Tuesday Links

We now resemble the socialist bureaucracy of the EU, with major policy decisions being made by unelected bureaucrats - and indeed, policy decisions that contravene the will of our elected representatives. Apparently, the Republicans plan to fight this with the Congressional Review Act of 1996 (thanks for that one, Newt), which will allow them an opportunity to force a vote on approval of the most outrageous recent acts. I would argue, though, that democracy demands that there should be congressional review and approval of all regulations before they become binding.

Related - This from Thomas Sowell: "The Constitution of the United States begins with the words "We the people." But neither the Constitution nor "we the people" will mean anything if politicians and judges can continue to do end runs around both."

From Powerline: Like NPR, PBS is a media adjunct of the Democratic Party.

Larry Bell at Forbes ponders: "as 2010 draws to a close, do you remember hearing any good news from the mainstream media about climate? Like maybe a headline proclaiming "Record Low 2009 and 2010 Cyclonic Activity Reported: Global Warming Theorists Perplexed"? Or "NASA Studies Report Oceans Entering New Cooling Phase: Alarmists Fear Climate Science Budgets in Peril"?


The major accomplishment of the 111th Congress - increasing our national debt by nearly 60%, in excess of $5 trillion, in 4 years. That is, as Q&O points out, "more debt added than any other Congress in the history of our country and more than all of the first 100 combined."

While the EPA goes to war with Texas over its power grab to regulate plant food, and while the same EPA continues its war on our energy infrastructure, the "former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, says Americans could be paying $5 for a gallon of gasoline by 2012."

Fareed Zakaria is shilling for a VAT tax in America. Its clear that he is approaching this from a statist viewpoint, but I happen to agree that we should adopt a VAT or sales tax, with the caveat that it would replace the insane tax system we have now that punishes wealth creation and savings.

Mark Helprin on "America's Dangerous Rush to Shrink Its Military Power." This has long been a wet dream of the far left - and they are pushing it hard. If they succeed, you can rest assured that we will eventually pay the price for it in blood and gold.

From Counting Cats, looking at the left's stranglehold on education in the West and its ramifications: "Only by attacking the enemy at the source of their power (by breaking the iron grip they have over schools and universities) can the cultural and political power of the left really be broken. Unless that happens, no amount of economic or social failure will really undermine the doctrines of “leftism”. In short - civilization will fall, and a new Dark Age will start. A Dark Age on a global (not just European) scale."

It is eminently clear that Barack Hussein Obama's views of Islam have been colored by what he experienced when he was living in Indonesia. But with the influx of Islamic radicals, Indonesia as a model of religious tolerance is a thing of the past.

In NYC, the best laid plans of mice and men go awry when the Mayor seems more intent on pointing fingers then lifting one to solve the problems brought on by 4 ft of global warming.

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Congress: Stop Us Before We Steal Again

A bit of catch up blogging. Talk about your admission against interest - not that it was anything we didn't know already.



In one sense, this is a bipartisan message. Certainly our cast of Republicans in Congress spent our money like drunken sailors when they controlled the purse strings, and its why their base let them hang in 2006. But they aren't even in the same league as Democrats, who make any analogy to drunken sailors grossly inaccurate in as much as it does not begin to capture their capacity for profligacy.

It is also a full and complete explanation of how Obama and the left could pass Obamacare in the face of a massive fiscal crisis and a national debt that threatens the stability of our nation. They simply choose to ignore it and keep rooting at the trough.

This also means that there is a fundamental and systemic failure in our body politic that, if not fixed, bodes an ill wind indeed for the future of our country.

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A Cromwellian Speech In NY

Is NY Gov. David Paterson channeling Oliver Cromwell? If you listened to his state of the state speech you might think so. Patterson is not as flowerly in his damnation, but the spirit is the same. Here is an overlay of Patterson's speech from a NYT article with Cromwell's speech to Parliament in 1653:

In a strikingly blunt State of the State address, Gov. David A. Paterson chastised the lawmakers seated before him . . . saying they had spent the state into near-ruin and stood by as a plague of political corruption destroyed New Yorkers’ trust in their government.

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Their reluctance to make hard decisions and rein in its own excesses had plunged the state even deeper into crisis. “You have left me and other governors no choice. Whether it be by vetoes or delayed spending, I will not write bad checks, and we will not mortgage our children’s future.” . . . “No longer are we going to run New York like a payday loan operation,”

“Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth

“Prosperity hides all manner of sin, but no longer. We have to rise to the highest expectation of our people and bring them the lasting change they have long, long fought for and desired.” New York is facing a fiscal crisis decades in the making and a $7 billion shortfall projected for the coming year. Last year, buoyed in part by federal stimulus aid, state officials increased total spending by nearly 9 percent, even as the economy faltered and revenues plummeted.

Lawmakers had too often bowed to the wishes of powerful special interests, feeding an “addiction to spending, power and approval” and plunging the state into economic catastrophe. The moneyed interests — many are here today as guests — have got to understand that their days of influence in this town are numbered.

“Ye sordid prostitutes, have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd; your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean Stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings, and which by God's help and the strength He has given me, I now come to do.

“Some say that we will not succeed — that the story has already been written and the ending is ordained,” Mr. Paterson told the lawmakers, . . . “But story lines change, and people change.”

- - - Gov. David Patterson, State of the State Speech, 6 Jan. 2010

“I command ye, therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. You have sat here too long for the good you do. In the name of God, go!”

- - - Oliver Cromwell's speech dismissing Parliament, 20 April 1653

Not a bad speech at all by Gov. Patterson, though it would have been far more dramatic if he had just dusted off Cromwell's and finished by tossing the lot out into the street at bayonet point. But, this was at least a good start.

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