Obama the Reactionary

By James Lewis | June 18, 2012 | American Thinker

In a perverse way this is the most utopian administration in American history. That’s after all what Marxism comes down to, a stubborn fantasy that the world will flip into utopian perfection as soon as all the evil capitalists are in Siberian labor camps. The Soviet Union spent seven decades trying to eradicate capitalism at home and abroad, along with religion, family values and individualism. As a natural consequence, they ended up destroying hard work and agriculture, and every five years the Kremlin kept wondering what could have gone wrong with their “scientific” policies this time around.

Today Vladimir Putin kneels down with the Patriarch of Moscow in the Kremlin Chapel, surrounded by magnificent bling going back to the Byzantine Empire.

So much for eradicating human nature.

Victor Davis Hanson: The Liberal Super Nova

By Victor Davis Hanson | June 11, 2012 | PJ Media

Two parties, left and right, are central to good consensual government — one the perennial check on the other, both within the general boundaries of constitutional free-market capitalism.

Yet the hard-Left takeover of the Democratic Party has meant that there is no longer a credible balance in our system, as almost all the tenets of contemporary left-wing ideology are blowing up, imploding super nova style — unsustainable ideas that are contrary to human nature and demand coercion for their implementation, given that they are increasingly anti-democratic and have to be implemented from high by an elite technocracy whether in Brussels, Sacramento, or Washington.

Far too much is always seen as not enough: Greeks are angry that there was too much “austerity” and not enough of the old borrow and spend; Obama is blamed for only borrowing $5 trillion for too “little” stimulus; Democrats threaten to withhold from the community-organizer Obama because he was not hard enough on “fat cats” and the capitalist state; in California, a 10.3% income tax is too low, not too high. When the remedy is seen worse than the disease, then the patient is indeed terminal.

Let me do a brief survey of the fissuring liberal world in which we live:

Electricity Bills are About to ‘Necessarily Skyrocket’

By Derek Hunter | June 9, 2012 | Breitbart News

In January of 2008, then Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, talking about his energy plan, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…” He wasn’t kidding.

While he was talking about his cap and trade plan, something that went nowhere in Congress, even when Democrats controlled it with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, his objective of changing how we generate electricity hasn’t changed. Neither has his lack of concern for the cost to consumers.

Obama Has Signed 923 Executive Orders In 40 Months

By Josey Wales | June 5, 2012 | Before It’s News

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Obama has signed 923 Executive Orders in 40 months!

What did Congress do in those 40 months?

Our Age of Anxiety

By Yuval Levin | May 28, 2012, Vol. 17, NO. 35 | Weekly Standard

Romney’s challenge is to address the deep uneasiness in America and point the way to a comeback.

There is something very strange about the 2012 presidential race so far. The election comes at a time of extraordinary public unease, which clearly demands some response from the political system, and especially from the men running for the highest office in the land. But the two presidential candidates are both running campaigns oddly detached from what is rightly worrying voters.

If you were to judge the state of the country by listening only to the Obama campaign, you would conclude that we are on the verge of the long-awaited triumph of the liberal welfare state, and that all that stands in the way is a gang of retrograde Social Darwinists who somehow manage to be simultaneously nihilistic and theocratic. That band of reactionaries ran the economy into the ground for the sake of their wealthy patrons, and now they’re coming for our social programs and for women’s freedoms. Only if they are held off can the forward march of history proceed.

If you were to judge the state of the country by listening only to the Romney campaign, you would conclude that all was well in America until we took a wrong turn four years ago and elected a president hostile to freedom and prosperity. If we just correct that error and undo what he has done, our economy will be ready to bloom again.

Real Hope for Ending Federal Debt

By Bruce Walker | May 22, 2012 | American Thinker

The per capita federal debt is $31,000 growing.  Much of Europe and many American states are facing practical bankruptcy.  As the creditworthiness of the United States and many states is been downgraded, the cost of simply servicing the existing debt will rise.  Add to these woes vast unfunded entitlements and money simply created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve System, and it is hard to see how even very aggressive Reaganomics can save us.

