If You are Thankful for Your Job, Hug a Billionaire

OWS and the Obama administration are continuing their juvenile class warfare rhetoric designed to trick the stupid into thinking they really care about poor people and the middle class. But the more they talk about how much money they should allow the "millionaires and billionaires" to keep, the more they resemble a gang of thieves sitting around talking about how much stuff they should take when they break into your house tonight and how much they should leave in place.

A healthy society is a free society and in a healthy, free society there will be more millionaires and billionaires every year. This is a good thing and a sign of a prosperous society. In a static or declining society the number of millionaires and billionaires will stay the same or shrink year by year and that is not a good society for anybody to live in.

Millionaires and billionaires (hereafter M&B's) play an essential role in the economy and in a capitalistic society there is an incentive for them to invest their wealth in socially beneficial ways rather than hoarding it. The capital gains tax is too high in the US right now, which discourages risky investment in the kind of start-up companies that could employ more people if given a chance to succeed. But Warren Buffet wants to increase it further, which would be sure to increase unemployment. Yet he is seen by socialists as a hero! This is nonsensical.

Look, when a person goes to invest his money there are lots of blue chip stocks and bonds that offer low to moderate returns and little risk. There are also other possible investments in start-up companies or ones that want to expand. They offer a possibility of high returns but say 3 out of every 5 will go bankrupt. So in order for it to be worthwhile investing in the risky options the return on the investment in the 2 of 5 risky businesses that don't go bankrupt will have to be higher than the safe return on blue chip stocks and bonds. The rate at which this investment will be taxed is crucial. It is one of the big variables in deciding what is rational to do. It is a matter of math, not emotion.

So, if a country has lots of M&B's and a low capital gains rate, then its small businesses that want to start up or expand will have a ready pool of investment capital available and the result will be job creation, which is good for the poor and the middle class. But if a country decides to tax the M&B's down to middle class levels with high capital gains and other taxes, then the economy will stagnate, which is bad for the poor and the middle class.

Giving a few hundred dollars to middle class people, as Obama wants to do by extending the payroll tax break, does nothing to provide investment capital for small businesses. That money will get saved, used to pay down debt or, in the best scenario, spent on consumer goods. The most it can do to help the economy in the short term is to stimulate demand for consumer goods. But it cannot help spur investment.

The problem is that OWS and the Democrats are framing this issue in emotional/moral terms. They claim it is an issue of fairness. Do you want to help the M&B's save money or do you want to help struggling middle class families? But it is not that simple. What if the best way to help provide employment is to stimulate investment by lowering the capital gains tax? But that messes up the overly-simplistic narrative the liberals/socialists construct to justify higher the taxes needed to pay for increasing entitlement programs.

Every time I hear the "Tax the 1%" meme, I feel personally threatened. I feel as though someone is out to destroy the economy and create the kind of conditions in which I could, potentially, lose my job. The war against the rich is really a war against the middle class and it is based on emotional manipulation, rather than reason. The people who are involved in it may be sincere, but they are much too gullible.

Maybe economics should be a compulsory subject in high school and maybe we ought to start purging socialists out of our universities so that free market principles once again dominate the curriculum. OWS and liberal/socialist propaganda is getting out of hand and people are getting hurt.

In the meantime, if you are thankful for your job, hug a millionaire or billionaire. Or at least don't demonize them.

Remember When They Said the Tea Party was Weird?

Check out this interview of a Maoist and a Marxist at Occupy Philadelphia from Michelle Malkin's blog.

The Maoist thinks the figures of people killed by Communist regimes in the 20th century are "made up." The Marxist thinks we just can't know what happened. How very convenient; I wonder if he is a 9/11 Truther too.



It is interesting that Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and other leading Democrats up to and including the president are rushing to embrace Occupy Wall Street. I agree with George Will who said he hoped the movement lasts and that the Democrats continue to cuddle up to it. It will make electing Republicans so much easier in November 2012.

Clearly, the OWS movement is bringing out every weirdo in town to join in an orgy of self-pity by aggrieved self-proclaimed victims. That is the way Democrats build "coalitions" out of victim groups. But somehow I just don't think these victims will generate much sympathy from independent voters in the middle of a recession. And I can't see Mitt Romney shaking in his boots at having to go up against Barack Obama and his pal "Rainbow Boy."

Mind you, I could be wrong. Maybe gender-confused Maoists and hippie Marxists straight out of central casting will turn out to be the Democrats' secret weapon.

The Real Agenda of the Left: What Do They Really Want?

I'm so glad that Barack Obama made that speech last winter about how we need a more civil tone in politics with less partisanship, less violent rhetoric and less demonizing of the opposition. I complemented him for it at the time here.

So let's just check out how things are going in terms of contemporary political discourse. I considered many statements by left-wing looney tunes but these three seemed to be the worst.

1. Here is Michael Moore calling for the government to go after rich people and lead them away in handcuffs. What for? For committing crimes? No, for being rich. He wants the US to be like countries like Cuba or the USSR where the government can just take your wealth away if they feel like doing so. I can't embed the video, but you can see it here. It is just over 2 minutes of totalitarian propaganda.

2. Here is North Carolina Democratic Governor Bev Perdue calling for congressional elections to be suspended so congress can do what it wants to get the country back on track without worrying about answering to voters. Watch it here.

3. Here is Roseanne "Robespierre" Barr advocating re-education camps and ultimately beheadings for "the rich."



So Michael Moore is a moderate Marxist because he just wants the rich jailed, whereas Roseanne Barr is the radical Marxist who wants them beheaded. And an elected Democratic Governor calls for suspending elections.

It is good every once in a while to reflect on what the opposition is like and why the culture wars matter. If good people sit back and do nothing, it is possible to see great evil unleashed in our midst. November 2012 can't come soon enough.

American Jews Must Choose Between Israel and Obama

Last night's shocking election of a Republican in a Brooklyn-Queens district in New York City in the special election to replace the disgraced Anthony Wiener should be a huge wake-up call for President Obama. The district is mainly blue-collar, heavily Catholic and Orthodox Jewish, and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 3:1 margin. This is a very big deal for Obama's re-election chances next year.

The three biggest issues were Obama and the economy, Obama and Israel and the Democratic candidate's support for same-sex marriage in the New York state legislature. It was a clearly a referendum on Obama. Two former mayors of New York, Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani both endorsed the Republican, Bob Turner. The mismanagement of the economy by the Obama administration is obvious. What I want to focus on is Obama's obvious anti-Israel stance and how is may affect the upcoming presidential election.

Dan Senor of the Wall Street Journal lists the evidence of anti-Israel bias on the part of Obama. I quote it extensively because it is so concise and so clearly damning.

