crimes. As opposed to the inexcuseable nature of those actions, I submit that the US government had sufficient reasons (stated above) to drop the bombs as they did, and that it was done only after great discussion and much regret, and only with the thought of forcing an end to a horrific World War, with what, on balance, was the least amount of casualties. With that in view, I see no reason for the United States to need to apologize for the bombings and cannot believe it's failure to do so has caused God to close the heart of the Japanese people to the gospel. If I may be so bold, I would instead argue (as I heard one japanese pastor also did) that it is the Japanese people who have as a nation never aplogized for their acts of war against people in the Pacfic region and that it may be THEIR refusal to do so that is part of the explanation of God continuing to close the heart of the majority of Japanese to the gospel.

It's time we help others remember that America has and continues to take the lead throughout the world to stand up against those who threaten not just our freedoms but also those of countless nations. We've usually been the one to send our young men and women in harm's way to defend free peoples and to spend our resources to help countless numbers in need again and again. We've never sought compensation or thanks and instead have had to endure much derision and betrayal by even those who we call our friends. America has long had unparralled military power but has always exercised it with severe restraint. One cannot see the heart of America and not believe it only took the action to drop those atomic bombs 66 years ago with much regret but resolved to do what it felt was necessary. For doing so, no apology is necessary.

#108 - Lights Out for the Light Bulb Ban?

[What illustrates better the government taking away more and more of our freedoms than the move to force us to purchase a particular type of light bulb. One thing this article does not point out are the idiotic laws that come into play should you break one of these newer bulbs and have to clean up the dangerous waste that results. Honestly!!]
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The following article was posted at > http://www.askheritage.org/lights-out-for-the-light-bulb-ban/?utm_source=AH_Weekly&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=2011-07-15&utm_campaign=2011_Brand July 15, 2011

Some politicians in Washington don’t think you’re all that bright. They believe that you can’t make wise decisions in your day-to-day life, so they have taken it upon themselves to impose regulations to protect you from yourself. And there’s no better example than Congress’ ban on the incandescent light bulb, which is up for repeal in the House today.

The 2007 law is set to phase-out Thomas Edison’s brainchild bulbs in 2012 and replace them with costlier but more energy-efficient alternatives, the most popular being compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). Since then, the impending restrictions have become a hallmark of Nanny State overreach, provoking backlash across the country. State representatives in South Carolina went so far as to try to circumvent Congress and push for the state to produce and use incandescents solely for its own use. And just last week, U.S. Representatives Joe Barton (R–TX), Michael Burgess (R–TX) and Marsha Blackburn (R–TN) introduced a bill in Congress to put an end to the bulb ban.

But the fact that some folks like consumer choice and prefer the soft yellow lighting of less expensive incandescents to the unnatural, office-like white light of pricey fluorescents confounds Nanny State politicians and regulators. Case in point: Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. Secretary Chu, who is an advocate of the ban, said of the potential repeal, “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.” Confused by the bureaucratic doublespeak? Reaching for your copy of Orwell’s Guide to Big Brotherisms? You should be. Chu apparently believes that government regulations that restrict choice and force decisions upon you are great things for society because they pre-select the best choice imaginable, taking the guesswork out of being a free-thinking being. And they’re saving you money, to boot!

Chu isn’t the only one who thinks the light bulb ban is a great idea. Former Senator John Warner (R–VA) said, “We’ll be dropping backwards in America’s need to become more energy-efficient.” And then there’s Jim Presswood of the environmental activist Natural Resources Defense Council, who says, “Clearly, consumers, the economy and the environment will suffer if these standards are repealed.” The organization claims that the ban would save consumers $85 per year. Well, that’s not entirely true. In California, utilities spent nearly $550 million to subsidize CFLs for consumers, but they didn’t get such great results. In March, The Wall Street Journal reported that energy savings under the program were 73 percent less than expected.

That’s not to say cutting energy consumption isn’t a great thing—it certainly is. But guess what? It’s already happening, and not because of the Nanny State. Heritage’s Nicolas Loris explains:"When you take a look at America’s energy efficiency track record, it’s not too shabby—and it’s a result of innovation and cost reduction, not government mandates and regulations. Overall, energy consumption per real dollar of gross domestic product has dropped dramatically in the past 60 years, because we’ve innovated and become drastically more efficient in the process."In short, America has achieved energy savings as a result of the free market—and the free market is fueled by consumer choice, the very thing big government regulators and politicians would like to take away. Fortunately, there’s another way.

“We should let the marketplace decide,” Barton said of the effort to repeal the light bulb ban. “We should let people decide if they want to buy a $6 light bulb or a 39 cent light bulb.” Maybe, soon enough, Congress will see the light and allow Americans to continue to have that choice.

#107 - The Raw Deal That Is The Debt Deal

[The DEAL reached and signed into law today should make every American want to scream and cry. It is NOT a compromise because its only clear what conservatives gave up - SIGNIFICANT spending reductions now and in the future - and less clear what the liberals who made light of a balanced budget amendment (not surprising when they had not eveb proposed a budget themselves for over 2 years) acatually gave up. With this in mind, I offer the following comments from the highly respected Heritage Foundation...]

