Who's Afraid of the Fiscal Cliff?

I may be coming to the conclusion that going over the so-called fiscal cliff could be the right thing to do, not for the strategic political advantage some may see, but as a reasonable, practical step toward doing the moral thing. One thing I am certain of is that the "confluence of unpleasant consequences" does not represent a cliff in any real way--more a "bump in the road" to use the president's vernacular.

PATRICK J. BUCHANAN - Were the average Republican asked for a succinct statement of his views on taxation, he or she might respond thus:

“U.S. tax rates are too high for the world we must compete in. The tax burden — federal, state, local, together — is too heavy. We need to cut tax rates to free up our private and productive sector and pull this economy out of the ditch.”

This core conviction holds the party together.

Yet today the leadership is about to abandon this conviction to sign on to higher tax rates or revenues, while the economy is nearing stall speed. Yet, two years ago, President Obama himself extended the Bush tax cuts because, he said, you do not raise taxes in a recovering economy.

Why are Republicans negotiating this capitulation?

Because they have been warned that if they do not sign on to a tax hike, they will take us all over a fiscal cliff.

If we go over, Republicans are being told, you will be responsible for tax hikes on all Americans as the Bush tax cuts expire on Jan. 1.

You will be responsible for a surge in tax rates on dividends, interest, capital gains, estates.

You will be responsible for an automatic sequester catastrophic to the national defense.

This is the pistol Obama is pointing at the GOP. This is extortion.

The Debunker asks: Should the GOP cave on tax hikes?

Republicans are being told that they either vote for something they believe to be wrong and ruinous — or get something worse. Pay the ransom, fellas, Obama is demanding, or take the blame for a second recession.

Like the Panama Canal debate that made Ronald Reagan a hero, this is a defining moment. No GOP senator who agreed to the Carter-Torrijos treaty ever made it onto a national ticket.

What are the perils for Republicans who sign on to an Obama deal? continue reading...

Friday Video - America the Beautiful

In honor of the peaceful re-election of President Obama, I offer one of my all time favorite songs, while keeping with the Meatloaf theme for November.



Link to video.

Regardless how butchered, the lyrics will always apply.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
- Katharine Lee Bates

Well, at least the 2nd and 3rd verses will always apply.

So Now That We're Here, Where Are We?

In the end, the Republican Party (as the bearer of today's political conservatism) is basically where I thought it was five years ago (pre-Tea Party, pre-Obama), struggling with a bit of an identity crisis, as parties occasionally do. So what's next for the party? Do a reality check, of course, and that means ignoring most of what's being said this week.

ERICK ERICKSON - We are three days removed from a brutal election for the GOP. A lot has been said.

I have decided it is virtually all bull crap.

Whenever the GOP loses — actually going back to some time around 1972 and the re-election of Richard Nixon — Democrats have told the GOP they are going to lose the demographic battle. Demography is only destiny when you party is obsessed with race as the Democrats are.

Let me explain my thinking with a story from the Old Testament people tend to ignore and work my way up to Dick Cheney. Seriously.

In the Old Testament, Moses had an apprentice named Joshua. Chosen by God to be Moses’s right hand, Joshua took over from Moses. When Joshua died, the wheels came off. Don’t believe me? Flip your Bible to Judges 2:7. Joshua died and all the elders who had surrounded Joshua died. Within five verses we are to “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.”

Five verses later!!

No, Baal has nothing to do with Dick Cheney. continue reading...

Learning Election Lessons

Image: dfb

There will be much navel-gazing on the right over the coming months as the analysis of the exit polls begins and a new strategy will be formed, much like what the Democrats did in 2004. And 2004 is instructive here.

The early steam is that Mitt Romney failed to connect with Latinos. Given how vacuous this election was regarding issues and policy, I am not buying the conventional wisdom that it has much to do with immigration directly--don't forget President Obama's epic failure to deliver immigration reform in his first term and how little play he gave it as a policy goal for his second term.

*** Sidebar

Anybody else notice how we had to pass Obamacare so we could learn what was in it, and now we've had to re-elect the president to learn what his agenda for a second term is?

*** End Sidebar

In early 2005, Democracy Corps (Carville, Greenberg, and Shrum) issued an analysis regarding how Democrats could win back white Catholic voters that had voted previously for Bill Clinton, but turned away in increasing numbers from Al Gore and John Kerry. The short of it (not summarized quite like this) was:

Target heterodox Catholics (those who do not meet their Sunday obligation, or who are open to straying from Church teaching regarding pelvic issues, for example) by watering down the heterodoxy and wrapping it in the broader populist language of solidarity, thereby creating an opportunity for those who are happy to rationalize to make themselves feel good about themselves to employ a moral calculus as justification.