• February 2008: When running for president, then-Sen. Obama told an audience in Cleveland: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel." Likud had been out of power for two years when Mr. Obama made this statement. At the time the country was being led by the centrist Kadima government of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Olmert had been pursuing an unprecedented territorial compromise. As for Likud governments, it was under Likud that Israel made its largest territorial compromises—withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza.

• July 2009: Mr. Obama hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, reportedly telling them that he sought to put "daylight" between America and Israel. "For eight years"—during the Bush administration—"there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished," he declared.

Nothing? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted thousands of settlers from their homes in Gaza and the northern West Bank and deployed the Israeli army to forcibly relocate their fellow citizens. Mr. Sharon then resigned from the Likud Party to build a majority party based on a two-state consensus.

In the same meeting with Jewish leaders, Mr. Obama told the group that Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection." This statement stunned the Americans in attendance: Israeli society is many things, but lacking in self-reflection isn't one of them. It's impossible to envision the president delivering a similar lecture to Muslim leaders.

• September 2009: In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama devoted five paragraphs to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, during which he declared (to loud applause) that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." He went on to draw a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. There was not a single unconditional criticism of Palestinian terrorism.

• March 2010: During Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, a Jerusalem municipal office announced plans for new construction in a part of Jerusalem. The president launched an unprecedented weeks-long offensive against Israel. Mr. Biden very publicly departed Israel.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a now-infamous 45-minute phone call, telling him that Israel had "harmed the bilateral relationship." (The State Department triumphantly shared details of the call with the press.) The Israeli ambassador was dressed-down at the State Department, Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy canceled his trip to Israel, and the U.S. joined the European condemnation of Israel.

Moments after Mr. Biden concluded his visit to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority held a ceremony to honor Dalal Mughrabi, who led one of the deadliest Palestinian terror attacks in history: the so-called Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38, including 13 children and an American. The Obama administration was silent. But that same day, on ABC, Mr. Axelrod called Israel's planned construction of apartments in its own capital an "insult" and an "affront" to the United States. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on Fox News to accuse Mr. Netanyahu of "weakening trust" between the two countries.

Ten days later, Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Washington to mend fences but was snubbed at a White House meeting with President Obama—no photo op, no joint statement, and he was sent out through a side door.

• April 2010: Mr. Netanyahu pulled out of the Obama-sponsored Washington summit on nuclear proliferation after it became clear that Turkey and Egypt intended to use the occasion to condemn the Israeli nuclear program, and Mr. Obama would not intervene.

• March 2011: Mr. Obama returned to his habit of urging Israelis to engage in self-reflection, inviting Jewish community leaders to the White House and instructing them to "search your souls" about Israel's dedication to peace.

• May 2011: The State Department issued a press release declaring that the department's No. 2 official, James Steinberg, would be visiting "Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank." In other words, Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Later in the month, only hours before Mr. Netanyahu departed from Israel to Washington, Mr. Obama delivered his Arab Spring speech, which focused on a demand that Israel return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders with land swaps.

Jews in the US are going to have to choose between left-wing ideology and support for the Jewish people and their national homeland in the next election. For conservative Jews it is a no-brainer, but for those who lean toward socialism it is wrenching. I only hope that this becomes the occasion for many of them to realize that left-wing ideology is inherently incompatible with the vision of human rights, democracy and political liberalism they cherish.

Will Circumcision Be Made Illegal in San Francisco?

A group in left-wing San Francisco is trying to ban circumcision. This is a blatant attack on freedom of religion and is obviously anti-Jewish. Yet, it seems that, in San Francisco at least, people are quite open about their views and quite unconcerned about charges of anti-semitism. Here is an ABC News report in which the campaigners are quite open and willing to talk to the press.

It is rather chilling when Mr. Schofield is asked by the reporter: "Don't you think the parents ought to be able to make that decision" he replies: "We think the owner of the penis should be able to make that decision." This is highly significant because in effect he said "No, parents should not be able to practice their religion with their children." Of course, the child can make no decision at the age of 8 days and when he is 18 years old it is much to late to be circumcised according to Jewish law. So, who is making the decision here? Mr. Schofield and his anti-Jewish friends are. What is worse, they are trying to use the state to enforce their religious views on everyone else.

But it gets worse still. The New York Daily News reports that the group behind the ballot question in San Francisco has released a comic centered on a very blond and white looking "Foreskin Man" who does battle with an evil, Shylock look-alike named "Monster Mohel." See the picture here.

A politically motivated comic book pitting a blond superhero called "Foreskin Man" against a sinister-looking "Monster Mohel" is causing a serious flap in California.

The colorful series was created by the "intactivist" group MGMBill.org as part of its campaign to ban circumcision through ballot initiatives.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is blasting it as overtly anti-Semitic.

"'Foreskin Man,' with its grotesque anti-Semitic imagery and themes, reaches a new low and is disrespectful and deeply offensive," Nancy J. Appel, ADL Associate Regional Director, said in a statement Friday.

The online series portrays a menacing-looking mohel - someone specially trained to perform the traditional Jewish circumcision ceremony - waving bloody scissors over a screaming baby laid out on a pool table.

Appel said the imagery invokes the "age-old anti-Semitic canards" such as the blood libel, the accusation that Jews ritually murder Christian children.

Matthew Hess, the president of MGMBill and the series creator, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

His San Diego-based group has an anti-circumcision measure on the ballot in San Francisco's next election in November

The Left-wing cultural revolution of the 1960s started out calling for more liberties. But at a certain point, the revolution began eating itself. Now it calls for restrictions on speech regularly and has even come to the point of calling for restrictions on the practice of religion.

In a not-directly-but certainly-indirectly-related bit of news today, we learn that the Progressive Democrats of America has endorsed the Hamas Flotilla II. The following elected Democratic members of congress sit on the board of the Progressive Democrats of America: John Conyers, Donna Edwards, Raul Grijalva, Barbara Lee, Jim McGovern, Lynn Woolsey, and Dennis Kucinich.

What is disturbing is that socialist anti-semites could be so blatantly out in the open and participating in mainstream society. They are just as great a threat to a free society as Islamic Jihadits. Whether it would be worse to live under Islamic Sharia Law or Marxist Political Correctness is like living in Poland in 1939 and wondering if Stalin would be worse than Hitler.

Obama versus the Democratic Party

Obama might want to think again before calling for more bi-partisanship on Capitol Hill. Every time there is a bi-partisan consensus, it seems to be aimed at him. (A case in point would be his budget being defeated in the Senate by a vote of 97-0, which must be some kind of record.)

Now, a bi-partisan ad from the Emergency Committee for Israel shows the bi-partisan consensus against Obama's support for the Palestinian extremists dedicated to Israel's destruction.



I've said it before and it remains true: when you manage to place yourself to the left of Harry Reid you are not just out in left field, you are outside the ball park altogether across the river sloshing around in the drug-fueled, fever swamps of 60s radicalism.

When will the adults take control of the Democratic Party back from the fanatics?