Government is so far in debt that simply cutting spending less is not enough, and raising taxes is foolishness.  We need to dramatically increase the sources of non-tax revenue.  Fortunately, the convergence of more sophisticated technology and rising costs for natural resources makes that possible.

Anu Mittal, director of natural resources and the environment for the General Accounting Office, recently testified before Congress that the oil reserves in the Green River Formation, spanning much of the Rocky Mountain Region, are greater than all the rest of the world’s reserves combined — perhaps three trillion barrels, with about half the oil on federal land and with half of the oil extractable at current prices.  The federal royalty by a rough estimate would be over $9 trillion.

Eight West Virginia Counties Vote for Federal Inmate Over Obama in Dem Primary

By Rush Limbaugh | May 09, 2012 | RushLimbaugh.com

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Democrats did turn out, however. Well, they didn’t turn out in Wisconsin. They didn’t turn out in North Carolina. But guess where they did turn out?Democrats turned out big time in West Virginia in the presidential primary to vote for an inmate. A federal prisoner, the Boyd Crowder of West Virginia. Federal inmate 11593-051. There’s a picture of the guy. Let me see if it’s still up. Let me check real quick. Yep, there’s a picture of the guy on Drudge, a picture of Inmate 11593-051. This is the guy that gave Obama a run for his money in West Virginia. Now, ask yourself this, folks. Why would Democrats in West Virginia vote for a federal inmate as opposed to a president, a sitting president in their own party?

Maybe it is something very simple, very common sense, and very explainable. Maybe it’s that the people of West Virginia realize that Barack Obama poses the biggest threat to their livelihood of anybody on the ballot this time around. With his attacks on the coal industry, with his attacks on the oil industry, with his attacks on natural gas, with his attacks on conventional energy, with his promotion of green energy shutting down all these jobs that exist in West Virginia.

And even now the media (as we’re doing, too, I will admit) is looking at the results yesterday: “What will be the effect on Obama?” How about this? Could we once look at what the effect be on the country will be? Because that’s what the people voting on voting on. Yes, it’s Obama that’s getting them out. There wasn’t a single, singular Republican leader on a ballot yesterday. You had Mourdock in Indiana and Scott Walker attracting votes, but there wasn’t a presidential candidate on the ballot yesterday.

There were ideas. Ideas were on ballots yesterday. Ideas are what triumphed. And it was conservative ideas that skunked socialist utopianism yesterday. So the Democrats don’t turn out in North Carolina. They don’t turn out in Wisconsin. But they do turn out in the Democrat primary in West Virginia. And in eight maybe more counties, they beat Obama with a federal inmate. If I didn’t know better, I would say there is a War on Obama being waged by the Democrats!

It certainly looks that way to me. It looks to me like Democrats in West Virginia want jobs. It would appear to me that Democrats in West Virginia want lower gasoline prices. They want higher home values. They want more disposable income. They don’t want people telling them what kind of light bulb they have to buy! They don’t want a bunch of nameless bureaucrats running around talking about “crucifying” energy executives. But you see, the Democrats in West Virginia figured out their president put a moratorium on drilling for oil in the Gulf and refused to okay the Keystone pipeline.

Read the full article here.

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The New Reactionaries

By Victor Davis Hanson | April 29, 2012 | PJ Media

Our New Regressivism

About fifteen years ago, many liberals began to self-identify as progressives—partly because of the implosion of the Great Society and the Reagan reaction that had tarnished the liberal brand and left it as something akin to “permissive” or “naïve,” partly because “progressive” was supposedly an ideological rather than a political identification, and had included some early twentieth-century Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover.

But twenty-first century progressivism is not aimed at political reform. There is no new effort at racial unity. There is not much realization that we are in a globalized, rapidly changing, high-tech economy or that race and gender are not as they were fifty years ago. Instead, progressivism has become a reactionary return to the 1960s—or even well before. The new regressivism seeks to resurrect the machine ethos of Mayor Daley, the glory green days of the Whole Earth Catalog, the union era of George Meany, Jimmy Hoffa, and Walter Reuther, the racial polarization of the old Black Panther Party and the old Al Sharpton, and a Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, or Peter Jennings reading to us each evening three slightly different versions of the Truth.

