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Dan Miller
Will North Korea Collapse? (Part Two)
The situation in North Korea remains cloudy but some information has become available. (Also read Dan Miller's PJ Media article from November titled "Will North Korea Collapse?")
Manuel Noriega Returns to Panama
On Sunday, he was transferred to a maximum security facility in the jungle.
Will North Korea Collapse?
Kim Jong-il's days of living the high life while his people starve are counting down.
ObamaCare Is Likely To Die a Painful Death
Is the Supreme Court likely to draw and quarter the president's signature legislation? You betcha.
Six Ways to Fix These Painfully Embarrassing GOP Primary Debates
This really needs to be the last electoral cycle where MSM leftists receive such a perfect perch to land their cheap shots.
Why President Obama Is Really No Worse than el Presidente Chávez
Here are some of the contrasting great leaps forward made or promised by these two astonishing leaders.
FAIL: Another Judge Finds ObamaCare Unconstitutional
The president is left with cheese on his face again as Hope and Change suffers another legal blow.
The Humpty Dumpty President’s Magic Words
In a scornful tone: "When I use a word... it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
Obama Will Soon Offer Plans to Create Jobs. Conservatives Must Help.
These novel ideas are all workable and truly bipartisan; they should appeal to libruls and conservatives alike.
The New ObamaCare Decision Is Good
The insurance mandate is unconstitutional and we don't have to eat peas.
Not Enough Yet, but House Bound to Cut More Spending
If the House behaves in the best interests of its majority, Uncle Sugar will have to diet lest they precipitate a new credit limit "crisis".
The Donkey Pins the Tail on Itself
The Dem position on spending simply cannot end well for them. (Update: Boehner bill passes House, And the Next Move Is...?)
Options Limited in Debt Ceiling Mess
The "unexpected" debt limit mess has persisted far too long for anything better than the least bad outcome to be anticipated.
Wanted: Sacrifices for Obama’s Reelection Campaign
President Obama and others negotiating an end to the debt limit mess are searching for ways out of a political crisis of their own making and trying desperately to kick cans full of worms and of blame down the road to avoid losses during next year’s elections. Solving the underlying problems would have taken lots of unglamorous work rather than political pandering, so comforting during a political season which has neither a beginning nor an end. Now that it’s too late to do anything definitive, the rhetoric is full blown and occasionally rancorous while substance is lacking.
In his weekly speech on July 16th, President Obama called for shared sacrifice by big corporations and the rich. He said,
Simply put, it will take a balanced approach, shared sacrifice, and a willingness to make unpopular choices on all our parts. That means spending less on domestic programs. It means spending less on defense programs. It means reforming programs like Medicare to reduce costs and strengthen the program for future generations. And it means taking on the tax code, and cutting out certain tax breaks and deductions for the wealthiest Americans.
. . . .
The truth is, you can’t solve our deficit without cutting spending. But you also can’t solve it without asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share — or without taking on loopholes that give special interests and big corporations tax breaks that middle-class Americans don’t get.
It’s pretty simple. I don’t think oil companies should keep getting special tax breaks when they’re making tens of billions in profits.
As was the case with President Obama’s address on July 15th, he failed to “name a single entitlement he is willing to cut. His sacred cows are still sacred, but yours are up for slaughter.” It may be true, as reported by CBS News, that
President Obama on Friday acknowledged for the first time that he was considering changes to the programs like raising the retirement age or applying means testing.
Additionally, an administration official tells CBS News political analyst John Dickerson that a deal based on Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s “back up plan” could include a binding commission charged with reviewing the entitlement programs.
President Obama did indeed put it “simply”; so simply that even a third grader could understand that he claims to want just good stuff and to kill the demons — even though the third grader couldn’t learn what the good stuff and demons are. Neither, most likely, does our Harvard Law School graduate and former “constitutional law professor” know.
Children too young to understand what’s happening are susceptible to demagoguery; so are too many chronological adults.
As to Social Security, President Obama spoke of raising the retirement age — to what, when, for whom and to produce what savings how and when he did not indicate. Means testing? What means that? He has yet even to touch upon the extent to which, if any, such tests may change or adapt existing means testing formulae with which the progressive Revenue Code and Treasury regulations already abound.
What “loopholes that give special interests and big corporations tax breaks that middle-class Americans don’t get”? Oil depletion allowances — obviously Harry Homeowner doesn’t get them and if he did wouldn’t have any use for them. Do the big bad corporations include Boeing Aircraft but not Government Motors? General Electric? Do the wicked special interests include domestic oil drilling, production, and refining companies but not unions, malpractice lawyers, and his other supporters? What “loopholes” are bad, which are good? Are they good or bad in terms of social fairness as perceived by President Obama or in terms of real economic impact? Demands for more good stuff and less bad may be sufficient for those who still hold him in absolute awe; they can’t be for the rest of us.
Everything has been so amorphous as to be meaningless. As Charles Krauthammer recently said on NPR,
[The President] talks a good game. “Oh, I’m prepared to do entitlements, I’m ready to do entitlements.” Not once has he ever enunciated in public — other than all these leaks which I don’t trust for half a second — one structural change in entitlements, and without that, everybody over the age of nine knows we are not going to get a handle on the debt. So let’s hear him say it in public once.
Rick Moran asks here whether the Republicans will “cave on taxes.” How does one cave on such things as unspecific as more taxes for fat cats, big corporations, and special interests? What’s to cave on? A marriage subsequently to be arranged with someone unknown?
President Obama to the contrary notwithstanding, it’s not “pretty simple” and anyone who claims that it is either does not himself understand “it” or has, at best, a very low opinion of the intelligence of his audience. There may be some specifics under discussion but if so the discussion has been behind closed doors; what little has leaked out under the transom has been no more solid than quicksand and no more reliable than Daily Kos.
How Do You Solve a Problem like the National Debt?
Like a leaky faucet wasting water, it's time to stop the careless flow of taxpayer money. Also see Video: President Obama promises 'massive job-killing taxes' if he is re-elected, at the Tatler.
Let’s Try All Sensational Criminal Cases on TV!
The jury system, and laws in general, can produce unpopular results and must therefore be changed.
Have a Happy, Reflective, and Fruitful Fourth of July
Our history can guide our future if we will that it do so.
Silence of Hugo Chávez Fuels Speculation and Rumors
What would a future with a diminished or dead Chávez mean for the rest of Latin America and for the United States?
After 61 Years, Korean War Offers Modern Lessons
As we remember our military personnel who gave their lives during the conflict, we might also think about the reasons it happened and about how to diminish the likelihood of another, in Korea and elsewhere.
Torture? Racism? Genocide? When It Means Everything, It Means Nothing
How the accusatory left tortures the meaning of words.
Secretary Clinton Speaks the, er, Truth
Clinton gives a maddening speech, full of omissions, on Latin America.
Governments Rot When Their Citizens Let Them (Part II)
Just a few reasons we get the worst governments we are ready to tolerate. (Read part one here.)
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