Obama, Israel and the Spirit of 68: The Leftist Takeover of the American Presidency

Thomas Sowell is a great economist and a great thinker. Author of dozens of books, including the widely used Basic Economics, Sowell is expert at puncturing the pomposity and self-congratulatory smugness of the Left. In this article, Seductive Beliefs Part II, he puts Barack Obama's disdain for Israel in its wider context.

What makes Obama tick is not in any way unique or novel. He is just like the millions of white middle class left-wingers, the generation of '68, in his view of the world. That world view is one of of resentment, envy, class division, anti-colonialism, anti-patriarchalism, anti-Westernism and anti-capitalism. It is a worldview in which the world is divided neatly into victims and oppressors; everybody must be one or the other. Victims are hardly even moral agents; they are just passive absorbers of the actions of the oppressors. Those who hold this worldview see themselves as, in Dostoevesky's acid phrase, "saviors of mankind."

Sowell writes:

Obama's declaration that Israel must give up the land it acquired, after neighboring countries threatened its survival in 1967, is completely consistent with both his ideology of many years and his previous actions as President of the United States.

Whether as a radical student, community organizer or a far left politician, Barack Obama's ideology has been based on a vision of the Haves versus the Have Nots. However complex the ramifications of this ideology, and however clever the means by which Obama has camouflaged it, that is what it has amounted to.

No wonder he was moved to tears when the Reverend Jeremiah Wright summarized that ideology in a thundering phrase-- "white folks' greed runs a world in need."

Israel is one of the Haves. Its neighbors remain among the Have Nots, despite their oil. No wonder that Barack Obama has bent over backward, in addition to bowing low forward, to support the side that his ideology favors.

Whether at home or abroad, Obama's ideology is an ideology of envy, resentment and payback.

Israel is not simply to have its interests sacrificed and its security undermined. It is to be brought down a peg and-- to the extent politically possible-- insulted. Obama has already done all these things. His latest pronouncement is just more of the same.

One of the first acts of Barack Obama as president was to send money to the Palestinians, money that can be used to buy rockets to fire into Israel, irrespective of the rationale for the money.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A photograph that should tell us a lot about Barack Obama shows him on the phone, talking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Obama was seated, leaning back in his chair, with his feet up on the desk, and the soles of his feet pointed directly at the camera. In the Middle East, showing the soles of your feet is an insult, as Obama undoubtedly knows.

This photograph was no accident. Photographers cannot roam around White House, willy-nilly, taking snapshots of the President of the United States as he talks to leaders of foreign nations.

It was a photograph with a message. No one would have known who was on the other end of the line, unless Obama wanted them to know -- and wanted to demonstrate his disdain.

Prime Minister Netanyahu's visits to the White House have been unlike previous Israeli leaders' visits to the White House, and certainly unlike the pomp and circumstance accompanying other nations' leaders' visits to the White House over the years.

After one of his meetings with Netanyahu, Barack Obama simply told the prime minister that he was going upstairs to have dinner. You wouldn't say that to an ordinary neighbor visiting in your home, without inviting him to join you.

Obama knew that. Netanyahu knew that. It was a calculated insult. And the American public would have heard about it, if so much of the media didn't have such a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil and speak-no-evil attitude in its coverage of Barack Obama.

Defenders of Obama have argued that Obama has not taken away all of America's aid to Israel and has maintained the America-Israel alliance - as if it were likely that Obama would be able, in two and a half years, to undo the ties between America and Israel that have grown up over more than half a century. But the American support for Israel is not something Obama created and it was not created by people like him. The Left has never supported Israel, even though, ironically, much of the intellectual leadership of Israel are themselves left-wing.

I would suggest that Obama's attitude is completely typical of those who have been educated in the humanities and social science departments of those Western universities that have been, in large part, taken over by 60s left-wing radicals. They share a set of prejudices, beliefs and perspectives which are cookie-cutter replicas of the worldview promulgated by the cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School. Critical thinking is on the wane in contemporary universities and group think is on the increase.

Obama's worldview is the worldview of the academic establishment today. What we are seeing is the infiltration of the 60s leftists into yet another American institution: the presidency. Whether Obama or Hilary Clinton was nominated by the Democrats in 2008 is less important than the fact that the New Left, using Alinsky tactics instead of the old tactics of violence and confrontation, has come to control one of the two major parties in the United States.

The task for the Conservative movement in the US is to create the conditions necessary for the taking back of the Democratic Party by centrists and the way to do that is to make the leftist-controlled Democratic Party permanently unelectable. A giant step was taken toward that goal in November 2010. The string of defections from the Democratic to the Republican Party throughout the South was indicative of the fact that many local politicians perceived that the Democratic Party, as presently constituted, was finished in their area.

When enough Congressional districts are unwilling to elect anything but a conservative, the Democratic Party will be unable to gain a majority without a strong contingent of fiscal and social conservatives in its caucus. Then, when that contingent is big enough and finds a competent leader, it can drive the leftists to the fringes of the party and perhaps drive them out of the party. Only at that point will America be safe from leftist activism and only then will the cultural revolution that has been flowing for 50 years begin to ebb. And only then will America's finances be reformed in such a way that it will be safe from the economic collapse that threatens the European social democratic experiment.

The Tea Party Goes to Washington to Create a New Center

To hear the Democrats tell it, the Tea Party is "extreme." They even agreed in caucus to all use that word over and over again and no doubt their supporters in the mainstream media were instructed to hammer away at the label continuously too. The goal was to try to separate Independents and Moderates from the Tea Party by painting the Tea Party as extreme - which is what Independents and Moderates don't want to be. Many Independents and Moderates are basically confused about politics and illiterate about economics. They just want jobs and stability and not too many wars, although when there is a war they want to win it decisively and quickly.

So the Democratic strategy is clear: paint the Tea Party as extreme and hope to discredit "wild eyed and extreme" ideas such as balancing the budget by cutting spending and slowing the rate of growth of big government. The problem is clear, however, for the Democrats. Most Americans (upwards of 70%) don't think such ideas are "extreme." In fact, they think they are as American as apple pie and motherhood.

Thus, despite Democrats' (and their media and cultural elites allies') best efforts, we get polls like yesterday's CNN poll, in which 50% of Americans said that the Tea Party's influence is positive. (HT John McCormack at The Weekly Standard)

Let's look a little closer at the Tea Party phenomenon. What is it about? It seems to be centered on a belief in limited government and maximal individual freedom. I don't get the sense that the majority in the Tea Party want to completely dismantle the social safety net, but I definitely get the impression that they want to limit the future growth of the welfare state and roll back some entitlement programs, perhaps by means testing them. They don't want to see handicapped, elderly and sick people go without help, but they don't think that helping those truely in need requires or justifies endless multiplication of government bureaucracy, skyrocketing public debt or a government that costs higher and higher percentages of the GDP.

