Current Events - August 19, 2013

Targeting the Wealthy Kills Jobs

My investment in my company helps maintain 3,470 permanent positions. What's not 'fair' about that?

 One of the signature themes of the Obama administration is that the American dream is under attack due to "income disparity." The words divide the country into haves and have-nots, suggesting a national condition that needs to be corrected—presumably by "progressive" taxation as a mechanism for income redistribution. The American dream has traditionally been one of individual success that is rewarded and admired. But we are now urged to become a zero-sum society in which those achieving the American dream are envied and even resented.

The American dream is not politically affiliated. The last time it was alive and well was the period from Ronald Reagan's second term in office through Bill Clinton's second term in office. In those 16 years, we enjoyed continuous low taxes, low government spending and economic prosperity. 

Since 2000, the economy has staggered under the record government spending and deficits of two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The result of that spending spree has been lower real wages and higher and more-persistent unemployment. The Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates to near-zero, and, for the first time ever in the U.S., that Depression-era medicine has not worked—a scary situation reminiscent of Japan's decade-plus economic demise.

According to the latest 2012 IRS income-tax data, the top 1% of American taxpayers earned 20% of all income and paid 36% of all taxes. The top 5% earned 36% of all income and paid 58% of all taxes. Will even higher taxes help the economy? My experience in Silicon Valley tells me that high and so-called progressive taxes are a major cause of the country's current economic problems, not the solution.
In Silicon Valley, the rich commonly reinvest their wealth close to home. For example, I have reinvested most of my net worth in 8.5% of the shares of my own company. 

Since its 1982 founding, Cypress Semiconductor has been a net creator of jobs and wealth. We have returned $2.2 billion more to the economy through stock buybacks, share dividends and spinouts than we have taken out in total lifetime investments. That figure doesn't count the $4 billion in wages the company has paid or the taxes paid on those wages. Currently, my investment helps maintain 3,479 permanent, high-paying jobs with good health-care benefits that are now threatened by more taxes.

A couple of years ago, I decided to invest in my hometown of Oshkosh, Wis., by building a $1.2 million lakefront restaurant. That restaurant now permanently employs 65 people at an investment of $18,000 per job, a figure consistent with U.S. small businesses. If progressive taxation in the name of "fairness" had taken my "extra" $1.2 million and spent it on a government stimulus program, would 65 jobs have been created?

According to recent Congressional Budget Office statistics on the Obama administration's 2009 stimulus program, each job created has cost between $500,000 and $4 million. Thus, my $1.2 million, taxed and respent on a government project of uncertain duration, would have created about one job, possibly two, and not the 65 sustainable jobs that my private investment did.

On the other end of the capital-intensity scale, Cypress Semiconductor required huge investments to create jobs in its chip-manufacturing plants. Between 1983 and 2003, those investments totaled $797 million and led to the creation of 4,033 jobs at an investment of $198,000 per job created. Thus, my own experience on the cost of job creation ranges from $18,000 to $198,000 per job, compared with $500,000 to $4 million per job created by the Obama stimulus program.

This data squares with the broad numbers showing that private investment is more efficient than government spending in creating jobs. In other words: Every dollar that is taxed away from private investment and spent by government produces fewer jobs than the jobs destroyed by the loss of private investment.

Yet the politics of envy, promoted most notably by President Obama himself, continuously stokes the idea that the wealthy are not paying their "fair share." This injured sense of unjust rewards was summed up on a radio show I heard the other day, when a caller said of the rich: "How much more do they need?"
How much more do I need? How many more jobs do you want?

Even European socialist democracies are starting to understand that tax-and-spend policies kill jobs. For example, both Italy and Spain have repealed their incentive programs for solar energy (along with their "green jobs") because the countries have calculated that for every job created by government investment in green energy, somewhere between 4.8 jobs (Italy) and 2.2 jobs (Spain) are lost because of the reciprocal cuts in private investment. I am aware of these figures because from 2002-11 I was a major investor in and chairman of SunPower, the world's second-largest solar-energy company, also based in Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley is today's brightest example of the traditional American dream still at work. The investments for most startup companies must come from individuals who can wait 10 years to get a return on investment. Only very wealthy Americans can afford that. 

Like many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, I have reinvested in the next generation of entrepreneurs, in my case via the Sequoia Fund and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, two venture-capital firms that gave me a shot at the American dream. I also serve as a board member of their portfolio companies. 

Does anybody really believe that moving investment decisions from Silicon Valley to Washington by raising taxes on venture capitalists and their investors would make Silicon Valley more productive? Consider the Solyndra debacle: It was obvious to most of us here that the solar-energy company had zero chance of survival. That's why the company had to be government-funded near the end; no real investors were willing to step up.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, President Obama insulted America's entrepreneurs by telling them: "You didn't build that." Progressive taxation is just another tool used by government to take over an ever-larger part of the U.S. economy. The horrible irony is that the government keeps telling the very people whose jobs it destroys that if we only tax the rich more, everything will be better. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324110404578630461045403872.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Obama Is Obsessed with the Wrong 1 Percent

The problem is slow growth, not rich CEOs.

Occupy Wall Street won. In fact, the movement won even before taking to the parks in 2011. By the time the demonstrations started, America had already elected a president whose top priority was to reduce high-end income inequality — i.e., the inequality between the wealthy and everyone else. If Obamacare — at its heart a “spread the wealth” redistribution scheme — and a call for ever-more tax hikes on the rich and on businesses aren’t proof enough, there’s also Barack Obama’s recent speech at Knox College. The enormous disparity between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, the president argued last month, “is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics.”

But that financial divide is hardly America’s biggest challenge, economic or moral. Obama’s Knox College claim that the income of the top 1 percent surged over the past 30 years, while the income of the typical family “barely budged,” has been thoroughly debunked. While the rich did get a lot richer, real median household income grew by roughly 20 percent before taxes and government transfers, and by about 40 percent after. And, says a Washington Post fact check, “it’s inaccurate of Obama to suggest otherwise.”

Then there’s a blockbuster new study from economists Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago and Joshua Rauh of Stanford University on why high-end inequality has increased so much the past three decades. Is it compliant corporate boards’ giving huge payouts to CEOs, or perhaps crony capitalism between Washington and Wall Street? Was it the Reagan and Bush tax cuts? Not so much, according to Kaplan and Rauh: “We believe that the US evidence on income and wealth shares for the top 1 percent is most consistent with a ‘superstar’-style explanation rooted in the importance of scale and skill-biased technological change.” Market forces — technology and globalization — allow a broad swath of folks — CEOs, bankers, lawyers, athletes — whose skills are in high demand “to expand the scale of their performance.” The NBA has a global TV audience today, so its superstars can earn more in salaries and endorsements. Growing international markets have greatly increased the size and value of U.S. companies and, not surprisingly, executive pay has risen, too. Technology allows top executives and financiers to manage larger organizations and asset pools.

Instead of fretting so much about income inequality at the high end, Obama should focus on expanding economic mobility. Primarily, this means policies to boost GDP growth, polices including education, tax, and regulation reform. The economy has grown at just 1.8 percent annually, adjusted for inflation, for the past decade, versus 3.3 percent a year since 1929. And a new JPMorgan research report, “U.S. Future Isn’t What It Used to Be,” says we had all better get used to the New Normal: “The long-run growth potential of the U.S. economy continues to slide lower, by our estimate, to around 1.75%; if realized this would be the lowest of the post-WWII era.” That’s a huge drop; it means the economy will double in 42 years instead of 22.

The megabank has two big concerns. First, declining birth rates and immigration mean slower labor-force growth. The Obama White House, in its recent budget proposal, cited this very problem as a reason that, in “the 21st Century, real GDP growth in the United States is likely to be permanently slower than it was in earlier eras.” Second, productivity growth has declined by half since the information-technology-driven boom between 1995 and 2005. JPMorgan economists Michael Feroli and Robert Mellman note that quality-adjusted IT-equipment prices are falling more slowly than they were a decade ago. That’s a flashing warning sign that tech innovation is decelerating, which also helps explain current levels of business investment in equipment and software, which are at just half the rate of the past 25 years.

This growth prediction is more dire than some others. The Federal Reserve pegs the economy’s long-term growth rate at 2.5 percent, the Congressional Budget Office at 2.2 percent. And maybe the productivity slowdown is just a pause, or perhaps the available data don’t tell the whole story. Feroli and Mellman concede these possibilities. But U.S. policymakers should assume the worst and try and figure out how to fill a growth shortfall of at least a full percentage point.

But increasing absolute mobility — making sure kids end up more prosperous than their parents — is not enough. Solid research from the Equality of Opportunity Project shows big variation among U.S. cities in residents’ ability to rise above their birth stations thanks to factors — including family structure and geographic segregation — not directly linked to the macro economy. This suggests it’s wise to implement micropolicy ideas such as relocation vouchers for the long-term unemployed in high-unemployment areas and rolling back regulations that limit urban density. Ryan Avent, a reporter with The Economist, calculates that various urban land-use regulations cost the U.S. as much as half a percentage point per year in GDP growth. Business tax cuts and entitlement reform alone make for an incomplete conservative policy agenda.

America does have a 1 percent problem, just not the one Obama thinks it has.

