New Republic Article by Timothy Noah on Rick Santorum's Healthcare Mandate Views is False

The evidence cited in Timothy Noah's article for The New Republic most certainly does NOT prove that Rick Santorum once favored a healthcare mandate. Noah lazily reads today's debate about compulsory coverage back into a 1994 debate that was about private vs. employer-provided coverage.

In one article here from 1994, the emphasis is clearly on drawing a contrast between privately purchased coverage by individuals vs. the common practice of employer purchased coverage for employees. A mandate to purchase coverage is not in view:

"Santorum and Watkins would require individuals to buy health insurance rather than forcing employers to pay for employee benefits. ... Santorum introduced the idea of a medical savings account, called Medisave, which has become part of the Gramm bill. Under it, workers would buy major medical insurance and could make tax-free contributions to a Medisave account, from which they would pay for preventive services."

It is insane to press this language to prove Santorum supported government compulsion to purchase insurance in a 1994 race against an incumbent Democrat who was running away from Hillarycare at the time.

The same is true of this story:

"Wofford supports a modified version of President Clinton's call for health coverage for all Americans, funded largely by requiring employers to pay most of the premiums, as many do today.

"For several years, Santorum has promoted a Republican alternative. It would require workers to buy their own health insurance and allow monthly tax-free contributions into "Medisave" accounts to pay for routine medical services."

The context of the debate as presented is entirely within the world of work and employer provided health plans. The issue of compulsory coverage, and of coverage for individuals NOT employed, is wholly unaddressed.

But if Noah had actually bothered to read this article which he also cites (conveniently with a broken link), it should have been crystal clear to him that Santorum was operating in a healthcare environment which "offered," not "compelled," and that Santorum explicitly declined to offer the marginally employed person coverage of the type he was advocating at the time. Santorum's idea of healthcare restructuring was not universal, not compulsory, and wholly confined to the world of work:

U.S. Rep. Rick Santorum, R-Pittsburgh area, and Joe Watkins, a Philadelphia businessman who worked in the Bush White House, are seeking the Republican Senate nomination, creating the only true Senate primary race. ...

Santorum and Watkins both oppose having businesses provide health care for their employees. Instead, they would require individuals to purchase insurance. ...

They also oppose government-run health care and disagree with controls on doctor or hospital fees. They would cap malpractice awards. ...

The candidates split on offering health care for "marginally employed" people, with Watkins supporting it. Both oppose federally funded abortions.

Edison's Bright Idea Took Decades To Catch On

So says Linda Simon for Bloomberg, here:

By 1910, more than 30 years after Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb in 1879, only about 10 percent of American homes had been wired. Even in the glittering Roaring Twenties, only about 20 percent of homes had electricity -- not because of a lack of electrical contractors, but because of a lack of consumer enthusiasm.

Advertisers proclaimed that homes with electricity would be brighter, cozier and happier, but the public wasn't buying.

Perpetual Fascism: Government Still Owns 458 Companies, Is Owed $133 Billion Under TARP

Brought to you by the friendly folks at the two main political parties.

As reported by the AP this week:

A government watchdog says U.S. taxpayers are still owed $132.9 billion that companies haven't repaid from the financial bailout, and some of that will never be recovered.

The bailout launched at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 will continue to exist for years, says a report issued Thursday by Christy Romero, the acting special inspector general for the $700 billion bailout. Some bailout programs, such as the effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing mortgage payments, will last as late as 2017, costing the government an additional $51 billion or so.

Read it all here.

John McCain: Anti-Mormon Tea Party Hobbits Cost Romney South Carolina

Here:

“We haven’t had time to do a real analysis of the Romney race in South Carolina, but once we break that down, there was some element of anti-Mormonism in that vote,” McCain asserted. “I’m not saying all of it, but there were elements there. There was nothing that Mitt Romney could have done.”

Could that bias, if it exists, extend beyond the Palmetto State to others in the South if the primary drags on? “I’m not sure [but] I don’t think so,” McCain said, pointing to Georgia as one place he doesn’t believe would hold Romney’s religion against him.

McCain cited the possible anti-Mormonism in response to a query about the growing Tea Party support Gingrich has begun to draw, particularly in Florida.

Emergency Rooms: Ronald Reagan's Illegal Immigrant Magnets

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a U.S. Act of Congress passed in 1986 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). It requires hospitals to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. There are no reimbursement provisions. Participating hospitals may only transfer or discharge patients needing emergency treatment under their own informed consent, after stabilization, or when their condition requires transfer to a hospital better equipped to administer the treatment.

Heritage Foundation Director Responsible for Healthcare Mandate Idea in 1989

It's one of three dirty little secrets about the Republicans that they are intellectually responsible for the healthcare mandate idea which we have so vehemently opposed but which now stares us in the face in ObamaCare. If ObamaCare were in fact a Bolshevik plot, that must mean the commies own also the Republican Party, not just the Democrat.

A Heritage Foundation director named Stuart Butler presented a paper in 1989 which contains the idea of the healthcare mandate, backed up by some of the absurd reasoning many of us had been attacking in the debate over the Senate healthcare bill, for example, the analogy between car insurance and health insurance.