Here are a couple examples from the report of how a Democrat candidate seeking the white Catholic vote could position himself as someone who:

• Wants to repeal President Bush's tax cut for those earning over two hundred thousand dollars a year, in order to increase funding for health care [read: stem cell research] and education, or
• Is committed to building stronger families by easing the financial burden on parents and promoting prevention [read: contraception] to reduce abortions

Think about it. Isn't this what the president and Democrats effectively have done with Obamacare and so-called gay marriage?

Republicans will have to do the same kind of thing with Latinos (and perhaps a percentage of those heterodox non-Hispanic white Catholics), rather than trying to cobble together a cafeteria plate of policy proposals. And they wouldn't have to embrace heterodoxy to do it. The concern is I'm not sure they have it in them.

CREATIVE MINORITY REPORT - This one hurt.

I advised my followers on Twitter last night that the next time I wrote a post about the polls being wrong, somebody should punch me in the ear.

So what does this mean? Many many people, including people smarter than me about these things, expected this to be a turnout election. We expected the turnout to be close to even with either a slight edge to Democrats or a slight edge to Republicans. Either way, most were in a agreement that it wouldn't be anything like 2008. We were wrong. Exit polls have it pegged at D+6, fairly close to 2008.

So, what does this mean. It means that Republicans can no longer win national elections by turning out the base alone. They have to start convincing more people that they have the answers. They can no longer continue to write off blacks and Latinos as un-winnable and expect to win. There is just not enough base to do it.

Another lesson is that Catholics just don't care in the slightest about the persecution initiated by this President and about the unborn. Every indication is that Catholics have granted an imprimatur for their own oppression. continue reading...

Poll Watching

In the aftermath of the 2000 election, I did a detailed analysis of the Florida recount that was in process and determined that there was an exceedingly high probability that George W. Bush would be declared the victor if Al Gore in fact was allowed a recount in every county he requested.
I sent my analysis to several newspapers and talk show hosts around the nation. It turns out that about a dozen, or so, other people did the same thing and the idea that we (George W. Bush supporters) needn't fear a transparent recount. In the end, my projection absolutely nailed the end result.
If it had been 4 years later, I probably would have started a blog and would be living a different life right now. Well, maybe.

Why do I mention this? I'm a bit of a stats guy with pretty extensive industrial experience, so I do pay attention to things like polling data, and the modeling method I used in 2000 was essentially the same as what Nate Silver uses at FiveThirtyEight . His expected value model methodology for the electoral college is rock solid.

But... and you know there was one... the devil is in the details. The thing I had in 2000, was that there was quite a bit of data showing that manual recount corrections, under/overvotes, "hanging chads," etc. all followed the original distribution, so it was very straightforward to calculate the probability that Al Gore would pick up enough votes to overtake the certified result with Bush in the lead.
As of this writing, the Real Clear Politics national average has the president up by 0.7% and the average of the states would give President Obama 303 electoral votes (with no toss-ups). Nate Silver has the president at 313 electoral votes with >90% chance of winning (this is approaching statistical certainty).

Now with any Monte Carlo-based model, the key is in how representative the data are to the underlying populations. If the state polls are correct, then Mitt Romney has very little chance of winning. If they are not correct... Nate Silver may go the way of John Zogby.

There is and have been a lot of concerns discussed freely about the accuracy of various state polls, most of which are centered on the turn-out assumption by party that I won't rehash here. I do want to touch on a few things that give me pause in the accuracy of the state polls.

Caution 1. Regarding the sample adjustments that many polls make. It is a common technique to apply corrective factors to the samples in establishing a likely voter turn-out model (here is an example of an analysis done this way regarding Minnesota's Marriage Protection Amendment back in September). The problem with such an approach is that any adjustments applied based on the poll internals, no longer carry the confidence interval of the top line poll question; the error is increased and is dependent upon the sample sizes of the internal categories used for the adjustments. The accuracy is improved, but at the expense of precision, and I have never seen this explicated consistently in published results, particularly at the state level.

Caution 2. There has been a growing problem in polling regarding response rate of telephone polls since the advent of caller ID. I consider this a potential hidden wild card to create the next Literary Digest event,  i.e., where many of these polls in swing states would in effect be unscientific.

Caution 3. While probabilistic estimates like FiveThirtyEight's for an Obama victory have risen from the mid 70% range to over 90%, the Intrade odds have only risen from the mid 60% range to just under 70%. This 1:3 movement indicates a damper of doubt for the recent polls.

Caution 4. As a corrollary to the voter turn-out rates (which is still Caution 0), my old blog buddy, David Hartline, has noted in the state of Ohio that while the focus has been on the populations in 2008 and 2010, the polling has effectively ignored the demographic shifts that have occurred as a result of the recession and weak Obama recovery.