 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356100/obama-obsessed-wrong-1-percent-james-pethokoukis

Regulation nation: Obama expands the regulatory state

 President Obama has overseen a dramatic expansion of the regulatory state that will outlast his time in the White House.

The reach of the executive branch has advanced steadily on his watch, further solidifying the power of bureaucrats who churn out regulations that touch nearly every aspect of American life and business.

Experts debate whether federal rulemaking has accelerated under Obama, but few dispute that Washington — for better or worse — is reaching deeper than ever before into the workings of society.

“It would be difficult for anyone to pretend that this isn’t a high water mark in terms of regulation,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office who now heads the American Action Forum.

Obama famously signaled his intent to use the machinery of government to further his policy goals after the 2010 elections, declaring: “Where Congress won’t act, I will.”

Since then, the administration has pressed ahead unilaterally on several fronts, including immigration, gun control, cyber security and sentencing guidelines for drug offenses.

Meanwhile, new federal rules are accumulating faster than outdated ones are removed, resulting in a steady increase in the number of federal mandates.

Data collected by researchers at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center shows that the Code of Federal Regulations, where all rules and regulations are detailed, has ballooned from 71,224 pages in 1975 to 174,545 pages last year.

“All incentives are to regulate more,” said Susan Dudley, the director of George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center.

The fight over executive power is increasingly pitting the three branches of government against each other, with Congress and the judiciary struggling to assert power over officials with broad discretion to issue rules.

While Republican lawmakers have scored victories in the messaging battle over regulations, they say proponents of a more activist government are winning the war.

“We sit back and watch this erosion and watch, really, an executive branch that has, I think, arrogant powers of overseeing things,” Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) told The Hill.

Taken separately, the public tends to support individual regulations.

A Gallup poll earlier this year found that 82 percent of Americans either believe the government is doing the right amount or needs to do more to protect the environment, while two-thirds say they would support stricter standards for food sold in public schools.

But critics, including industry groups and congressional Republicans, charge that the cumulative affect of the mounting red tape is crushing businesses.

“All the kinds of things we say we want: an expanding economy, more opportunity, more jobs — all of them are stifled by the regulatory oppression that’s occurred,” said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.). 


Obama has responded to business’s concerns with a regulatory “look-back” aimed at scrapping old rules on the books. Howard Shelanski, the administration’s regulatory chief, told Congress last month that the effort had turned up hundreds of regulatory reform proposals, just a few of which could save up to $10 billion.

But the process of getting rid of regulations is easier said than done, experts say.

“Once a regulation is in place there are some groups that benefit from it, and they will fight very hard not to have those benefits taken away,” Dudley said.

Supporters of stronger regulation reject the criticisms of Obama’s tenure. What business groups term “burdensome” rulemaking, they say, is often critical work that protects people from tainted food, unscrupulous bankers, dirty air and countless other dangers.


“I think that’s a function of the fact that there are more threats to the public health and safety emerging on a regular basis, being identified on a regular basis,” said Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate at Public Citizen.

To be sure, the explosive growth in federal rulemaking did not begin with the Obama White House. The 13,000 rules finalized during the president’s first term, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), were slightly fewer than those published during President George W. Bush’s first term.



Yet the quantity of federal regulations is increasing by some measures at a quickening pace. 



More “major rules” — those with an annual economic impact exceeding $100 million — were enacted in 2010 than in any year dating back to at least 1997, according to CRS.



And over Obama’s first three years in office, the Code of Federal Regulations increased by 7.4 percent, according to data compiled by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In comparison, the regulatory code grew by 4.4 percent during former President Bush’s first term. 


None of these metrics are ideal measures of the growth of the regulatory state, but the available research suggests an “incredibly intense period of regulation” in the Obama years, Holtz-Eakin said.

Much of the activity can be attributed to the two sweeping pieces of legislation: ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Both called for hundreds of regulatory actions on banking, insurance charges, business disclosures and other issues. Many of the rules are still under construction, their final language the subject of heated debate and fierce lobbying.

But Obama has also embraced the power of his office and administration to enact major policy shifts.

Nowhere is that more evident that at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where officials are using authority granted by the Clean Air Act to draft a host of rules that are designed to combat climate change.

Industry groups have assailed the climate push as an assault on jobs, but supporters say it’s an example of agencies executing the laws that Congress has passed.

“The agency [regulation critics] love to hate the most — EPA — is responding to unequivocal statutory deadlines,” said Rena Steinzor, president of the Center for Progressive Reform. “If they don’t like these rules, they can set about amending the Clean Air Act.”

Despite Republican efforts, many observers expect the Obama administration to become more aggressive on the regulatory front.

In their second terms — and especially with a Congress that has passed as few laws as the current one — presidents tend to take matters into their own hands.

Long-sought rules to limit construction workers’ exposure to dangerous silica dust, require rearview cameras on cars and give overtime and minimum wage rights to in-home care workers have each been stalled for over a year, but could soon see the light of day.

Meanwhile, the Energy Department and EPA have instituted new standards on everything from tailpipe emissions to the energy efficiency of microwaves, and the Labor Department has long been working on rules to improve workplace safety, reduce discrimination and regulate pensions.

Supporters of aggressive federal rulemaking have high hopes that Obama will act boldly in the remainder of his term.

“I think you have cases where Congress has not been able to address threats to the public,” said Katie Greenhaw, a regulatory policy analyst at the Center for Effective Government. “So if there is existing authority, agencies have obligations to use that authority to protect the public.”

 http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/administration/317485-regulation-nation-obama-expands-the-regulatory-state#ixzz2cQesL5BM

J. Christian Adams: DOJ using the law as ‘a way to punish your opponents’

J. Christian Adams is a talented lawyer who worked inside Eric Holder’s Justice Department until he could take it no longer. He left in 2010 and wrote a New York Times bestselling book, “Injustice,” to expose what he saw and learned.

Today, he is practicing law, speaking out against the Justice Department, writing for PJ Media and battling his first Internal Revenue Service audit on the side. In the second of this three-part interview, Adams says he believes the institution of law is under attack like never before.

“[The law is] meant to be a leveler, and that’s what’s unique about our country, about America, is we’re the first country ever founded for the principle that every individual has individual dignity, divine inspired individual dignity, to be treated by their government as an individual, not differently than somebody whose brother is an earl,” he said. “These people in power reject at its core that principle. They believe that power is given out based on political donations, ideology, opposition to coal — name it. It’s something that you gain favor and are treated differently by your government based on who you are, and that’s so anti-American.”
Adams went on to say that Republicans and their consultants are stuck in the ’90s and not battling the left effectively.

“We’re in a different kind of world now where the left is on the march through the institutions, through the government, through the academy, and they have brass knuckles,” he said. “And they have their media outlets, and they have Media Matters, and MSNBC, and ThinkProgress and George Soros, and I can go down the list. And the right is just getting started. And they don’t have the same sorts of institutional weaponry that the left does. So it becomes very easy to deceive when your arsenal is bigger. And I think that was the problem in the last election.”

Under the Obama Justice Department, he said, “law is a tool to help those in power aid those they agree with. It is not a great leveler. It’s no longer a means to make everybody equal and to create those fences that everybody must stay within. It’s a way to punish your opponents and reward your enemies.”

Adams puts some hope in the power of the purse, if the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would just “line out” radical policies and budgets with the authority our founders gave them.

 http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/18/j-christian-adams-doj-using-the-law-to-punish-opponents-video/#ixzz2cQSPs38m

 

FACE Act Abuse: Justice Dept. Suit Against Pro-Life Advocate Thrown Out

Judge: “Speculation piled on top of speculation ... lacks any proof."

A federal judge in Kansas has just thrown out the latest ideologically driven Justice Department prosecution under the FACE Act, ending a long nightmare for a pro-life activist.

Judge J. Thomas Marten granted Angel Dillard summary judgment, finding that the government produced no evidence of a “true threat” under the law, and that Dillard’s letter to a doctor who planned to open an abortion clinic was “constitutionally protected speech.”

I’ve written previously about the Civil Rights Division’s abuse of its authority under the Free Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The statute was intended to stop physical obstruction, intimidation, or the use or threat of force outside of abortion clinics. But it specifically protects the First Amendment rights of “expressive conduct,” including peaceful demonstrations. Yet the Special Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division repeatedly used the FACE Act to intimidate pro-life activists who never posed any threat of violence against abortion clinics.

Last year, a federal court in Florida awarded $120,000 in attorneys’ fees to a woman wrongfully prosecuted by the Section for handing out pro-life literature outside of an abortion clinic. The almost total lack of evidence in that case left the judge wondering outright whether the prosecution was the result of the counselor’s political views. The judge was “at a loss as to why the Government chose to prosecute this particular case in the first place,” because the record was “almost entirely devoid of evidence” that the counselor “acted with the prohibited motive and intent” or had “engaged in any unlawful conduct.”

The Kansas case shows a near-identical lack of evidence regarding motive, intent, and wrongdoing. Angel Dillard wrote a letter to Dr. Mila Means, who had publicly announced plans to open an abortion clinic in Wichita. As the judge pointed out, most of Dillard’s letter “centers on arguments from Scripture, appeals to conscience, and the practical disadvantages and difficulties associated with such a clinic.” But Dillard also wrote that Means would be “checking under” her car every day because she would never know if someone had placed “an explosive under it.”

