High Ground Underground

The Inauguration Instead of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir and a failure, we could have had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and a competent executive.  It'll be a long 4 years. We’ll see if this time Obama can do better at keeping his oath to uphold/defend the constitution.  His address was widely seen as the most partisan,  belligerent & radical progressive in memory – not the lip service he occasionally gives to unity & cooperation.  He seems to forget how narrow his victory was – even with the clear support of the media, unions, minorities & every special interest group he could cobble together, and all his promised goodies.  As well as his distraction from his failures on the economy, etc., by demonizing his opponent.  It was hardly a vote of confidence or a landslide or mandate, as much as a vote of ignorance & greed.  In the inaugural he touted issues that he never mentioned in the campaign, and i...

12/18/12 – French economist says U.S. abandoning it’s strengths Medved quoted the leading French economist who said that the U.S. still drives the world economic engine because of entrepreneurial spirit, the drive to innovate, and predictable taxes and regulations, but that the last few years they’ve forgotten these last 2 principles and have slowed.  They’ll revive when they return to these principles. 12/19/12 – Obama concern over gun control rather than fiscal cliff. Why doesn’t Obama put half the apparent energy he’s been putting into the school shooting and gun control into the fiscal cliff, spending, deficit & budget, rather than half-baked ridiculous offers.  He feels great urgency for the former, but has stated that the debt/deficit is of no near term concern – he’ll just kick that can down the road.  It’s not a pet liberal issue or concern they can play on for political advantage.  It’s the spending that buys them votes and keeps them in pow...

Merry Christmas.  But don’t be surprised if Santa doesn’t come your way this year.... I would note that the same may begin to apply to charities, whose function government also seems to want to pre-empt. Fiscal Solutions As we edge ever closer to the fiscal cliff, Bainer has said he’ll compromise and go along with raising the taxes on the rich, if the Dems come up with meaningful spending cuts & reforms.  We’ll see.  But increasing taxes on the rich will pay for only 8 days of operation of the federal government.  A drop in the bucket when the national debt is on par with the GDP.  Clearly we have a spending problem, not an under-taxing problem.  Mark Levin noted that about 60% of states have governors and legislatures in Republican hands.  And it is they who are pushing back against federal government encroachments and neglects such as waivers on Obamacare (24 of the states so far), immigration enforcement, and right-to-wo...

In addition to many people I run into (e.g., at the gym) who freely share that they are still in mourning, there’s been much hand-wringing and blame in the post-mortem analyses of the election.  Too much of it has been directed at Mitt Romney – a great candidate who gave it his all.  Ann Coulter explains how and why that blame is mis-directed.  She is reinforced in articles by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Kimberly Strassel and Joel Rosenberg, all of whom (along with myself) point out factors like minority vs. religious values turnout, growth of entitlement mentality, a long & vicious primary, an incumbent, etc. Here’s a table of contents for this somewhat long post: 1. “Romney was not the Problem,” by Ann Coulter (interesting contrast w. Reagan, etc.) 2.  “More than 6 Million Self-Described Evangelicals Voted for Obama,” by Joel Rosenberg (exit polling analysis of religious turnout and voting) & my analysis of the low Evangelical vote 3. “The GOP Tu...