The link to the full paper is here.

And here's an excerpt on the mandate:

This paragraph sounds like a Newt Gingrich talking point.

Boobs like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity incessantly promote the Heritage Foundation to their audiences, while claiming the mantle of conservatism. But as we all come to learn sooner or later, saying doesn't make it so.

Government compulsion continues to be the nexus of political conflict in America. Unfortunately for us, the Republican establishment is for it as much as our enemies on the left.

For more, regrettably, see here:

It wouldn't have been at all odd for any of these Republicans to support the individual mandate in the past, because it was a Republican idea, hatched by Stuart Butler and some others at the Heritage Foundation. (Documentation here.) Heritage has desperately tried to disavow it, but to no avail. Even James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, apparently present at the creation, concedes the point. You sometimes hear conservatives defend their past support for the individual mandate by saying that something was needed to head off more ambitious health insurance schemes like Hillarycare, but that's another way of saying that whenever a conservative proposes any solution to the health care crisis he or she does so in bad faith. Vote Republican if you like, but don't kid yourself that a Republican president would replace Obamacare with anything at all. Not even Romney would. You might even say especially Romney, since the issue has brought him nothing but grief since the 2012 cycle began.

Sarah Palin Wonders Why the So-Called Right Now Uses the Tactics of the Left Vs. Newt

She comes out in defense of Newt tonight here, and this is more true than she knows:

What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst. ...

Well, "former" leftists, otherwise known as neo-conservative Israel-firsters, did this to Newt, and they ought to know! They are now comfortably wedded to the Republican establishment after co-opting formerly reliable conservative bastions like National Review.

Gov. Palin concludes with this:

I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didn’t see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in ‘08 and let Obama escape unvetted. Oddly, they’re now using every available microscope and endoscope – along with rewriting history – in attempts to character assassinate anyone challenging their chosen one in their own party’s primary. So, one must ask, who are they really running against?

Isn't it obvious? They're running against us.

Friends Meet Today About Florida, Around 1700 Hours

(source)

Rush Limbaugh Seriously Asks Us To Believe Elliott Abrams Was Spoon-fed

Not once. Not twice. But three times.

Transcript:

[I]t seems like Elliott Abrams has been had.  It seems like Elliott Abrams had a piece at National Review really ripping into Newt, was spoon-fed some out-of-context stuff. ...

So Jeffrey Lord got together with some peopl[e], and found out that it appears that Mr. Abrams been spoon-fed some stuff that he didn't question because there is an institutional dislike for Newt amongst the conservative establishment and so on and so forth. ...

[T]here were the videos of some examples selectively edited. You know, things left out and starting point of the edited version, not really the starting point. So there you have it. But, however, folks, I'm just gonna have to assume here that Elliott Abrams was spoon-fed this stuff by the Romney people.

Elsewhere in his remarks Rush lets this whopper fly:

Elliott Abrams' reputation is beyond repute [sic]. He's gold. He's the coin of the realm, and that's what made people curious.

Assistant Secretaries of State for eight years under Ronald Reagan aren't spoon-fed anything, particularly Harvard grads with BA, MA and JD degrees who go on to plead guilty to two misdemeanors of withholding information from Congress.

You know, doofusses who, [w]hile serving for Reagan and in the State Department . . . were integral players in the Iran-Contra affair. Abrams held many roles within the affair, some official and unofficial. This included working with CIA operations that got the U.S. onboard with the illegal shipment of arms and supplies.

Gee, what could Elliott Abrams and Newt Gingrich have disagreed about in 1986 which would have caused Abrams today to attempt to re-write Newt Gingrich's relationship with Ronald Reagan in order to discredit Newt's run for president?

An "institutional dislike"?

Try a fundamental difference over the meaning and limits of conservatism.

Gingrich's Low Taxes and Hard Money Scare the Bejeebers Out of Democrats

As seen here.

Romney believes in neither.

Rush Limbaugh is such a fraud today: Elliott Abrams was spoon-fed a bunch of Newt excerpts!!!

Like Eliott Abrams had no idea what Gingrich was saying in the well of the House every night for five hours, and is too stupid to remember today.

This is all about Gingrich's opposition to neo-conservatism. The whole controversy has become a veritable litmus test for it, and Rush tries to paper this over with some kakamaymee story while the Republican establishment, which is neo-conservative, launches a jihad against the former Speaker of the House, Ronald Reagan's best friend in the Congress.

'Co-opt Reagan! Co-opt Reagan!', that's the neo-conservative marching order.

Rush really does think his audience is stupid.

What a Shock: Washington Post Users Think Romney Won Debate

They also want him to have won. So they can beat him.

Conservatives think Gingrich was put on the defensive by Romney and that it was Santorum who scored the most important points against Romney. Gingrich was in a tough position, having to counter the Romney character assassination team without looking like the caricature of intemperance Romney is painting.

Insisting on audience participation also doubled back on Gingrich. Romney packed the house through his superior campaign organization, giving him the appearance of persuading.

Jan. 31 will tell the true tale, however, as elections always do.