The New Old Chicago

Barack Obama is trying to turn back the way of politics to the era of the pre-reform Chicago machine. He was the first presidential candidate to renounce campaign-financing funds since the law was enacted. He opposes any effort to clamp down on voting fraud. Even his compliant media worries that the president’s current jetting from one campaign stop to another in the key swing states is a poorly disguised way to politick on the federal government’s dime. Bundlers are, as was the ancient custom, given plum honorific posts abroad. Obama has held twice as many fundraisers as the much reviled George Bush had at a similar point in his administration. Obama supporters now target large Romney givers and post their names with negative bios on websites, as if we are back to Nixon’s enemies of the people. Websites sprout up that go after administration critics in Agnew style, but without the latter’s self-caricature. The 2008 criticism about ending the revolving door, lobbyists, and pay-for-play renting out of the Lincoln bedroom was, well…just examine the career of a Peter Orszag. An embarrassed media keeps silent about the new reactionary ethics, apparently on the premise that not to would endanger four more years of the “progressive” agenda. On matters of presidential style, we are likewise retro, as Obama sets records for playing golf, and in Marie Antoinette style the First Family bounces between Vail, Aspen, Martha’s Vineyard, Vegas, and Costa del Sol, often in separate jets, as if we, the people, receive vicarious joy from catching glimpses of the Obama versions of Camelot. We have Kennedy wannabes without their own Kennedy money.

Earth Day Forever

On matters of energy, Obama has regressed to the Earth Day mindset of the 1970s, when we were reaching “peak” oil, and untried wind and solar were soon to be the new-age remedy for soon-to-be-exhausted fossil fuels. Add up the anti-empirical quotes from Obama himself, Energy Secretary Chu, and Interior Secretary Salazar (inflate your tires, “tune up” your car, look to U.S. algae reserves, let energy prices “skyrocket,” hope gas rises to European levels, don’t open federal lands even if gas reaches $10 a gallon, etc.) and, in reactionary fashion, we are time-machined back to the campus quad of the 1970s. In this  la la world of Van Jones, evil oil companies supposedly connived to stifle green energy and hook us on fossil fuels, inferior energies that have nothing to recommend them. It is as if the revolutions in horizontal drilling, fracking, and discoveries of vast new reserves never occurred, as if Exxon and Chevron dodge taxes in a manner that Google and Amazon never would, as if efficient smaller gas engines, clean gas blends, and pollution devices have not made the American car both clean-burning and economical beyond our imagination forty years ago. The Obamians, frozen in amber, really believe oil is about to run out, “tuned up” internal combustion engines powering underinflated tires pollute as they did in the 1920s, and Teapot Dome U.S. oil companies need to be “crucified”—as regional EPA director and Obama appointee Al Armendariz, in fact, boasted. So we borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize money-losing solar and wind plants, while putting federal lands rich in oil and gas off-limits to companies eager to pay royalties, hire thousands, and supply the U.S. with its own energy—and all for a regressive ideology. Few see that Solyndra really is the new Teapot Dome.

Read the full article here.

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Five myths about America’s decline

By Ian Bremmer | May 3, 2012 | The Washington Post

 Challenging everything you think you know 

Drawn-out wars, economic struggles, exploding debt — it’s easy to point to these signs and conclude that America is in an irreversible decline; that after a good run, it’s time to hand the superpower baton to China or some other up-and-comer. Certainly, America faces big challenges, and it’s true that, economically, the United States was better off a decade ago. But those seeing decline as inevitable do not just ignore the nation’s history of resilience, they also misread the facts on the ground. America’s decline is a myth — and here are five common misconceptions worth dispelling.

1. The United States is no longer a superpower.

Certainly, countries such as China and Russia have more power than ever to obstruct U.S. foreign policy goals; their United Nations veto against intervention in Syria is one recent example. And the United States is increasingly unwilling to play the role of global cop, as it pares back its presence in the Middle East and fights over significant possible cuts to its defense budget because of Capitol Hill’s failure to reach a debt deal.

