Monday, January 6, 2014

Populism - Does It Still Sell?

I am continuing to wade through Doris Kearn's biography of Teddy Roosevelt and Will Taft.

Roosevelt was one of the first progressive presidents who fought Tammany Hall corruption and monopolies which colluded in making the life of farmers and other members of the working class difficult and dangerous. She was interviewed this afternoon on Fox.

During the early 1900's, the working conditions of the working class immigrants were terrible and needed significant redressing. Income disparity was also a significant political issue at the time and many laws were passed to correct the various iniquities that impacted America's laborers .

Much of what happened then is resurfacing now and talk of a third party is in the air. Republicans should learn the lessons from Roosevelt and Taft's defeat which led to a Democrat victory.  They should keep their differences within the party structure and, as Krauthammer suggests, their differences are more tactical than philosophical.

That said, Democrats are raising the same issues that Roosevelt confronted as relates to income disparity, the  alleged abuse of the lower by the upper class but today's reality is not the same. Labor's problem  is, in part ,due to their prior success which led to elevated costs versus the attraction of foreign labor costs.

Yesterday's vote by Boeing's union resulted in reductions of some of their previously hard won benefits and a commitment by  Boeing that  it would continue to produce their new plane in Washington. This action validates the fact that capital is transient and will ultimately move to where it is welcomed and the returns are favorable

The pendulum between union and corporate demands seldom remains in balance.  Labor peace is ephemeral. Union bosses earn their own out sized salaries by making their members feel aggrieved and taken advantage of and corporate managers usually respond defensively by arguing the math of productivity and competitive forces.

Meanwhile, politically speaking,Obama remains in constant campaign mode and relishes embracing the populist argument maintaining he, and his far left minions, are for the little guy. He appears not to understand capitalism, believing socialism is preferable.  If lifting the standard of living is truly Obama's espoused goal he has proven time and again he is either lying or is ignorant of history. His radical approach of embracing big government as the answer smacks of abysmal cynicism, at best, or worse is  a purposefully  demoniacal attempt to wreck our nation's economy so he can supplant his monarchical desire for our Constitutional form of government.

By and large, America's wealthy did not achieve their financial status by taking from the less fortunate. Liberals  use this ploy to stir passions and gain votes.  It is a divide and conquer strategy that is hypocritical, destabilizing and therefore, dangerous.  Though divisive, it wins votes and elects officeholders and that is the main goal of Liberals - win at any cost and truth be damned!

Time will tell whether populism's siren song will again be effective in view of the disaster called Obamacare, the paltry economic recovery, high level of unemployment and the collapse of America's prestige worldwide.
It will if enough voters are as ignorant of economics as I fear and Republicans would rather fight among themselves than turn their attention towards winning.
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Is Dr. Gumball a goofball?  Is he anti-immigration or is he simply presenting a practical argument that
is credible?

Once again, Obama is using the knotty problems caused by illegal  immigration  to win Latino votes.

You decide:

Remember the old saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words?". Well, here is a perfect example!

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A little corny humor:

Donation

 
A older guy called the church office one morning, and the secretary answered. He said to her, " I want to speak to the big hog at the trough!" 
The secretary was taken back, and responded, "Sir, if you're referring to the Pastor, then please refer to him as Pastor, not the Big Hog please!" 
The old man said, " I want to donate $10,000 dollars to the the church."
The secretary then said, "well then hold on, Porky just walked in!"
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A Conservative vacation:
 Sen. Rand Paul's Extravagant Vacation
How come the news media doesn't pick this story up?


We've heard all about Obama's vacations but not much about KY Senator Rand Paul's summer break.  He and a partner teamed up to do pro bono eye surgeries for the poor.  People who came to the surgery center "legally blind or much worse" were all seeing before they left.

Photo:


Isn't it interesting what the media considers newsworthy? Wonder why the media isn't interested in that? Guess it doesn't fit the image they try to create for conservatives. Let's help spread the word.
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This will never happen but it should.  (See 1 below.)
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Dick
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1)





This was published in Forbes Magazine two weeks ago and has gone viral.. the author calls for Impeachment proceedings…  the below is the full editorial and every American should read it.
Obama's Disdain For The Constitution Means We Risk Losing Our Republic


By M. Northrop Buechner
Since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, he has changed it five times. Most notably, he suspended the employer mandate last summer. This is widely known, but almost no one seems to have grasped its significance.





