November 29-30, 2010
Nov 29 01:12 Ellison: Compromise in the Air Nov 29 03:09 Obama Foreign Policy: Long on Ideology, Short on Reality Nov 29 16:15 McCaskill Heading for a Rematch? Nov 29 07:58 Stop the Presses Nov 30 07:27 Exposing Political Tricks & Mythbusting Nov 30 16:57 HF1
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009
Ellison: Compromise in the Air
This morning, Rep. Keith Ellison told WCCO's Esme Murphy that Democrats would likely have to compromise with Republicans in the 112th Congress. It was apparent that his heart wasn't into that though he tried selling it as best he could.
Rep. Ellison said that he wouldn't let Republicans repeal Obamacare, something he might not have a vote on. I posted yesterday that the judiciary might eliminate it without congressional involvement.
It's apparent that Rep. Ellison is still attempting to work from the same paradigm that Speaker Pelosi and President Obama operated from. That won't fly with the next Congress just like it won't work with the American people.
This November, voters told Democrats in emphatic terms that they'd spent too much, that they'd pushed too radical of an agenda and that they'd supported tax increases that the American people didn't want.
While it's true that the American people aren't thrilled with Republicans, it's equally true that they're appalled with the Democrats' agenda. That's why they booted Pelosi from the Speaker's office. Like P.J. O'Rourke said, this wasn't an election, it was a restraining order .
People like Speaker Pelosi and Rep. Ellison won't stop spending just because the American people said they should stop spending irresponsibly. What's needed is for conservatives, both in the Minnesota state legislature and in the U.S. Congress, to be the adults that the American people are hoping for.
I've heard people say that politicians got it right when both sides are unhappy. I couldn't disagree more emphatically. Politicians got it right when the people emphatically praise politicians for doing the right thing.
Anything short of that is failure.
What's needed to accomplish that goal, though, is for conservatives to hold more high profile townhall meetings that do a better job of explaining their policies so people see the benefit of enacting their policies.
The thing I came away with was that Rep. Ellison is hoping to tread water through this session, have President Obama veto some bills he doesn't like, then hope to retake the House in 2012. Honestly, I think that plan isn't realistic but I think it's what Rep. Ellison is hoping for.
Look for TEA Party activists to hold both parties' feet to the proverbial fire on spending and fiscal responsibility. That means turning up the heat on repealing Obamacare, keeping taxes low and on conducting oversight hearings to ensure the taxpayers' money isn't being spent foolishly.
If this Republican majority in the House offers sensible solutions to America's problems while keeping spending and taxes at a reasonable rate, they'll be the majority party for a decade or two.
Posted Monday, November 29, 2010 1:12 AM
No comments.
Obama Foreign Policy: Long on Ideology, Short on Reality
Based on this article , it isn't a stretch to think President Obama's foreign policy was long on ideology and short on dealing with reality:
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to leaked US diplomatic cables that describe how other Arab allies have secretly agitated for military action against Tehran.
The revelations, in secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East, expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war.
The Saudi king was recorded as having "frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme", one cable stated. "He told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake," the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah's meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.
Thanks to Jim Hoft's digging , we know that Sen. Obama criticized President Bush for not pursuing diplomacy:
"It is absolutely clear that this administration and President Bush continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology..They need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front,They should have stopped the saber rattling, should never have started it.
It's clear, based on the cables released by Wikileaks, that then-Sen. Obama was an appeaser when it came to Iran, that his policy was based more on cooing like a dove than on sounding like a tiger.
President Obama obviously didn't learn the Reagan Principle. Simply put, the Reagan Principle is to not negotiate with rogue nations or superpowers until he'd built up his forces until these rogue nations or superpowers were scared of his military superiority. Only then did Reagan start negotiations with America's enemies.
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, warned in February that if diplomatic efforts failed, "we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, war prompted by an Israeli strike, or both".
It's time that the Obama administration admitted that their national security policies are incoherent and based more on Obama's proclivity towards passivity than on reality.
The more I read on the subject, the more President Obama reminds me of Jimmy Carter's appeasement. Looking back through history, thoughtful people understand what a disaster Carter's national security policies were and how they started the modern terrorist movement.
Posted Monday, November 29, 2010 3:09 AM
Comment 1 by Name: Mark at 01-Dec-10 07:03 AM
I don't think its fair that money dictates quality of care, but give me a break. None of you would choose inferior care in solidarity with the less fortunate if you had the option.