Even so, the United States is still the world’s only superpower, and so it will remain for the foreseeable future. Its economy is more than twice the size of second-place China’s. Only America can project military power in every region of the globe: It has a military presence in more than three-quarters of the world’s countries and spends more each year on defense than the next 17 nations combined. This security role lets Europe and Japan spend less on defense and more on other priorities. The U.S. Navy safeguards important trade routes, enabling global commerce, while American aid bolsters poor and disaster-stricken states.

2. America’s economic future is bleak.

Part of the reason the United States is less willing to engage abroad is because it has its hands full with economic concerns at home: spiraling federal debt, high unemployment, lower wages and a growing disparity of wealth.But while the U.S. economic outlook may not shine as bright as it once did, it is hardly grim. America’s higher education system is unparalleled, with a record 725,000 foreign students enrolled at U.S. universities last year. No country has a greater capacity for technological breakthroughs: The United States is the destination of choice for aspiring entrepreneurs, it’s the research and development center of the world, and Silicon Valley’s start-ups and venture capitalism are exemplary.On energy, innovation in unconventional oil and gas resources has been the biggest game-changer of the past decade, with U.S.-based companies leading the charge. The United States is now the largest natural gas producer in the world. It is also the world’s largest food exporter, giving America some leverage against food price shocks or shortages. Demographically, the United States is better off than other large economies. The U.S. population is expected to rise by more than 100 million by 2050, and the labor force should grow by 40 percent. Compare that with Europe, where the population is slated to shrink by as much as 100 million people over the same span, or to China, where the labor force is already contracting.

3. America’s political system is broken.

Gridlock in Washington makes all of America’s problems seem even more intractable. Many believe that Congress is too divided to ever pass meaningful legislation again. But let’s not forget that the first two years of the Obama administration saw more significant legislation passed — such as the stimulus, the health-care overhaul and the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reforms — than any period since the mid-1960s. Whether or not you like the direction in which Obama took the country, the system is hardly broken.

Read the full article here.

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Another Pleasant Valley Sunday, Without Cars or Houses? Is California Banning Suburbia? [Video]

California Declares War on Suburbia

Planners want to herd millions into densely packed urban corridors. It won’t save the planet but will make traffic even worse.

By Wendell Cox | April 9, 2012 | Wall Street Journal

It’s no secret that California’s regulatory and tax climate is driving business investment to other states. California’s high cost of living also is driving people away. Since 2000 more than 1.6 million people have fled, and my own research as well as that of others points to high housing prices as the principal factor.

The exodus is likely to accelerate. California has declared war on the most popular housing choice, the single family, detached home—all in the name of saving the planet.

Metropolitan area governments are adopting plans that would require most new housing to be built at 20 or more to the acre, which is at least five times the traditional quarter acre per house. State and regional planners also seek to radically restructure urban areas, forcing much of the new hyperdensity development into narrowly confined corridors.

Related Video

Transportation consultant Wendell Cox on why California pols want to force people into denser urban housing.

In San Francisco and San Jose, for example, the Association of Bay Area Governments has proposed that only 3% of new housing built by 2035 would be allowed on or beyond the “urban fringe”—where current housing ends and the countryside begins. Over two-thirds of the housing for the projected two million new residents in these metro areas would be multifamily—that is, apartments and condo complexes—and concentrated along major thoroughfares such as Telegraph Avenue in the East Bay and El Camino Real on the Peninsula.

For its part, the Southern California Association of Governments wants to require more than one-half of the new housing in Los Angeles County and five other Southern California counties to be concentrated in dense, so-called transit villages, with much of it at an even higher 30 or more units per acre.

To understand how dramatic a change this would be, consider that if the planners have their way, 68% of new housing in Southern California by 2035 would be condos and apartment complexes. This contrasts with Census Bureau data showing that single-family, detached homes represented more than 80% of the increase in the region’s housing stock between 2000 and 2010.

