CBLPI Reflections

The Political Class - Middle Class Disconnect

2012-03-02T09:53:00.000-05:00

Drawing on recent national polling data, pollster Scott Rasmussen finds that "when a politician talks of helping the middle class with a new government program, it just doesn't ring true" with middle America.

What is especially interesting about the data is the income demographic. Upper-income Americans are evenly divided as to whether government management of the economy helps or hurts. Middle-income Americans, on the other hand, overwhelmingly view government management of the economy as hurtful.

"The affluent, perhaps because they can easily gain access to the policymakers, are OK with government management of the economy," writes Rasmussen, while "[t]he middle class, without friends in Congress or on Wall Street, has an entirely different view."

a plurality of Americans now believe the United States has a system of crony capitalism rather than free-market competition
only 27% of voters believe government management of the economy actually helps the economy
50% think government economic activitism does more harm than good
77% of voters think the government could help the economy by reducing the government deficit
71% think it would help to reduce government spending
59% think tax cuts would help
6 out of 10 voters agree with President Reagan's conclusion in 1980s that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Read Rasmussen's full article here.

Real Reason Libs Tax Wealthy

2012-03-01T09:41:00.000-05:00

Why do so "many young liberal bloggers cheer on proposals to raise tax rates on high earners," wonders Michael Barone in an op-ed today. It isn't to increase government revenue, because it generally results in less revenue. And it isn't to ensure they pay 'their fair share', since as it is "the American tax system, including the payroll tax and state and local taxes, is more progressive — in the sense of extracting disproportionate shares of revenue from high earners — than most European tax regimes..."

I think the answer to the puzzle can be found in a remark Barack Obama made during the 2008 fall campaign — a remark that seemed to go mostly unnoticed.

ABC's Charlie Gibson asked candidate Obama if he would raise capital gains taxes even if, as in the past, that brought in less revenue to the federal government.

Yes, said Obama. "I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."

Ponder that answer for a moment. A candidate for president — president now — said he wants to take more money from people who earned it even though doing so would produce less money for the government.

The philosophy that has to be behind that answer is also behind the Obama administration budgets that have proposed capping the charitable deduction for high earners. The clearly intended result would be a massive transfer of money from the voluntary sector of society into government.

Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s identified the voluntary sector as a unique feature of American democracy,one that gave it strength and character. He compared it positively with his own France, where centralized government stifled initiative and innovation.

[snip]

Higher tax rates on high earners, even if they produce less revenue, are an attempt to centralize power in government and to limit the autonomy and countervailing power of individuals in the voluntary sector.

Which is why the liberal bloggers cheer them on. And why they eagerly join the Obama White House in demonizing the Koch brothers, who donate large sums to conservative causes. (Disclosure: I have spoken at two Koch conferences and was reimbursed for travel expenses.)

The Obama Democrats don't want their funders like George Soros getting competition from the likes of Charles and David Koch.

In a contest "to make this country more like Toqueville's France" or "to keep it more like Toqueville's America," concludes Barone, "the liberal bloggers are rooting for France."

Trumpeting Capitalism

2012-02-29T09:04:00.000-05:00

Under the headline, The Speech That Mitt Romney Should Give, Kyle Smith makes a great case for capitalism, profits, the private-equity business, and jobs:

A private-equity shop is a little like a trauma surgeon in the ER. You don’t want to meet us. Chances are, you’re having a near-death experience. You don’t go to the ER with a headache. A lot of the companies we dealt with were falling apart. Close to bankruptcy. We did our best to save them. Sometimes we didn’t succeed. But I’m happy to report that we had more success than not. Other companies we did business with were like newborn babies—weak, and desperately in need of support. We provided startup capital for them.

Surgeons, if they’re good at what they do, are handsomely rewarded. So are private-equity shops, if they know what they’re doing. But I think if you talked to the average surgeon, he or she’d say they’re not in it for the compensation. They’re in it for the challenge. They’re in it because they’re good at solving problems, and they’re willing to go to work in a high-stress environment every day because they think they’re up to some of the most hair-raising challenges imaginable. They do society a lot of good. Ultimately the people whose lives they save go on to have children of their own, and those children go on to have children of their own. Ultimately a lot of people are alive because of what ER doctors do.

The immediate challenge is to restore the patient to life. The patient may go out and get hit by a bus tomorrow, but the doctor’s focus is on the health of the patient today. They restore life and health. In private equity, that life and health we try to restore is called profitability. Profitability has to come first. Ultimately no business can survive if it’s not making a profit. Unless it’s the government, in which case it just raises your taxes or borrows money from China that your grandchildren will have to figure out a way to pay.

Profit is not a dirty word. Profit means the health of American business. And when American business is healthy, that’s when it can get on with growth. With creating jobs. ...

Using Apple (Steve Jobs), Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg) and Staples, Smith illustrates the free-market system's positive ripple effect on society, what he calls the "blessings of American capitalism." Worth a full read.

Oops, Liberals' Class Warfare Isn't Working

2012-02-28T09:26:00.000-05:00

A national poll by The Hill released February 27, 2012, reports that "likely voters prefer lower individual, business tax rates."

The big majority opted for a lower tax bill when asked to choose specific rates; precisely 75 percent said the right level for top earners was 30 percent or below.

The current rate for top earners is 35 percent. Only 4 percent thought it was appropriate to take 40 percent, which is approximately the level that President Obama is seeking from January 2013 onward.

The graphic below shows the breakdown of responses by likely voters (LV), males, females, and younger voters:

The Hill admits "the new data seem to run counter to several polls that have found support for raising taxes on high-income earners."

“If you ask people, ‘Should families with more than $250,000 pay a higher tax rate?’ you would get a lot of yeses on that,” said Clint Stretch, managing principal of tax policy at Deloitte Tax LLP. “And yet … you’ve got 75 percent of the answers are suggesting high-income people should have a lower tax rate, and that’s an astonishing result.”

One possible explanation is voters may not know how much the nation’s top earners are already being taxed. The poll did not ask voters to identify current tax rates before saying what rate they favored.

“It might be that people are underestimating how much the rich pay now,” said Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan adviser and Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush.

Indeed.

About those Air Bags in Your Car

2012-02-28T07:06:00.000-05:00

"There are now millions of older cars on the road with air bags," writes Eric Peters at the American Spectator, and they "are ticking time bombs, financially speaking..." in a couple of ways.

First, if the air bag deploys in a minor fender-bender, a $1500 to $2000 replacement bill to install new air bags will be factored in to repair estimates; and their huge cost could cause the older car to be totaled by the insurance company. "A 2002 NHTSA study," Peters reports, "found that '...nearly all vehicles more than seven years old are scrapped if they are involved in a crash in which their airbag deploys'."

Second, over time airbags can "degrade and develop problems" just like any other part in a car, and no one can know when they may become dysfunctional. With some 15 years of air bag experience behind them, several automakers have begun building in service schedules for airbags — at an undetermined cost to car owners. Writes Peters:

I like to read the owner's manuals of the new vehicles I test drive each week. That's how I discovered the warning that (to cite one example) "SRS system must be serviced" at 10 years. In one case, a major car maker specifically recommends replacing the bags (and related sensors, etc.) at 12 years — and you can imagine what that would cost.

It's something to think about when deciding whether to hold on to an older, payment-free car or buying a newer model.

Afternoon with Author Nonie Darwish

2012-02-27T15:47:00.000-05:00

Former Egyptian journalist Nonie Darwish will discuss her new book, The Devil We Don't Know, at an Afternoon with an Author event from 3 to 5 pm tomorrow, February 28, at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington DC. Attendance is free, but registration is required.

HE: Obama's Budget Travesties

2012-02-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

Human Events has put together the Top 10 Obama Budget Travesties — a good quick reference guide to have handy for arguments with liberals.

Middle Class Collateral Damage

2012-02-23T11:21:00.000-05:00

It isn't bad enough that almost half of Americans are dependent on government already. In his 2013 budget proposal to triple the tax rate on dividents, President Obama takes aim at the 51 percent of adults in the nation who are savers trying to fend for themselves. From the Wall Street Journal:

One buried surprise is his proposal to triple the tax rate on corporate dividends, which believe it or not is higher than in his previous budgets. Mr. Obama is proposing to raise the dividend tax rate to the higher personal income tax rate of 39.6% that will kick in next year. Add in the planned phase-out of deductions and exemptions, and the rate hits 41%. Then add the 3.8% investment tax surcharge in ObamaCare, and the new dividend tax rate in 2013 would be 44.8%—nearly three times today's 15% rate.