2011 GDP Plummets 43 Percent to 1.7 Percent Overall, Q4 at 2.8 Percent, Q3 at 1.8 Percent

And don't forget. 25 percent of GDP is from government spending.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports today here:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 1.8 percent. ... Real GDP increased 1.7 percent in 2011 (that is, from the 2010 annual level to the 2011 annual level), compared with an increase of 3.0 percent in 2010.

Mitt Romney To Tea Party: ObamaCare's 'Not Worth Getting Angry About'

From the debate last night, as reproduced here:

Santorum said, “Just so I understand this, in Massachusetts, everybody is mandated as a condition of breathing in Massachusetts, to buy health insurance, and if you don’t, and if you don’t, you have to pay a fine.”

Moments later, as the discussion over Romneycare and Obamacare continued, Romney rebuked Santorum, saying, “First of all, it's not worth getting angry about.”

Tax Collectors For The Welfare State

'Romney Will Be The Nominee and Will Lose': Ann Coulter at CPAC 2011

You know, if Ann Coulter keeps changing her mind about things, like about GOProud for instance, someone, somewhere, someday might actually accuse her of being a woman.

Here is the video.

h/t Legal Insurrection

(Maybe she now likes Romney so much because Mormonism makes changing your mind, say about blacks or polygamy, so easy).

'People matter more than Wall Street'

Quoted here.

Gingrich's Work Product: A Comma

"We therefore oppose any attempts to increase taxes, which would harm the recovery and reverse the trend to restoring control of the economy to individual Americans."

With the comma, you believe all tax increases would harm economic progress. Without it, you believe that only some tax increases would harm the economy.

Newt wanted the comma. Bob Dole did not.

Story here:

The Gingrich work product? Making certain that Ronald Reagan was not put on record leaving the door open for any more ill-fated tax increases. Dole was furious with the young Newt -- and, it might be noted, recently made a point of endorsing Mitt Romney. Hmmmmm.

Illinois Firearm Owner Identification Surged 6 Percent in 2010

In the wake of the Supremes' McDonald decision, which neutered Chicago's ban on gun ownership, it appears gun ownership has surged in Illinois, which requires a Firearm Owner's ID Card to purchase a gun in the state. It is thought many of the new holders of the cards are in Chicago.

I used mine in 1993 to protect myself from Bill Clinton.

The story is here:

As of Jan. 1, 2011, there were nearly 1.4 million FOID card holders statewide, compared to more than 1.3 million a year earlier, Bond said. That’s an increase of more than 6 percent.

Sen. Fred Thompson Comes Out For Newt Gingrich

Here:

I think the American people see what is going on there, see what's going on in their own country. That is why they are organizing in hamlets and communities and towns all across this nation. You know, some of them are called Tea Parties.

That's my view and I have come to the growing realization for me anyway that Newt Gingrich is the guy who can articulate what America is all about . . . and not just read the talking points or do it off the teleprompter.

He can make the case for free markets and our basic case that lower taxes can be good for everybody. Bring about growth, it's good for everybody. He is not afraid. He is tough. He is experienced. I don't think any more it's an advantage to be able to say I know nothing about the operation of the federal government. I know something about it. Newt knows something about it. It is a colossal mess. ...

He conceived and carried out really a revolution in American politics at that time. We were able to balance the budget for about four years in a row, pass welfare reform and begin to rebuild a depleted military. These things can be done, but we can't be apologetic about it or be tentative about it.

We can't look surprised, you know, if we get off of our talking points. We have to stand up to the establishment on both sides of the aisle and to the news media and carry this thing through. These times are different in America, Sean. The old rules don't apply anymore.

People are concerned. People are frightened. People see their country going in a direction that is different from the first principles that made us the envy of the world. That is why you're seeing people react the way they did in South Carolina.

Romney Distanced Himself From Reagan-Bush In 1994 Race Vs. Ted Kennedy

If anyone's had a question mark hanging over him about his fealty to Ronald Reagan, it is Mitt Romney, for this from 1994, as recounted here:

Kennedy said discussions about supporting families shouldn’t be used to score "political hits," prompting Romney to fire back that he wasn’t politicizing the issue -- Kennedy was.

   

"I mentioned nothing about politics or your position at all. I talked about what I’d do to help strengthen families, and you talked about Reagan-Bush. Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush," Romney said, in a clear attempt to distance himself from the former president.

The irony being that Newt Gingrich and the Republicans were poised at the very same time to take an historic victory and extend the Reagan Revolution by recapturing the House.

So while Mitt Romney was running for Senate in Massachusetts in 1994 to the left, Gingrich and company were running right, against both HillaryCare and gays in the military.

So for the first 15 years of the Reagan Revolution Mitt Romney is firmly outside of the movement. It's not until the George W. Bush administration and while governor of Massachusetts that Mitt starts to think he too can become president, and dutifully tracks right.

Republicans didn't believe him in 2007 and 2008 and chose John McCain instead.

South Carolina voters have just said they don't believe him now, either. 

So Gingrich Didn't Treat Ronald Reagan Like a King. Big Deal.