So what does this mean? I think any Obama victory will be narrower than what's being projected by RCP and FiveThirtyEight, but we'll probably know pretty early (New Hampshire, Virginia, Pennsylvania) whether the state polls are flawed seriously and there was good reason for all that optimism from the new media right the last couple days. It also means that things will be close and all those extra people doing that other "poll watching" will come into play, ready to delegitimize the result regardless who wins. And it also means that there will be thuggery and shenanigans, which, being in a shenanigan-friendly state with the control of both the state house and senate in play, concerns me greatly. It doesn't matter if they cheat if it's not close, but it's going to be close.

Additional Information

On Polling Models, Skewed & Unskewed
Is Nate Silver's Value at Risk?

Update

The thuggery has begun.

Update 2

Well, it's pretty clear the state polls were correct.

The Choice

I heard on the radio today that this year's presidential election has effectively been reduced to whether America will follow the principles of her own Revolution, or those of the French Revolution. Because I'm not sure the extent to which the French Revolution's ideals truly have survived even in France, I'm hesitant to jump on to that suggestion.

In reality, the image I have is more along the lines of the beginning of An American Werewolf in London:

Two American college students, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, are backpacking across the Yorkshire moors. As darkness falls, they decide to stop for the night at a pub called "The Slaughtered Lamb". Jack notices a five-pointed star on the wall. When he asks about it, the pub becomes very quiet and the pubgoers start acting very strange and hostile. The pair decide to leave, but not before the others offer them pieces of advice such as "Beware the moon, lads" and "Keep to the road." Whilst conversing with each other and wondering what they meant, they wander off the road, onto the moors.

Back at the pub, the owner gets very distressed and suggests that they go after the pair. As she says this, a sinister howling is heard. The rest of the pubgoers, having barricaded the door, decline. Back out on the moors, Jack and David have also heard the howls, and they seem to be steadily getting closer.

In this telling, our choice is whether we scamper back to the road, but even if we try, it's not certain we will find it and keep from being "fundamentally transformed." Yes, the stakes may be that high.

“Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” That was Barack Obama in 2008. And he was right. Reagan was an ideological inflection point, ending a 50-year liberal ascendancy and beginning a 30-year conservative ascendancy.

It is common for one party to take control and enact its ideological agenda. Ascendancy, however, occurs only when the opposition inevitably regains power and then proceeds to accept the basic premises of the preceding revolution.

Thus, Republicans railed for 20 years against the New Deal. Yet when they regained the White House in 1953, they kept the New Deal intact.

And when Nixon followed LBJ’s Great Society — liberalism’s second wave — he didn’t repeal it. He actually expanded it. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), gave teeth to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and institutionalized affirmative action — major adornments of contemporary liberalism.

Until Reagan. Ten minutes into his presidency, Reagan declares that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Having thus rhetorically rejected the very premise of the New Deal/Great Society, he sets about attacking its foundations — with radical tax reduction, major deregulation, a frontal challenge to unionism (breaking the air traffic controllers for striking illegally) and an (only partially successful) attempt at restraining government growth.

Reaganism’s ascendancy was confirmed when the other guys came to power and their leader, Bill Clinton, declared (in his 1996 State of the Union address) that “the era of big government is over” — and then abolished welfare, the centerpiece “relief” program of modern liberalism. continue reading...

Lest We Forget: Obamacare Hurts the Doctor-Patient Relationship [Video]

Dr. Carrie Triepel summarizes how Obamacare won't meet its stated objectives of reducing costs and covering all the uninsured, in addition to limiting the ability of doctors to treat their patients.



Link to video.

Additional Information:

The PPACA (Obamacare) Part 1, Caroline Triepel
The PPACA (Obamacare) Part 2, Caroline Triepel
The PPACA (Obamacare) Part 3, Caroline Triepel
The PPACA (Obamacare) Part 4, Caroline Triepel
The PPACA (Obamacare) Part 5, Caroline Triepel

A Note on Political Choices... and Political Lies

It is moral to vote for neither major candidate. It may be stupid, but it is moral

[T]here are two moral choices in this year’s American presidential election: Vote for Romney or vote for neither of the major candidates.

Some have argued that a vote for Obama is moral because (a) the culture of life problems on which the candidates differ are now an intractable part of American society; (b) the HHS mandate doesn’t really attack religious liberty since it doesn’t force anyone to get an abortion; and (c) Obama is, on the whole, far more concerned about the common good (in the sense of the common man) than Mitt “Fat Cat” Romney. This argument is so utterly vacuous, on all three points, that I won’t dignify it with a response.

But others have argued, sometimes indicating horror and hurt at my betrayal, that voting for neither major candidate (by writing someone in or not voting at all) is morally equivalent to voting for Obama. This is not an absurd argument, but it is a false one. continue reading...

For Reference:

The Dangers of Voting Your Heart: An Intrinsically Moral Guide

Lest We Forget: Obamacare's War on Faith Has Real Costs [Infographic]

CatholicVote's third infographic in a series is out. This one focuses on the real costs to healthcare, charities, and relief services, see below.