As Dillard herself said, she was not threatening Means but telling her what would probably be the “state of mind” of Means all the time if she opened the clinic — she would be constantly worried about her safety. In fact, Means herself admitted that she had heard the very same warnings about her safety if she went through with her plans “from family and friends” (none of whom were prosecuted by Justice).

The Wichita Police Department concluded “there was not a direct threat against” Dr. Means.  The FBI also investigated the letter and Dillard. FBI Agent Sean Fitzgerald did not deny that he had told Dillard that the letter “was no big deal” and that he had recommended against a lawsuit. Indeed, he told the Justice Department that “there was nothing there, it’s not a threat.” Fitzgerald also told Dillard that the FBI in general was “frustrated by the suit … they felt this was undermining the trust and the relationships that they were trying to develop with people who were not extremists but were still pro-life.”

In fact, the FBI had investigated Dillard two years previously after she wrote a letter to Scott Roeder, who was imprisoned for the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. The FBI concluded that Dillard was not “involved in violations of criminal law” and that Dillard “felt that Scott Roeder had made a mistake” by using violence. She made it clear that abortion opponents should only “do within the law whatever we can do to stop abortion,” and the judge cited the fact that Dillard had “publicly deplored [Roeder’s] violent actions.”
Although it lost the case, the Justice Department may have partially achieved what it wanted when it filed suit against Dillard. The judge concluded that Dillard’s decision to refrain from vigorous anti-abortion activities after the lawsuit began:

… may be due to a chilling effect of calls and visits from the FBI, and the filing of the present action by the Department of Justice. Almost immediately after the sending [of] the letter, Dillard became the target of investigations by the Wichita police and the F.B.I., followed by the present civil prosecution. Faced with such investigation and litigation, it is utterly unsurprising that Dillard has ceased political activity she might have otherwise undertaken.

The total lack of evidence of any threat or violent action by Dillard was so stark that the Justice Department lawyers tried to bring in an anonymous letter that accused Dillard of having “caches of weapons around her house.” Judge Marten criticized the government for submitting a letter that was “plainly inadmissible” and for introducing “absolutely nothing that would corroborate the allegations.” The government apparently never attempted to obtain a warrant to search Dillard’s home to see if the anonymous claims were even true.
 Turning up nothing in a search would have interfered with their attempt to use anonymous, Inquisition-type claims.

As Judge Marten concluded, the government’s evidence was “simply inadmissible or based on impermissible speculation.” In fact, the government’s arguments on possible future threats by Dillard were based on “speculation piled on top of speculation.” The claim against Dillard was “fatally flawed because it lacks any proof” of the essential components of proving that Dillard had made any threat of any kind against Means.
Dillard’s attorney Don McKinney rightly characterized the ruling as “a great victory for the First Amendment.” But this lawsuit should never have been filed in the first place. The Civil Rights Division has no business using federal laws to pursue an ideological agenda — in this case, intimidating the pro-life movement.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/face-act-abuse-justice-dept-suit-against-pro-life-advocate-thrown-out/?singlepage=true

Fraud: More People Selling Food Stamps for Cash

As the food stamp program has become more bloated than ever in recent years, more and more people have used the program to engage in fraudulent practices.

The percentage of Americans selling their food stamps back to stores for cash has increased by 30 percent over the past several years, according to a new Agriculture Department study.

The study on food stamps trafficking -- which the agency said included “covert investigation” in stores -- compared the periods of 2006 -2008 to 2009 -2011.

Despite the increase, trafficking has declined since the 1990s, when the rate was nearly 4 percent of food stamps, also known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs benefits.

The total amount of SNAP benefits is now at roughly $858  million, compared to $330 million annually in the 2006-2008 period.

The increase reflects the overall growth  in SNAP participation and benefits, the agency said in the August 2013 report.

Recipients typically sell back their benefits at a discount, according to the agency, which said its undercover investigations and research into electronic SNAP transactions focused on  stores that showed “suspicious activities.”

This news comes just months after the New York Post exposed people using food stamp and other welfare benefits to buy porn, alcohol and lap dances at strip clubs.

They’re on the dole — and watching the pole.

Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors and even strip clubs — where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, a Post investigation found.

A database of 200 million Electronic Benefit Transfer records from January 2011 to July 2012, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request, showed welfare recipients using their EBT cards to make dozens of cash withdrawals at ATMs inside Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx.

Food stamp use jumped two percent from 2012-2013 and 15 percent of the U.S. population is enrolled in the program. Republicans have proposed a five percent, or $40 billion, cut to the food stamp program.

House Republican leaders are to present a bill that would cut the food stamps program by $40 billion over 10 years, a move opposed by Democrats.

Republicans say the program, whose enrollment soared after the 2008-09 recession, is unbearably expensive at $78 billion a year.

Democrats such as Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts say food stamps mitigate hunger in a still-weak economy.

Keep working America! 

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/08/19/fraud-more-people-selling-food-stamps-for-cash-n1667854 

Unpublished CRS Memo: Obama Administration Has Missed Half Of Obamacare's Legally Imposed Implementation Deadlines

In recent months, President Obama and his subordinates have waived or delayed a number of Obamacare’s notable features, such as the law’s employer mandate, and its procedures for protecting taxpayers from fraud and identity theft. Earlier this month, in that context, I obtained a heretofore-unpublished memorandum from the Congressional Research Service. The CRS, Congress’ non-partisan in-house think tank, compiled 82 deadlines that the Affordable Care Act mandates upon the first three years of its own implementation. Remarkably, it turns out that the White House has missed half of the deadlines legally required by the ACA. And some of those deadlines remain unmet to this day.

The new CRS memo, dated June 5, 2013, is an addendum to a series of previous reports in which the agency examined missed deadlines during the law’s first two years. The CRS excluded from its analysis deadlines that don’t reflect on the administration’s competence; for example, as states expand Medicaid, the federal spending associated with those expansions occurs more or less automatically. Deadlines that the law imposes on non-federal government actors, like state governments and private companies, were also excluded.

41 out of 82 deadlines missed by the administration
As of May 31, 2013, when the CRS analysis was completed, the White House had yet to meet 9 of 12 deadlines from the first year after the Affordable Care Act was enacted. It failed to meet 22 of 53 deadlines in the second year; another 8 became moot after Congress did not appropriate funds to complete the assigned tasks. In year three, the administration missed 10 out of 17 deadlines. That’s a total of 41 out of 82 deadlines missed.

If you exclude the 9 deadlines that became moot because Congress never appropriated the funds to meet them, the Obama administration missed 41 out of 73 deadlines, or 56 percent.

In analyzing the CRS report, I erred on the side of generosity. If the administration missed a particular statutory deadline by a week or less, I counted it in their favor as a “met” deadline. In any case where there was ambiguity in the CRS report, I assumed that the administration had met the deadline. So these 50-56 percent missed deadline figures should be seen as slightly conservative.

Most of the deadlines are for bureaucratic busywork
Most of these deadlines aren’t for mission-critical features of the law, and the document reads like a kind of caricature of bureaucratic busywork. For example, Section 10407(d) mandates that by March 23, 2012, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is required to “submit to Congress a report on the appropriate level of diabetes medical education.” To date, the report has not been located. Also on that date, the Secretary is required to “implement a 5-year national public education campaign on oral health care prevention and education.” She missed that one too.

But there are some more economically significant deadlines that the administration has missed. A requirement for the Secretary to “develop requirements for health plans to report on their efforts to improve health outcomes,” also due on March 23, 2012, has not been met to date. A number of rules that would safeguard the privacy of medical records have either yet to be developed, or have been meaningfully tardy in their arrival.

And, of course, if you follow the Obamacare news, you are aware of the high-profile delays that are not included in the CRS report, such as the delay in Obamacare’s caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs.

The administration has tried, almost comically, to make the case that the faulty implementation of Obamacare is Republicans’ fault. But blue states that have embraced the law are the ones having the most problems.

Kevin Counihan, chairman of the Connecticut insurance exchange, has publicly expressed his frustration with the Obama administration’s flakiness. “Sometimes it feels like we’re driving a car and then changing the tire at the same time,” he told the Associated Press in March. “We’re going to have a challenging enough time providing the quality of service that our residents deserve in Connecticut with the deadline that we have. If they keep adding new regulations, I’m sorry. We have to suddenly say, ‘enough is enough.’” Counihan is one of the many people trying in good faith to implement the law who says, “I wish we had one more year.”

No, Obamacare isn’t unraveling
We should make one thing clear. The law isn’t going to “collapse unto itself” or any such thing that conservatives appear to pine for. For every missed deadline or White House waiver, there are nine aspects of Obamacare that are being implemented as we speak.

Obamacare may fail at reducing insurance premiums, or at wisely using taxpayer funds. But the law is scheduled to spend $1.9 trillion over the next ten years. At that, it is unlikely to fail.