The Washington Post has it correct, here:

According to then-assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, Gingrich consistently voted for Reagan’s policies but was known more for his public criticism of the president. However, Reagan National Security Advisory Bud McFarlane, a Gingrich supporter, said Wednesday the congressman was “very influential” in the adoption of supply-side economics and the economic recovery.

On CSPAN Monday morning, Gingrich told Romney to stay out of fights “about a history he doesn’t understand.”

Obama's Symbol of Tax Injustice (Warren Buffett's Secretary) Must Make $200K To $500K

She can't possibly represent any of the 99 million American workers, 66 percent of the workforce, who make $40,000 per year or less. Fewer than 2.1 million American workers in 2010 made $200K or more.

This woman is no poor secretary. She's in the top 2 percent of wage earners, among the richest people in the country. In point of fact, at her income level and tax rate she pays more in taxes than average workers earn in a year, any of whom would gladly trade places with her.

So Forbes here:

We can get an approximate answer by consulting IRS data on tax rates by adjusted gross income, which would approximate her salary, assuming she does not have significant dividend, interest or capital-gains income (like her boss). I assume Buffet keeps her too busy for her to hold a second job. I also do not know if she is married and filing jointly. If so, it is deceptive for Obama to use her as an example. The higher rate may be due to her husband’s income.  So I assume the tax rate Obama refers to is from her own earnings.

Insofar as Buffet (like Mitt Romney) earns income primarily from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent (and according to Obama need to be raised for reasons of fairness), we need to determine how much income a taxpayer like Bosanek must earn in order to pay an average tax rate above fifteen percent. This is easy to do.

The IRS publishes detailed tax tables by income level. The latest results are for 2009. They show that taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.

Even in the most absurd hypothetical situation where the IRS confiscated every last red cent of her $200K salary, Warren Buffett still would be paying nearly 35 times more in taxes than she.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. Accuses Newt Gingrich of Deviancy

Here:

How long have I been saying it? At least for 15 years, but in private, I have been aware of it longer. Newt Gingrich is conservatism's Bill Clinton, but without the charm. He has acquired wit, but he has all the charm of barbed wire.

Newt and Bill are, of course, 1960s-generation narcissists, and they share the same problems: waywardness and deviancy. Newt, like Bill, has a proclivity for girl-hopping. It's not as egregious as Bill's, but then Newt is not as drop-dead beautiful. His public record is already besmeared with tawdry divorces, and there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out. If I have heard of some, you can be sure the Democrats have heard of more.

I've heard things in private, too, but about the deviant behavior of R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

It's odd that the founder of a magazine lately notable for its libertarianism wants to go there.

Really bad form, old boy.

Warren Buffett's 2010 Tax Bill Was $6.9 Million. Was That 'At Least As Much As His Secretary's'?

The details of Warren Buffett's taxes for 2010 were only partially revealed last August and became the subject of critical examination, as for example here:

Buffett also said his federal income tax bill came to $6,923,494, or 17.4% of his taxable income -- two points he revealed in a New York Times op-ed in August urging Congress to tax the wealthy more. ... [But t]he current tax system already satisfies the Buffett Rule. Americans on average pay 16% of their total income in federal income and payroll taxes, while millionaires pay an average of 20.1%, according to the Tax Policy Center.

The Tax Policy Center is a generally more liberal think tank than The Tax Foundation.

The president's statement in last night's State of the Union deliberately suggests Buffett's secretary paid more in taxes than Buffett did when you know that that is completely disingenuous as well as inconceivable:

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

Common nonsense.

Federal Workers Delinquent on 2010 Taxes by $3.4 Billion, 3 Percent More Than 2009

As reported here:

According to records released by the Internal Revenue Service, active and retired federal employees and military personnel combined owed $3,420,168,684 in unpaid taxes for 2010, an increase of more than 3 percent over the previous year.

Michael Steele Gets Something Right

Quoted here:

“I think any conversation about having someone else come into this race at this point is not even feasible, it’s just outright stupid. ... It’s the establishment of Washington again foisting on them someone who didn’t go through the gauntlet, had not come to their kitchens or their businesses, that we’re now told we should support because these other guys aren’t right for the establishment crowd?”

Associated Press Says Obama Is Still Pushing Plans That Already Flopped

Here:

Howie Carr Reminds Us It Takes One To Know One, Unless You're A Boob

For The Boston Herald, here:

To the “Jersey Shore” MTV crowd, Newt would come across as a fat, nasty, pasty old man. They’re not going to realize what a boob Barack is, because they’re boobs, too.


And the media are never going to give a candidate Newt the opportunity to unmask the president.






(source)

John Kass Joins The Elite Opposition To Newt Gingrich And Defends His Own

John Kass for The Chicago Tribune here doesn't want a bully in the bully pulpit:

The reporter asked the right question, but blinked and gulped anyway, clear signals that he didn't want any more. This inflamed the bully in Newt, and he bore down on his victim as a frog to a fly, the tongue a deadly bludgeon on national television.

The prospect of four years of Newt crucifying the press on a daily basis is just too much for some people to take.

Gov. Mitch Daniels is Out of His Mind

"[Obama] did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight."