To illustrate the consequences of the HHS mandate and perhaps put things in a little better perspective, let's continue to consider just one type of institution, the case of Catholic schools, in one region.

Making It Real - A Look at Catholic Schools

As mentioned in a previous post, the average size of a Catholic elementary school in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is around 300 children, with an average operating budget of approximately $1.3 million. Tuition covers approximately $900,000 of this, with the remainder being covered by fundraising, grants, investments, etc.

For argument's sake, if we assume it takes 25 full-time faculty and staff (with benefits) to operate such a school and the school keeps offering health care benefits to full-time employees, but refuses to violate their consciences by providing the mandated services and incurs instead the prescribed penalty of $100 per person per day, that would mean an additional annual cost to the school of $912,500, which is an increase in operating expenses of about 70% and more than what they take in from tuition.

That means, even if operating expenses and staffing were directly proportional to enrollment (which they are not), and fundraising and the like could be maintained at a fixed dollar level (which would be unlikely in the extreme), they would have to turn away more than 200 of their 300 students (209 to be exact in this scenario). The other options would be to more than double the price of tuition to cover the "conscience tax," or increase fundraising and other revenues by 225%. That's a lot of wrapping paper, magazine subscriptions, marathon pledges, silent auctions, ...

Keep in mind that each child forced out of the Catholic school increases Minnesota's public education cost by about $10,000. Statewide this translates to $600 million in additional annual education expense to cover Minnesota's 60,000 Catholic school students. $600 million. That would be like adding more than half to the amount of the projected deficit for the state government's next fiscal year. But it's every year.

Therefore, in less than two years, the alleged benefit that Minnesota will receive in increased federal money to cover the newly eligible participants under the Medicaid expansion provision of Obamacare would be wiped out completely from the perspective of the taxpayers. (They will have to pay more somewhere, someway, whether at the state, or county, level.) Even in these days, $600 million per year in public funds is still real money. But, of course, we are supposed to believe this won't affect the middle class.

To what end? All that to support Obamacare, which by the government's own estimation will fail to do what it ostensibly is intended to do in covering all the uninsured. That's a pretty lousy trade for limiting our ability to live out our first freedom. Again, social justice my foot. Obamacare puts politics ahead of children.

Image: CatholicVote

For more information and the statistics on Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, visit AimHigher.org

Other Posts in the Series

Lest We Forget: Obamacare's War on Faith Affects Millions

Lest We Forget: Obamacare's War on Faith Hurts the Disadvantaged [Infographic]

CatholicVote's second infographic in a series is out. This one focuses on the underprivileged, see below.

To illustrate the consequences of the HHS mandate and perhaps put things in a little better perspective, let's continue to consider just one type of institution, the case of Catholic schools, in one region.

Making It Real - A Look at Catholic Schools

The average size of a Catholic elementary school in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is around 300 children, with an average operating budget of approximately $1.3 million. If this small school is forced to close because it is unable to operate under the debilitating penalty, which could easily exceed 50% of it's operating budget, that's an additional $3,000,000 burden on Minnesota taxpayers (more than a half billion dollars total for all the Catholic school students across the state), and the children affected in just this average school will include:

• 12 students who receive Title I services (more than 1,100 in just this archdiocese)
• 14 students who receive special education services (1,300 total across the archdiocese)
• 75 students who receive need-based financial aid (7,500 across the archdiocese)
• 150 students who receive subsidized transportation (15,000 across the archdiocese)

More public education cost and less student achievement, including for many children who are underprivileged. Social justice my foot.

Image: CatholicVote

For more information and the statistics on Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, visit AimHigher.org

Other Posts in the Series

Lest We Forget: Obamacare's War on Faith Affects Millions

Lest We Forget: Obamacare's War on Faith Affects Millions [Infographic]

CatholicVote has launched a series of infographics describing the ill effects of Obamacare's assault on religious liberty. The first installment is below.

Making It Real - A Look at Catholic Schools

To make it even easier (I hope) to get your head around the consequences of the HHS mandate and put things in a little better perspective, let's consider just one type of institution, the case of Catholic schools, in one region.

In the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis alone, the Catholic Church educates 30,000 students in grades K-12 in 93 schools.

Set aside that it costs a local Catholic school about 60% what it does to educate a child in the average Minnesota public school. And set aside the improved effectiveness of Catholic schools to educate as measured by test scores, graduation rates, and college/military placement rates. Ignore that. Now what would that mean to the state's residents?