The campaign against suburbia is the result of laws passed in 2006 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in 2008 (the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act) on urban planning. The latter law, as the Los Angeles Times aptly characterized it, was intended to “control suburban sprawl, build homes closer to downtown and reduce commuter driving, thus decreasing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions.” In short, to discourage automobile use.

If the planners have their way, the state’s famously unaffordable housing could become even more unaffordable.

Read the full article here.

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Exclusive Interview: Palin Talks Pain at the Pump Ahead of Fox News Special

By Breitbart News | April 13, 2012 | Breitbart

In an exclusive interview to Breitbart News, Sarah Palin discussed energy policy and her Fox News Special (with eerEric Bolling) “Paying at the Pump,” which airs tonight on FNC at 10pm ET. The program will re-air on Saturday and Sunday. She also touched on some other topics of the day…

Breitbart News Network: We’ve been talking about energy independence for decades. Why are we no closer to it now than we were during the energy crisis back in the 70s?

Governor Sarah Palin: The problem is not the American people or our vast resources. The problem is a lack of political will. Our politicians don’t have comprehensive energy plans. They have a couple of talking points that they spout over and over. Obama is a perfect example of this. We need an administration that comprehensively looks at our energy infrastructure and resources and develops and implements a real energy plan for the future. We should bring everyone to the table for this – from the left and the right. Give everyone a stake in the discussion. That’s what I did in Alaska in developing the legislation for our natural gas pipeline (AGIA) and in reforming our oil and gas valuation system (ACES). My team included everyone from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans to everything in between. We were committed to responsible and ethical resource development that both protects Alaska’s pristine environment and provides for our future. We were able to put politics aside and find common sense solutions that everyone could buy into and Alaskans could get behind. There is no reason why we can’t do this on a national level. We need to come together to find a safe, ethical, economical, and environmentally responsible way to provide for our energy needs by tapping our own resources. The time is now.

BNN: As governor of Alaska, you were often at odds with the Big Oil companies. You’re no stranger to holding them accountable. Obama wants to eliminate the tax subsidies to oil companies. Is this a good idea?

Gov. Palin: I’ve said in the past that all energy subsidies need to be re-looked at and perhaps eliminated. But let’s be clear about what President Obama is referring to. There are a couple of tax breaks the oil and gas industry has access to. One of them is a tax credit available to all U.S. manufacturers – so it’s unfair to target just this one industry if you’re not going to remove that tax credit for everyone else. Another tax break they get is to accelerate their deductions of what they call “intangible drilling costs” related to drilling oil or gas wells. This is particularly beneficial to smaller independent oil producers who can deduct 100% of these costs in the well’s first year, while the larger companies can deduct 70% in the first year and the rest over the next five years. If people have a problem with this particular break, then why not follow the suggestion the Heritage Foundation made and allow all companies to expense their full capital costs immediately. That would “level the playing field” between the oil and gas industry and every other industry. But President Obama is not interested in leveling the playing field. He’s in favor of subsidizing his pet industries—like these bankrupt green energy companies—and punishing the industries he dislikes. That makes no sense from a free market standpoint or from an energy standpoint.

BNN: Do you believe we should be investing in alternative or renewable energy research?

Gov. Palin: Yes, for the private sector. I don’t think there is anything wrong with setting goals for alternative energy, but we have to be realistic. A truly effective alternative energy source needs to be efficient and profitable. No amount of Obama’s subsidizing his campaign donors’ bankrupt green energy companies—some with harebrained ideas that will never be economic—will get us to that efficient and profitable alternative. The free market will determine this. Sure, we can support research and development when it’s appropriate, but as scientists and venture capitalists continue to look for viable alternative energy sources, we should be encouraging the development of natural gas as a clean and plentiful bridge-fuel to a more renewable future. We have enough natural gas in America to be energy independent for many decades!

Read the full article here.