Republicans who intend to win don't talk like that.

For the rest, go here.

Over 2500 Americans in 2010-11 Ditch Citizenship Over Taxes

They've found their back-up countries.

Story here.

50 Million Children Have Paid The Price For Women's Equality

Kelly Boggs, here:

[P]ro-choicers are more than happy for preborn children to pay the price for a woman's so-called "liberation" and "equality."

The day the Supreme Court granted a person the "liberty" to take the life of a preborn baby for any reason, or for no reason, was a dark day in the history of the United States. As a result, over the last 39 years more than 50 million preborn babies have had their lives sacrificed on the altar of "liberation."

I will observe the anniversary of Roe v. Wade this year as a day of infamy on par with other dark dates on the calendar of history. Pearl Harbor, Sept. 11, the Holocaust, and the Rwandan genocide are horrific events in which millions of innocent people lost their lives. But the number of babies aborted since Jan. 22, 1973 is many more times the combined number of those who died in those atrocities.

Consistency: Looks Pretty Much The Same Everyday

Romney's Unfavorables Now As Bad As Newt's!

So National Journal, here:

Just 31 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Romney, the poll shows. Almost half, 49 percent, have an unfavorable opinion, and 21 percent said they have no opinion. Romney now holds virtually the same favorable and unfavorable ratings as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose numbers have also dropped over the past month -- suggesting that the ugly, protracted fight for the Republican presidential nomination is dragging down its two most prominent participants.

US Senate's Biggest Prick Gets What He Deserves

A puck to the face:

Story here.

'Compassionate' Elites Plunder The Middle Class To Help The Poor

They don't call them levelers for nothing.

Seen here, in which a single parent of three making $3,625 can end up with more disposable income than a similar person making $30,000, or one making $14,500 ends up with more than one making $60,000:

Ann Coulter Furious Over Newt Attacking Media. It Must Be Working.

Doing her best for her man, Romney, here.

If The Republicans Were Smart, They'd Follow The Rahm Emanuel Strategy

Rahm's strategy was to make the big tent Democrat party open to so-called fiscal and social conservatives in competitive states. It was a feint to the right.

They were liars, mostly. Some were dupes. And their public face was the "Blue Dogs" who helped the Democrats take over the House in 2006. It bled votes from the Republicans and brought them into the party, while their elected representatives dutifully voted for almost everything the Democrat left under Pelosi and Reid and Obama put forward after 2008, although not without occasional difficulty, especially in the case of ObamaCare.

That's why this analysis from one "Ben Shapiro" here is totally wrong (a troll?) and rather sad to see this late in the game because it misses the Emanuel strategy entirely:

John Kerry was a flip-flopper, a wishy-washy liberal who made liberals squeamish. So they responded by moving to the left, bringing in Nancy Pelosi to run the House and the anti-Kerry, Howard Dean, to run the Democratic National Committee. The result was a Democratic victory in 2006 in the House, and the victory of the most far-left candidate in American history, Barack Obama, in 2008.

The Emanuel strategy recognized what polls tell us even today, nearly a decade on: the American people are not Democrat or Republican predominantly, but conservative in their self-understanding, however ill-defined that may be. Liberalism as a category still comes in last, as Politico reports here:

Conservatives continue to make up the largest segment of political views in the country, outnumbering liberals nearly two-to-one, according to a new poll Thursday.

The Gallup survey found that 40 percent of Americans consider themselves conservative; 35 percent consider themselves moderate; and 21 percent see themselves as liberal. The figures did not change from 2010.

These simple facts explain why Newt Gingrich is doing so well on chewing gum and chicken wire against one of the richest Republicans to run for office in decades.

Republicans, if they want to win, should embrace this. People like Tim Pawlenty, Bill Bennett, and Ann Coulter should get with the program and stop supporting an unelectable guy whom Republicans rightly discarded in 2008 for JOHN S. McCAIN, of all people.

Gingrich's chief appeal is his ability to go mano a mano with the media, which are an unpaid arm of the Obama campaign, C-student shills who deserve a real education for once.

Gingrich will give it to them.

We might not get real conservatism, but no one can say with a straight face that we'll get that from Mitt Romney. We're trying to fill the Bully Pulpit here. It's the most important lectureship without tenure in the history of mankind. Newt never got tenure in academe, and I can't think of a better person to fill this chair at this time than Newt.

Feint right, Republicans. You've done it before, you can do it again.

We know you don't mean it. 

"I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."

-- Ronald Reagan, August 1962

Ann Coulter's Favorite Governor Picks New Jersey's First Gay Justice

Philly eyeball news has the story here:

If confirmed, Bruce A. Harris would become New Jersey’s first openly gay justice.

Chris Christie gets a twofer: Bruce Harris is black.

German Americans Continue As USA's Largest Self-Reported Ancestral Group

So Wikipedia, here, citing Census data:

German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group. California, Texas and Pennsylvania have the largest numbers of German origin, although upper Midwestern states, including Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, have the highest proportion of German Americans at over one-third.