A significant amount of that money may not go to the people for whom it’s intended. It may not have the benefits on health outcomes that the law’s most zealous supporters insist it will. But barring substantial Congressional action, that $1.9 trillion will still get spent, along with trillions more thereafter. Only new laws, not wishful thinking, will change that.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/08/18/unpublished-crs-memo-obama-administration-has-missed-half-of-obamacares-legally-imposed-implementation-deadlines/?partner=yahootix

NBC's Todd: Hillary's Speeches Hasten Obama's 'Lame Duck Status'

Hillary Clinton appears to be jumping into the 2016 race for the White House this week, coming out with a series of policy speeches. But former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs fears that Hillary is jumping in too soon, and NBC's Chuck Todd thinks she may be intensifying Obama's lame duck status by launching into her campaign so early, marginalizing Obama sooner than necessary. 

Gibbs and Todd made their comments on the August 18 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press. 

Host David Gregory began the segment noting that Hillary is beginning a series of policy speeches starting this upcoming week and "laying the groundwork" for her campaign message ahead of the 2016 race for president. 

As the segment began, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd expressed his shock over the timing of Hillary's speeches. 

"I am surprised in this first year that she is getting political this quickly," he said. 

Todd pointed out that Clinton has "sky-high bipartisan approval ratings" right now and coming out on heavy politics this far out from the 2016 campaign cycle risks bringing negatives far sooner the need be.
When Gregory turned to former Obama operative Gibbs he found agreement. 

"I completely agree with Chuck," Gibbs began. "I, as a strategist, am fairly floored that she has decided to enter the public fray so quickly... she could develop a message without having to be so far out front there. And-- and, you know, Chuck talks about strong bipartisan approval ratings, those will whittle quite quickly as she steps further and further [out on the political stage]." 

But it was Todd who had the keener point to make; this early politicking could hurt Obama. 

Todd warned that when a lame duck president is in office the attention his policy goals get is shared by the representative of his party seeking a bid for the next term. This shifted or "split" focus takes some power from that lame duck president as people pay less and less attention to him in favor of discussing the new candidates.

...the more she talks out there, the more you start seeing a gravitational pull back towards Hillary. This hurts the current president of the United States as trying to be leader of the Democratic Party, as trying to move the party as he gets ready for a bunch of fall fights. You know, lame duck status happens in two phases, right? The first phase is lame duck status in Washington between the presidency and the White House. And then there’s a second phase of lame duck status inside your own party.

Todd said that Clinton's "coming out early" speeds up the "lame duck process of Barack Obama inside the Democratic Party." 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/08/18/NBC-s-Todd-Hillary-s-Policy-Speeches-Marginalize-Obama

Common Core Teachers Taught to Praise Wrong Answers Like ’3 x 4 was 11’

Apparently, under the new Common-Core standards, correct answers don’t really matter. At least that’s according to a “curriculum coordinator” in Chicago named Amanda August. “Even if [a student] said, ’3 x 4 was 11,’ if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer really in, umm, words and oral explanation, and they showed it in the picture but they just got the final number wrong, we’re really more focused on the how,” said the common core supporter and typical liberal, Amanda. Off course this reasoning explains quite a bit regarding our nation’s 16 trillion dollar debt, and Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that Obamacare was a “deficit reducer.” When you consider that our finest economic leaders in the Federal Reserve, and the White House, think spending more money will result in fewer deficits, teaching that 3 x 4 = 11 (if you explain it well) isn’t really much of a stretch. 

The left has long sought to bolster self-esteem by downplaying wrong answers in education. Everyone gets a ribbon; a truly disastrous lesson to teach when not everyone is capable of getting a job. And while the how is important in any lesson plan, in the end, the answer should still be correct. Amanda’s students are going to be in for a world of surprise when their first employer decides that doing the job correctly is more important than demonstrating “with words” an employee’s fundamental failure to grasp the concept of their task. 

To the credit of the presumably leftists audience, someone asked if teachers will still be correcting students on math tests. The simple fact that someone had to ask the question should demonstrate the atrocious nature of American education reform. The question “are we still going to correct wrong answers” would seem incomprehensible in a system of honest instruction. Amanda, however, stumbles through a very entertaining non-answer: 

“We want our students to compute correctly but the emphasis is really moving more towards the explanation, and the how, and the why, and ‘can I really talk through the procedures that I went through to get this answer; and not just knowing that it’s 12, but why is it 12? How do I know that?”

Well. . . Amanda, if they answered “11”, my guess is they won’t be able to answer “how do I know that” to a satisfactory degree. Well, 3 + 4 = 7, and both 3 and 7 are prime numbers. This leaves only 4 left, so we add it to our answer of 7 which is, of course, 11. Another prime number. . . How’d I do? Do I pass? What kind of world do we live in when math becomes a philosophical essay, and not a system of numbers, arithmetic, and simple truths? Well, it’s the same type of world that gives ribbons out to “honorary mentions” and lets every child star in the Christmas “winter” musical. 

And this is at the center of Common-Core. At its heart is not an intent to better our failing school system (after all, you don’t do that by praising kids who get basic multiplication wrong) but to instil an altruistic sense of self-worth and liberal flexibility. To the American left, school should be an instrument to instruct children that they can be anything they want, and that the most important thing is life is that you get an “A” for effort.
Of course, I wanted to be an astronaut. . . And it doesn’t matter how hard you try, if you can’t answer the multiplication problem “3 x 4”, you’re not very likely to move into the highly competitive world of extraterrestrial exploration (although you could run for congress as a Democrat).

Amanda’s purported concentration on making sure children understand what they are taught certainly has its place in the classroom. . . Right behind getting the right answer. But don’t worry: People like Amanda will soon be writing up your child’s lesson plans. 

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/michaelschaus/2013/08/19/common-core-will-instruct-teachers-to-praise-wrong-answers-n1667595/page/full

Librarian suggests turning the page on longtime reading club winner

 
Tyler Weaver calls himself “the king of the reading club” at Hudson Falls Public Library. But now it seems Hudson Falls Public Library Director Marie Gandron wants to end his reign and have him dethroned.

The 9-year-old boy, who will be starting fifth grade next month, won the six-week-long “Dig into Reading” event by completing 63 books from June 24 to Aug. 3, averaging more than 10 a week.

He has consistently been the top reader since kindergarten, devouring a total of 373 books over the five contests, according to his mother, Katie.

“It feels great,” said Tyler, an intermediate scholar student at Hudson Falls School. “I think that was actually a record-breaking streak.”

His younger brother, Jonathan, 7, won second place two years in a row now, completing more than 40 books this time.

Prizes were also awarded for the top reader in the kindergarten division, best rock people creations and best coloring entries.

Katie said she is “extremely proud” of her sons’ accomplishments, especially Tyler for having held his title for this long.

“I’ve told them God makes all of us different. There are some things that are hard and some that are easy, but they should excel at what they enjoy doing and Tyler just loves to read,” she said. “Everybody he tells, he gets high-fives. Everybody’s so proud of him.”

Everybody, it seems, but Gandron, who was surprised to learn Katie notified a Post-Star reporter about her son being a longtime winner. During a phone call Tuesday to Gandron, the library director said Tyler “hogs” the contest every year and he should “step aside.”

“Other kids quit because they can’t keep up,” Gandron said.

Gandron further told the reporter she planned to change the rules of the contest so that instead of giving prizes to the children who read the most books, she would draw names out of a hat and declare winners that way. She said she can’t now because Katie has come forward to the newspaper.

Gandron said she has an “attitude” about the contest because several years ago a little girl came in claiming she had read more than 200 books. Her mother backed her up, but it was discovered the girl was lying.

“That’s when we stopped (taking a child’s and parent’s word) because she wasn’t (reading the books),” Gandron said.

Gandron said the rules require each child to read books suitable to his or her grade level or higher. When the book is returned to the library, the child pulls a random slip of paper out of a jar and a library aide poses questions to verify whether he actually knows the content.

Queries include identifying the child’s favorite character or asking the reader what part of the book he would change and why.

Gandron said “as far as (she) knows” Tyler has fulfilled the requirements because he was able to answer everything related to the stories. His prizes, in separate years, included an atlas, T-shirt, water bottle and certificates of achievement.

“They’re really not any grand things. I think he just likes to be the top reader,” Katie said.

Lita Casey, an aide at the library for 28 years, said she is usually the person who asks the questions to determine whether the children have done the reading. She keeps track of the number of books for each student and submits it to Gandron.

Casey said she enjoys working with all the kids at the library and doesn’t want her job to be in jeopardy, but she feels Gandron’s plan to change the rules of the contest are “ridiculous.”

Casey said everyone in the club is on a level playing field because all begin and end the same day and all have the opportunity to read as many books as they wish.

“We’re not going to see some of these kids until next year, and you’re worried about them (being treated equally), and then, you’ve got two kids who come in every week taking books out?” she said.

Casey said she called library board member Michael Herman to complain.

“My feeling is you work, you get it. That’s just the way it is in anything. My granddaughter started working on track in grade school and ended up being a national champ. Should she have backed off and said, ‘No, somebody else should win?’ I told her (Gandron), but she said it’s not a contest, it’s the reading club and everybody should get a chance,” Casey said.

Casey said some of the children read only the minimum of 10 books so they can receive an invitation to the party at the end of the program.

This year, she made “six or seven” follow-up phone calls a week before the contest ended to prompt kids to finish their books.