Keep in mind that dividends are paid to shareholders only after the corporation pays taxes on its profits. So assuming a maximum 35% corporate tax rate and a 44.8% dividend tax, the total tax on corporate earnings passed through as dividends would be 64.1%.

The truth is that the plan gives new meaning to the term collateral damage, because shareholders of all incomes will share the pain.

According to the Investment Company Institute, about 51% of adults own stock directly or through mutual funds, which is more than 100 million shareholders. Tens of millions more own stocks through pension funds. Why would the White House endorse a policy that will make these households poorer?

Seldom has there been a clearer example of a policy that is supposed to soak the rich but will drench almost all American families.

Gov Sarah Palin Named Institute's 2012 Woman of the Year

2012-02-23T10:54:00.001-05:00

Perhaps her award should have been called the Woman of this Generation, for she deserves such. Governor Palin has inspired a generation of young conservative women more than any woman since Margaret Thatcher, despite (or perhaps because of) the avalanche of assaults from the Left.

In a private luncheon in her honor, Governor Palin told the audience of about 300 female college leaders from across the nation that the Left's onslaught only makes us stronger. Governor Palin encouraged these young "constitutional conservatives" and the next generation of "Mama Grizzlies" to focus on enduring priorities of faith, family, freedom and personal responsibility.

"Pay no mind to what the rest of the world says about conservatives," she advised; and "don't look externally for your encouragement, your empowerment or your internal fortification."

"If you are mocked and belittled and ridiculed for having conservative beliefs," she told the audience, "please make sure your spine is stiffened. ... Your good positive efforts to affect the change this country needs will be worth it. At the end of the day, you're going to be able to say that that ridicule, that mocking, is for naught if you know internally what you're right priorities are and where God is leading you. All the other stuff out there on the periphery will just fade away."

She noted that Clare Boothe Luce is an example to the modern conservative woman. "Any one of her careers would have made her remarkable, but taken together, she was really outstanding and astounding."

Clare's work ethic, her drive, her commitment to make things better "is a reminder of what our role as American women must be in this world that needs women like you. She was a defender of her faith ... a stalwart cold warrior and promoter of freedom ... a fiscal conservative ... a wife and mother who once said, 'Women know what man has long forgotten, that the ultimate economic and spiritual unit of any civilization is still the family'. ... She stood on principle, and history has proven her right. She was, in short, an all-American woman—strong, proud, free, courageous."

Governor Palin closed by urging the audience to take an equally strong stand for conservative principles. "If not us," she asked, "then who?"

No Compromise with Progressives

2012-02-21T14:13:00.001-05:00

Who are progressives? What is their vision, and how have they changed our American democratic republic? In a three-part series of articles, Thomas Sowell offers insight into the Progressive Legacy, while Senator Jim DeMint explains why there can be conservative compromise with them.

Sowell highlights the following:

Progressives can be found in both political parties.
Progressives hold a "vision of an expanded role of the federal government in the economu and a reduced roles for the Constitution of the United States."
Progressives are determined critics and foes of big business and often demonize business people with labels such as "robber barons" (early 20th century) and "1 percenters" (today).
The Progressive movement rose and flourished a hundred years ago in the U.S.
Progressives were subsequently so discredited by the problems the policies of their vision created "that they started calling themselves 'liberals'" during the mid 20th century, "and after they discredited themselves again, they went back to calling themselves 'progressives', now that people no longer remembered how progressives had discredited themselves before."

Then ... and now:

"'Often wrong but never in doubt' is a phrase that summarizes much of what was done by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt [Republican] and Woodrow Wilson [Democrat], the two giants of the Progressive Era, a century ago."
Theodore Roosevelt "stood the 10th Amendment on its head," interpreting "the Constitution to mean that the President of the United States could exercise powers not explicitly forbidden to him."
"Wilson attacked the Constitution in his writings as an academic," and "once in power, his administration so restricted freedom on speech that this lead to landmark Supreme Court decisions restoring that fundamental right."
"Theodore Roosevelt was also morally offended by the fact that Standard Oil created 'enormous fortunes' for its owners 'at the expense of business rivals'. How a business can offer consumers lower prices without taking custormers away from businesses that charge higher prices is a mystery still unsolved [by progressives] to the present day, when the very same arguments are used against Wal-Mart."
Woodrow Wilson's Progressivism was very much in the same mindset. Government intervention in the economy was justified on grounds that 'society is the senior partner in all business'."
"Barack Obama's rhetoric of 'change' is in fact a restoration of discredited ideas that originated a hundred years ago."

Senator Jim DeMint believes America is at a tipping point—the same tipping point Sowell writes of in the early 20th century Progressive Era.

Against the backdrop of American public opinion calling on Congress to just "get along," Senator Jim DeMint argues in his new book, Now or Never: Saving America from Economic Collapse, that there can be no compromise between two such polar opposite visions for the nation. Progressive/liberals seek dominance of the federal government in all economic and social aspects of citizens' lives, while conservatives seek individual freedom and limited federal power over citizens' social and economic pursuits.

How can I compromise and work with someone whose vision is so different from mine? It would be like a football coach telling his team, 'I want you to go out on the field and work with the opposing team. Try to help them out. Cooperate with them. Compromise with them.' He can't. The other team has a goal that is the opposite direction from ours, and they are there to beat you. As bad as it sounds, that's where we are in America.

The clash in Washington DC today is once again between progressive/liberals and conservatives over the vision and future course of this nation. It's a battle that conservative must fight to win.

Sources:
Sowell: Progressive Legacy Part I
Sowell: Progressive Legacy Part II
Sowell: Progressive Legacy Part III
DeMint: Speech to Conservative Women's Network (pdf)
DeMint: book review

Saddle-broken and Snake Bitten

2012-02-20T20:25:00.000-05:00

The contraception mandate must have come as a shock to the many Catholics who chose to view the Obamacare promises through the church's rosy-colored 'social justice' lens. As conservative columnist George Will succinctly explains in a 54-second clip of ABC's This Week (video here), the Catholic Bishops should have known better:

Three points. As Paul Ryan said to you, this is an accounting gimmick that they've done that in no way ends the complicity of Catholic institutions and individuals in delivering services they consider morally abhorrent.

Second. You asked the question, 'How did this come about?' George, this is what liberalism looks like. This is what the progressive state does. It tries to break all the institutions of civil society, all the institutions that mediate between the individual and the state. They have to break them to the saddle of the state.

Third. The Catholic Bishops, it serves them right. They're the ones who were really hot for Obamacare, with a few exceptions. But they were all in favor of this. And this is what it looks like when the government decides it's going to make your healthcare choices for you.

Cue Al Wilson's "The Snake."

Dressing for Success ... or Not

2012-02-15T10:19:00.001-05:00

"Women will be future leaders, too," writes Dr. Melissa Clouthier, "and I was dismayed to see how many of them either looked frumpish or like two-bit whores" at the recent CPAC conference in DC. In a blog post entitled CPAC: The Jersey Shore-ification of Our Young People, she continues:

Women, if you’re at a conference where you’re learning to be a future politician or wish to succeed in the business of politics, dress the part. No, you don’t have to be in a business suit with pearls. However, modesty is a minimum. So:
1. No cleavage. That’s right. Cover that up. I say “no” in absolutist terms because women will show a tiny bit and that’s okay, but really, in a business environment where ideas are the priority, a dude thinking about your ta-tas is counter-productive.
2. Skirts no more than three finger-widths above the knee. Why do I even have to write this? Well, because someone is allowing these girls out of the house with mini-skirts that reveal too much.
3. Save the stilettos for Saturday night on a date with your boyfriend.
4. Bend at the knee. No, I don’t want to see your butt.

It is disheartening that these ideas even need to be written about, but clearly they do. If, at the number one conservative conference of the year, young men and women are looking and acting like the cast of Jersey Shore, it’s time to reset the compass.

UPDATE: Laura Donovan defends female CPACers here.