Supremes Rule Unanimously Against Warrantless GPS Use By Police

As reported by The Washington Post here:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

The GPS device helped authorities link Washington, D.C., nightclub owner Antoine Jones to a suburban house used to stash money and drugs. He was sentenced to life in prison before the appeals court overturned the conviction.

NOW WE NEED A SIMILAR RULING ON . . .

SPY DRONES

SCANNERS

AND SATELLITES.

President Obama: Murder Your Baby . . . Fulfill Your Dreams

A sick man, for a sick society, quoted here:

“And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

As a state lawmaker in Illinois, he voted four times against legislation to protect the life of a baby that survived a botched abortion. He voted against such legislation at the state level in 2001, 2002 and 2003. 

TSA Interferes With Senator's Travel to Washington, DC

ABC News actually gets the story right, here:

The U.S. Constitution actually protects federal lawmakers from detention while they’re on the way to the Capital [sic].

“The Senators and Representatives…shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same….” according to Article I, Section 6.

The Senate is back in session today at 2 p.m., with votes scheduled at 4:30 p.m.

Forty-eight States . . . Fifty-eight States . . . Whatever

"It is just wonderful to be back in Oregon, and over the last 15 months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in fifty ... seven states? I think one left to go. One left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to, even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

-- Barack Obama, May 9, 2008 (video here)

Liberal George Bush Dramatically Expanded Food Stamps, But Obama Out-Liberaled Him

From an excellent summary of the food stamp facts since 1969 in The Wall Street Journal, here:

George W. Bush expanded food stamp eligibility with the egregious 2002 farm bill by adjusting deductions and income tests and encouraging states to find more participants. The Pelosi Congress then rebranded the program in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of June 2008 to emphasize nutrition rather than the stigma of receiving handouts. As a result and also thanks to the recession in 2008, food stamp participation rose by 10.9 million across the Bush Presidency.

But Mr. Obama is now outstripping that dubious achievement, and in only three years rather than eight. The 2009 stimulus bill increased maximum benefits and authorized more money for states to administer the program. Some 11.2 million more people have joined the rolls from 2009 through 2011, including 4.4 million last year during what was ostensibly an economic recovery.

46.2 million Americans get food stamps according to the latest data here. Fewer than 5 million received them in 1969.

John Hawkins' Mistake: 'A Republican president IS the conservative movement'

In an otherwise sterling clarion call to stop Mitt Romney, John Hawkins of Right Wing News here displays what is fundamentally wrong with America's current conception of itself as a nation:

"A Republican president IS the conservative movement."

If that's true, then why are we bothering electing representatives and Senators? Why not simply go for dictatorship? One almost wonders if this is some weird transposition of a conception of religious vicariousness to politics: one man dying for the nation and all that. 

No. America led by a single (blended strong) man instead of the founders' America of a nation governed through intimate representation is what the last 100 years have been all about. Since 1913 this country has had 435 representatives in the US House when by today it should have grown to 10,267.

Presidents are elected by electors after all, not by the people. I would rather have 10,367 electors next autumn than today's measly, rich, corrupt 535, precisely because a president would have to persuade a lot more of them, not just before inauguration day, but for the entire four years of his term in office thereafter.

As things stand, however, a president ignores the Congress once he gets elected. Obama has done so spectacularly, even when his own party controlled the House. And make no mistake about it, the less represented you are, the happier is Washington DC, the better to stick it to you, my dear.

An adequately sized Congress is the people, not the president, otherwise America is finished, so-called conservative president or no. Representation, not the presidency, was the most significant issue debated in the ratification debates.

That's why Congress is held in record low esteem today: IT DOES NOT REPRESENT US.

2.5 Million Homes Lost to Foreclosure. How About At Least Another 4.5 Million?

Laurie Goodman is back in the news on housing, here:

All told, Goodman warns that more than 10 million of the nation's 55 million mortgage holders could default by 2018. ...
To avoid the "moral hazard" of rewarding foolish borrowers, Goodman recommends that lenders swap immediate principal reductions for shares of any gains on the mortgaged house when it is sold.

In 2010 she was talking 11-12 million defaults, so the new, only slightly lower, estimate shows that in the intervening two years she has corrected her predictive range by at most 16 percent.

Spengler on the Christian Origins of Communism

From The Hour of Decision, 1933:

"But since the end of the World War the church - in Germany above all, where, being an ancient power of rigid traditions, it had to pay heavily in prestige with its own adherents by descending to street level - has sunk to class wars and association with Marxism. There is in Germany a Catholic Bolshevism which is more dangerous than the anti-Christian because it hides behind the mask of a religion.

"Now, all Communist systems in the West are in fact derived from Christian theological thought: More's Utopia, the Sun State of the Dominica Campanella, the doctrines of Luther's disciples Karlstadt and Thomas Münzer, and Fichte's State Socialism. What Fourier, Saint-Simon, Owen, Marx, and hundreds of others dreamed and wrote on the ideals of the future reaches back, quite without their knowledge and much against their intention, to priestly-moral indignation and Schoolmen concepts, which had their secret part in economic reasoning and in public opinion on social questions. How much of Thomas Aquinas' law of nature and conception of State is still to be found in Adam Smith and therefore - with the opposite sign - in the Communist Manifesto! Christian theology is the grandmother of Bolshevism. All abstract brooding over economic concepts that are remote from any economic experience must, if courageously and honestly followed out, lead in one way or another to reasoned conclusions against State and property, and only lack of vision saves these materialist Schoolmen from seeing that at the end of their chain of thought stands the beginning once more: effective Communism is authoritative bureaucracy. To put through the ideal requires dictatorship, reign of terror, armed force, the inequality of a system of masters and slaves, men in command and men in obedience - in short: Moscow.