Now, I don't find any of this particularly extreme. It is a different choice than Europe has made. Clearly, it is the repudiation of the European social democratic welfare state and it is a uniquely American vision of government and society. The Democrats view Europe as "normal" and anything that fails to measure up to that vision as somehow inadequate. But anyone who actually dissents from acknowledging Europe as the obvious end goal is not just inadequate or a dissenter - such a person is "extreme." To be skeptical that we can get there immediately is all right, but to disagree on the destination in principle - especially on the basis of principle - is utterly beyond the pale for Democrats.

Within the Democratic party there is a spectrum that runs from the left - which is ideologically socialist and views European social democracy as too mild - to the center - which views European social democracy as immediately achievable - to the right - which supports moving incrementally and cautiously as far toward European style social democracy as is feasible. This third group comes from red states where their task is to get elected by voters, a majority of whom do not like the ideology of the Democratic Party. These are the so-called "Blue Dogs." For them the recent health care reform was too close to socialism for electoral comfort and many of them paid the electoral price for voting for it.

For the entire 20th century there has been a socialist party in America. It has, like the NDP in Canada, exercised influence far beyond its numbers. At certain points in the century the socialists have been separate from the Democratic Party and at other points they have worked within the Democratic Party. Right now, the socialists form the left wing of the Democratic Party. This is the New Left, which emerged in the 60s after the public acknowledgment of the crimes of Stalin did so much to discredit the Old Left. Having lost at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the New Left decided to get involved in the party at local and state levels and has wielded huge influence ever since.

Today, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is co-chaired by Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (AR) and Keith Ellison (MN) and includes one senator (Bernie Sanders of VT) and 74 members of the House of Representatives (out of 193 Democrats - 38%). Although the November election resulted in a net gain of 63 for the Republicans, most of the Progressive Caucus members were returned because they come from the deepest blue states on either coast and in university towns. Thus, the House (and Congress as a whole) is much more conservative, but the Democratic congressional caucus is more tilted toward socialism than before.

The Tea Party is evolving into a party within a party much like the socialist leaning wing of the Democratic Party. The Tea Party Caucus, which began on July 6, 2010 with Rep. Michelle Bachman as chair now has 59 House members and 4 Senate members. A number of high-profile Tea Party favorites, such as Senators Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and Ron Johnson (WI), have declined to join the caucus, apparently because they still entertain hopes of taking over the Republican Party as a whole instead of functioning as an interest group within it. Whether they are justified in their goal or not remains to be seen.

I think that the Tea Party movement, unlike the Democratic Socialists of America, is a genuinely grass roots movement that represents the majority of Americans. The main role of the Tea Party caucus will be to balance out the extremes of the New Left in the Democratic Party and force the centrists of both parties to work together to avoid gridlock.

But this will not be easy because of the vast influence the New Left has within the Democratic Party. Like conservative Republicans, who hope to gain control of the entire Republican Party, they are working to make democratic socialism the center of the Democratic Party and to brand all limited government, libertarian, traditional conservative and social conservative ideas as "extreme."

In this environment, the Tea Party is a necessary bulwark against extremism and an authentically American populist movement that stands for continuity and tradition. Contrary to what the spin doctors would have you believe, the long term effect of the Tea Party on American politics will likely be to prevent the moving of the center of American politics to the left and even to nudge it back a bit toward the right. This would place the Socialists, not the Tea Party, outside the mainstream and make the status quo the center, conservatism the right and European-style social democracy the left.

This may not sound dramatic, but it will have huge, global effects if it happens.

1. It will save America from a sovereign debt crisis like the EU is currently experiencing.
2. It will likely prevent the implementation of homosexual marriage.
3. It will likely end the current abortion extremism by ensuring that a conservative Supreme Court throws it back to the States to regulate.
4. It will ensure that American military power does not decline and this will mean peace and stability instead of war and revolution for great swaths of the globe.
5. It will likely mean that Israel will survive instead of being annihilated in war.
6. And, finally, it will likely mean that as Islam overruns Europe, America will stand firmly as a place where Christians experience freedom and the ability to maintain institutions of higher learning and missionary outreach.

The Tea Party drives progressives crazy, not because it is extreme, but because it exposes their own extremism and their fundamental disconnect with mainstream American voters.

Why Obama's Foreign Policy is Such a Mess

Iran is on the brink of getting nuclear weapons and its declared goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Islamists are seizing power throughout the Middle East. Turkey has turned away from the West to rediscover its inner Islamofascism. Israel is increasingly isolated. China owns more and more of the debt of the US as the US drowns in ever-increasing deficits. Obama announces a withdrawal date from Afghanistan, which encourages the Taliban to hold on. Pakistan is in chaos as usual. North Korea is restless. Nobody fears the US, especially the radical Islamists, who have sized Obama up and concluded that he is a paper tiger. The UK descends into relativism and anti-Christian cultural Marxism while the US gives its former main ally the back of its hand. Obama bows to dictators and then acts in such a way as to make sure we know it wasn't just symbolic. The French are more decisive in Libya than the US. - the French, for heaven's sake!

What an unbelievable mess: Barack Obama makes George Bush look like George Washington!

George Weigel has a wonderful post at National Review Online explaining the worldview of the currently dominant wing of the Democratic Party. It is entitled: "How Democrats View the World." He writes:

"Those ideas have a precise and definable origin: They first emerged when the New Left challenged the Truman/Acheson/Kennedy/(Scoop) Jackson Democratic consensus during the Vietnam War. In softer forms, they then became the new orthodoxy among Democratic foreign-policy mandarins like Cyrus Vance and Warren Christopher. Despite the fiascos to which these ideas led during the Carter and Clinton administrations (cf. the Iran hostage crisis and the American inability to prevent genocide in the Balkans), and despite the efforts of some in the old Democratic Leadership Council to change the intellectual template of Democratic foreign-policy thinking, these bad ideas have shown a remarkable resilience. They remain operative at all levels of the Obama foreign-policy team; they explain a great deal of what otherwise seems inexplicably stupid over the past several weeks; and they must be challenged by any 2012 Republican presidential candidate serious about American leadership in the world."

He then lists eight ideas:

1. Conflict is not the normal political phenomenon that it was assumed to be for millennia. Conflict is an aberration, and if there is conflict between nations or blocks of nations, or within nations, it must be because of some palpable injustice, the remedying of which will assuage the conflict in question and restore the natural order, which is peace.

2. Peace is not a matter of a rightly ordered and law-governed political community; rather, “peace” is a state of mind that can be willed into being.

3. The notion that the United States should actively seek to shape world politics is pernicious, not for the old isolationist reason that it’s bad for us, but because we tend to be bad for the world. Thus the United States should withdraw from the leadership role it has played in world affairs since 1941, scale down its military commitments, eventually end its work as global sheriff . . .

