Back in 5...

We're on the road this week to visit Ushanka.us' Mikhail. We'll post as often as possible, but will likely miss our Weekend Reading post.

In the meantime, read Doug Ross's post about Obama's Youth Corps. We'd comment, but we'd sound uncharacteristically paranoid...

Amateur Hour Continues

All quiet on the diplomatic front when it comes to North Korea. Apparently the US "will allow the launch" of North Korea's communications satellite ICBM test. The silence is understandable - Obama cannot trash missile defense as "unproven", and barter it away to Russia for empty concessions if he uses the existing system to shoot down the missile.

The silence is also understandable as to the treatment and fate the two US journalists in North Korea, Enua Lee and Laura King. They will be going on trial in Pyongyang for espionage after being captured two weeks ago on the China border. They've been sold out by the administration and any further comments would be counter-productive to our extended hand of friendship to commies around the globe.

Our national security and our value for life are being diluted in front of our eyes. If only the TelePrompTer had some balls....

Karl's Weekend Reading

George Will writes in the Washington Post about Congress's excesses: "a partial list of recent lawlessness, situational constitutionalism and institutional derangement". His list includes the dilution of NAFTA, the AIG tax, China-US debt, DC congressional seats, and sneaking socialized medicine through using reconciliation. The Toxic Assets We Elected:

With the braying of 328 yahoos -- members of the House of Representatives who voted for retroactive and punitive use of the tax code to confiscate the legal earnings of a small, unpopular group -- still reverberating, the Obama administration yesterday invited private-sector investors to become business partners with the capricious and increasingly anti-constitutional government.

We didn't plan to post a piece on this week's kerfluffle regarding Notre Dame's commencement speech invitation to Obama and resulting outrage among Pro-Life Catholics. But Laura Hollis' Townhall article, "Social justice" Catholicism hits bottom was poetic - not just with Obama's demented abortion policies, but with many issues Notre Dame ignored, such as racial equality, poverty, immigration, education, economic and foreign policies. As is common with Laura Hollis articles, this is a must read.

In the two months since Obama was inaugurated, we have watched him bumble and fumble every possible way on the economy – which was, allegedly, what he was elected to “change.” And he has been equally hapless in matters of international diplomacy. But when it comes to human life, he has been chillingly consistent and tragically effective.
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Obama gets away with this, in part, because he couches his views in religious platitudes. This effrontery should make his violation of Christian beliefs and American principles all the more offensive. Instead, lefty religious types embrace his WORDS and ignore the DEEDS (Matthew 7:15-23, anyone?), and in so doing provide exactly the kind of cover and sanction that he desperately needs to prop him up while he undermines our political, economic and religious liberties. Notre Dame is doing precisely this by awarding Obama an honorary doctorate.

Friday's WSJ editorial warns, again, the dangers of socialized medicine. The editorial board must be tired of sending these warnings, rarely to be heeded. They review the current crisis of the Mitt Romney plan in Massachusetts, and show what happens when "spending collides with reality".

In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls. As costs continue to rise, the inevitable results are coverage restrictions and waiting periods. It was only a matter of time.
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...Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats are about to try their own Bay State bait and switch: First create vast new entitlements that can never be repealed, then later take the less popular step of rationing care when it's their last hope to save the federal fisc.

The consequences of that deception will be far worse than those in Massachusetts, however, given that prior to 2006 the state already had a far smaller percentage of its population uninsured than the national average. The real lesson of Massachusetts is that reform proponents won't tell Americans the truth about what "universal" coverage really means: Runaway costs followed by price controls and bureaucratic rationing.

Thursday Afternoon Cigar

One of our last Camacho SLR Maduros burned today. We suspect arson.

Sanity Across the Pond

Two clips with Daniel Hannan, the British MEP, setting the standard for America's few remaining conservatives. The first is his speech to UK's Gordon Brown, the second is an interview with Glenn Beck.





U/T: Jawa Report

Wednesday Update

Two winners from today:

Mark Levin visits Hannity's show (top) and Cavuto's show (bottom) to talk about his new book, Liberty & Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto





Instapundit did it. A graph that says it all.

Tuesday Afternoon Cigar

Expect more cigar posts as the weather warms in beautiful Southern Ohio.