It would cost Minnesota taxpayers an additional $300,000,000 per year to educate these children if their Catholic schools were forced to close and they had to attend public schools, not to mention the additional children from the Dioceses of Crookston, Duluth, New Ulm, St. Cloud, and Winona, thereby affecting the bottom lines of millions of Minnesotans. Because families of Catholic school students are already paying taxes to support their local public schools, this $300 million is an unfunded additional burden to be carried. Please tell me again how Obamacare does not affect middle class taxes.

Image: CatholicVote

For more information on Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, visit AimHigher.org

Soon and Very Soon?

It has to be very tempting to dismiss this as strident nutterism, but it's something many of the faithful in the West have been expecting for a while now, including the Holy Father, who has been talking about it for more than 40 years:

The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.

She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members….

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

3 Reasons Why Joe Biden Won't Get My Vote

Vice President Joe Biden
(Image: The White House)

I've been inclined to dismiss most of the vice president's bluster during last week's debate as an affectation intended to meet two objectives:

• Energize the base.
• Raise the bar on obnoxious behavior to give the president a lot of margin to act mean and boorish on his own toward Mitt Romney in tonight's debate.

On those points he was quite successful. I hear he can be charming. And then there's the compelling blue-collar back-story. Not to mention he had to overcome the death of his first wife--I wouldn't wish that on anybody. Nevertheless, three things stood out from his performance. Now, if it were just the debate it might be one thing, but who he was in the debate is who he's been for years.

1. He failed to show the temperment necessary to fulfill the most traditional duty of a vice president: Attending the funerals of foreign leaders. There are 7-year-olds who exhibit better behavior in serious situations, and, as skilled as I am in the field, it would be problematic to threaten the featured passenger of Air Force 2 with a time-out.
2. Él es señor pantalones en el fuego. Or so hopelessly malfeasant that he truly does not understand things happening within the administration that are public knowledge, in particular regarding how the HHS mandate affects religious institutions and the lead-up to the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate. I'm going with him as Mr. Pants-on-Fire; it's less scary.
3. I know there are people who will argue that a vote shouldn't be based on who you think the better Catholic is, but rather on the policies being advocated. That's fine as far as it goes, assuming you buy the Social Justice gambit being employed by the left. However, as a Catholic claiming to be animated by his Catholic faith, it gives great pause, shall we say, when he:

a.) Protects and advocates subsidizing intrinisically evil policies, which he claims to oppose personally, precisely because they are personal, which in turn makes him "unwilling" to impose his beliefs on others, while
b). At the same time, he seeks to impose his beliefs on others, on a purely partisan basis if necessary, for prudential matters of social and fiscal policy.

That's a bit of metaphysical legerdemain that would make Yogi Berra's head spin. That's the weltanschauung for the man one heartbeat away? Pick your metaphor: This is the very picture of a house divided against itself, or a house built on sand, or the wielding of the dictatorhip of relativism. No thanks.

Yes, there is much more to Catholic social teaching than abortion, contraception, cloning, same-sex "marriage," etc. But then again, you also miss a lot when you cut out (among others) sections 155, 230-237, and 565-574 of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Four more years? I'll pass.

A Touch of Arab Fall in the Air

I, for one, am not buying it that it was a trailer for an amateurish movie, which Rich Galen points out may not even exist fully, that set off a riot in Egypt and an attack on the US embassy in Libya. Then add in the monumental unlikelihood that that it was September 11th was just a coincidence. My hearing in the high band isn't what it used to be, and I'm not sure it was ever that good, but it sure sounds like someone blew a dog whistle.

All of which is neither here, nor there, and only goes to show that, in the Middle East, it is the same as it ever was.

Sure, the names are different, but serial apologies, or no, the season is changing:

Oh if only Islamic radicals would riot over the HHS contraception mandate and gay marriage. If they did, the Administration would fall all over themselves to apologize.

Don’t believe me? Consider yesterday’s events well chronicled by Jeff Emanuel.

A group in the United States exercised their first amendment rights, which set off rioting yet again among the religion of peace. Egyptians stormed the American Embassy, torn down the American flag, burned it, and replaced it with a black flag used by Al Qaeda. In Libya, our consulate was attacked and an Embassy employee killed.

The Obama Administration’s Egyptian Embassy responded by apologizing that someone somewhere exercised their first amendment rights and dared offend the religion of peace. In fact, the Embassy wants it known that no religion should ever be offended ever. So you Christians who think Jesus is the only path to Heaven, don’t say it. It might offend someone.

I guess now Barack Obama will abandon calls for gay marriage and Democrats everywhere will stop calling Christians “bigots” for standing up for their religion. After all, it appears now to be American policy to apologize for offending religious sensibilities. continue reading...

Update:

Skepticism about the "authenticity" of the film continues to steam along.

Update 2:

Well, it appears that the movie is real, but several months old with no real distribution, so its role as riot inciter is still suspect. There's still more than meets the eye here.