4. The use of armed force is almost always a bad idea and reflects, not the intractability of certain situations to other forms of conflict-resolution, but a failure of imagination and will on the part of U.S. policymakers. Moreover, if a combination of pressures compels the occasional use of force, the prime strategic imperative is to devise an exit strategy that will end the use of force at the earliest possible moment.

5. The present state system should be replaced by some form of international governance, in which multilateral and international bodies play the leading role.

6. The primary responsibility of U.S. policymakers is to advance the construction of a multilaterally organized and run international order, not to defend and advance the interests of the United States.

7. With the Cold War (which was in no small part Harry Truman’s fault) now over, there is no power, group of powers, or ideology that poses any grave threat to the United States.

8. We are not the indispensable nation. There is nothing morally or politically distinctive, much less special, about the American democratic experiment in ordered liberty. So there is no distinctively American approach to world politics, and the United States ought not seek any distinctive role in 21st-century world affairs.

He expand on each one briefly. Read it all here.

It is obvious that the intellectual father of these ideas is not Augustine, but the modern anti-Augustine: J. J. Rousseau. It is also obvious that these ideas are incompatible with a Christian worldview, in which evil is real, original sin is universal and peace is an elusive goal in this present age. The roots of these ideas are Utopianism and Pelagianism.

No wonder Obama's foreign policy is such a disaster. It is not because he is inexperienced or because the world is particularly bad right now, it is because his beliefs are wrong and his worldview does not correspond to reality. Bad ideas lead to death, destruction, tyranny, injustice and war.

How Liberals/Progressives Think

This would be funny if it weren't so sad. (HT to NewsReal Blog)

Conservatives Represent Minorities

Here are some extremely interesting statistics about which major US party actually is more representative of the entire nation including minorities. Just as the Democratic Party cannot speak for women when it is under the thumb of radical, pro-abortion activists, so it cannot speak for minorities when its political philosophy is to the right of many minority Americans.

Josh Kraushaar writes:

Here's a statistic to pore over this Thanksgiving weekend: In 2011, there will be more Republican minorities holding governorships, Senate seats and representing majority-white House districts than Democrats.

There are only 18 elected officials who fit that category -- 10 Republican, eight Democratic. Republicans got a major diversity boost from the midterms, seeing their ranks of minorities expand from one (Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal) to nine, with the elections of Govs.-elect Susana Martinez (R-N.M.), Nikki Haley (R-S.C.), Brian Sandoval (R-Nev.), Sen.-elect Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Reps.-elect Jaime Herrera (R-Wash.), Bill Flores (R-Texas), Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Allen West (R-Fla.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.).

Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) heads the Democratic list of minority elected officials winning white voters, along with Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) -- and Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Andre Carson (D-Ind.) and David Wu (D-Ore.).

Overall, the clear majority of minorities in Congress are Democrats. But the numbers above reflect an inconvenient reality that, even with their much more diverse caucus, Democrats face similar challenges as Republicans in recruiting, nominating and electing minority candidates to statewide office and in suburban and rural districts that are majority-white. The vast majority of Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus members hail from urban districts where it doesn't require a crossover vote to win, or represent gerrymandered seats designed to elect a minority member of Congress. They are markedly more liberal than the average Democrat, no less the average voter, making it more difficult for them to successfully mount a statewide campaign.

Conservatism is often embraced to a greater degree by immigrants to the US because the whole reason they came was the American Dream and American Exceptionalism. (See for example Marco Rubio). For leftists to claim to speak for such people is ridiculous. It is time for identity politics to be tossed in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Two Simple Facts That Explain Why the Democrats are Going to Be Trounced on Nov. 2

It might be a good idea to call off the liberal party in honor of the death of conservativism. It might be a good idea to cancel the funeral too. Somebody tell the undertaker to stand down; the New York Times concedes that America is becoming more conservative. (Must be a bitter pill to swallow for the fishwrap of record!)

In a story entitled: "The State of Conservatism," written by the estimable Christopher Caldwell, we read:

It is vital to understand where this steamroller is coming from. According to Gallup, support for Obama has fallen only slightly among Democrats, from 90 percent to 81 percent, and only slightly among Republicans, from 20 percent to 12 percent. It is independents who have abandoned him: 56 percent approved of him when he came into office, versus 38 percent now. The reason the country is getting more conservative is not that conservatives are getting louder. It is that people in the dead center of the electorate are turning into conservatives at an astonishing rate.

Anybody can read the falling presidential approval polls; but it takes a liberal who is not in denial to admit that the reason is not racism or stupidity on the part of the electorate, but rather that the country is becoming more conservative at a rapid rate.

But as if that were not enough, the NYT also recognizes something that the Democrats have yet to face up to: the Democratic Party represents the elites of America not the country as a whole. And as for the ordinary working people - forget about it.

"Some wish the president had governed more to the left, insisting on a public option in the health care bill and pushing for a larger stimulus. But those people make up only a small fraction even of the 18 percent of voters who call themselves liberal. In a time of growing populism and distrust, Republicans enjoy the advantage of running against the party of the elite. This seems to be a controversial proposition, but it should not be. It is not the same as saying that Democrats are the party of elitism. One can define elitism as, say, resistance to progressive taxation, and make a case that Republicans better merit that description. But, broadly speaking, the Democratic Party is the party to which elites belong. It is the party of Harvard (and most of the Ivy League), of Microsoft and Apple (and most of Silicon Valley), of Hollywood and Manhattan (and most of the media) and, although there is some evidence that numbers are evening out in this election cycle, of Goldman Sachs (and most of the investment banking profession). That the billionaire David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation supports the Tea Party has recently been much in the news. But the Democrats have the support of more, and more active, billionaires. Of the 20 richest ZIP codes in America, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 19 gave the bulk of their money to Democrats in the last election, in most cases the vast bulk — 86 percent in 10024 on the Upper West Side. Meanwhile, only 22 percent of non-high-school educated white males are happy with the direction the country is going in. The Democrats’ overlap with elites leaves each party with a distinctive liability. The Democrats appear sincerely deluded about whom they actually represent. Democrats — who would have no trouble discerning elite solidarity in the datum that, say, in the 1930s the upper ranks of Britain’s media, church, business and political institutions were dominated by Tories — somehow think their own predominance in similar precincts is . . . what? Coincidence? Irony?"

My favorite line is: "The Democrats appear sincerely deluded about whom they actually represent." And "sincerely deluded" - what a superb turn of phrase! This would be ironic if irony was not dead.

Congratulations to the NYT; it has explained the outcome of next week's election in two simply but very much related facts:

1. The Democratic Party has completed its transformation into the party of liberal elites.
2. The American voting public is more conservative than ever.

1 + 2 = Election wipe out for the elitists.

US Midterm Elections Predictions

The US midterm elections are one month from today, so it is time for a few predictions.