We're All Tea Partiers Now

2012-02-13T11:11:00.000-05:00

The Tarrance Group released a poll today of 800 "likely registered voters throughout the country." Key findings:

8 in 10 (84%) of voters find it extremely or very concerning that the U.S.Senate has not passed a budget in nearly 3 years, including 93% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 74% of Democrats.
75% want to see President Obama's budget cut spending, but only 31% expect it to actually cut spending.
62% want to see the president's budget reduce taxes, but only 24% expect his budget to do that.
55% believe the best way to grow the economy and create jobs is by cutting government spending and keeping taxes low for all taxpayers, while 36% believe the best way is to increase government spending and make the rick pay more in taxes.

F & F Lied; our Economy Almost Died

2012-02-13T11:09:00.000-05:00

So much for the president's oft-stated line that Wall Street is to blame. "New evidence Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hid their subprime exposure from Wall Street," writes Paul Sperry, and the evidence "delegitimizes both the diagnosis of the crisis and its prescription—the Dodd-Frank Act."

The Obama Administration claims Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (F&F) played only a 'marginal' role in the nation's financial meltdown and blames Wall Street "greed" and "predatory" Wall Street bankers instead. To fix the problem, the Democrat-controlled House and Senate passed—and the president signed—the Dodd-Frank Act with harsh new regulations on the banking industry.

New evidence in recently filed SEC lawsuits against F&F for massive fraud reveals a very different story:

F&F held/guaranteed $1.6 Trillion in subprime risky mortgages, but only reported $600 Billion of it, hiding $1 Trillion of their liabilities from Wall Street investors, rating agencies, risk managers and analysts.
F&F caused Wall Street to underestimate the risks of continuing to acquire, hold and distribute mortgages and mortgage-backed securities
According to the SEC's court filing, Fannie officials "created the false perception that Fannie Mae's participation in high credit risk loans ... was small and contained, and reinforced this false and misleading impression, telling investors that Fannie Mae was in the prime—not subprime—market with a different, higher set of standards and underwriting."

"If the crisis diagnosis is wrong, then the prescription--Obama's regulatory government takeover of the financial industry--must also be wrong," concludes Sperry. "And if in fact government-controlled agencies caused the crisis, the answer is less government; and freer markets."

Lawless Disregard for Federal Budget Requirement

2012-02-13T10:51:00.000-05:00

"Two top Democrats in Congress say the legislature doesn't really need to pass a budget," reports Investor's Business Daily.

"The fact is, you don't need a budget," [House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer] said last Tuesday. We can adopt authorization policies without a budget."
On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year. It's done, we don't need to do it."

Au contraire, says IBD.

Actually, "the fact is," Congress is required under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1973 to pass a spending plan and then have it scored by the Congressional Budget Office and signed by the president. That none of this happens suggests a level of disrespect for the law and the people found only among criminals.

Note: The Democratic-controlled Senate hasn't passed a budget in nearly 3 years.

NRO: What Would Reagan Do?

2012-02-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

The Catholic backlash over government's new "mandate to force Catholics to offer and purchase health-insurance plans that violate their consciences" is the focus of NRO online editor-at-large Kathryn Jean Lopez's insightful interview with Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College and author of two books on President Reagan. The two explore what Reagan would do (and did do) with this controversial matter, and how his wisdom might inform modern-day conservatives engaged in the battle.

Victory, Not Compromise

2012-02-10T10:23:00.000-05:00

Speaking at the CPAC conference, Senator Jim DeMint gave a "rousing speech about the importance of victory over compromise" in Washington DC, "point out that the victorious New York Giants didn't take the field to 'work with' the other guys or 'cooperate' with the opposing quarterback."

"Conservatism is not a political 'theory'," said DeMint. "It is a proven set of principles to make life better, and people freer, and the country stronger." He added that liberal social planning and the central control of economics isn't a political theory either—"it's a proven failure."

Senator DeMint is "working hard to build a Congress that can pass top-quality legislation to restore American liberty," as he explained to a recent Conservative Women's Network gathering. His remarks, entitled "It's Now or Never," can be viewed on the Institute's YouTube channel.

The Post-Recession Job Search

2012-02-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

How does a job seeker emerge successful in this post-recession job market? Careerguidetips.com tackles 6 ways the job search has changed and suggests adapted strategies to get hired. Tips to polish interview skills and resumes are also available at the website.

Putting Sex into Perspective

2012-02-08T14:20:00.000-05:00

World magazine reviews 2 new books about sex that conservatives may enjoy: Bringing Sex into Focus: the Quest for Sexual Integrity by Caroline J. Simon, and The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex: (and You Thought Bad Girls Have All the Fun) by Sheila Wray Gregoire.

The first "uses a helpful metaphor, optics, as a way to talk about six different lenses through which people view sex: covenantal, procreative, romantic, plain sex, power, and expressive," writes World's Susan Olasky, and "will be particularly useful for young adults searching for a way to think through sexual issues and discern perspectives that shape media and culture."

the second "answers questions about the nuts and bolts ... Like a funny big sister, [the author] takes on intimate topics in a frank and reassuring way ... for those who are engaged, for newlyweds, and for those who are sexually experienced and want to gain a biblical understanding."

Yale: Sex Week vs. True Love Week

2012-02-07T08:46:00.000-05:00

"Last fall, after coming under federal investigation for alleged Title IX violations related to creating a hostile sexual environment for women," writes Nathan Harden, "Yale administrators announced that the biennial pornification of Yale, aka "Sex Week," would no longer be allowed to take place on campus." The decision came after accusations surfaced that Sex Week organizers were "receiving kickbacks from porn companies."

Sex Week is back this year, toned down and with competition from True Love Week, sponsored by Students with Undergraduates for a Better Yale College. The group will offer educational seminars that focus more on relationships and less on casual sex.

AEI on the Phony 8.3 Percent Unemployment Rate

2012-02-06T10:32:00.000-05:00

If you're worried about jobs, don't miss American Enterprise Institute's Why the Official 8.3 Percent Unemployment Rate is a Phony Number. Author James Pethokoukis points out:

If the US labor force was equal in percentage to when Obama took office, the real unemployment rate would be 11 percent.
If all unemployment—including the discouraged (i.e., those who've quit looking) as well as the part-time employed who want full-time work—the unemployment rate would be "a sky-high 15.1 percent."
"Bottom line: The unemployment rate is dropping because economic growth continues to be so anemic that 4 million Americans have quit looking for work and have been disappeared by the Labor Department."

Pethokoukis explains (with graphics) why a further decline in the "official" unemployment rate over the next few months is not likely to be good news for Americans or Mr. Obama.

The Komen Foundation Debacle

2012-02-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

"The media headlines today are that the Komen Foundation has reversed itself," writes Erick Erickson in Making Sense of the Komen Foundation's Actions at Redstate.com. "If you gave a donation in the past few days and want it back, you should call (800) 996-3329. But I hope I can provide for you some rational explanation for a mishandled PR exercise..." Worth the read if you're a Komen Foundation supporter.

Human Events: Top 10 Washington Sins

2012-02-06T09:04:00.000-05:00

If Washington DC were the American Heartland's lover, he would be on his way out the door. "Anger against congress, federal bureaucrats, lobbyists and all that is Washington has been boiling over in America's Heartland," writes Human Events, "with good reason. ... Here's the proof: The Top Ten Ways Washington Annoys the Heartland."

22-Year-Old 'Flip-Flop Cop'

2012-02-01T09:47:00.000-05:00

"It's incredible how much stuff is out there," says 22-year-old Andrew Kaczynski, a student at St. John's University who is making a name for himself as this year's "flip-flop cop for the digital age," according to the Washington Times. His research—from "John McCain's entire 200-page 2008 opposition research file on Mr. Romney" to Ron Paul's video bragging "about putting out political newsletters, the same newsletters he recently disavowed because they contain controversial statements about race, AIDS and international conspiracy theories"—feeds his "political nerd" passion, launched his career, and keeps people honest.

No Limit to Government Power?

2012-02-01T09:29:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney faces a real problem explaining why "Obamacare is a curse, while Romneycare is a blessing," writes John Hayward in Human Events, particularly since both are rooted in the misguided notion that there should be no "limits on the power of government." RomneyCare and the Limits of Government Power is worth a full read.