McCaskill Heading for a Rematch?
Based on this article , it looks like Jim Talent and Claire McCaskill might be heading for a rematch:
Fewer than 50,000 votes separated Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill and Republican incumbent Jim Talent in Missouri's 2006 U.S. Senate race, a difference of only about a dozen votes from each precinct. McCaskill won.
Now McCaskill and Talent may be headed toward a role-reversal rematch in the 2012 elections. This time, McCaskill will be the incumbent. And Talent could be the challenger.
Although no one is officially a candidate yet, the 2012 political season already is quietly under way as potential candidates are calling around to prospective contributors and party stalwarts to gauge their support. The candidacy intrigue centers mainly on the Republican Party, because Democrats already have incumbents in the U.S. Senate, governor's office and most other statewide offices up for re-election in Missouri.
This time, Sen. McCaskill won't get a free pass. This time, she'll have to defend her campaign's actions, her voting twice for ARRA and Obamacare and her campaign's illegal activities :
Speaking at a public event last Thursday in St. Louis sponsored by Environmentalists for Claire, McCaskill revealed a plan to use publicly-financed employees for partisan political purposes in violation of the civil service rules of St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Kansas City and Jackson County which bars employees from participating in political campaigns and specifically prohibits 'coercion' of any taxpayer funded employees to participate in partisan political activities.
"... here (St. Louis) and in Kansas City the mayor and the county executive have donated 150 employees to work on the election on Election Day," McCaskill said .
First, then Candidate McCaskill, if this report is accurate, broke campaign laws by using union workers while they're getting paid to do their jobs. Either these workers shouldn't have gotten paid by the government or they shouldn't have been used by the McCaskill campaign.
Certainly, Missouri voters shouldn't tolerate that type of corruption.
Another difficulty facing Sen. McCaskill is something that she's tried addressing the past 2-3 weeks. I wrote earlier about how Sen. McCaskill voted for the stimulus and Obamacare bills, twice each, when a no vote would've killed those bills.
By now, it's established fact that the stimulus failed miserably. Well, it's established fact except with Sen. McCaskill .
Sen. McCaskill better hope she isn't heading for a rematch with Jim Talent because she'll lose if that's the matchup in 2012.
Posted Monday, November 29, 2010 4:15 PM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 29-Nov-10 10:38 PM
Not Talent! The man lost because he didn't have the courage to offer the best type of research is adult stem cell research. The amendment to do stem cell research barely passed.
Maybe if Talent had been more vocal in his oppisition he would've won. Of course if you support stem cell research you're likely to support other liberal programs.
Walter Hanson
Stop the Presses
Michael Barone's latest column is a great argument for cutting some public employee unions down to size. This isn't a surprise to anyone who's paid attention to California's, Michigan's, Illinois' and New York's budget crises. It's time we dealt with these crises. Mr. Barone writes that, whether legislators deal with the crises or not, markets quickly will. Here's how Mr. Barone thinks these states will 'get religion':
The prospect is that the bond market will quit financing California and Illinois long before the federal government. It may already be happening. Earlier this month, California could sell only $6 billion of $10 billion revenue anticipation notes it put on the market.
Individual investors have been selling off state and local municipal bonds this month. Meredith Whitney, the financial expert who first spotted Citigroup's overexposure to mortgage-backed securities, is now predicting a sell-off in the municipal bond market.
So it's entirely possible that some state government; California and Illinois, facing $25 billion and $15 billion deficits, are likely suspects; will be coming to Washington some time in the next two years in search of a bailout. The Obama administration may be sympathetic. It's channeled stimulus money to states and TARP money to General Motors and Chrysler in large part to bail out its labor union allies.
But the Republican House is not likely to share that view, and it's hard to see how tapped-out state governments can get 60 votes in a 53-47 Democratic Senate.
How to avoid this scenario? University of Pennsylvania law professor David Skeel, writing in The Weekly Standard, suggests that Congress pass a law allowing states to go bankrupt.
Skeel, a bankruptcy expert, notes that a Depression-era statute allows local governments to go into bankruptcy. Some have done so: Orange County, Calif., in 1994, Vallejo, Calif., in 2008. Others, perhaps a dozen small municipalities in Michigan, are headed that way.
Governors like Jerry Brown and Pat Quinn won't tighten things on unions, even though their states are being ruined by union pensions and out-of-control state spending.