What are the Mid-term Elections?
But first, for my Canadian readers, we need a quick primer on what the mid-term elections are all about. The president is elected ever four years and is limited to serving two terms. Halfway through the term, elections are held for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and approximately one-third of the 100 US Senate seats. Senators serve 6 year terms and House of Representatives members serve two year terms. The two bodies together are known as "Congress." All legislation must be approved by both and spending and tax legislation must originate in the House. In addition, approximately 35 of the 50 Governors and many of the members of the state legislatures are elected every two years.

The mid-term elections are usually seen as a referendum on the president's performance and the party of the president usually (though not always) loses some seats. President Obama's approval rating has fallen sharply during the past year and is somewhere in the mid 40s depending on the poll. Real Clear Politics averages the various polls and currently shows Obama as having a 45.3 approval and a 49.7 disapproval rating for a -4.4 rating overall. as an average of polls conducted last week by Newsweek, Fox, Rasmussen, Gallup, CNN and others.

So this means that 37 Senate seats and 435 House seats are up for election next month. The Democrats hold a majority of 255 seats in the House and a majority of 59 seats in the Senate. They had a 60 seat "super majority" until January, when Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown was elected in a special election to replace the deceased Ted Kennedy. A super majority is important because any 41 senators can vote together to prevent a bill from coming to a vote in the Senate.

House of Representatives
With all 435 seats up for re-election, this is in effect a national election. The Democrats currently hold 255 seats and the Republicans hold 178. 218 are needed for a majority, so the Republicans would need to gain 39 in order to take control of the House.

Real Clear Politics ranks 190 seats as either safe Democrat, likely Democrat or leaning Democrat and 207 seats as safe Republican, likely Republican or leaning Republican. 38 seats are toss-ups.

The Charlie Cook Report, a highly respected and neutral polling company, sees 50 seats as toss-ups and forecasts a net Republican gain of at least 40 seats.

The Senate
The Democrats currently hold 59 seats (counting the 2 Independents in with them) and the Republicans hold 41. But 18 of the 41 Republican seats (almost half) are up for election this year and only 19 of 59 Democratic seats (only a third) are up for election. So the Republicans must take away 10 out of 19 Democratic seats without losing any of their own in order to win control of the Senate. Each Senator is elected in a state-wide popular vote and each state has two senators. Only of of each state's senate seats is up for election in a given year. This explains why most analysts don't think that the Republicans will win the Senate this year despite a general lead in the polls for the Republicans.

Real Clear Politics ranks 48 seats as likely Democrat or leans Democrat and 47 seats as likely Republican or leans Republican with 4 seats being considered toss-ups. This represents a gain of 6 seats for the Republicans plus however many of the toss-ups they gain. Real Clear forecasts a 51-49 Democratic majority with the Republicans having gained 8 seats and lost none.

Rasmussen Polls ranks 7 seats as solid Democratic and 2 as likely Democratic for a total of 9. They rank 17 as solid Republican and 7 as likely Republican for a total of 24. Four seats are considered toss-ups. No Republican seat is in the Democratic or toss-up column, but 3 Democratic seats are ranked as solid Republican, 3 as likely Republican and 4 as toss-ups. So the Republicans need to defend all their own seats, win the Democratic seats that are in the solid and likely Republican columns and then sweep the 4 toss-ups.

The Charlie Cook Report predicts a gain of 7-9 senate seats for the Republicans.

Conclusions:
It appears that the Republicans are heading for big gains next month and control of the House is virtually assured. Even if the Democrats manage to hold on to their Senate majority (which is probably a fifty-fifty proposition right now), the conservative Republicans in the Senate will have the votes (40) to prevent bills from being voted on. If the Republicans have 48 or 49 seats and the Democrats manage to peel off 6 or 7 Republicans to vote for a given bill, the remaining Republicans will still be able to block it. If this had been the case last year, the health care legislation would not have passed.

With 58% of Americans favoring repeal of the bill, this is an expression of the democratic majority. What we are seeing here is an example of the self-correcting mechanism in the American political system. The Democrats have governed from the left and have alienated the vast middle of American politics - the basically conservative Independents who are favoring the Republicans 2-1 this year after electing what they thought was a centrist Barack Obama in 2008.

Personally, I believe that conservative voters are extremely enthusiastic about voting and the liberal base of the Democratic Party is shocked by the negative public reaction to their extreme leftist agenda. This kind of "enthusiasm gap" is hard to measure in polls. So I predict that Republicans will win control of the Senate and gain about 55-60 seats in the House. This will effectively end Barack Obama's ability to further implement his leftist agenda and will lead to gridlock between Congress and the President. This will set the stage for a possible primary challenge to Obama and the Republicans winning the presidency in 2012.

Justice is Swifter in the Internet Era!

You got to love American politics. Well, OK, maybe you don't but I do. Where else on earth could a scumbag like Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson unleash the following attack ad on his Republican opponent, a decent, upstanding man named Daniel Webster and within days receive his just reward?



Here is the speech Daniel Webster gave from which the quote "Submit to me" was taken; this is the quote in context.



OK, now you feel like you need to take a shower. This is really, really low. In fact, it was so low that even MSNBC - yes, even MSNBC, Obama's favorite network - couldn't stomach it. Here is an interview/indictment of Grayson by MSNBC's Contessa Brewer.



But the next fact is the best. A few days after the "Taliban Dan" ad a poll found that:

In one of the most closely watched U.S. House races in the nation, Republican Daniel Webster now holds a 7-point lead over Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson in Central Florida's 8th Congressional District, according to a new Sunshine State News Poll.

Sweet. Now for the mocking. First up, the NRCC simply reminds voters of Alan Grayson's words and calls him a "national embarassment."



But this one is even funnier. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. From Townhall.com comes "Alan Grayson hates children, hates seniors, loves Satan."



Alan Grayson: down in the gutter, down in the polls. My faith in mankind is on the verge of being restored!

The Tea Parties: the New Mainstream

Further to my last post on the Tea Party phenomenon, this editorial from the Washington Examiner entitled: "Tea Partiers are getting the last laugh" has some interesting facts in it:

And the movement is anything but racially segregated. Thirty-five percent of black likely voters identify with the Tea Party, including 17 percent who strongly identify with it, according to Vic Rubenfeld, director of polling for Pajamas Media TV. As for the liberal Democrats who have attacked it, the latest CNN/Opinion Research poll finds "likely voters say they are considerably more likely to vote for a candidate the president opposes than one he supports. On the other hand, 50 percent of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a Tea Party-backed candidate while a third of Americans said Tea Party support would dissuade their vote for a candidate." [my bolding]

Read it all here.

At some point, probably right after the November elections, we are going to see a sea change in the way the Tea Party is perceived. It is going to become the new mainstream of conservative political philosophy in the US and the true opposition to a Democratic Party, which is now firmly in the hands of Leftists. For better or worse, American politics is in the process of polarizing as socialism becomes stronger and provokes a more determined opposition.