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Here are some real ‘Reagan Rules’ for Obama

By James Pethokoukis | April 11, 2012 | The American

Apparently President Obama is joking that he’s willing to change the name of the Buffett Rule to the Reagan Rule if that’s what it takes to get it through Congress.  But there are already so many Reagan rules — and Obama is following none of them. Here are few Reagan Rules the president would be wise to follow:

1. Blame government, not business.

Reagan: “The people have not created this disaster in our economy; the federal government has. It has overspent, overestimated, and over regulated. It has failed to deliver services within the revenues it should be allowed to raise from taxes … At the same time, the federal government has cynically told us that high taxes on business will in some way “solve” the problem and allow the average taxpayer to pay less. Well, business is not a taxpayer, it is a tax collector. Business has to pass its tax burden on to the customer as part of the cost of doing business. You and I pay the taxes imposed on business every time we go to the store. Only people pay taxes and it is political demagoguery or economic illiteracy to try and tell us otherwise.”

2. Cut taxes and make the safety net more efficient.

Reagan: “The key to restoring the health of the economy lies in cutting taxes. At the same time, we need to get the waste out of federal spending. This does not mean sacrificing essential services, nor do we need to destroy the system of benefits which flow to the poor, the elderly, the sick and the handicapped. We have long since committed ourselves, as a people, to help those among us who cannot take care of themselves. But the federal government has proven to be the costliest and most inefficient provider of such help we could possibly have.”

3. Get government under control.

Reagan: “We must put an end to the arrogance of a federal establishment which accepts no blame for our condition, cannot be relied upon to give us a fair estimate of our situation and utterly refuses to live within its means. I will not accept the supposed “wisdom” which has it that the federal bureaucracy has become so powerful that it can no longer be changed or controlled by any administration. As President I would use every power at my command to make the federal establishment respond to the will and the collective wishes of the people. We must force the entire federal bureaucracy to live in the real world of reduced spending, streamlined functions and accountability to the people it serves. ”

4. Obey the U.S. Constitution.

Reagan: “The 10th article of the Bill of Rights is explicit in pointing out that the federal government should do only those things specifically called for in the Constitution. All others shall remain with the states or the people. We haven’t been observing that 10th article of late. The federal government has taken on functions it was never intended to perform and which it does not perform well. There should be a planned, orderly transfer of such functions to states and communities and a transfer with them of the sources of taxation to pay for them.”

5. Don’t forget to cut taxes.

Reagan: “By reducing federal tax rates where they discourage individual initiative—especially personal income tax rates—we can restore incentives, invite greater economic growth and at the same time help give us better government instead of bigger government. … In short, a punitive tax system must be replaced by one that restores incentive for the worker and for industry; a system that rewards initiative and effort and encourages thrift.”

6. Don’t hate fossil fuels. 

Reagan: Our country was built on cheap energy. Today, energy is not cheap and we face the prospect that some forms of energy may soon not be available at all. …  We need more energy and that means diversifying our sources of supply away from the OPEC countries. Yes, it means more efficient automobiles. But it also means more exploration and development of oil and natural gas here in our own country. The only way to free ourselves from the monopoly pricing power of OPEC is to be less dependent on outside sources of fuel.

The answer obvious to anyone except those in the administration, it seems, is more domestic production of oil and gas. We must also have wider use of nuclear power within strict safety rules, of course. There must be more spending by the energy industries on research and development of substitutes for fossil fuels.

In years to come solar energy may provide much of the answer but for the next two or three decades we must do such things as master the chemistry of coal. Putting the market system to work for these objectives is an essential first step for their achievement. Additional multi-billion dollar federal bureaus and programs are not the answer.

Read the full article here.

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The Ryan Test: Demagoguery Versus Ideas

August 12, 2012 By John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Jonathan S. Tobin | August 11, 2012 | Commentary Magazine As John wrote earlier today, liberals are convinced that Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan to be his running mate offers them a golden opportunity to savage the Republicans about the Wisconsin congressman’s budget plans. Predictably, the New York Times delivered one of the first such salvos in its editorial posted […]

Smoking Obama’s Crack and Yearning for the Mud

August 12, 2012 By John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Vanderleun | August 10, 2012 | American Digest [From 2008. Only the names have been changed because the target has changed.] This downward flight of intellectuals has been going on ever since the Romantic movement began its counter-revolution a couple hundred years ago. No matter how much they flap their lips it’s a fall, not […]