Democrats Change Their Minds and Accept Cardinal Dolan’s Invitation

Timothy Cardinal Dolan
Image: CatholicVote

News spread fast yesterday when Cardinal Dolan noted that he offered to pray at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte next week, but that his invitation was declined.

The Democratic Party, sensing that they are alienating the Catholic vote, quickly scrambled and accepted the invitation. continue reading...

The Unwelcome Cardinal Dolan

Ah, religion and politics, my favorite.

At first blush, the decision by President Obama not to offer Timothy Cardinal Dolan an invitation to offer a benediction at the Democrat National Convention seems like bad politics. After all, the Catholic Vote (if there is such a thing) is crucial to the President's re-election hopes. The President has had a tough year with Catholics, what with all that destroying religious freedom thing.

So why wouldn't the President who has already agreed to appear with the Cardinal at the Al Smith dinner have a willing Cardinal Dolan offer a benediction at the DNC? Why wouldn't he have the Cardinal there when that could easily give the impression that the President is still friendly toward the Catholic Church? continue reading...

Now That Obamacare is Just a Political Issue UPDATED

Here are three takes that summarize things fairly well.

From CATO@Liberty:

The Supreme Court ruled that ObamaCare’s individual mandate is not constitutional under the Commerce Power, which was how Congress framed the mandate to avoid a political backlash from calling it a tax. Congress and the president swore up and down that the mandate was not a tax. Yet the Court upheld the mandate as a valid use of that disavowed taxing power. What Congress said the individual mandate is, the Court said is not constitutional. What Congress said the mandate is not, the Court ruled is constitutional. Everybody got that?

Where does that leave us?

The Supreme Court just enacted a law that Congress never would have passed.
The Court just told Congress it is okay to lie to the people to avoid political accountability.

From Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List:

“From the outset, Obamacare is fundamentally flawed legislation because it makes American taxpayers complicit in the deaths of countless unborn children,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Today’s decision to uphold the individual mandate to force individuals to purchase health care plans that offend their conscience is incredibly disappointing.

“Over the last four years, President Obama has revealed his loyalty to the abortion industry. At no time was this clearer than during the health care reform debate, when he fought tenaciously for the largest expansion of taxpayer funding of abortion on demand since Roe v. Wade. As the presidential race heats up, the Susan B. Anthony List will continue to remind American voters where the President’s allegiance truly lies. We will not stop fighting until every U.S. taxpayer is freed from under-writing the abortion business.”

And, finally, Obamacare has become the largest tax increase in the history of the world (I don't think that's hyperbole). During one of the nation's largest recessions--possibly double-dipping now. If you think that will support the middle class, you are a moron. Literally. From the Greek (not the Joe Biden sense of "literally").

Update:

The USCCB sent out this text message as the bishops renew plea to repair Obamacare:

After today's ruling, the contraception mandate still remains. Keep up your prayers and action for religious freedom!

Update 2:

From National Right to Life:

“All voters who care about the value and dignity of human life must do everything they can to elect Mitt Romney and a Congress who are committed to repeal of ObamaCare,” said National Right to Life President Carol Tobias. “If President Obama wins re-election, it will mean massive abortion subsidies and it will put the lives of millions at risk through systematic government-imposed rationing of lifesaving medical care.”

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding most of the ObamaCare law is a call-to-action for the right-to-life electorate to work to elect a Congress and president this November committed to repealing ObamaCare in 2013, in order to prevent a future in which abortion insurance will be heavily subsidized by federal taxpayers and federal bureaucrats will be authorized to ration life-saving medical treatment.

Update 3:

From my congressman, Rep. John Kline:

Update 4:

From Larry Kudlow on the impact to the economy:

Twenty new or higher taxes across-the-board are bad for economic growth, bad for job hiring, bad for investors, and bad for families.

A tax is a tax is a tax, according to Judge Roberts. But he forgot to say that if you tax something more, you get less of it. ...

Obamacare is not just a huge tax hike. It’s also a major new spending entitlement that’s already pegged at $2.5 trillion and will increase the federal debt burden much faster than the GDP expands.

In other words, tax, spend, regulate, borrow. The Obama mantra. ...

Bankrupting the economy is not exactly a job-creator.

The Drone Wars

President Obama has escalated the use of drones begun by President Bush in fighting the Long War. And he continues to do so, not only in terms of frequency, but now extending them outside the original theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan (the latter of which has included Pakistan) to Yemen. Given the mobility of terrorists, we could end up chasing them with drones across the world. Jeff Mirus notes how problematic that could be, despite the obvious advantages, or, perhaps because of them:

Drone strikes have the advantage of being quite precise, and their limited firepower tends to cause less collateral damage than clumsier options. The technology enables the United States to target specific individual persons at known locations and send in a drone to “eliminate” them. Such surgical strikes have one other great advantage to the United States: They are completely robotic; they do not put our own personnel at risk. At least not directly, as part of each specific mission: the overall results may be very different.