Finally: A Light Slap on the Wrist for an Anti-American Tenured Radical

University professor, Obama pal and former Weatherman domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, has been denied his request to be appointed "Professor Emeritus" by the University of Illinois. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

When retiring University of Illinois at Chicago professor Bill Ayers co-wrote a book in 1973, it was dedicated in part to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy.

That came back to haunt Ayers when the U. of I. board, now chaired by Kennedy’s son, considered his request for emeritus status Thursday. It was denied in a unanimous vote.

Before the vote, an emotional Chris Kennedy spoke out against granting the status to Ayers.

“I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our university to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father, Robert F. Kennedy,” he said.

“There is nothing more antithetical to the hopes for a university that is lively and yet civil, or to the hopes of our founding fathers for their great experiment of a self-governing people, than to permanently seal off debate with one’s opponents by killing them.”

Hmm. . . you think?

Clarice Feldman at American Thinker Blog has an interesting update on this story.

Tom Maguire notes the Sun Times article fudges on the Ayers-Obama connection on the Annenberg challenge where it is obvious Ayers brought Obama onboard that ill-fated "education reform" effort. He also suggests this tardy Kennedy objection to Ayers may signal a Kennedy family-Obama split.

If the Kennedys and the Clintons are going to gang up on Obama and his New Left core supporters in a battle for control of the Democratic Party, won't that be entertaining? It will be better than the Hatfields and McCoys.

A Dangerous Radical Who Must Be Destroyed!

My suggestions for copy for the next Democratic attack ad against Christine O'Donnell. I'm trying to think of how they could push the envelope just a bit further.
_______________

The GOP has gone too far this time. This hotbed of radicals and extremists has acted irresponsibly and its actions pose a threat to the Republic. All moderate and reasonable must grab their pitchforks and torches and ride the buses to Delaware immediately. Our liberties are at stake!

Forget minor little issues over which reasonable people can agree to disagree like health care costs, out-of-control government spending, spiraling deficits, a double-dip recession, high unemployment or the trashing of the Constitution. We can worry about those things later. America faces its greatest challenge in Delaware.

Rally behind the comforting and moderate Marxist who Harry Reid calls "My Pet" and "My Favorite Candidate." Remember that nothing but Chris Coons stands between you and the election of a monster who makes Hitler look kind and gentle, a Genghis Khan without table manners, one of the Undead who performs Satanic rituals involving drinking the blood of Democratic babies at midnight every full moon.

This demonic monster from the depths cannot be shown mercy for she represents all that evil and filthy and disgusting in America. She epitomizes and embodies pure, unadulterated evil. It would be no crime to strangle such a dictator with guts of the last priest.

Christine O'Donnell is her name and she must be stopped. Why?

Because she stands for ugh, I can't make myself say it, ugh - sexual . . . . purity. Gag . . . Sputter . . . Choke . . .

Robert Higgs on Codevilla's Call to Revolution

Robert Higgs comments on Angelo M. Codevilla's essay "America's Ruling Class - and the Perils of Revolution" that was published last month in the American Spectator. I commented on this essay here, but I thought that Higgs' summary is excellent and well worth reflecting on:

Codevilla cuts immediately to the core: the United States today is divided into (a) a ruling class, which dominates the government at every level, the schools and universities, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and a great deal else, and (b) all of the rest of us, a heterogeneous agglomeration that Codevilla dubs the country class. The ruling class holds the lion’s share of the institutional power, but the country class encompasses perhaps two-thirds of the people.

Members of the two classes do not like one another. In particular, the ruling class views the rest of the population as composed of ignoramuses who are vicious, violent, racist, religious, irrational, unscientific, backward, generally ill-behaved, and incapable of living well without constant, detailed direction by our betters; and it views itself as perfectly qualified and entitled to pound us into better shape by the generous application of laws, taxes, subsidies, regulations, and unceasing declarations of its dedication to bringing the country—and indeed the entire world—out of its present darkness and into the light of the Brave New World it is busily engineering.

This class divide has little to do with rich versus poor or Democrat versus Republican. At its core, it has to do with the division between, on the one hand, those whose attitudes are attuned to the views endorsed by the ruling class (especially “political correctness”) and whose fortunes are linked directly or indirectly with government programs and, on the other hand, those whose outlooks and interests derive from and focus on private affairs, especially the traditional family, religion, and genuine private enterprise. Above all, as Codevilla makes plain, “for our ruling class, identity always trumps.” These people know they are superior in every way, and they are not shy about letting us know that they are. Arrogance might as well be their middle name.

The ruling class, not surprisingly, is also the statist party:

[O]ur ruling class’s standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government – meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc.

Despite the rulers’ chronic complaints about people’s exercising “discrimination” of one kind or another, they have no intention of treating everybody equally. Hence, “[l]aws and regulations nowadays are longer than ever because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally.” As the recent health-care and financial-reform statutes illustrate perfectly, however, much of the inequality is achieved not directly, but by the statutes’ delegation of authority to countless regulatory and administrative bodies, which will use their ample discretion to do the desired dirty work.

But what I really want to call attention to is Higgs' stirring conclusion:

I heartily recommend this magnificent essay, which is one of the most intelligent, forthright discussions of America’s current socio-political condition I have ever read. If we serfs are ever to escape the grip of our overbearing, self-appointed nobility, the first requirements will be to recognize correctly our current condition, to denounce openly its injustice and idiocy, and to deride every claim of legitimacy or entitlement our rulers have the temerity to make or presume.

Every revolution begins with the oppressed refusing to recognize the legitimacy of their self-appointed, self-aggrandizing overlords. To recognize and reject the legitimacy of the Ruling Class - as if operated under some sort of Divine Mandate - is where the road to justice, equality and freedom starts.

The Evangelical Left has spent the past few years deriding conservative Evangelicals for supporting the Republican Party only to become, themselves, slavish supporters of the left wing of the Democratic Party. It should be pointed out that the Ruling Class has dominated major sections of the Republican Party and that the goal of true conservatives is not to support the Republican Party establishment; it is to take over the party and make it the vehicle for a conservative revolution in much the same way that the New Left seized control of the Democratic Party at the beginning of the 1970s and have triumphed completely through the Obama wing of the party.

The Ruling Class would have its own left and right factions define the political just as in Europe, the "Conservative Parties" have come to mean roughly "conservative socialist parties" as opposed to more consistently socialist parties. Everybody agrees with socialism; the only disagreement permitted is on how fast we should move in that direction. The Communists want it immediately by revolution; the democratic socialists think it should be done gradually by votes, and the conservatives just want to slow the process down a bit. Real conservatives are labeled extremists and dismissed. This is what the Ruling Class wants for America. But the conservative revolt going on in the Republican Party right now aims at moving the political center several degrees rightward and defining the whole Ruling Class as "The Left."