Private Family Matters

2012-02-01T09:04:00.000-05:00

President Obama's statement that "government should not intrude on private family matters," delivered on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, is a "brazen bit of Obama BS," writes John Hinderaker in Obama's Government Vs. Your Family at Powerlineblog.com. "If that doesn't provoke hollow laughter, you haven't been paying attention." Hinderaker counts the ways this president and his party have injected government into the most ordinary private family matters, from food choices to electrical use to garbage collection.

School Choice Could Help States Balance Budgets

2012-01-23T22:47:00.001-05:00

"Nearly all of America's 50 states are facing budget deficits," writes education professor William Jeynes, who maintains that education spending, which consumes nearly 50% of state budgets, is the biggest driver of those deficits. Since private schools operate at roughly 60% of public schools' per student costs, "states would save money by implementing programs that pay for children to attend these schools instead of more expensive public ones."

National School Choice Week Jan 23-27

2012-01-22T22:42:00.001-05:00

For decades conservatives have advocated giving all families the freedom to choose from among all available schooling options—public, private, parochial and home—without having to pay twice for the education service for their children (i.e., public school taxes plus private school tuition). Today the desire for school choice spans all socio-economic, political, and ethnic groups, as this You Tube video celebrating last year's events and activities shows.

Keystone Pipeline: Losing Friends, Gaining Enemies

2012-01-19T17:06:00.000-05:00

In a scathing video commentary at Canada Sun News on the rejection of the Keystone Pipeline, Ezra Lavant lambasts environmentalists and the American president for choosing America's enemies over her northern friends. It's a matter of pride for Canadians. View the full 12 minute video.

Levin: A Post-Constitutional America

2012-01-19T14:33:00.000-05:00

Radio personality Mark Levin tells Sean Hannity, "we are living in a post-constitutional America."

Much of what goes on in the federal government has no constitutional basis whatsoever. This was part of a scheme, real scheme hatched by a number of leftists about a century ago. And you know them. Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson didn't make any bones about his contempt for the declaration and individualism and that's what this is, an attack on the individual. He made no bones about his contempt for the Constitution. Woodrow Wilson said in a speech before he became president that the government is like a body, you can't have one organ working against the other. In other words, you can't have separation of powers. So he spent his presidency, as did subsequent Democrats, trying to evade the Constitution or rewrite it.

FDR, of course, did the same thing. FDR attacked the Constitution. And Cass Sunstein, who now works for Obama, he made the point that we now live under FDR's Constitution. You know what that means? A powerful centralized government, exactly what the framers of the Constitution rejected.

"'Ameritopia' is here," Levin warns. "The question is how far are we going to go with this?" He ends the book with a question: "So my fellow countrymen, what do you choose, Ameritopia or America?"

The book is Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America.

SOPA Protest Scores

2012-01-19T13:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's protest against SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy legislation "yielded some positive results," reports the Consumerist. Google brought in 4.5 million signatures on an anti-SOPA petition, Fight for the Future another 1.5 million signatures, and several members of Congress announced they were withdrawing support.

Obamacare: How to Repeal and Replace!

2012-01-18T10:45:00.000-05:00

Health care expert Sally Pipes has published a practical, nuts-and-bolts, step-by-step plan that can make the slogan Replace and Repeal! a reality. She penned a series of three op-eds as an overview:

Where to Start in Repealing Obamacare

End Obamacare's Taxes Before They End Lifesaving Medical Advances and

How Real Reform is Different from Obamacare.

Groupthink Diminishes Learning, Creativity and Productivity

2012-01-17T16:24:00.001-05:00

"Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink," writes Susan Cain in the NYTimes. But research, she continues, strongly suggests that Groupthink robs us of our individual creativity, productivity and ability to achieve. It also tends to make us more hostile and less healthy.

The New Groupthink has overtaken our workplaces, our schools and our religious institutions... Virtually all American workers now spend time on teams and some 70 percent inhabit open-plan offices, in which no one has “a room of one’s own.” During the last decades, the average amount of space allotted to each employee shrank 300 square feet, from 500 square feet in the 1970s to 200 square feet in 2010.

Our schools have also been transformed by the New Groupthink. Today, elementary school classrooms are commonly arranged in pods of desks, the better to foster group learning. Even subjects like math and creative writing are often taught as committee projects. In one fourth-grade classroom I visited in New York City, students engaged in group work were forbidden to ask a question unless every member of the group had the very same question.

Cain points to research showing that solitude and privacy are essential to creativity, productivity, learning, personal health and healthy professional relationships.

... it’s one thing to associate with a group in which each member works autonomously on his piece of the puzzle; it’s another to be corralled into endless meetings or conference calls conducted in offices that afford no respite from the noise and gaze of co-workers. Studies show that open-plan offices make workers hostile, insecure and distracted. They’re also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress, the flu and exhaustion. And people whose work is interrupted make 50 percent more mistakes and take twice as long to finish it.

In a fascinating study known as the Coding War Games, consultants Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister compared the work of more than 600 computer programmers at 92 companies. They found that people from the same companies performed at roughly the same level — but that there was an enormous performance gap between organizations. What distinguished programmers at the top-performing companies wasn’t greater experience or better pay. It was how much privacy, personal workspace and freedom from interruption they enjoyed. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said their workspace was sufficiently private compared with only 19 percent of the worst performers. Seventy-six percent of the worst programmers but only 38 percent of the best said that they were often interrupted needlessly.

Solitude can even help us learn. According to research on expert performance by the psychologist Anders Ericsson, the best way to master a field is to work on the task that’s most demanding for you personally. And often the best way to do this is alone. Only then, Mr. Ericsson told me, can you “go directly to the part that’s challenging to you. If you want to improve, you have to be the one who generates the move. Imagine a group class — you’re the one generating the move only a small percentage of the time.”

Conversely, brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity.... decades of research show that individuals almost always perform better than groups in both quality and quantity, and group performance gets worse as group size increases.

Cain's article prompted Rob Long at ricochet.com to post "Brainstorming is For Losers," in which he concludes,

Underpinning all of this collectivist, brainstorming groupwork, is, I think, something nasty and totalitarian. All thoughts must be produced—and vetted—by the hive. Squirreling away in silence and solitude is condemned for being "anti-social" or, worse, ego-driven. When you're alone you have interesting and (maybe) revolutionary thoughts. When you're in a group, you naturally tend to fit your thinking into the prevailing pattern. No wonder our public schools love this kind of group thinking so much.

Iron Lady: Utter Anti-Female Travesty

2012-01-13T08:49:00.000-05:00

"'The Iron Lady' is an utter travesty, both in content and in form," writes Examiner movie critic Kelly Jane Torrance. "The woman born Margaret Roberts won a place at Oxford on scholarship, studied science, and became a chemist. She became friends with many of the leading free-market thinkers of her time. The woman on screen gets all her ideas from her father...This film was written by, directed by, and stars women. But it's the most anti-female film I've seen in quite some time."

Gallup: Conservatives Largest Group in US

2012-01-12T23:20:00.000-05:00

This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives, Gallup reported today. The breakdown: 40% conservative, 35% moderate, and 21% liberal.

Video: Satirical Look at U.S. Debt Limit

2012-01-12T22:29:00.001-05:00

U.S. debt in context (http://youtu.be/Li0no7O9zmE produced by debtlimitusa.org):

Iron Lady: the Ultimate Women's Libber?

2012-01-12T14:35:00.001-05:00

That's the argument leading historian Amanda Foreman makes about Lady Margaret Thatcher, saying her achievements should be celebrated rather than sniped at by feminists. Read the full article.

Will: Liberals' Rendezvous with Regret

2012-01-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

Liberals' "largest achievement is today's redistributionist government," writes George Will. "But such government is inherently regressive: It tends to distribute power and money to the strong, including itself. Government becomes big by having big ambitions for supplanting markets as society’s primary allocator of wealth and opportunity. Therefore it becomes a magnet for factions muscular enough, in money or numbers or both, to bend government to their advantage."

Rather than producing "social harmony by decreasing antagonisms arising from disparities of wealth," the Left's redistributive policies increase social strife, increase wealth disparity among citizens, and increase governments at the expense of the people--utterly destroying any hope of achieving its stated mission.