But there are dangers, I think, in the separation of warfare from risk. Bomber pilots have long commented on the oddness of dropping their payloads on the nameless and faceless, which is so different from hand-to-hand combat. And now sending robots against living persons raises a new set of questions about what it means to be dehumanized.

And do drones make presidents trigger happy? It seems that some “terrorists” have been targeted who have not been guilty of anything but advocacy, and today’s policy of “intelligence signature strikes” permits drones to be sent out when a combination of sources indicates the presence of a member of al Quaida. One wonders how often the requirement for a “clear indication” is stretched. One wonders how often innocent persons are inadvertently targeted. It is not so long since we’ve fought an entire war based on faulty intelligence reports.

Another problem with this and other very precise military operations is that they blur the distinction between war and police work, between fighting a battle and executing a criminal. Of course, terrorism itself blurs this distinction. But the whole situation is too easily used to morally justify actions which lie outside of the just war tradition, such as preemptive strikes, whether against individual persons or nations as a whole.

Moral dangers exist on every side, including the danger of redefining enemies as criminals. One may attempt to establish friendships and alliances with enemies; one would not ordinarily do so with criminals. And when it comes to combatting terrorism, it would seem obvious that establishing friendships is at least as important as military efficiency. Which nation, I wonder, appreciates having America’s robotic drones zipping in and out whenever America wants to take out a target?

The war against terrorism is complex and many-sided. None of this is simple. But even if some drone attacks are justified, as they almost certainly are, this is a very dangerous path. Once we’ve gone down it, will we be able to return?

Santorum Endorses Romney and Signals His Impending Return to the Game

An e-mail sent to supporters:

Thank you again for all you did as one of my strongest and committed supporters. Your belief in our campaign helped us start a movement of Americans who believe deeply that our best days are ahead as long as we fight to strengthen our families, unshackle our economy and promote freedom here and around the world. Karen and I will be forever grateful for the support, kindness and commitment you showed us, as well as our children, over these last months.

On Friday, Governor Romney came to Pittsburgh for an over-hour long one-on-one meeting. The conversation was candid, collegial and focused on the issues that you helped me give voice to during our campaign; because I believe they are essential ingredients to not only winning this fall, but turning our country around.

While the issue of my endorsement did not come up, I certainly have heard from many of you who have weighed in on whether or not I should issue a formal endorsement. Thank you for your counsel, it has been most helpful. However, I felt that it was completely impossible for me to even consider an endorsement until after a meeting to discuss issues critical to those of us who often feel our voices are not heard by the establishment: social conservatives, tea-party supporters, lower and middle income working families.

Clearly without the overwhelming support from you all, I never would have won 11 states and over 3 million votes, and we would not have won more counties than all the other candidates combined. I can assure you that even though I am no longer a candidate for president, I will still continue to fight every day for our shared values - the values that made America the greatest country in the history of the world.

During our meeting I felt a deep responsibility to assess Governor Romney's commitment to addressing the issues most important to conservatives, as well his commitment to ensuring our appropriate representation in a Romney administration.

The family and its foundational role in America's economic success, a central point of our campaign, was discussed at length. I was impressed with the Governor's deep understanding of this connection and his commitment to economic policies that preserve and strengthen families. He clearly understands that having pro-family initiatives are not only the morally and economically right thing to do, but that the family is the basic building block of our society and must be preserved.

I also shared with Governor Romney my belief that we cannot restore America as the greatest economic engine the world has ever seen until we return America to being a manufacturing superpower. He listened very carefully to my advice on this matter, and while our policy prescriptions differed, he clearly expressed his desire to create more opportunities for those that are feeling left behind in this economy.

As it is often said, "personnel is policy." I strongly encouraged Governor Romney as he builds out his campaign staff and advisors that he add more conservative leaders as an integral part of his team. And you can be sure that I will work with the Governor to help him in this task to ensure he has a strong team that will support him in his conservative policy initiatives.

Of course we talked about what it would take to win this election. As you know I started almost every speech with the phrase that this was the most important election since the election of 1860 and four more years of President Obama is simply not an option. As I contemplated what further steps I will take, that reality weighed heavy on me. The America we know is being fundamentally changed to look more like a European socialist state than the land of opportunity our founding fathers established.

Freedom and personal responsibility are being replaced with big government dependency. The greatest and most productive workers in the world are being hamstrung by excessive regulations making it impossible to compete. Our healthcare system had been socialized, and the worth of each life dictated by some government bureaucrat. Our allies are insulted while our enemies are appeased. And our religious beliefs and freedom have come under attack.

What is even more troubling is what a second term of an Obama administration could bring. President Obama's admission to the Russians that he will have more flexibility in a second term can only be translated to "if you thought I was liberal in the first four years you haven't seen anything yet!"