Casey established a special relationship with the Weaver boys, who call her “Gram,” because they are frequent visitors to the library. She said between the two brothers, they have borrowed 1,000 books in the past few years.

As a testament to Tyler’s love of reading, Casey said that a few years ago, the summer theme centered on regions of the United States. Kids were supposed to read a book on each section of the country. A few children dropped out of the program because they didn’t like the subject matter, Casey said, but Tyler read at least one book on each of the 50 states.

“It was just something he wanted to do. He read them and told me about them. He wrote a synopsis and his mother typed it up,” she said.

Tyler said this uproar has made him “a little bit angry.”

“If they end up where a librarian would pick out a name from a hat … she might only read one slip and then (that child) would be picked out. He didn’t put enough effort in and he won. It’s not fair,” he said. “How would it even be a contest if you just picked a name out of a hat?”

Katie said if Gandron takes an alternate approach to the contest next year, neither of her sons will participate and they’ll head to Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls.

“I don’t see the downside of Tyler winning five years in a row. I think people should be proud of him, especially a library director,” she said.

http://poststar.com/news/local/librarian-suggests-turning-the-page-on-longtime-reading-club-winner/article_bdbebbc6-0625-11e3-b6f4-0019bb2963f4.html

Parasitic Power Producers

The green energy twins, wind and solar, are parasitic power producers. They cannot produce continuous predictable electricity without sucking backup from their hosts -- real power plants using coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, or geothermal energy. 

They start their freeloading life by attaching themselves to an electricity network built and paid for by their hosts. They seldom contribute to the capital or maintenance cost of the transmission network, and they force consumers to subsidize the feed-in price received for their unreliable output. 

From day one, the green energy parasites force their hosts to support them with electricity during the frequent periods when they produce no power. At times, in cold, still weather, wind farms drain power from the network to keep the turbines from freezing. 

All green energy plants in a region tend to produce either peak power or zero power at the same times. This surging creates serious network instability and forces fluctuating output in backup facilities. 

Because of this continuous need for backup, not one unit of real power can be closed. This causes periodic overcapacity in the network. All plants generate lower revenue and profits and both producers and consumers bear the cost of supporting the parasites. 

Problems already loom in Europe where coal, gas, and nuclear plants face closure because their revenue stream is weakened by overcapacity and interrupted by solar/wind surges.

Green energy has a low capacity factor, intermittent operation, more access and transmission costs. and creates operational inefficiencies in backup plants. It is a destructive and stunningly expensive way to achieve a miniscule overall reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, even if that were a sensible aim. It is a system designed by delirious politicians not prudent power engineers, and its main achievement is to harvest subsidies not energy. 

If all green energy welfare was removed, the parasite power producers would die. And unless it is removed, the hosts and the customers will be continuously weakened.

 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/08/parasitic_power_producers.html#ixzz2cQxhgEFr  

Embracing the Costanza Doctrine

The Middle East is aflame. In Egypt, the undemocratic, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood regime was ousted, and this has resulted in hundreds of deaths and mobs of Egyptians protesting and rioting in the streets. In Syria, a brutal civil war continues, with Sunni Islamists (including al-Qaeda groups) fighting Shiite Islamists (including terror giant Hezbollah) with over a 100,000 civilian casualties so far, and the documented use of chemical weapons. In Libya, the nation where a U.S. ambassador was killed just one year ago, there has been a wave of slayings of politicians and government officials, and a pro-America regime is barely able to control the country. In Tunisia, non-Islamist secular politicians are being assassinated, while the ruling Ennhada party continues to try to implement its Islamist agenda. In Turkey, protests by non-Islamists are brutally being crushed by the Erdogan's  Islamist regime, while members of the Turkish press continue to be imprisoned at record rates for criticizing the government.

Yet, the Obama Administration, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, has decided to focus its attention on the Palestinian Arab -- Israeli "Crisis." The U.S. apparently pressured the Israeli government to release 104 Palestinian terrorists -- some of whom have American blood on their hands -- for the mere privilege of speaking to the Palestinian Authority about a future "peace." This despite the fact that the PA controls only part of "Palestine," has broken its prior agreements time and time again, and has shown no real interest in curbing PA-sponsored incitement against Israel, Jews, Christians, and the West. The administration clearly still believes that the Palestinian Arab-Israeli "Crisis" is at the center of all problems in the Middle East, even though post-"Arab Spring" few other knowledgeable observers subscribe to this largely discredited theory.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. We have now had five years of an administration whose defective instincts have resulted in consistently flawed U.S. foreign policy behavior.
I do not believe we can afford another three more years of this. President Obama and his team need to develop a new approach for dealing with foreign policy matters.

My humble suggestion is as follows -- it is time for President Obama, and his administration, to adopt the Costanza Doctrine. It comes from the television comedy show Seinfeld. The salient principle of the Costanza Doctrine is the statement -- "(i)f every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right."

And President Obama and his administration have been wrong quite a few times. They were wrong to oust Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, and ship advanced weaponry to the Libyan Islamist rebels. They were wrong to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood was "largely secular" and "moderate" and willing to govern democratically. They were wrong to leave the defense of our (not quite a) consulate in Libya in the hands of Islamist militias on September 11, 2012. They were wrong to draw a "red line" on Syria. They are wrong to reach out time and time again to the unyielding fanatical Iranian mullahs on nuclear weapons. And they were wrong to "preemptively shutter 21 different American embassies across the Middle East and North Africa in response to NSA-collected terrorist chatter."

These Obama administration actions have harmed American national security interests. For example, let's look at the situation in Egypt. In 2009, in Cairo, President Obama began his campaign to repair relations with the "Muslim World." In 2011, in one of the larger Muslim nations, Egyptians began to protest their President Mubarak, supposedly for democratic reasons, but really for economic ones. Soon after, President Obama called for Mubarak to resign, which he eventually did. This was a mistake, and a strange one at that, considering that President Obama did not similarly call for the resignation of the anti-American Iranian regime when comparable protests occurred in Iran. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood party then won power, assisted by the Obama Administration's push for immediate elections. Once again, this was a mistake, as the Obama Administration should have known that only the MB was organized enough to win a quick election.

During their year in power, the MB increasingly showed its violent and undemocratic side, but the Obama Administration never threatened U.S. aid, even though the MB actions were violating legal conditions on U.S. aid to Egypt. The MB government ignored the deteriorating Egyptian economy, and began to threaten other nations. Finally, disgusted by MB rule, the Egyptian people rose in mass demonstrations of millions of people in the streets -- demonstrations opposed by the U.S. ambassador -- and the Egyptian military overthrew the MB government. Only then did the Obama administration begin to threaten aid to Egypt, although they wisely chose not to immediately cut it off. Now they are pushing for some sort of political compromise, even though the MB will never accept less than complete military capitulation. Because of all this, over the space of two years, the administration has managed to antagonize all segments of the Egyptian population.

I am certainly not suggesting that by following the Costanza Doctrine, the Obama administration will produce perfect policies. But more often than not, the instincts of the president, and his administration, are demonstrably faulty. A quick fix for these bad instincts, and the bad policies that have resulted from them, would be for the administration to do the opposite. Just like George Costanza.

I realize that it is unlikely that the Obama Administration would ever stoop to following the example of a TV sitcom. But expecting President Obama and his administration to implement better policies without recognition that their failures stem from their faulty instincts and assumptions seems to me even more unlikely.

 http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/embracing_the_costanza_doctrine.html#ixzz2cQpA8ly3

It’s War, You Idiots

It’s hard to get our minds around the dimensions of the slaughter underway in the Middle East and Africa, and harder still to see that the battlefields of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria and Mali are pieces in a global war in which we are targeted.  For the most part, the deep thinkers zero in on the single battlefields.  What if anything should we do about the big fight in Egypt?  Should we assist the Syrian opposition?  What to do in Lebanon or Jordan? Should we respond positively to the Iraqi government’s request for security assistance?  Is anyone thinking hard about Tunisia, likely to be the scene of the next explosions?

It could not be otherwise, since our government, our universities, our news organizations and our think tanks are all primarily organized to deal with countries, and our analysts, policy makers and military strategists inevitably think inside those boxes.  We don’t have an assistant secretary of defense for global strategy (FOOTNOTE:  actually we do, his name is Andrew Marshall, he’s a sprightly genius of 92 years, and he runs a largely ignored corner of the Pentagon called “Net Assessment”), but we do have one for the Near East and South Asia.  And there’s hardly a professor in America who is talking about the fundamental change in the nature of global affairs in which we are enmeshed, the paradigm shift from the post-World War II world dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union, to…we know not what.

So there’s a global war, we’re the main target of the aggressors, and our leaders don’t see it and therefore have no idea how to win it.

Any serious attempt to understand what’s going on has to begin by banning the word “stability,” much beloved of diplomats and self-proclaimed strategists. If anything is fairly certain about our world, it’s that there is no stability, and there isn’t going to be any.  Right now, the driving forces are those aimed at destroying the old order, and their targets (the old regimes, very much including the United States) have until recently showed little taste to engage as if their survival depended on it.  But things are changing, as always.