"But there are two sorts of Communist. The one, the credulous type, obsessed by doctrine or feminine sentimentality, remote from and hostile to the world, condemns the wealth of the wicked who prosper and also, at times, the poverty of the good who do not prosper. This lands him either in vague Utopias or throws him back upon asceticism, the monastic life, Bohemia, or vagabondism, which proclaims the futility of all economic effort. But the other, the "worldly" type with the realist political outlook, hopes through its followers to destroy society, either from envy or revenge, because of the low place assigned in it to their personality and talents, or, alternatively, to carry away the masses by some program or other for the satisfaction of his own will-to-power. But this, too, likes to hide itself under the cloak of some religion.

"Marxism is indeed a religion, not in the sense of its founder, but in that which his revolutionary following has imparted to it. Like any church it has its saints, apostles, martyrs, fathers, bible and mission. Like any church it has dogmas, heresy-tribunals, an orthodoxy and a scholasticism, and, above all, a popular moral - or rather two, for believers and unbelievers. And does it make any difference that its doctrine is materialistic through and through? Are those priests who agitate on economic questions any less so?"

Culture Cannot Be Had For Money

"But because culture, the tradition of enjoyment which knows how to make much out of little, is lacking and cannot be had for money, jealousy of this kind of superiority torments all vulgar-minded people."

-- Oswald Spengler

The Tea Party vs. The Vulgar Mob

Oswald Spengler, 1933:

For the Age has itself become vulgar, and most people have no idea to what extent they are themselves tainted. The bad manners of all parliaments, the general tendency to connive at a rather shady business transaction if it promises to bring in money without work, jazz and Negro dances as the spiritual outlet in all circles of society, women painted like prostitutes, the efforts of writers to win popularity by ridiculing in their novels and plays the correctness of well-bred people, and the bad taste shown even by the nobility and old princely families in throwing off every kind of social restraint and time-honoured custom: all of these go to prove that it is now the vulgar mob that gives the tone.

What I See When I See Leon Panetta

Spode

Occupy Salami!

Senate is Broken: Congress in 2011 Passed 80 Bills, Fewest Since 1947

Considering what gets passed, why is this a bad thing?

The Washington Times reports here:

The Times‘ analysis suggested that the Senate is an increasingly broken chamber. All five of the worst performances on record were in the past decade. Four of those were when Democrats were in control and Republicans were in the minority.

In the House, the record was decidedly mixed. Of the worst five years, two were in the 1950s, two were in the 1980s and one was in the past decade.

Maybe the Senate is such a mess because it views itself as a more powerful version of the House, with which it is in constant competition as an institution and over which it lords itself at every opportunity, the Senate healthcare bill of 2010, now known as ObamaCare, being the most recent prime example. Had more Democrats in the House opposed this bill in March 2010, fewer of them had lost their seats in the historic Republican sweep in November.

Arguably the Senate is more powerful, for two reasons.

One, because of popular election of Senators, which puts them in direct competition in the same electoral sphere as representatives, contrary to the original intention of the constitution. And two, the fact that the tenure of a Senator is three times longer than a representative's. The lowly two-year man is ever on guard of losing the next election, while a Senator watches him come and go, mindful of the inattention of the voters over so long a period as half a decade.

The Senators' interests should primarily be to protect the interests of the States they represent, especially the States' independence from the federal government. But they are not. Instead they seek at every turn to usurp the representative function of the members of the House, where bills should originate. Is it any wonder the States have no representation in Washington, the legislatures of which must rely on leagues of Attorneys General to file suits in federal courts to protect themselves from encroachments of federal power?

The remedy for all that starts with a much bigger House, which means repealing The Reapportionment Act of 1929.

With the will of the people once adequately represented for a change, Senators might eventually be persuaded to meddle less at pain of repeal of the 17th Amendment. Already the most expensive races in the country, the dilution of the cost of running for office at the representative level with 10,267 districts instead of 435 might occasion an unwelcome shift of focus back upon the excess and corruption evident in running for the Senate, the mean expenditure for which in 2008 was nearly $6 million, six times what it currently costs the typical representative to run.

Representatives will not need to spend $1 million buying TV and radio ads to reach 30,000 constituents instead of 700,000 now, but Senators will still have to in order to reach the millions of their constituents. They will stand out in those media in a way which they haven't been accustomed to in the past and the spotlight will be on them as never before.

And as we all know, sunlight is a marvelous disinfectant.