With Brown and Quinn, it's likely that these corrupt politicians won't tighten things up because they're getting substantial political contributions from the public employee unions for their campaigns.
In Nixon's time, that practice used to be known as setting up a slush fund. Today, it's just business-as-usual. By either term, it's a form of corruption.
The reality is that it's likely that bond markets will prevent states from borrowng money to fuel their spending addiction. The longer the addiction isn't curtailed, the more painful the remedy will be when it eventually arrives. And it will arrive if we don't change our spending habits.
The threat of bankruptcy would put a powerful weapon in the hands of governors and legislatures: They can tell their unions that they have to accept cuts now or face a much more dire fate in bankruptcy court.
It's not clear that governors like California's Jerry Brown, who first authorized public employee unions in the 1970s, or Illinois's Pat Quinn will be eager to use such a threat against unions, which have been the Democratic Party's longtime allies and financiers.
But the bond market could force their hand and seems already to be pushing in that direction. And, as Bowles notes, when the markets come, they will be swift and severe.
The policy arguments for a bailout of California or Illinois public employee union members are incredibly weak. If Congress allows state bankruptcies, it might prevent a crisis that is plainly looming.
With the federal deficits in excess of $1,000,000,000,000, with unemployment almost 10 percent, with a GOP majority in the U.S. House and with bond markets destabilizing, it's difficult, if not impossible, to picture a scenario under which a federal bailout might pass.
The only conditions under which it might pass is with a tightly-enforced spending cap being included in the legislation. Even then, it's still an uphill fight at best.
With Speaker Boehner, Budget Committee Chairman Ryan and other fiscal hawks ready to shoot down the Democrats' extensive wish list, how willing will Democrats be to fight for more union bailouts? I'm not betting they'll be that excited to fight for another round of unpopular bailouts.
With the American people not being in a spendaholic mood for the foreseeable future, it isn't likely that Republicans will get hurt by saying yes to sane spending habits. Similarly, it isn't likely that Democrats will be helped by being spendaholics.
Posted Monday, November 29, 2010 7:58 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 29-Nov-10 02:44 PM
For credibility, unlike Pawlenty, Dayton should start by reforming the spoils system for top executive posts.
Then and only then should the rank and file be attacked.
Pawlenty was awful with that one woman idealogue who had to be dumped because of the malignant mesothelioma occurrences all over the Iron Range among mine workers that were being withheld from disclosure; and putting Molnau in charge of transportation with the bridge falling on her watch.
Not that she's alone at fault, but she had no competence for that job.
Then, DEED and chief-of-staff musical chairs; all to show that the spoils system under Pawlenty thrived in ways I expect, out of respect, to not see with Dayton.
In trimming fat, the GOP did almost zero; on payroll; while featherbedding the top cronies and insiders' nests.
It's wrong when either party does it and criticizing Dayton, I am sure you will do that, but far, far too many Republican commentators simply turned a blind eye to how Pawlenty handled things.
Also, there are contracts, and I am certain the intent of the post is not to undermine freedom of contract. There was bargaining, and there was a result.
Contracts, undermined, seems inimical to mainstream GOP concerns for orderly conduct of business - even while opposing regulation of financial dealings, the GOP has not wanted to destroy trust in contracts being negotiated and then lived up to. I have seen litigation suggesting it's a problem, breach of contract, and it should not start with any government breach of labor contracts - directly or insidiously.
Comment 2 by eric z at 29-Nov-10 03:00 PM
Also, in fairness; we cannot forget that the immediate Wall Street bailout after the housing sector was put under during Bush-Cheney years was by Paulson and Bernanke, both GOP appointees.
Why in the world Obama reappointed Bernanke is a mystery.
He torpedoed Obama's congressional majorities by delaying the bond purchase until after the election.
Good GOP guy that way. And the plunging dollar, see how that works out long term for our citizens.
I don't believe you suggest that private sector bailouts are okay but congressional help for the unemployed and those in foreclosure is bad.
So, the role of the Fed, how does that work into your analysis, along with the main bond market unrest being over Europe and the developing world; with Treasuries being viewed as the safest hedge.
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 30-Nov-10 02:05 PM
Eric, The Fed's eternal bailouts are a waste of money. For being a tool of Wall Street, I sure don't agree with them all that often. As for the unemployment, I'm ok with extending them as long as they're tied to implementing real capitalist, free market policies, not the failed crap that President Obama's kept in place the first half of his term.