Beware Soft Authoritarianism

2012-01-11T13:12:00.000-05:00

"Today's progressives cannot be viewed primarily as pragmatic Truman- or Clinton-style majoritarians," write Fred Siegel and Joe Kotkin in the City Journal. "Rather they resemble the medieval clerical class ... as dogmatic in their beliefs as the most strident evangelical minister or mullah." The see citizens as a "nation of dodos" "too dumb to thrive" without government direction.

Soft authoritarian progressivism is at odds with democratic, pluralistic traditions and presents a growing potential for a constitutional crisis "pitting a relentless executive power against a disgruntled, alienated" nation of the "'dodos' who make up the majority of Americans ..."

Skirting the Constitution

2012-01-11T13:11:00.000-05:00

The recess appointments of Richard Cordray and 3 others, in the words of conservatives, were "the first of their kind by any president," "are symptoms of a larger constitutional problem," and project a soft "authoritarianism ... reminiscent of the 1930s, when many on both the right and left looked favorably at either Stalin's Soviet experiment or its fascist and National Socialism rivals."

Grasping at Employment Straws

2012-01-10T17:16:00.001-05:00

Despite MSM cheer leading, "last Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Situation report," writes Louis Woodhill at RealClearMarkets, "was actually terrible."

BLS uses Payroll Employment numbers to conclude there was an increase of 200,000 jobs from Nov to Dec 2011. But, notes the author, BLS's Household Survey—"which is a more accurate picture of labor market conditions"— shows:

the civilian labor force fell by 50,000 in December, following a 120,000 decline in November
for all of 2011, the labor force rose only by 274,000
during the first 3 years of Obama's presidency, the labor force fell by 0.7 million overall.

"December marked the 30th month of Obama's economic recovery. During this time, the reported unemployment rate fell from 9.5 percent to 8.5 percent. However, this 'improvement' was entirely an artifact of workers giving up and dropping out of the labor force. In fact, if labor force participation had remained constant at the 67.5 percent level that obtained at the end of the recession (June 2009), December's unemployment rate would have been reported at 10.9 percent."

Read the entire article here.

U.S. Debt Now Equal to Economy (USAToday)

2012-01-09T16:15:00.001-05:00

"The soaring national debt has reached a symbolic tipping point," reports USA Today. "It's now as big as the entire U.S. economy."

"The amount of money the federal government owes to its creditors, combined with IOUs to government retirement and other programs, now tops $15.23 trillion."

"The total national debt topped the size of the economy for three years during and after World War II. It dropped to 32.5% of the economy by 1981, then began a steady climb under President Reagan, doubling over the next 12 years. The combination of recession and stimulus spending caused it to soar again under Obama."

Hayward: The Dirty Little Secret of "Income Inequality"

2012-01-06T09:53:00.000-05:00

One of the most basic problems with the whole 'income inequality' topic, writes John Hayward at Human Events, "is that people don't really understand what 'income' means any more. Do you really know what your precise weekly income is?" If you say either the 'net payable amount' or 'gross pay total' on your paycheck stub, you'd be wrong.

Citing numbers crunched by CATO Institute, Hayward notes that "much of the 'income inequality' battered about in the media is actually due to a rising share of income being delivered in the form of increasingly expensive health care benefits." As CATO's research reveals, the real problem isn't 'income inequality'—"the rich are getting richer slower than the rest of us are getting richer."

The problem is the government's stealth 'income diversion' from our paychecks:

[T]he whole idea behind paycheck withholding [is] grab those taxes before people even realize the money is gone. Very few of us have a clear idea of just how much of our money is “going,” or where it goes.

Age-Old Gender Stereotypes Right After All

2012-01-05T20:24:00.000-05:00

A new study finds that men and women are psychologically very different after all, and those age-old gender stereotypes are more accurate than some today would like to admit.

Psychologists at Manchester University and in Italy analysed the results of personality tests which were given to 10,000 people and measured 15 traits.

In keeping with age-old stereotypes, women scored more highly on sensitivity, warmth (attentive to others) and feelings of apprehension, while men fared better on emotional stability, dominance (forceful and aggressive) and rule consciousness, or sense of duty.

The researchers concluded that there were 'extremely large' personality differences between the sexes which could have implications in the workplace.

The Ten Most Influential Conservative Women

2012-01-05T19:43:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute teamed up with Human Event in December to bring you a series of profiles, authored by some of our favorite conservative men, highlighting the lives and achievement of ten exceptional conservative women. Take a few minutes to check them out.

1. Sarah Palin: Grit, Tenacity & Fortitude, written by Steve Bannon

2. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann: God-Given Rights, Small Government and a Strong National Defense, written by Glenn Beck

3. Phyllis Schlafly: The Clearest Political and Constitutional Thinker of Our Time, written by Rep. Steve King

4. Ann Coulter: Unapologetic, Unsinkable, Unwavering, written by Rob Long

5. Michelle Malkin: The Sledgehammer to the Left Who Holds the GOP Accountable, written by Jason Mattera

6. Bay Buchanan: Conviction and Courage, written by Pat Buchanan

7. Marji Ross: A Woman of Enthusiastic, Energetic and Personable Leadership, written by Newt Gingrich

8. Cleta Mitchell: A Passionate and Articulate Advocate for Conservative Principles, written by Al Cardenas

9. Michelle Easton: A Woman Who Changed the Face of the Conservative Movement, written by Ron Robinson

10. Star Parker: A True Conservative to Her Core, written by Patrick X. Coyle

Finally, a woman who has inspired and influenced conservatives in America and around the world: Lady Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady, written by Daniel Hannan.

Pass the Kool-Aid: OWS Protest Welcomed Only in Academe

2012-01-04T16:22:00.000-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street protest movement has worn out its welcome even in the most liberal US cities, but there's one place idiotic Leftist ideas always find a home—the education system.

Next semester Columbia University will offer an OWS course "in which grad students and upperclassmen can earn a full course credit by getting involved in the movement's projects outside the classroom."

And in the Albemarle County, Virginia, school district, a group of third graders reportedly wrote the following lyrics—on their own—to an Occupy song:

Some people have it all
But they still don’t think they have enough
They want more money
A faster ride
They’re not content
Never satisfied
Yes — they’re the 1 percent

I used to be one of the 1 percent
I worked all the time
Never saw my family
Couldn’t make life rhyme
Then the bubble burst
It really, really hurt
I lost my money
Lost my pride
Lost my home
Now I’m part of the 99

Some people have it all
But they still don’t think they have enough
They want more money
A faster ride
They’re not content
Never satisfied
Yes — they’re the 1 percent

I used to be sad, now I’m satisfied
’Cause I really have enough
Though I lost my yacht and plane
Didn’t need that extra stuff
Could have been much worse
You don’t need to be first
’Cause I’ve got my friends
Here by my side
Don’t need it all
I’m so happy to be part of the 99

Public school officials insist the eight-year-olds wrote the lyrics without any direction or assistance from school officials or adults.

Of course they did. Pass the Kool-Aid, please.

Should Social Security Be Means-Tested?

2012-01-03T14:46:00.000-05:00

It's curious that so many, including the Heritage Foundation, want to fix the federal debt by means-testing Social Security, especially since it would be the surest way to kill the program by turning it into a pure federal welfare program. After all, why should voters continue to support FICA deductions (i.e., Federal Insurance Contributions Act) from their paychecks when only the poor would ever receive anything from it?

In "Is Means-Testing Just," Paul A. Rahe develops a strong argument that means-testing is the wrong solution to the Social Security problem, and he cautions conservative policy-wonks not to "march over the cliff" without thinking this through. It's an important read, particularly for young conservatives.

"Here's Why I Love 'Greed' and So Should You"

2012-01-03T09:12:00.000-05:00

The Wall Street Occupiers have it completely wrong. Human greed, writes Walter Williams, "gets the most wonderful things done."

When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I'm talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves.
Before the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man.
Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one's fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want, and then produce it as efficiently as possible [emphasis added].

Ironically, free-market capitalism's enemies are the political tyrants, intellectual elites, and useful idiots who prefer pre-capitalism's "despicable behavior" path to wealth. What they want, concludes Williams, "is congressional permission to share in the booty from looting their fellow man."

Read the full article.