The primary campaign certainly made it clear that Governor Romney and I have some differences. But there are many significant areas in which we agree: the need for lower taxes, smaller government, and a reduction in out-of-control spending. We certainly agree that abortion is wrong and marriage should be between one man and one woman. I am also comfortable with Governor Romney on foreign policy matters, and we share the belief that we can never allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons. And while I had concerns about Governor Romney making a case as a candidate about fighting against Obamacare, I have no doubt if elected he will work with a Republican Congress to repeal it and replace it with a bottom up, patient, not government, driven system.

Above all else, we both agree that President Obama must be defeated. The task will not be easy. It will require all hands on deck if our nominee is to be victorious. Governor Romney will be that nominee and he has my endorsement and support to win this the most critical election of our lifetime.

My conversation with Governor Romney was very productive, but I intend to keep lines of communication open with him and his campaign. I hope to ensure that the values that made America that shining city on the hill are illuminated brightly by our party and our candidates thus ensuring not just a victory, but a mandate for conservative governance.

Karen and I know firsthand how difficult the campaign trail can be particularly as governor Romney faces relentless attacks from the democrats. We have been praying for him and his family and will continue to do so in the weeks and months ahead.

Thank you again for all you have done for us, and I look forward to working together to defeat President Obama this fall and to protect faith, family, freedom and opportunity in America.
With Gratitude,

Rick Santorum

P.S. As promised, very soon we will be making another big announcement, and I will be asking you to once again join forces with me to keep up the fight, together. Stay tuned.

Going Back to That Amazing Statistic: 92.3 Percent of all the Jobs Lost During the Obama Years have been Lost by Women

It's been a couple of weeks since Mitt Romney peddled that point to counter the gender gap meme, with reasonable success. Now, while it does not demonstrate that a real "War on Women" is being waged by the Obama Administration, as Mr. Romney asserted, it is worth noting two things:

1. The statistic is real.
2. President Obama owns it.

Women have lost 92.3% of all the jobs lost since Barack Obama took office. The Administration and its allies in the media are quick to point out that that fact doesn't tell the whole story, and, in a rare moment of clarity, argue that the context does matter, at least in this case.

Yes, yes, yes:

• The recession began in early 2008, well before Obama became president.
• Recessions generally hit men first by beginning with traditional male jobs like construction, well before traditional female jobs, like teaching, are affected.
• The number of jobless men resulting from the Great Recession is 2x that of women.

*** Sidebar 1

This is one of those instances-so-rare-they-occur-as-often-as-random-mutation-and-natural-selection-leads-to-a-new-species, i.e., an admission from the left that there is such a thing as traditional male and female jobs, or even (non-derisively) "tradition," for that matter.

*** End sidebar 1

Therefore, in the proper context, that 92.3% of all the jobs lost since Barack Obama took office is nothing more than a curious numerical artifact. And only shows how big a mess he inherited from George W. Bush.

*** Sidebar 2

Of course, the Administration would prefer to play the correlation is causation game like this:

(image source: Matthias Shapiro, politicalmathblog.com)

But then that leaves them open to this:

(image source: Matthias Shapiro, politicalmathblog.com)

*** End sidebar 2

This is where the ownership question enters. Now, there are actual limits to how much a president "owns" the state of the economy. In fact, he does not deserve all the credit for when things go well, nor does he deserve all the blame when they don't go well. But consider this:

• Prior to being president, Barack Obama advocated for the very policies that led to the financial crisis that triggered the recession.
• While running for president, Barack Obama participated actively in the discussions regarding the diagnosis and the prescription for the financial crisis.
• As a US Senator, while running for president, Barack Obama voted for the TARP bail-outs.
• As president-elect and president, Barack Obama advocated for the $800 billion so-called stimulus, including, with his surrogates, making claims that the stimulus would prevent the unemployment rate from exceeding 8%.

 OK. So what?

The president claiming he inherited the financial crisis is a bit like the son who was working as a manager for the company that was augering in before the old man died and who then had the gall to complain that he inherited such a lousy company.

Nevertheless, the recession didn't start on his watch and that will allot him the benefit of the doubt with many people. What was on President Obama's watch, however, with him being the Mr. Cool, Wizard of Smart, that he's alleged (hoped?) to be, was that the recession wasn't supposed to be that deep, or certainly not that long and that deep, such that the job losses were never supposed to migrate from those traditional male jobs to traditional female jobs.

That's what. Those female job losses were never supposed to happen.

The president got the Keynesian stimulus he wanted, and he's had 3+ years to "pivot to jobs." In the context that the nation's biggest issue continues to be the economy and jobs, the women's jobless rate being so dramatically affected since Obama took office is but one way to keep that issue front and center during the campaign. And we don't need a dead-cat bounce before we look for the many ways to skin that cat.