Exposing Political Tricks & Mythbusting
If there's anything I can't stand, it's when progressive politicians attempt to use the Bible to score cheap political points. That's apparently what the Rev. Howard Bess is attempting to do in this op-ed . First, here's the editor's offensive introduction, along with Rev. Bess's opening:
Editor's Note: The Republican electoral resurgence, like Ronald Reagan's original coalition, combines collaborative but often contradictory forces, from anti-government Tea Partiers and libertarians to corporatists who feast on government contracts and Christian nationalists who want government-imposed "morality."
But the "Christian" element of this coalition is especially problematic because it also tends to favor policies, from brutal warfare abroad to harsh treatment of certain minorities at home, that ignore Jesus's core teachings of tolerance.
The Tea Party is especially clear in rejecting the "love thy neighbor" aspects of Christianity, insisting that government should get out of the business of seeking social and economic justice, as the Rev. Howard Bess notes in this guest essay:
According to the Luke gospel, after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer, he withdrew for 40 days to think, ponder, and pray.
His next stop was a synagogue gathering in his home community, Nazareth. Jesus read from an Isaiah scroll, and then laid out his four-point agenda.
First, he was going to take up the causes of the poor. Second, he was going to work for the release of the people, who were incarcerated or oppressed. Third, he was going to bring sight to the blind. Fourth, he was proclaiming The Year of the Lord.
That was a huge agenda for a 30-year-old rabbi from a tiny village, who had no experience, no following, and no formal training.
Particularly challenging was the fourth proposal. The Year of the Lord was a reference to an Old Testament law that required a complete redistribution of wealth. Every 50 years all land holdings were to be abandoned and redistributed among the Israelites. It had never been done, but the law was still on the books.
First, Rev. Bess can't know for certain whether this Year of the Lord had been observed because the Old Testament is silent on it being observed. It's true that the Old Testament tells how to observe the Year of the Lord, mostly in the book of Leviticus and the book of Numbers. After that, it's silent.
According to this website, though, it's easy to prove that land holdings weren't to be redistributed. That's because, according to the Bible, God owns the land. When Israel entered the Promised Land, with Joshua as their leader, each of the 12 tribes of Israel was given a parcel of land with the exception of the tribe of Levi. Each tribe then parcelled out land according to the number of people in each tribe.
The bottom line is this: At some point, the land belonged to that specific family. Ergo, that isn't redistribution of land. It's the return of land. Here's Dictionary.com's definition of redistribution:
Economics. the theory, policy, or practice of lessening or reducing inequalities in income through such measures as progressive income taxation and antipoverty programs.
Here's Dictionary.com's definition of return:
to revert to a former owner: The money I gave him returns to me in the event of his death.
Clearly, the definition of redistribution from an economic perspective was the leveling of a supposedly unlevel playing field whereas returning something simply meant giving back something that was once another person's.
To be factually accurate, only the land that had been transferred from the original landowner to another landowner was returned. The land that had been in the family for generations wasn't redistributed.
This is an important distinction because the intents are dramatically different. The intent of the redistributionist is to make level that which they think isn't fair. The intent of the person returning something is to return something that didn't belong to that family.
That's quite a difference and the difference isn't unintentional.
The editor argues that the TEA Party activists have rejected the "love thy neighbor" aspects of Christianity..." As a TEA Party organizer, I can say without hesitation that "insisting that government...get out of the business of seeking social and economic justice" isn't high on our priority list. The reality is that our priority is that our highest priority is setting in place policies that help people prosper and letting them achieve great things.
This next section of the op-ed is sickening:
I recognize that translating a stump speech from 2,000 years ago into a meaningful action plan in 2010 is a tough job. However, abandoning the Jesus agenda is not acceptable to anyone who calls himself/herself a follower of the rabbi from Nazareth.
Jesus was committed to building a just kingdom of God on earth. His followers cannot deny that he gave preference to the poor and gave no respect to the rich. Imprisonment of anyone was not on his agenda.
Sight, hearing and a working body for everyone was an important commitment. Fair wages and a fair tax system were all a part of his proposal.
That Rev. Bess thinks of Jesus' messages as "a stump speech from 2,000 years ago" is disturbing enough. That he thinks Jesus' ministry was about "building a just kingdom of God on earth" illustrates Rev. Bess's misunderstanding of the Bible. In the Book of Hebrews, we're told that earth isn't the Christian's home, that we "desire a better, that is, a heavenly country."