Hayward: Voter ID and the Diluted Franchise

2012-01-01T14:29:00.000-05:00

Why does a cybernetic info-society tolerate ridiculous amounts of voter fraud?, asks John Hayward at Human Events, after the Justice Department shot down South Carolina's voter ID law last month. "The Left deserves a measure of grudging admiration for convincing Information Age America to hold its elections in 1965, even as they conduct their daily affairs with 21st-century speed and accuracy ... especially since those elections are, increasingly, the only real control we have over vast swathes of our nationalized, hyper-regulated lives."

Shlaes: New Fiscal Buzzwords Obscure Old Problems

2012-01-01T08:54:00.000-05:00

"As it happens, more young Americans know what Google Inc's Android operating system is than know some basic facts about our politics," writes Shlaes. Now, though, the "budget-ese we're not learning is allowing our legislators to get away with some deeply misleading claims, and it's threatening to make our fiscal problems much worse."

Second example: "making the rich pay their fair share." So what is a fair share? In the rest of the English language, “fair” means proportionality. “Share” implies equality by percentage. A bigger man lifts a bigger load, in proportion to his size. But our tax system isn’t proportional. It’s progressive, with a graduated scale, so that the wealthier man pays more than his share. The bottom half of all earners pay less than 5 percent of the income tax.

That so many Americans don't know the difference between progressivity and proportionality is certainly convenient to revenue-hungry Washington.

Barone: Voters Want Growth, Not Income Redistribution

2011-12-31T15:33:00.000-05:00

Conventional wisdom holds that Americans favor big government wealth-redistributionist policies during times of economic distress. At least that's what many of us have been "taught by the great and widely read New Deal historians" — a lesson that "has been absorbed by generations of politicians and political pundits."

But, writes political sage Michael Barone:

I believe that historians have taught the wrong lessons about the 1930s. And I believe there is a plausible and probably correct reason why economic distress has apparently moved Americans to be less rather than more supportive of big government...

Barone analyzes election returns throughout the 1930s to buttress his argument. He also points to a recent Gallup poll confirming that today's voters "realize that they stand to gain much more from a vibrantly growing economy than from redistribution of a stagnant economic pie."

while 82% of Americans think it's extremely or very important to "grow and expand the economy" and 70 percent say it's similarly important to "increase equality of opportunity for people to get ahead," only 46 percent say it's important to "reduce the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor" and 54 percent say this is only somewhat or not important.

In addition, by a 52 to 45 percent margin, Americans see the gap between the rich and the poor as an acceptable part of the economic system rather than a problem that needs to be fixed. In 1998, during the high-tech economic boom, Americans took the opposite view by the same margin.

It turns out that class warfare politics isn't the winner some liberals think, and (as Barone notes) "it hasn't produced a Democratic presidential victory in a long, long time.

Lowry: Thatcher vs. Decline

2011-12-30T19:59:00.000-05:00

"Margaret Thatcher is on the cover of Newsweek," writes Rich Lowry at National Review, "or—the next best thing—Meryl Streep is on the cover as the former British prime minister in a new biopic." While Mrs. Thatcher is a rich study in class and gender politics, Lowry suggests

at this moment in our history ... it is Thatcher's central purpose that is most important: her unyielding rejection of British decline. She rejected it with every bone in her middle-class body, even though sophisticates scoffed at such a naive nationalism. She rejected it even though the grandees of her own party said it was inevitable. She rejected it even though she knew reversing it meant forcing a wrenching political and economic crisis...

Mrs. Thatcher "accomplished what Britain's consensus had once deemed impossible." As some dare to suggest that America's best days may be behind her, the Iron Lady stands as a great reminder that "decline is inevitable only if its self-fulfilling prophets prevail."

About that New Year's Dieting Resolution...

2011-12-30T02:37:00.000-05:00

If you're one who follows Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations with a New Year's resolution to shed a few pounds, you might want to avoid the USDA's dietary guidelines. Cameron English explains:

While blaming lack of exercise, overeating, and (this week) poor parenting, the real culprit has been almost entirely overlooked: The awful dietary advice dispensed by mainstream medical science over the last 30 years. If we want a healthier, slimmer population, we have to stop eating the sugar-laden diet so many experts have recommended to us.

The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) dietary guidelines are the gold standard for healthy eating, according to most experts. The problem is that these recommendations promote a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet based on grains like bread and rice. These kinds of foods consist almost entirely of carbohydrates. When you digest carbohydrates, they are converted into sugar in your bloodstream, the same sugar found in ice cream, soda, potato chips, and all the other junk foods most people would recognize as unhealthy. Since high blood sugar is toxic, your body produces a hormone called insulin to bring it down to a reasonable level. The trouble with this, however, is that insulin brings down your blood sugar by converting it to fat and sending it into your fat cells to be stored. There are many problems with this process...

Healy: Now it's 'Obama the Irrelevant'

2011-12-06T10:38:00.001-05:00

"If our fashion-conscious president still finds the time to read the lad-mags," writes Washington Examiner's Gene Healy, "December's GQ had to hurt. Obama made the magazine's list of "The 25 Lease Influential People Alive ... Obama 'should be the most transformation figure of the century,' GQ carped. 'Instead, he wields all the power of a substitute teacher at night school.'" Read the rest.

CATO: The 'Tea Party' Budget

2011-12-01T09:54:00.001-05:00

The “Tea Party Debt Commission” affiliated with FreedomWorks recently released a budget plan (download here). In formulating its plan, the commission took into account fifteen budget plans introduced by various groups and policymakers, including Cato’s Downsizing Government website. I think the plan is an adequate response to that criticism. The following are some additional comments on the plan’s contents: -more-

IBD: Badly-Needed Alaskan Oil is Kept From Market by Obama Decision

2011-12-01T09:51:00.000-05:00

The same administration that says we can and should get oil from the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA) is blocking a bridge needed to get it to market on environmental grounds...The NPRA, 23 million acres of North Slope wilderness, was established in 1923 by President Harding to ensure a reserve of oil for the U.S. Navy. More

Heritage Foundation: How the EPA May Cost You Thousands

2011-12-01T09:33:00.000-05:00

Brace yourself. The cost of a new car in America is set to explode, thanks to a new regulation proposed by President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency ... read more

Ross: Seven Surprising Secrets of Best-Selling Female Authors

2011-11-22T12:21:00.001-05:00

On November 18th, the Conservative Women’s Network, a gathering of conservative women co-sponsored by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation, had the pleasure of welcoming to the podium Mrs. Marji Ross, President of Regnery Publishing, which has published almost 50 New York Times best sellers in the last twelve and a half years. Mrs. Ross, a wife and mother, spoke about secrets she has learned from the most successful conservative women authors—lessons as applicable in marriage, family, and interpersonal relationships as in the business world.
Read more »

Tea Party Unveils its Budget Plan for Debt Reduction

2011-11-21T11:37:00.000-05:00

On Nov 17 the Tea Party's Debt Reduction Committee released The Tea Party Budget. Highlights:

Repeals ObamaCare in toto.
Eliminates 4 Cabinet agencies — Energy, Education, Commerce, and HUD — and reduces or privatizes many others, including EPA, TSA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
Ends farm subsidies, government student loans, and foreign aid to countries that don't support us — luxuries we can no longer afford.
Saves Social Security and greatly improves future benefits by shifting ownership and control from government to individuals, through new SMART accounts.
Gives Medicare seniors the right to opt into the Congressional health care plan.
Suspends pension contributions and COLAs for Members of Congress, whenever the budget is in deficit.

It's a serious proposal, one clearly geared to saving a nation rather than a few political jobs. Check it out.

Beck: God Given Rights, Small Government, and a Strong National Defense

2011-11-21T10:59:00.000-05:00

Human Events| Glenn Beck writes of Michele Bachmann (as part of a series of profiles, from the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, of influential, prominent conservative women):

I think our Founders would be proud of the way Michele represents their principles ... She also created and is the Chairwoman of the Tea Party Caucus which has 60 members in the House and four members in the Senate. Their mission is to promote fiscal responsibility, hold fast to the Constitution and limit the size of government. With Michele leading the charge, they might just succeed ... I could not be more pleased that the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute is honoring Rep. Bachmann as one of the most influential conservative women in America.