Social conservatives have sensed a radical, left-ward drift for some time but now the economic conservatives (classical liberals) have been radicalized by the hard left economic agenda of the Obama administration and the dangerous and unsustainable debt being run up by the Democrats in the midst of a recession. When the social and fiscal conservatives both become convinced that a revolution is necessary to save the country from socialism, it will happen.

Will America Go the Way of Greece?

This story in the New York Times about the state of railroads in Greece is like a scene right out of Atlas Shrugged. Having recently read that novel and now reading today's New York Times is an unsettling experience.

Losses at Hellenic Railways, however, continue to mount — at the rate of 3 million euros ($3.8 million) a day. Its total debt has increased to $13 billion, or about 5 percent of Greece’s gross domestic product.

In spite of about $3.2 billion of investment since 1997, outside of the main route between Athens and Thessaloniki, the network seems in many respects patchwork and at times chaotic.

Earlier this month, for example, a trip from Athens to Diakopto, a seaside town on the northern coast of the Peloponnese, took more than four hours. The journey required train passengers to complete a second leg by transferring to an overcrowded bus that was delayed for an hour. The result was a near riot as enraged passengers hurled abuse at overwhelmed train officials.

The same trip by car would take less than two hours.

So the railway is a sinkhole for public money, but it is also disgracefully inefficient. Does the union care?

“It is crazy,” said Nikolaos Kioutsoukis, the union chief for the railway. “It’s not surprising that people prefer to go by car.”

Even he accepts that train travel in Greece is not financially viable on many routes. He blames low prices, misguided investment and political meddling for the railway’s poor condition, and says the government should make new investments to modernize the network. He opposes privatization and says that if jobs and benefits are threatened, the union will strike.

He admits the problem but threatens to undermine any attempt to fix the problem. This is unbelievable. He apparently thinks the EU owes him and his membership a living and he does not care that the system is on the brink of collapse. This is the socialist mentality on display for all to see.

Haris Tsiokas, the general secretary for the Greek Transport Ministry, contends that the government’s plan to close at least 35 loss-making routes and cut 2,500 jobs (1,000 via mandatory retirement, with the rest being moved to other government jobs) will make Hellenic Railways attractive to foreign investors. But he concedes that the pressure is building for the railway, which, for now at least, does not have access to debt markets.

Now, as a condition of Greece’s financial rescue, the International Monetary Fund is demanding that a solution be found. The fund and the European Union, which also chipped in to provide the bailout, are requiring that the debt of Hellenic Railways, as well as the off-balance-sheet obligations of other state-owned enterprises, be counted toward Greece’s official debt — which Greece has agreed to do.

Analysts estimate the total to be around $33.6 billion, a sum that would add another 11 percentage points to Greece’s current debt level of about 120 percent of gross domestic product. It would also surely raise questions for many investors about the government’s ability to repay ever-increasing amounts as the overall economy contracts.

The problem here is that the government is not running a railroad. It is running a ponzi scheme that is on the verge of collapse.

Until now, Greece has been able to use its rail system as a means to support employment while not adding to its official debt number.

“This was an accounting trick, another good way for the government to hide its debt,” said John C. Mourmouris, a former chief executive of the railway who is now an economics professor here. “But a company with 100 million euros in revenue can no longer borrow 1 billion euros a year.”

Read it all here. If the NYT says it is this bad, the reality is likely worse.

Greece is just the worst case in Europe (so far as we know now), but it is by no means atypical of the European social democratic welfare state and there are several other countries close behind Greece such as Portugal, Spain and Italy.

When you consider that Obama and the leftists of the Democratic Party are trying their level best to transform America into a European-style, social democracy, it is a wonder that the American public is not more up in arms that it is. The Tea Party movement is a sign that America is rejecting the leftist agenda, but it is a tribute to how powerful the Marxists true believers are in America that any Democrat at all is projected to hang on to his or her seat in November.

However, Rasmussen Polls is now saying that the Republicans are projected to have 44 seats in the Senate after the November elections with the Democrats projected to have 49 with 7 more as toss ups. If the Republicans run the table on the toss-ups, they could have control of the Senate after November. This is still a long-shot but much less of a long-shot than it was 3 months ago. The House, where more Democratic seats are in play, is likely going to go Republican and the Senate is on the edge. If the slide of America into Greek-style socialism is to be halted, the November elections are absolutely crucial.

Why the Democrats Will Lose in 2010 and 2012

Peter Ferrara has a set of bold predictions in his article in the American Spectator entitled "Take the Painkiller and Go Home." He predicts that the Republicans will win control of the House and probably the Senate in 2010 and that Obama will not even be on the ballot in 2012. I can't say I disagree with him; I first made the same predictions in January 2010. (By the way, speaking of my predictions, today was the day Obama started talking about the VAT. It won't be the last time you hear him talk about it.)

Here is Ferrara's opening:

The defining moment for the Presidency of Barack Obama came early, in June, 2009. It was one of many health reform extravaganzas to come, this one televised by ABC from the East Room of the White House, a town hall among health care experts and consumers.

Citizen Jane Sturm took the mike to ask how the brave, new world of Obamacare would treat people like her 105-year-old mother. At age 99 her mother's heart specialist confided that without a pacemaker he couldn't keep her alive, but at her advanced age he couldn't justify the operation. Jane sought out another specialist, and when he saw her mother was still very much alive and enjoying life, he agreed to do the operation.

Over five years later, her mother was still living happily with her family as a result of the highly advanced medical technology she received. So Jane, still displaying her own spirited fight for her mother's life, very articulately asked the President if under his vision for health care there would be any consideration given for a certain spirit, or joy of living, or quality of life, in providing medical care for those of advanced age. Or would there just be a cut-off at a certain age.

The President replied that we as a culture and a society have to learn to make better decisions about end of life care. And when the wise, central planning Washington bureaucrats discover the evidence shows the care is not going to improve health, they can let your doctor know, and let your mom know, maybe this is not going to help, maybe you're better off not having the surgery and taking the painkiller and going home.

Jane just told him that without the surgery her mother would be dead, and he responds with a hypothetical that maybe she would be better off taking the painkiller and going home. And President Obama's mind is so hypothetical and so theoretical that he is certain that far off Washington bureaucrats would know from the evidence when she should take the painkiller and go home, and could let her yahoo doctor know.

Moreover, from Jane's perspective, this was not an issue of end of life care. She just told him that after the surgery more than 5 years ago her mother was still very much alive and spirited. But those of us who have been paying attention have learned that President Obama is so certain that he has all the answers that he never really hears what anyone else is saying.

The message from the President to America's sickest and most vulnerable should be the theme for Election 2010, and the message the American people will now send to Washington's ruling Democrats: Take the Painkiller and Go Home.

Read it all here.