Rev. Bess appears to be making Christianity all about worldly things. The goal behind everything Christ and His apostles did was about bringing people to a deeper understanding of Christ. PERIOD.
Christ healed the blind and cured the ill first so He could minister to their spriritual needs shortly thereafter.
Finally, nowhere in the Bible that I've read does it say directly that governments should take the initiative in ministering to people. In fact, in Exodus, God gives clear instruction that His people were to minister to each other.
Finally, I can't not respond to this bald-faced lie:
Implicit in the Jesus vision of justice is accepting responsibility for one's neighbor. While Jesus expressed a special interest in the poor, Tea Party members make no secret of their conviction that the strong have a right to dominate and control the weak and the poor .
It's stunning to think anyone would publish this nonsense. For Rev. Bess to say that "Tea Party members make no secret of their conviction that the strong have a right to dominate and control the weak" isn't factually accurate. In fact, it's an outright lie. This isn't just a personal observation. It's borne out in articles like this , written by the NYTimes' Nicholas Kristof:
Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, "Who Really Cares," cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.
Other research has reached similar conclusions. The "generosity index" from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.
Does Rev. Bess think that Republicans giving 30 percent more to charities than Democrats give to charities sound like proof that TEA Party members have a need to "dominate and control the weak and the poor"?
This is another example of how progressives have hijacked the English language for political purposes. Here's Dictionary.com's definition of the word charity:
generous actions or donations to aid the poor, ill, or helpless: to devote one's life to charity.
a charitable fund, foundation, or institution
Paying taxes to the government, which then appropriates money to government programs is many things but it isn't charity. First, paying taxes isn't charity; it's paying money to the government. Noncompliance is punishable by force of law. Only the most twisted logic could call paying taxes that pay for Welfare, Medicare or Medicaid could call that charity.
Rev. Bess's op-ed proves that he, like most progressives, don't have a clue about the TEA Party's priorities or virtues. Before he shoots his mouth off again, I'd recommend that he first attend a good school of theology, then actually attend a TEA Party.
Posted Tuesday, November 30, 2010 7:27 AM
No comments.
HF1
This morning, King Banaian made his first appearance on talk radio since Carol Lewis' gracious concession speech on Hot Talk. One of the things King mentioned was that he still hoped HF1 would be his zero-based budget legislation. I suspect it still will because of Kurt Zellers' commitment to it when King announced his candidacy :
King announced that, if elected, the first bill he'd submit is for using zero-based budgeting in putting together Minnesota's budget. King said that zero-based budgeting forces the legislature to justify every dollar of spending "instead of quibbling over" "the last dollars spent."
This would make tons of sense because it'd force agency chiefs to justify their spending decisions, which they haven't had to do as frequently as they should be required to do. Like I wrote earlier this week , the DFL didn't do a good job of keeping track of how money was spent:
Obviously, DC's Democrats and Minnesota's DFL don't have a good track record of keeping track of how our money is spent. That's the main reason why they were run out of the majority in the Minnesota legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. Simply put, people saw how irresponsible they were with the taxpayers' money.
I wrote this as commentary to Mark Sommerhauser's article in this Sunday's St. Cloud Times, which talked about how difficult it is to track projects from Legacy Act revenues.
That's just tracking the revenues from the Legacy Act. Imagine tracking money from the entire general fund budget. Then imagine the DFL not holding in session oversight hearings on general fund spending.
Zero-based budgeting would provide much-needed accountability to assure Minnesota's taxpayers that this legislature will pay attention to how their money is spent. For that reason alone, the legislation should be the first legislation in the hopper and the first legislation signed into law. If Dayton won't sign it the first time, keep passing it until he either signs it or is punished by Minnesota voters for vetoing it.
This legislation was the biggest motivating factor among many motivating factors for getting King elected. Now that he's all but sworn in, it's time to do everything possible to get this legislation passed. It's too important to not hold politicians and bureaucrats accountable.
PS- I'll be posting something later today about how King got elected on this blog. Make sure and check back to this blog for that post.
Posted Tuesday, November 30, 2010 4:57 PM
Comment 1 by Colin at 01-Dec-10 05:35 PM
The main trouble with zero-based budgeting is we have a part-time legislature in Minnesota. When, rather than if, disagreements arise... there will not be enough time to tackle every budget area before session ends. The legislature already has too much inertia and partisan fighting to pass a budget within the five months given. With zero-based budgeting, undeniably critical state needs can go unfunded due to simple disagreements on unrelated budget items.