The war is easily described:  there is a global alliance of radical leftists and radical Islamists, supported by a group of countries that includes Russia, at least some Chinese leaders, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua.  The radicals include the Sunni and Shi’ite terrorist organizations and leftist groups, and they all work seamlessly with the narcotics mafias.  Their objective is the destruction of the West, above all, of the United States.

What if they win?  Some of them want to create a  (Sunni or Shi’ite) caliphate, others want Castro- or Kim-style communist dictatorships.  Like the five Mafia families in The Godfather, they have made their war plan, but, as with the Corleones and the Barzinis, they are riven by disagreements, some of which are fundamental.

War is foggy, and alliances are often very unstable, especially at moments when the whole world is up for grabs.  Look at Egypt, for example.  At one level, it’s a sectarian fight:  the “secular” military vs. the “Islamist” Muslim Brotherhood.  So nobody should be surprised when the Brothers burn churches and murder Christians.  But the top military dog, General Sisi, has some pretty impressive Islamist credentials.  Indeed, his elevation at the time of the Brothers’ purge of Mubarak’s generals was frequently attributed to his close ties to the Brotherhood.

I don’t think anyone nowadays would call him a friend of the Brothers.  So what happened?  Did he go secular all of a sudden?  Was his “Islamism” a trick from the get-go?  Or is “Islamism” less monolithic than some suppose?  A Saudi of my acquaintance showed up in Cairo a few days ago with a bunch of checks, some currently cashable, others postdated over the next twelve months, all hand-delivered to Sisi and his guys.  Their advice to the Egyptian military is to mercilessly crush the Brothers, and their advice will likely be adopted, both because the junta knows that death awaits them if they lose (2 Egyptian major generals and 2 brigadier generals, along with many colonels, have been assassinated by the Brothers in the current spasm), and because only the Saudis can foot the huge bill facing Egypt just to provide the basics for the people.  Most of whom, to the evident surprise of Western leaders and journalists, seem inclined to support the junta (neighborhood militias have taken on the Brothers throughout the country, for example).

So we’ve got an indubitably Islamist regime–the Saudi Wahhabis–supporting a military junta whose leader is famously Islamist against the infamously Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.  Yes, they may well all yearn for the destruction of the infidel West (although the junta impiously pockets our dollars), but for the moment the struggle for power trumps the power of the faith.

Notice that this bloody confrontation has nothing to do with the celebrated Sunni-Shi’ite war that is so often invoked to “explain” current events.  It’s all happening within Sunni Egypt (although the Shi’ite Iranians are certainly meddling–surprise!–on behalf of the very Sunni Brothers).  And there are plenty of “foreign fighters,” just as there were in Iraq, just as there are in Afghanistan:  in the last 8 days, according to usually reliable sources in Cairo, 253 Uzbeks, 21 Yemenis, 40 Afghans and 11 Turkmens have been arrested, along with  126 Hamas operatives, who bring weapons and train pro-Brotherhood Egyptians.

ANOTHER FOOTNOTE:  During the Cold War, Ignazio Silone mused that the last war would be between the Communists and the ex-Communists.  Maybe the Middle East is now the scene of a war between Islamists and ex-Islamists, or between pious Muslims and not-so-pious ones, or even between Muslims and ex-Muslims.  In this context, we should ban the use of the word “moderate,” along with “stability”…

Does that picture give you mental cramps?  Then move on to Syria.  You’ve got Bashar Assad on top in a neighborhood of Damascus, supported by Iran and Russia, fighting against a variety of insurgents including al-Qaeda units, Salafists, former members of Assad’s military, and the usual mob of adventurous souls, including Americans and Europeans, who believe they are waging jihad in the name of Allah.

Assad is actually a figurehead; the real capital of Syria is in an office of the Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.  A leader of the Syrian opposition made this clear, saying that Hezbollah and Iran were the real powers in Syria, and there’s plenty of evidence for his assertion, including dead Hezbollahis and Quds Forcers.

So al-Qaeda’s fighting Iran in Syria, right?  That fits nicely into the Sunni vs. Shi’ite meme, thereby relieving a mental cramp or two.  But wait:  our very own Treasury Department, which is as good as we’ve got when it comes to deciphering the crazy quilt network of global terrorism, told us in no uncertain terms a couple of years ago that there was a secret deal between AQ and the mullahs.  Moreover, the tidal wave of terrorism that has crashed on Iraq is universally termed a resurgence of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has been Iranian-sponsored since Day One (just ask the late unlamented Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, sent to paradise by U.S. Special Forces).  Which gives us a big mental cramp indeed:  an Iranian (Shi’ite)-sponsored (Sunni) al-Qaeda assault against (Shi’ite) Iraq, and right next door an Iranian-assisted (Sunni) al-Qaeda, alongside other (mostly Sunni) foreign and domestic fighters against a (kinda Shi’ite) regime under the control of (totally Shi’ite) Tehran.

Who’s on first?  Is Iran sponsoring AQ in Iraq and killing AQ next door in Syria?  Is it some sort of trick (Iran using AQ to penetrate the opposition in order to have some control over whatever follows a defeat of the current Syrian regime, for example, or a deception, using AQ in Syria to subvert the opposition)?
Yes, I promise to ask Angleton if I can just get the ouija board repaired.  It’s a wilderness of mirrors worthy of him at his most antic.

Let’s get outside these little boxes and look at the big board.  There’s an alliance plotting against us, bound together by two radical views of the world that share a profound, fundamental hatred of us.  If they win, it’s hell to pay, because then we will be attacked directly and often, and we will be faced with only two options, winning or losing.

That’s the bad news.  The good news is that they’re divided, and slaughtering each other.  And it’s not always possible for us to sort out what “each other” even means.  But one thing is quite clear, and I know it’s an unpopular idea, but it’s a true fact:  they’re not an awesome force.  The radical left has failed everywhere, and so have the radical Islamists.  Both claim to have history (and/or the Almighty) on their side, but they go right on failing.  The left is now pretty much in the garbage bin of history (you can hire Gorbachev for your next annual meeting if you can afford his speaking fee), and the “Muslim world”–sorry to be so blunt–is a fossilized remnant of a failed civilization.  Look at the shambles in Iran, look at the colossal mess the Brothers unleashed on a once-great nation.

So we’ve got opportunities, lots of them.  We’ve already passed up many:  failing to support the Iranian people against the evil regime that is the central source of terror against us and our would-be friends, failing to support Mubarak against the Brothers, failing to quickly support the opposition to Assad at the outset, before the enterprise got buried under a heap of jihadi manure, and so forth.  OK, we’re human, we’re led, if that’s the right verb, very badly, by ideologues who think we are the root cause of most of the world’s problems.  Which is the same thing our enemies believe, as luck would have it.  But this will pass, and even now we could transform the big global board by doing the strategically sound and morally correct thing, and support the Iranian people against the regime.  Don’t bomb them, don’t invade them, just tell the regime we know who and what they are, and start talking to their most dangerous enemies, the overwhelming majority of the Iranian nation.  We may not know exactly how to do it, but they do, and if we showed up, they would tell us.

That the regime fears them was demonstrated once again when the Iranian parliament rejected three nominees for the new government.  All three would have commanded ministries having to do with culture and education, which is to say young Iranians, the core of the opposition. Two of those candidates were associates of the Green Movement leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.  During the debate, the word “Green” was heard more than 150 times, underlying the alarm of the deputies.

Of course they’re afraid.  They are right to be afraid.  And just think of the consequences of a free Iran:  the fall of the Syrian regime, a devastating blow to Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Guards, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.  Bad news for the Brothers.  A kick in the solar plexus of the nasty lefties in South America…

Think globally.  Act as if you understood it.  On our side, confound it.  And yes, faster, please.  Especially those of you who pretend to be capable of leading us after the departure of these guys…

 http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2013/08/18/its-war-you-idiots/?singlepage=true

No Country for Fat Men

 The Anton Chigurh of Jersey politics has a declared nemesis, and that wouldn't be a Jersey version of Llewelyn Moss. That would be Sarah Palin -- the Mama Grizzly -- who's come to the defense of Kentucky senator Rand Paul. Paul was recently the victim of a drive by whacking compliments of the Garden State's chubby Chigurh -- okay, kinda-sorta Chigurh, in that Chris Christie is far too loutish and pliable to pass for the cool killer in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men (and the Coen Brothers movie of the same name). 

The Guv may like the hype of being the Chigurh of American politics, but he's pretty much a Garden State-variety big mouth schoolyard bully. Yes, interventions and mandatory anger management have cleansed the nation's white bread grade schools of the Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherfords, but Christie graduated long before all that, and took his bully act to the political arena, where counseling isn't mandatory.

Jersey's governor went after Paul ostensibly for Paul's circumspection about NSA activities, namely, the unwarranted sweeping up of information on innocent Americans. But Governor Lumpy was actually jockeying for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The Guv was doing the contrast thing in conspicuously picking a fight with the libertarian-leaning Paul, a potential rival.

Governor Lumpy, who's up for reelection this November, blindsided Paul in a calculated effort to hit hot buttons with all those touchy-feely blues, from Union City to Cape May and back again. A thumping reelection victory for the Guv propels him further into the spotlight and the loving embrace of Washington's Republican establishment, pols and chatterers.