Notes for Nov 17

2011-11-17T15:45:00.000-05:00

Does Socialism Work? A Classroom Experiment - an updated version adds five morals to the story.
Obama's Energy Crisis: Solyndra Scandal and the Nov. 3 Layoffs - a growing legal mess for someone?
CBO: 'Stimulus' Plan Hurts Long-Term GDP Growth - wasteful spending does not create wealth or jobs; it destroys them.
Occupy Has Lost Jon Steward - Daily Show video of the dim bulbs in Zucotti Park.
Rasmussen Poll Shows Gingrich with Double-Digit Lead in Iowa - Gingrich 32/Romney 19/Cain 13/Paul 10.

Sexual Harassment: Vague, Subjective, Slippery

2011-11-15T07:58:00.001-05:00

Under the headline, "In Favor of Dirty Jokes and Risque Remarks," NYU journalism professor Katie Roiphe questions "the creative, capricious rubric of sexual harassment:"

The words used in workshops — ‘uncomfortable,’ ‘inappropriate,’ ‘hostile’ — are vague, subjective, slippery. Feminists and liberal pundits say, with some indignation, that they are not talking about dirty jokes or misguided compliments when they talk about sexual harassment, but, in fact, they are: sexual harassment, as they’ve defined it, encompasses a wide and colorful spectrum of behaviors.

[T]he majority of women in the workplace are not tender creatures and are largely adept at dealing with all varieties of uncomfortable or hostile situations. Show me a smart, competent young professional woman who is utterly derailed by a verbal unwanted sexual advance or an inappropriate comment about her appearance, and I will show you a rare spotted owl.

Hayward: "Veterans Day: The Defiance of Tyranny"

2011-11-11T09:58:00.000-05:00

"Freedom is the defiance of tyranny, not its absence. Let the despots of the world be forever afraid that the hearts of their oppressed people will stir at the sight of the Stars and Stripes," writes John Hayward at Human Events. "The American veteran gave the world victory without conquest, valor without cruelty, and vigilance without domination. History has never seen anything quite like them before, and since the day American soldiers took up arms against their first “unbeatable” enemy, they have never stopped making history..."

Enough already!

2011-11-08T14:30:00.000-05:00

Blame Clinton Admin for Economic Collapse

2011-11-07T12:02:00.002-05:00

On April 15, 1994, the Clinton Administration codified a 20-page "Policy Statement on Discrimination in Lending" that basically told (threatened?) banks to either (a) lend high-risk home mortgages to unqualified applicants in the name of 'fairness', or (b) be branded as 'racist', sued by the Feds for 'discriminatory' lending practices, and denied access to funding from federally-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So began the housing bubble that 15 years later destroyed the U.S. economy. Reports Investor's Business Daily,

And it's still alive today. Obama is building on the fair-lending infrastructure Clinton put in place.

Surber: That Was Then, This is N.O.W.

2011-11-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

Enlightening: Don Surber contrasts what was said by National Organization of Women president Patricia Ireland on April 2, 1998, concerning sexual harassment charges against Bill Clinton, and what NOW is saying today about charges against Herman Cain.

VIDEO: 1% Let's Talk

2011-10-28T09:11:00.000-04:00

Peter Schiff, a Wall Street CEO, takes on OWS protesters in this entertaining video:

Why Leadership Matters, Now More than Ever

2011-10-26T10:42:00.001-04:00

Flashpoints Around the World

2011-10-18T13:37:00.000-04:00

FOX News National Security Analyst KT McFarland gave an engaging talk about several foreign policy “hot spots” around the world that most threaten the United States. Speaking to Conservative Women’s Network attendees this month, KT spoke extensively about what she believes are the three top issues in foreign policy today: the Arab Spring, Iran, and Israel.
Read more »

Casualties of the 60's Feminist Revolution

2011-10-18T12:27:00.000-04:00

Driven by a nearly pathological case of male envy, 60's radical feminists persuaded a generation of women to discard their femininity and become like men. Throw off sexual restraints! Forget marriage and family! Focus entirely on self-love and career building! How has it worked out a half-century later? Not so well. Recent articles tell of lonely, successful women and isolated, underachieving men—both products of the 60's sexual revolution, say the authors.
Read more »

Turn this Ship Around

2011-10-13T09:45:00.000-04:00

An overwhelming majority of Americans (77%) believe the country is on the wrong track. This short video shows why the majority is right:

Tea and Pee Parties - what differences!

2011-10-12T10:03:00.000-04:00

"The differences between the Tea and Pee parties (which is what some of its members are doing in public) are many, and large," writes Examiner columnist Noemie Emery.

The protests are against "greed," which is a sin, not a program, and therefore hard to pin down ... [it is] amorphous, and also bipartisan: It refers to CEO paychecks, but also to Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry's yacht, former North Carolina Democrat Sen. John Edwards' house, first lady Michelle Obama's vacations, and the salaries of film stars cheering the protesters.

Political Gridlock - a Blessing, not a Curse

2011-10-11T16:33:00.005-04:00

Think the Bill of Rights serves as our greatest protector of liberty? Think again, says Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who explains in this short video why political gridlock is a genuine blessing of constitutional liberty:

Hayward: "Occupy Wall Street, in Pictures"

2011-10-07T10:25:00.000-04:00

John Hayward at Human Events has a bit of fun with some of the Occupy Wall Street protestors' signs. Writes Hayward about this one, if by 'rich' you mean 'primitive, impoverished, and easily dominated', well, yeah.

GMU Law School & Nonie Darwish

2011-10-07T08:11:00.000-04:00

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) tried—and failed—to prevent author and Islamic law critic Nonie Darwish from speaking to George Mason University law school students this week.

In a stinging rebuke to CAIR, the George Mason University School of Law stood tall for freedom of speech and freedom of expression and allowed the lecture by Darwish to go ahead. The university took a very principled stand, firmly rejected CAIR and its arguments, and placed itself squarely on the side of civil liberties and the American way of life, despite the usual harassment, intimidation, and threats by CAIR and its fellow travelers.

Future Brighter for Energy, Jobs

2011-09-30T11:07:00.000-04:00

Two years ago, America was importing about two thirds of its oil. Today, it imports less than half. And by 2017, the US could be poised to pass Saudi Arabia and overtake Russia as the world's largest oil producer. So reports National Public Radio in New Boom Reshapes Oil World.
Read more »

A Big Blow to Man-Made Climate Change Theory

2011-09-21T15:55:00.000-04:00

Environmental extremists who prey on fears of a man-made climate change Armageddon have been busted ... by hard science published in Nature, the world's most prestigious scientific journal. "New, convincing evidence," writes Lawrence Solomon, "indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun -- not humans."

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A Yale Student Defends Life

2011-09-21T13:03:00.000-04:00

"Welcome to Yale, a university that values tolerance and diversity," writes sophomore Elizabeth Gray Henry in the Yale Daily News, adding, "Well, as long as you have the correct beliefs..." Miss Henry does an outstanding job of defending her beliefs about abortion in the article and calls for an open, tolerant dialogue on both sides. Read the article.

Constituent defends 2012 'Calendar Girl'

2011-09-20T13:19:00.001-04:00

It's always gratifying to see strong conservative women leaders supported, so hat's off to constituent Robert Murfitt, who heartily defends Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle against a verbal assault by a liberal in a letter to the editor of a Brighton NY newspaper. He begins with this, and refutes the liberal's complaints point by point.

Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle is a threat to the left and they have painted a large target on her back for defeat in 2012. This effort has been reenergized by the fact that she was recently added to the Claire Booth Luce 2012 Calendar of the most conservative women. After only seven months in office, she shares the other 11 months with the likes of Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann and Monica Crowley. This drives the left crazy.

Haven't gotten your 2012 calendar yet? Order it here.

President's Deficit Plan: $1.5 Trillion in Taxes & Fees

2011-09-19T22:55:00.001-04:00

"It's not just millionaires who'd pay more under President Barack Obama's latest plan to combat the deficit," reports the Associated Press. Airline passengers, for example, would see federal fees doubled to $10 per trip, tripled to $15 by 2017. And new mortgage applicants would pay an additional fee—averaging $15 per month for the life of the mortgage—for the care and feeding of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

One AP reader summed the plan up well: "So millionaires will be taxed, the rest of us will just pay fees."

Gardasil Mandate Blesses Sexual Freedom...for 9-Year-Olds!