We paired a Romeo Y Julieta with William F. Buckley's book, The Reagan I Knew. In a private letter to then-Governor Reagan, WFB wrote:

I continue to fear for the dissipation of the anti-communist reserve. It is very nearly gone, and I do not know what bloody event will be necessary to regenerate it.

A Message from the Party Chairman

No, not the Obama speech tonight. We're sitting that one out. We've seen one too many leaders bang the podium with his shoe and spout off about envy-this, envy-that.

We're talking about that CPUSA chairman, Sam Webb. You saw him (here) in our post earlier this month with crazy Commie-Obama-hat-wearing Glenn Beck. Now he speaks directly to you. An Ushanka Tip to Sweetness & Light, who summarized:

In typical Communist fashion, this is a long and rambling speech.

But it is well worth listening to, since it is the real agenda of the Obama administration.

UPDATE: Skip to 18:00 to hear his praise for Obama's policies.

Sunday Afternoon Cigar

Racky Patel Sun Grown. Always good!

"Obama Is No Socialist"

So says Alan S. Binder, Princeton professor of economics and public affairs, in today's WSJ opinion page. Link.

To avoid a line-by-line destruction of this article, we'll quote sparingly. First, Binder deceives with his own definition of socialism:

Socialism means public ownership and control of businesses, right? So which industries does the president propose to nationalize?

What should we call it when policies push businesses out of business and create an environment where only the government supplies the goods or services? Had Obama said he was going to nationalize an industry, we'd have far more yelling "Socialism" than we do now and he would have had less of a chance to get his vision passed.

Just because Democrat policies are wrong and fail every time they are tried doesn't mean Democrats are not smart.

We suppose Binder would ask us what our definition of Socialism is. We draw a line, with "Full Government Control" at the right end, and "Limited Government as our Founders Envisioned" at the left end. If a policy requires more taxes from the masses, or less market-based options for the masses, or an unfriendly investment environment for the masses, then we move our pen closer to the right end and call that policy socialist.

Binder's definition at the beginning of his article casts the rest of his text as flawed. He summarizes:

So where does all this leave us on the road to socialism? If Mr. Obama is able to get all of these proposals through Congress, the U.S. will have a fully private banking system, propped up with temporary government support; a uniquely American health-care system that covers virtually everyone; and a somewhat more progressive income tax.

If this is socialism, then let's make the most of it.

From our reading, we assume Binder thinks:
1) If 100% of the banks aren't owned by the government, we don't have socialism. (para 3)
2) Government mandated health care is a right, (para 4)
3) therefore, the US should have a health care program like Canada or the UK. (para 5)
4) The taxes to pay for health care are marginal. (para 6)
5) The richer you are, the less you'll pay for health care. (para 7&8)
6) Returning to the Clinton tax rates is ok, (para 10)
7) because maybe we'll have another 1990's-like economic boom. (para 11)
8) "a uniquely American health-care system" requires government management (para 12)

In short, this is an Ivy League Elite defending the leftist agenda of an administration staffed with Ivy League Elites.

This article is written in a vacuum.

His line about national health care costing less for the rich ignores the higher income taxes, capital gains taxes, national debt and other Obama burdens that the rich will suffer alone. It also assumes it will work.

While he gives a poor definition of Socialism, he speaks to, but fails to define, Middle Class or the Rich. Intentional, given that most readers of the WSJ could find themselves in either category?

No reference to history and no reference to the future. History shows commies will take what they can, when they can. Binder does not consider applying this to Obama's trillion dollar grab nor to Social Security, the War on Poverty, etc.. History also shows that socialist policies fail, and liberals' solutions to these failures is to pile on more socialist policies until they bankrupt their country or are driven from power.

We have three assignments for Professor Binder.
1) Identify the part of the Constitution that justifies health-care for all.
2) Justify your confidence of a national health care program with a national initiative authored by Democrats that worked.
3) Look at the decisions President Obama has made. Then, using our definition of socialism, identify which of those decisions increased government power, scope or control, and how many reduced these measurements.
Beware, we will grade objectively. This isn't the Ivy League.

UPDATE 9.11.09: Linked by Doug Ross. Thanks!