"And to preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude." - Thomas Jefferson

How Should Conservatives Respond to the Debt Deal?http://www.askheritage.org/how-should-conservatives-respond-to-the-debt-deal/August 2, 2011

My fellow conservatives, Americans are disappointed. They are disappointed that the debate over our debt limit was about the needs of politicians instead of the needs of the country. They are disappointed with a broken government that refuses to fix itself. And they are disappointed that the Budget Control Act that passed the House last night and is likely to pass the Senate today does not make the transformative changes this nation requires.

There are several elements of this plan that are simply UNACCEPTABLE, even when framed inside the narrow political confines that limited a better outcome (i.e., the White House and Senate are still controlled by spend-tax-and-borrow liberals)..

No AAA Reassurance: This plan is insufficient to protect our nation’s AAA credit rating. On Friday, Moody’s stated that neither the Boehner nor Reid proposals would restore our solid credit footing. This plan did not improve upon those. Economists from Barclays Capital in London said of the deal: “Overall, our first impression is that the agreement by itself is unlikely to be sufficient to cause S&P to remove the U.S. from being on ratings watch for possible downgrade.” Ajay Rajadhyaksha, head of U.S. fixed-income strategy at Barclays, was blunter: “The chances of a downgrade after this deal remain substantially high.”

Irresponsible Defense Cuts: There are two rounds of defense cuts that risk our national security. If all are imposed, we will have a trillion dollars less than we need to protect our nation and defend its interests. Despite increased risks from Iran and North Korea and ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, this deal further cripples a defense budget already sized for peacetime and ignores the real problem—runaway entitlement spending.

More Tax Hikes: Yesterday, White House officials took to the airwaves to assure their liberal base that the new “special” committee would recommend tax hikes. This is one White House assurance you can take to the bank. This deal sets the conditions for a massive tax increase from expiring lower rates and committee horse-trading. Even President Obama agreed in December 2010 that raising taxes to discourage job-creating investments in the middle of a recession was a bad idea. It’s still a bad idea.

An Unclear Balanced Budget Approach: Conservatives are united behind the idea that Congress should balance its budget year-in and year-out, but the devil is in the details. The debt limit deal is a missed opportunity to drive spending down toward a balanced budget. Moreover, the debt limit deal does little to advance the cause of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Not all balanced budget amendments are created equal. We need an amendment with proper taxpayer protections so that Congress can’t simply hike taxes to balance the budget.

Punting Responsibility: The American people don’t send politicians to Washington in order to appoint special committees and duck responsibility. They must make tough choices to reform entitlements. We’ve had enough commissions be ignored. This half-Democrat, half-Republican committee will probably deadlock, too (or worse, push a tax hike), so we’ll get little out of it.

These are just some of the problems identified in the $2.5 trillion debt deal. There are others.

[If there is something encouraging to be taken from these months of battle over the debt ceiling is that:] Conservatives put up a good fight for the non-defense spending cuts needed to reduce the size and cost of government. While Senate Democrats sat on their hands for 800-plus days, doing nothing, House conservatives introduced and passed the Ryan budget plan and the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, each of which was a step in the right direction. The debt limit deal is a disappointment, but conservatives have made a real difference. We can be proud of the progress we made changing the dialogue in Washington. Just as with the Ryan budget plan, we are talking in terms of spending cuts for a smaller, less costly government, not spending increases. Popular opinion is with the conservative philosophy of limited government.

But this debt increase was the highest in history. This is not surprising, given the record spending increases and deficits we’ve witnessed over the past two years. We cannot maintain this course and keep our creditworthiness or create jobs and economic growth.Given the framework we are now living under, and the water that has passed under the proverbial bridge, it is now up to conservatives to:

Pursue Entitlement Reform: Social Security is operating in the red and faces a long-term deficit of nearly $8 trillion. Medicare is the most costly, and least efficient, federal program. Obamacare is simply an abomination that must be repealed. Congress must move to make significant reforms to entitlement programs. We can no longer accept weak recommendations and a lack of political courage. There can be no more budget-related debates in Washington that ignore this looming and preventable crisis.

Pursue Revenue-Neutral Tax Reform: The current tax system is too complex and penalizes productive work. Lawmakers see job creators and entrepreneurs as easy targets to soak so that they can spend more. It’s a terrible cycle that is costly to our economy. The committee set up by the debt framework should take up tax “reform” rather than simply tax “hikes.” Creating a simple, flatter system that protects low-income workers, encourages investment, and fuels business growth would be a major step on the road to economic recovery.

Maintain a Strong Military to Defend America: With nearly a trillion dollars in cuts to our military on the table during a period of heightened risk and global operations, it is imperative that Congress ensure that these cuts do not eliminate badly needed resources for our fighting men and women and that they have the best equipment and technology to keep America safe. As Heritage Vice President Kim Holmes stated: “America is different from other countries for a lot of reasons, but surely one of the biggest is that we are masters of our fate. We are fortunate to have an armed force that not only defends us but keeps us from being at the mercy of other countries, many of whom wish us ill.”

Get Serious About Spending and Regulation: Washington has a unique way of taking one step forward and three steps back. We must remain vigilant about preventing new spending and regulations that hinder economic growth, stifle job creation, and grow the federal government.

To drive spending down toward a balanced budget, reduce the share of the economy devoted to public debt, preserve America’s ability to protect the nation, and shift to a job-creating tax system without raising taxes, The Heritage Foundation has published “Saving the American Dream: The Heritage Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity.” The Heritage plan does what Congress should have done and failed to do. Conservatives: Continue to fight for what is right for America. Onward!

Edwin J. Feulner
President, The Heritage Foundation [emphases mine]