2011-09-19T22:54:00.000-04:00

"Let's not miss the point on why the Gardasil mandate is so outrageous," write Alyssa Cordova, the Luce Institute's Lecture Director. "HPV is not something caught from a casual encounter like the flue, measles, mumps or rubella. It's a sexually transmitted disease!"

Read the rest.

Lulli: A Student's Perspective on Obamacare

2011-09-14T15:21:00.000-04:00

"Many young people celebrated with the president when he signed 'Obamacare' into law in 2010," writes high school student and Luce Institute intern Carolina Lulli, "unaware of the hovering short- and long-term consequences for college students." As details of the law become better known, Carolina finds more for her peers to fear than cheer.

New US Oil, Gas Drilling = 1 Million New Jobs, $800 Billion New Revenue

2011-09-14T10:26:00.000-04:00

A new study released this month is sure to fuel the debate over US domestic energy policy. The graphic-rich report shows the extent to which current US energy policies are cheating Americans of domestic oil and natural gas resources, as well as the jobs and government revenues that come with them. Key results of the study are:
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Turner: Obama's Strategy of Silence on Obamacare

2011-09-13T14:37:00.000-04:00

The president is trying to hide from his "signature achievement" in the hope that the revolt against the unpopular health care overhaul that swept conservatives into power across the country in November 2010 isn't repeated in 2012, writes Grace-Marie Turner. If the law is left in place, the American people will get a shocking awakening in 2014 when...
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KT McFarland: 9/11 Lesson-We Are Never Powerless

2011-09-10T01:53:00.003-04:00

National security analyst K.T. McFarland recalls the many acts of selflessness she encountered as New Yorkers struggled to cope with the unfolding events of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. We are never powerless, she writes; everyone can do something.

In Remembrance:

Angry, Jobless 20-Somethings

2011-09-08T10:49:00.001-04:00

The Atlantic magazine recently solicited readers' comments on the "one thing people didn't understand or appreciate about looking for work," and some of the responses were published in a four-part Labor Day special report: The Future of Work.

One article offers helpful insights from employers on navigating the job search process. Another article, What It's Like to Be Jobless in Your 20s, sparked so much response that the Atlantic this week published "a second round of the most passionate, indignant and poignant" comments from (or about) Millennials under the headline, The 'Mad As Hell' Millennial Generation. Some are truly heartbreaking; others just bitter rants.

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To Improve Economy, Think Cellphones

2011-09-07T10:31:00.000-04:00

Finally! A short simple economics lesson even a liberal can understand from Herb Meyer at americanthinker.com.

Imagine that you have a new cell phone, and you ask me how to make a call. I tell you to punch in a phone number, then rub the phone against your leg and fling it against the wall. Did your call go through? No? Okay, I say, now try it again -- but this time fling your phone harder. Your call still didn't go through? Would you like to try it a third time? Or have you finally figured out that I have no idea what I'm talking about; that if you keep listening to me you're going to break your phone...

Business Insider: "Bachmann Strikes a Pose for Conservative Women of 2012 Calendar"

2011-08-17T17:00:00.001-04:00

"2012 presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann has posed for the annual American Conservative Women calendar, spotlight 12 right-leaning — and good-looking — ladies in American politics," writes Grace Wyler in Business Insider.

The calendar, organized every year by the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, features a spread of the Congresswoman in front of the National Arboretum in Washington. Interestingly, Bachmann's photo appears on the page for December — after the 2012 presidential election.

U.S. Reps. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), and Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), as well as conservative commentators Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin also made the cut.

The Ticket: "Bachmann Poses for Calendar"

2011-08-17T16:51:00.000-04:00

"Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann will make a cameo in a 2012 calendar put out by a nonprofit conservative women's group--but, unless you skip ahead, you won't see her until after the November election," writes Chris Moody at The Ticket.

The "Great American Conservative Women" calendar, organized annually for the past seven years by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, features a full-page photo on its December page of the Minnesota congresswoman in the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.

Washington Examiner: "Gorgeous GOPs: Bachmann Featured in 2012 Conservative Women Calendar"

2011-08-17T16:48:00.000-04:00

"Yesterday, finally, the seventh annual Claire Boothe Luce Policy Institute calendar for 2012 honoring 12 American conservative women was released," writes Devonia Smith at the Washington Examiner.

The eagerly awaited calendar showcases the accomplishment and leadership of conservative women, one each chosen to be featured for each of its twelve months. This year's theme, “Life Outside the Spotlight,” shines on each of the twelve in her personal environment - chosen by the lady herself.

Daily Caller: "Conservative Women Get Comfortable for 2012 Calendar"

2011-08-17T16:42:00.001-04:00

"The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, a conservative women's group, has released its annual calendar showcasing female movers and shakers in the U.S. conservative movement," writes Caroline May at the Daily Caller.

While the monthly 2012 wall calendar is full of good looking women, the Institute keeps the exercise a testament to brains over beauty, in keeping with the ideals of its founder.

Elle Magazine: "The Best and the Rightest"

2011-08-17T16:25:00.001-04:00

"A new generation of conservative women is stepping forward to dis feminists and cheer low taxes, guns, and motherhood," teases Elle magazine above Nina Burleigh's article. It's an interesting read. (Townhall.com's Katie Pavlich comments on the article here.)

Liberal Dogma = 'Feral Children' = Rioting and Looting

2011-08-11T09:26:00.000-04:00

Max Hastings starts a bit of a verbal riot of his own with his UK Daily Mail article headline, "Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters."

Hastings cites several examples, including the now widely-reported comments to media by a female looter, who hopes for another night of rioting and fun. "It's the government's fault, though. The Conservatives. It's not even a riot. It's showing the police we can do what we want," she says, adding later, "It's the rich people. The people who have got businesses. That's why all this is happening. We're just showing the rich people we can do what we want."
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Tea Partiers Debating Right Question in Debt Crisis, says Brit

2011-08-09T11:41:00.001-04:00

America's bitterly divided debt debate got cheers from UK Telegraph columnist Janet Daley, who credits America's Tea Partiers with debating the right question:

The truly fundamental question … is being debated only in America: is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society?

Daley chastises fellow Brits (and American liberals) for failing to recognize the 'untenable doctrine' of the post-WWII national welfare model of governance:
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It's the Ideology, Not the Man

2011-08-04T15:19:00.017-04:00

President Obama's cousin, Dr. Milton Wolf, pens an interesting op-ed in which he argues that liberals' growing displeasure with the President was predictable and as absurd as their earlier deification of him.
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Senate Debt Debate: Rubio vs Kerry

2011-08-02T11:03:00.001-04:00

Gender Spinning the Employment Numbers

2011-08-01T10:33:00.001-04:00

Economics professor Mark J. Perry dissects a July 2011 Pew Research Center study, "In Two Years of Economic Recovery, Women Lost Jobs, Men Found Them." In the opening statement, Pew suggested the recovery favored men over women, and media jumped all over the story line.

Digging deeper (see chart), Perry arrives at a different conclusion:
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Rep Renee Ellmers on the Debt Ceiling Crisis

2011-07-31T18:34:00.000-04:00

"We are engaged in a war on spending that started years before this crisis and will be waged for years to come," writes Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, who was a guest speaker at the Institute's monthly Conservative Women's Network luncheon recently. She offers her perspective on the debt ceiling crisis and the current debate before Congress in a Daily Caller article today.

Could Millennials be the Next 'Greatest Generation'?

2011-07-29T10:11:00.000-04:00

Since we work with young college-age women, we tend to follow polls and trends of the 18 to 30 age group. Recent articles suggest those under age 30 — the Millennial generation — are facing tough times, and it's causing them to undergo the kind of philosophical shift that often occurs when reality overwhelms ideals. Could the tough times forge the Millennials into the next 'greatest generation'?

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Economics, National Defense Displace Liberals' So-Called "Women's Issues"

2011-07-29T09:36:00.001-04:00

Renowned pollster Kellyanne Conway, founder and president of the polling company/WomanTrend, spoke to a packed auditorium of women at the monthly Conservative Women’s Network on July 15th at the Heritage Foundation about just how apparent it has become that traditional liberal “women’s issues” continue to decline as fiscal issues rise. Women all over the country are unshackling the chains of liberal feminism and embracing their femininity in their drive to build a more optimistic America for their children and grandchildren.

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