The Working Class Does Not Exist In The Economic Structure Of A Single Nation

rich tub-thumper

Oswald Spengler:

"[T]he uneducated and half-educated middle class believed in this picture and does so to this day. The word "worker" has been surrounded by a halo since 1848, without consideration of its meaning and the limits of its application. And the "working class," which does not exist in the economic structure of a single nation - for what have miners, sailors, tailors' apprentices, metalworkers, waiters, bank officials, ploughmen, and scavengers in common with one another? - becomes a political reality, an attacking party, which has split all "white" nations into two armies, of which the one has to feed, and to give its blood for a host of party agents, tub-thumpers, newspaper-writers, and "people's representatives," who pursue their own private aims. That is the purpose for which it exists. The contrast between Capitalism and Socialism - words for which, all this time, literature has searched in vain for a definition, for catchwords are not to be defined - is not derived from any reality, but is purely a built-up challenge. Marx introduced these terms into the English engineering industry, he did not draw them from it; and even so he could only do it by ignoring the existence of all the people engaged in agriculture, commerce, traffic, and administration. This picture of the time had so little to do with the world of reality and its inhabitants that, in theory, the South even became separated from the North: the boundary lay somewhere about the line Lyon-Milan. In the Latin South, where one needs little to live on and does little work, where there is no coal and therefore no industrialism, where thought and feeling are racially different, there developed anarchist and syndicalist tendencies whose wish-picture was the dissolution of the great national organisms into systemless, small self-sufficing groups, Bedouin- like swarms occupied in doing nothing. But in the North, where hard winters mean harder work and make such work not only possible but essential, where from time immemorial the battle has been against hunger and cold combined, there arose out of the Germanic will-to-power, and its urge to large-scale organization, systems of authoritarian Communism which aim at a proletarian dictatorship over the whole world. And, simply because in the nineteenth century the coalfields of these northern lands had attracted an assemblage of people and of national wealth of a hitherto unheard-of order of magnitude, a very different impetus was given to demagogy both within them and outwards from their boundaries. The high wages of English, German, and American factory-workers triumphed, precisely because they were anything but "starvation rates," over the low wages of the land-workers in the South, and only because of this "capitalistic" superiority of party means did Marxism triumph over the theories of Fourier and Proudhon. The peasantry had already ceased to exist for all of them. As a weapon in the class war it had small value, not merely because it was not available on the pavements at any and every moment, but also because its traditions of property and labour were contrary to the views of theory. It was therefore ignored by the catchwords of the Communist program. Bourgeoisie and proletarian - that is the picture one can take in, and the simpler one is, the less one notices how much there is left outside this scheme."

25% of GDP is Fake

Because 25 percent of GDP is government spending.

Think about it.

Richard Viguerie Smokes Mitt Romney As Anti-Capitalist On His Own TARP Petard

Here:

To Mitt Romney, venture capitalist, the average worker is an expendable line on a spreadsheet -- until that worker’s tax dollars were needed to bailout financiers who promoted the leveraged buyouts and packaged the exotic financial instruments that led to the financial meltdown of 2008.

Who is more anti-capitalist? Is it Romney’s opponents, who question whether or not a form of capitalism that allows a handful of rich people to avoid moral hazard, manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and then walk off with the money by getting a bailout from the taxpayers?

Or, are the real anti-capitalists Mitt Romney and his establishment friends in the Washington/Wall Street Axis who hypocritically enjoy having the option of firing "the little guy" and stripping the factory on Main Street on the way up -- but then use their insider power and influence to demand those same little taxpayers bail them out on the way down?

And the person chiefly responsible for misleading the troops on this issue is Rush Limbaugh, who has flip-flopped on the bank bailout issue in spectacular fashion and fed Gingrich to the wolves.

Mormons in Congress as of January 2011

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah

Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona

Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nevada

Rep. Wally Herger, R-California

Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah

Rep. Buck McKeon, R-California

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho

Say I Was A Drum Major For Plagiarism

For the controversy over the inscription on the MLK statue, see The Washington Post here:

“I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness,” the monument says. What an odd choice for a quote, I thought, when I visited in August before its scheduled dedication. It sounded almost . . . conceited. And it was past tense, as though King was speaking from the grave. It didn’t sound like King at all.

I went looking for the context, read the whole speech and found there was a reason it didn’t sound like him. “If you want to say I was a drum major, say I was . . . ” is how King began his statement. As many have since pointed out, the “if” and the “you” entirely change the meaning. To King, being a self-aggrandizing drum major was not a good thing; if you wanted to call him that, he said, at least say it was in the service of good causes.

Why such concern over an inaccurate inscription on a monument to a plagiarist? Wouldn't it be more fitting to leave it as it is?

From the Wikipedia entry here:

King's doctoral dissertation at Boston University, titled A Comparison of the Conception of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman, included large sections from a dissertation written by another student (Jack Boozer) three years earlier at Boston University.

As Clayborne Carson, director of the King Papers Project at Stanford University, has written, "instances of textual appropriation can be seen in his earliest extant writings as well as his dissertation. The pattern is also noticeable in his speeches and sermons throughout his career."

Boston University, where King got his Ph.D. in systematic theology, conducted an investigation that found he plagiarized major portions of his doctoral thesis from various other authors who wrote about the topic.