Seems that Governor Lumpy is running the Romney route to the Republican presidential nomination. Here's the plan: Cozy up to the GOP establishment, rake in the big bucks from heavy-hitting establishment donors, and pray like hell that a slew of bona fide conservatives enter the 2016 GOP nomination fight, thereby fragmenting the conservative vote, giving the 30% or thereabouts of GOP establishment voters the chance to swing primaries and caucuses your way. Of course, much depends on the rules for 2016 caucuses and primaries.

After Governor Lumpy's reelection this November (all but certain), prepare for barrels of ink, real and virtual, to be expended by Republicans and ingratiating scribes asserting that for the GOP to secure the White House in 2016, bluish is the way to go, and darn it, Chris Christie proved it with his mix of get tough on Rand Paul and lovers of liberty and his snuggling with President O. These days, the GOP establishment is comfortably purplish verging on bluish, trans-partier John McCain leading the charge.

Missed in the governor's cheap theatrics over national security was the serious point made by Senator Paul: there are important constitutional questions raised when an agency of government -- be it the NSA or the IRS -- oversteps its legal mandates -- or comes within a hair's breadth of doing so.

There are legitimate grounds for debate about the balance between national security, on the one hand, and liberties on the other. But it t'was a big, fat, floppy red-herring that Governor Lumpy threw on the table by inferring that Paul and those Americans speaking out against Washington overreach are somehow anti-security. There's a whole lot of country between truncheon-wielders crushing freedoms in the name of security and stocking up on freeze-dried foods and ammo for your own protection.

Senator Paul has given no indication that he opposes a sensible, constitutionally mandated obligation of the national government to protect citizens. If anything, Paul has shown he's hawkish, in a new sense: he's hawkish on liberty, and rightfully suspect of the ever-growing power and intrusiveness of the federal government.

Governor Lumpy's smash-mouth attack on Paul was all misdirection. Why, if Senator Paul or any God-fearing American dare even hint that the feds are breaching rights and liberties (or coming close), then they must be for more Americans perishing in jihadists' surprise attacks.
The NSA has good intentions? A government that can cast a wide net for enemy combatants today (or should we more appropriately call them "potential workplace violators?") can, under new and less fastidious leadership, take the information collected on honest Americans and use it toward fiendish ends.

An extreme statement, that? Well, then, Jefferson and Madison were extremists -- or, for progressives and fellow traveling Republicans, America's revolutionaries and founders are "quaint" -- you know, all their eloquent, antique claptrap about limited government and tyranny.

As Richmond Times Dispatch columnist A. Barton Hinkle summed up cogently a couple of weeks ago:

Government exists to protect all people's rights, not some people's feelings. A country in which the government can, in the name of national security, invade any home or arrest any person, with no explanation and no appeal, might be secure from foreign invasion. But its people are not safe -- they are simply threatened by a different menace.

But back to politics. In going after Paul, Governor Lumpy may have miscalculated by swiping at the libertarianism that is taking hold at the grassroots. This "libertarianism," boiled down, is small government conservatism. It's the drive to reestablish government closer to founding principles, which, nowadays, merits IRS shenanigans.

In defense and foreign affairs, grassroots conservatives aren't Lindberghs, nor do they aim to gut the nation's defenses. But neither are they willing to write Uncle Sam a blank check, unquestioningly and stupidly surrendering rights and freedoms to the federal government in the name of security. And they may be more prudent about adventurism. What has Benghazi produced, other than death, lies, and a momentous cover-up? And President O meddled in Egyptian affairs to what good end? 

Jersey's governor has already lost his street cred with grassroots conservatives. Even leggy bottle-blonde Ann Coulter has forsaken the big fella. His positions on amnesty, gun control, and global warming are culprits. He also appointed a lib-tainted cabinet, which falls into the category of "Tell me who your friends are."

But Governor Lumpy may just win the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 if -- and only if -- conservatives fail to consolidate support early enough behind a conservative presidential candidate. There's got to be some deal-cutting soon enough to focus resources and votes to trounce the Guv. That means some aspirants putting aside ambitions and egos for the cause. No small trick, given the outsized egos and ambitions of the men and women who seek the presidency. But that's the direction grassroots conservative leaders need to push, toward consolidation.

In the 2016 GOP caucuses and primaries, there can be no country for fat men.

 http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/no_country_for_fat_men.html#ixzz2cQoWZPNB

America's Tyranny Threshold

As he finishes up his Martha's Vineyard vacation, Barack Obama would be well-served to recall the fiery words of Jonathan Mayhew, who is famous for his sermons "espousing American rights -- the cause of liberty, and the right and duty to resist tyranny."

Mayhew, born at Martha's Vineyard on October 8, 1720, was "bitterly opposed to the Stamp Act and urged colonial liberties."  Though he did not live to see the American Revolution (he died on July 9, 1766), his "sermons and writing were a powerful influence in the development of the movement for liberty and independence."

And they need to be revisited as the Obama presidency continues its legacy of lawlessness.

First published in Boston in 1750, "A Discourse concerning the unlimited submission and non-resistance to the high powers" was a sermon delivered on the 100^th anniversary of the execution of Charles I.  It was so powerful that it was published in London in 1752 and again in 1767.  In fact, this sermon was the "first volley of the American Revolution, setting forth the intellectual and scriptural justification for rebellion against the Crown."

The following words from the Discourse fly off the page in light of the continuing unconstitutional acts of President Obama.

Civil tyranny is usually small in its beginning, like 'the drop in a bucket,' till at length, like a mighty torrent of raging waves of the sea, it bears down all before it and deluges whole countries and empires.

Although the president cannot write or rewrite laws, this president thinks he is above the law.  The "entire system of separation of powers ... is designed to limit governmental power," but Mr. Obama continually makes it clear "that he won't respect these basic constitutional limits on his power."  

Tyranny brings ignorance and brutality along with it.  It degrades men from their just rank into the class of brutes.  It dampens their spirits.  It suppresses arts.  It extinguishes every spark of noble ardor and generosity in the breasts of those who are enslaved by it.

And American young people are being dampened in their enthusiasm for their futures because of the actions emanating from this White House.  A millennial caller on the Rush Limbaugh radio show recently made the astonishing comment that her generation is being told there is no hope for the future.  Like the serfs of the feudal system, young people in Obama's America "are predestined to misery and failure," because they no longer have "any free will," and only the government can provide and coddle this generation because upward mobility is no longer possible.  The Horatio Alger belief in hard work bringing rewards is being destroyed by this administration as it deliberately burdens generations of Americans, some not even born.

Thank you, Mr. Obama, for $17 trillion in debt, increasing unemployment, prohibitions against genuine American energy-independence, and onerous regulations on critical aspects of life.

[Civil tyranny] makes naturally strong and great minds feeble and little and triumphs over the ruins of virtue and humanity.  This is true of tyranny in every shape.  There can be nothing great and good where its influence reaches.

Concerning ObamaCare alone, Obama's tyranny has grown incrementally.  Delaying provisions of the ACA law does not lie within the purview of the executive branch.  This authority is with the Congress.  But we have a president who has repeatedly stated that he "can do this without Congress."  In April Obama "delayed a provision...to cap out-of- pocket health care costs."  He also decided to delay the employer mandate for a year. This exceeds his authority.  The president continues to ignore the court's ruling that his National Labor Relations Board recess appointments were unconstitutional since they were not approved by Congress.

Further acts by the Obama administration that are inconsistent with the laws of America include:

• This administration was displeased with Congress's failure to enact the DREAM Act.  So in 2012 he "implemented portions of legislation he could not get through Congress ... and acted in ways blatantly at odds with the existing immigration laws [.]"
• Concerning the "No Child Left Behind" law, Obama, "unable to convince Congress to revise key provisions of the law, simply authorized waivers from many requirements of the law -- except that the 'No Child Left Behind' does not provide for such waivers."
• Furthermore, Obama waived a "central tenet of the Clinton welfare-reform law" by eliminating the requirements that recipients of welfare either work or prepare to do so through approved education or training.  This federal work requirement is not subject to waiver, but Obama ignored the law.
• More recently, Obama is working "to unilaterally impose a tax on cell phones," maintaining that "where Congress is unwilling to act, I will take whatever administrative steps that I can in order to do right by the American people."  But "[c]onstitutionally, it's Congress that decides how federal funds should be spent."  Yet this president uses his bully pulpit to circumvent the proper safeguards that the Founding Fathers built into our system.

In 1765, with the Stamp Act fresh in everyone's mind, Mayhew stated that the "essence of slavery, consists in subjection to others -- 'whether many, few, or but one, it matters not.'"

Thus, he wrote:

Those nations who are now groaning under the iron scepter of tyranny were once free.  So they might probably have remained by a seasonable caution against despotic measures.

Though "seasonable caution" is being heard in the country, there are still Americans who do not sense the looming danger that this president represents as he ignores the Constitution, appoints people who continue to break the law with impunity, and has overweening contempt for America and her ideas and ideals.  He flouts the law as he sees fit.

Mayhew asserts:

Since magistrates who execute their office well, are common benefactors to society; and may, in that respect, be properly stiled the ministers and ordinance of God; and since they are constantly employed in the service of the public; it becomes you to pay them tribute and custom; and to reverence, honor, and submit to, them in the execution of their respective offices." This is apparently good reasoning. But does this argument conclude for the duty of paying tribute, custom, reverence, honor and obedience, to such persons as (although they bear the title of rulers) use all their power to hurt and injure the public?

Yet:   

For what can be more absurd than an argument thus framed?. Common tyrants, and public oppressors, are not intitled to obedience from their subjects[.]

Although he was writing with reference to the oppressiveness of the kingly or monarchical government, Mayhew reminds his readers that:

The essence of government (I mean good government); ....consists in the making and executing of good laws--laws attempered to the common felicity of the governed. And if this be, in fact, done, it is evidently, in it self, a thing of no consequence at all, what the particular form of government is;--whether the legislative and executive power be lodged in one and the same person, or in different persons;--whether in one person, whom we call an absolute monarch;--whether in a few, so as to constitute an aristocracy;--whether in many, so as to constitute a republic; or whether in three co-ordinate branches, in such manner as to make the government partake something of each of these forms; and to be, at the same time, essentially different from them all. If the end be attained, it is enough.

But he reminds his readers:

... nothing can well be imagined more directly contrary to common sense, than to suppose that millions of people should be subjected to the arbitrary, precarious pleasure of one single man; (who has naturally no superiority over them in point of authority) so that their estates, and every thing that is valuable in life, and even their lives also, shall be absolutely at his disposal, if he happens to be wanton and capricious enough to demand them. What unprejudiced man can think, that God made ALL to be thus subservient to the lawless pleasure and frenzy of ONE, so that it shall always be a sin to resist him!

Continuing regulations emanate from this White House on a daily basis.  We will soon have no control over our health decisions; businesses are being burdened in oppressive ways.  IRS and NSA scandals are nonchalantly described as "phony scandals."

A man who has no shame has no right to be a leader.  Obama has abused the trust of the American people.

But it is equally evident, upon the other hand, that those in authority may abuse their trust and power to such a degree, that neither the law of reason, nor of religion, requires, that any obedience or submission should be paid to them: but, on the contrary, that they should be totally discarded; and the authority which they were before vested with, transferred to others, who may exercise it more to those good purposes for which it is given[.]

We already have the necessary means to resist the assault on our republic.  But we must be unrelenting in demanding that the Congress meet its obligations and restore the checks and balances our Founding Fathers created.  If legislators do not adhere to the Constitution, they have no right to be in Washington, D.C.

Certainly Obama has taken on the trappings of an emperor, despite his protestations, but are we not obliged to resist?  He has broken the pledge to uphold the Constitution.  He has been derelict in his duty.  The National Black Republican Association (NBRA) has filed articles of impeachment against Barack Obama.  And other calls for impeachment are increasing. 

It was with "unfeigned love" for his country that Mayhew wrote.  In his sermon entitled "The Snare Broken," he wrote of the joy that Americans felt when Great Britain repealed the onerous Stamp Act in March 1766.  However, on the same day, "Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts, asserting that the British government had free and total legislative power over the colonies."  Mayhew died less than two months after this event, and, though eminently prescient, he was not privy to the continuing intrusions of Great Britain into America's well-being that ultimately led to the American Revolution.

Will we take to heart these words of Mayhew, or will we, too, "groan under the iron scepter of tyranny" in the not too distant future?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/americas_tyranny_threshold.html#ixzz2cQrHH0Ha

PK'S NOTE: Maybe not revolution, but it's time to take a stand. If you haven't gotten involved in "politics", do so now. (It's not politics -- it's someone else having control over life without your input).  If you haven't said anything, say something now to friends and family because it is important. Read THE LIBERTY AMENDMENTS. 

Time for a New American Revolution?

The United States of America was born in revolution. The Declaration of Independence asserted that people have a right of revolution. According to The Declaration, "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [such as "life," "liberty," "the pursuit of happiness," and "the consent of the governed"], it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The Declaration acknowledged that people should not, and will not, seek to overturn "long-established" governments "for light and transient reasons." After "a long train of abuses and usurpations," however, which are clearly aimed at establishing "absolute Despotism," people have not only the "right," but the "duty," to "throw off such Government, and provide new guards for their future security."

The U.S. has not experienced a successful revolution since the one between 1775 and 1783, despite Thomas Jefferson's hope that "[t]he tree of liberty should be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Some think it's time for a new American revolution. Moreover, many of the preconditions for a revolt exist.

Before specifying some indications of the potential for revolution in the U.S., let me mention several conditions noted by the historian Crane Brinton (1898-1968) in The Anatomy of Revolution (1938, 1952, 1965). Brinton studied revolutions in four western countries: Great Britain in the 1640s, America in the late 18th century, France a few years later, and the Russian revolutions of 1917.

Although the four countries' revolutions manifested differences, each had in common major problems with the pre-revolutionary regime. Many of the same problems afflict the U.S. today. In each country, just before revolution broke out, there were indications that the old regime was increasingly dysfunctional. The four governments faced huge budget deficits. Citizens complained -- far more than normal -- about excessive taxation. There were conspicuous decisions by which the central government favored some economic interests over others. There were also well-publicized instances of government malfeasance and/or corruption.

Brinton identified two other important developments in pre-revolutionary societies: (1) members of the ruling class lost self-confidence, leading to that class' increasing ineptitude; and (2) the intelligentsia were alienated from the old regime. 

As before, are any bells ringing?

Now we're ready to look at developments in America, and ask if they foretell revolutionary change.

I shall focus on public opinion polls.

Brinton lacked access to reliable information about public opinion in the four countries: i.e., polls conducted by modern methods. 

(Some people distrust polls. Provided, however, one understands the pitfalls associated with polling, they contain useful information about grassroots opinions and behavior. All the polls I cite come from reputable polling organizations; all are based on nationwide samples; every sample contains enough respondents to be reliable. For an excellent primer on public opinion polling, see Herbert Asher, Polling and the Public: What Every Citizen Should Know, 8th ed., 2012.)

It would require too many words to relate all facets of recent polls that reveal the potential for a new American revolution. I concentrate on the most important. Others could readily be added.

Perhaps the most important poll -- for our purposes -- is the one reported by Rasmussen Reports (October 28, 2012) that was conducted October 21st and 22nd of last year. That poll of "likely voters" -- who are probably the most attentive, best informed, and politically active citizens -- found 60% did not believe the federal government had the consent of the governed. Only 25% did, and 15% were not sure.

The notion "consent of the governed" encapsulates the essence of popular government. When three-fifths of the most informed and active citizens hold that belief, the legitimacy of America's central government is in question.

Grassroots doubts that the central government has "the consent of the governed" become more compelling because a Rasmussen poll, conducted just before July 4th, 2012, found 70% of likely voters agreed with The Declaration of Independence that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Agreement with that statement rose four percentage points in just one year (2011-12), and 14 points in four years (2008-12).

Other, more recent, Rasmussen polls also show worrisome trends (for those who support the old regime). A poll from mid-June, 2013, for example, reported only 35% of likely voters held a favorable opinion of the federal government, and 60% viewed Washington, DC unfavorably. 

Even worse, a Rasmussen poll from early June, 2013 reported that 56% of likely voters viewed the federal government as a threat to individual rights.

Rasmussen is not the only pollster to report that a majority of the American public disdain the federal government. Gallup has been asking respondents whether they think "big government, "big business," or "big labor" "will be the biggest threat to the country in the future" since at least 1965. The most recent Gallup poll asking this question -- December, 2011 -- found 64% of respondents picked "big government" as the most likely future threat to the country, while only 26% selected "big business," and 8% picked "big labor."

Although the Rasmussen and Gallup polls' questions are different, they suggest the same conclusion: a majority of the public view the central government in jaundiced terms.

Other polls go even further. Gallup polls between 2011 and 2013 asked random samples of the public how much confidence they had in 16 major institutions: "newspapers," "television news," "banks," "organized labor," "public schools," "the medical system," "big business," "small business," "the criminal justice system," "the church, organized religion," "health maintenance organizations," "the police," "the military," "the Supreme Court," "Congress," and "the presidency." Majorities expressed "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in only the military (70+%), small business (65+%), and the police (55+%). Other recent Gallup polls report approval of the Supreme Court at 43% and of Congress at only 14%. (A Rasmussen poll conducted in late July, 2013, confirms Gallup's finding; only 10% of likely voters rated the job being done by Congress as "good" or "excellent.")

Before concluding that the U.S. is ripe for revolution, consider the following: First, these polls do not prove the public is ready to overthrow the old regime; they only hint at that. Second, polls are like a snapshot; they freeze public opinion at the time they're conducted; things may change dramatically in short order. Third, change a poll question's wording or context and the results may be very different.

Fourth, successful revolutions almost never occur spontaneously; they require leadership, especially individuals who can mobilize millions by their charisma. Even with a Samuel Adams, a Patrick Henry, or a Martin Luther King, Jr., a revolutionary movement will not draw majorities to its banner. The first American Revolution was probably backed by 40-45% of the populace. Between 15-20% opposed the revolution. The rest just wanted to be left alone.

Are sufficient numbers of Americans willing to risk their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor? Time will tell.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/time_for_a_new_american_revolution.html#ixzz2cQybnfdj