The Constitution authorizes the President to propose and veto legislation. It does not authorize him to change existing laws. The changes Mr. Obama ordered in Obamacare, therefore, are unconstitutional. This means that he does not accept some of the limitations that the Constitution places on his actions. We cannot know at this point what limitations, if any, he does accept.





By changing the law based solely on his wish, Mr. Obama acted on the principle that the President can rewrite laws and—since this is a principle—not just this law, but any law. After the crash of Obamacare, many Congressmen have implored the President to change the individual mandate the same way he had changed the employer mandate, that is, to violate the Constitution again.
The main responsibility the Constitution assigns to the President is to faithfully execute the Laws. If the President rejects this job, if instead he decides he can change or ignore laws he does not like, then what?





The time will come when Congress passes a law and the President ignores it. Or he may choose to enforce some parts and ignore others (as Mr. Obama is doing now). Or he may not wait for Congress and issue a decree (something Mr. Obama has done and has threatened to do again).





Mr. Obama has not been shy about pointing out his path. He has repeatedly made clear that he intends to act on his own authority. “I have the power and I will use it in defense of the middle class,” he has said. “We’re going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress.” There are a number of names for the system Mr. Obama envisions, but representative government is not one of them.





If the President can ignore the laws passed by Congress, of what use is Congress? The President can do whatever he chooses. Congress can stand by and observe. Perhaps they might applaud or jeer. But in terms of political power, Congress will be irrelevant. Probably, it will become a kind of rubber-stamp or debating society. There are many such faux congresses in tyrannies throughout history and around the globe.





Mr. Obama has equal contempt for the Supreme Court. In an act of overbearing hubris, he excoriated Supreme Court Justices sitting helplessly before him during the 2010 State of the Union address—Justices who had not expected to be denounced and who were prevented by the occasion from defending themselves. Mr. Obama condemned them for restoring freedom of speech to corporations and unions.





Ignoring two centuries of practice, President Obama made four recess appointments in January 2012, when the Senate was not in recess. Three courts have found that his appointments were unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has agreed to take up the case. If the Supreme Court finds against him, what will Mr. Obama do?





We can get a hint by looking at how other parts of his Administration have dealt with Court decisions they did not like.
The Attorney General’s Office is the branch of government charged with enforcing federal laws. After the Supreme Court struck down the key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Attorney General Holder announced that he would use other provisions of the act to get around the Court’s decision.
The Supreme Court has defined the standard for sexual harassment as “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” behavior to a “reasonable person.” In open defiance of that ruling, the Obama Department of Education has declared a new definition of sexual harassment for colleges, that is, “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” including “verbal conduct,” even if it is not objectively offensive—thus reinforcing the reign of terror over sex on college campuses. If a young man’s request for a date turns out to be unwelcome, he is guilty of sexual harassment by definition.





The lack of respect for the Supreme Court by the Obama administration is manifest. They feel bound by the Court’s decisions only if they agree with them. If they disagree, it is deuces wild; they will embrace any fiction that nullifies the Court’s decision.

The direction in which Mr. Obama is taking us would make possible the following scenario. A Republican Congress is elected and repeals Obamacare over a Democratic President’s veto. The President refuses to enforce the repeal. The Supreme Court rules that the President’s refusal is unconstitutional. The President denounces that ruling and refuses to be bound by it.
If the President persists in rejecting all authority other than his own, the denouement would depend on the side taken by the Armed Forces. Whatever side that was, our national self-esteem would be unlikely to recover from the blow of finding that we are living in a banana republic.





The shocking fact is that our whole system of representative government depends on it being led by an individual who believes in it; who thinks it is valuable; who believes that a government dedicated to the protection of individual rights is a noble ideal. What if he does not?
Mr. Obama is moving our government away from its traditional system of checks and balances and toward the one-man-rule that dominates third world countries. He has said that he wants a fair country—implying that, as it stands, the United States is not a fair country—an unprecedented calumny committed against a country by its own leader.
What country does he think is more fair than the United States? He has three long years left in which to turn us into a fair country. Where does he intend to take us?





Mr. Obama got his conception of a fair country from his teachers. A fair country is an unfreecountry because it is regimented to prevent anyone from rising too high. Their ideal is egalitarianism, the notion that no one should be any better, higher, or richer than anyone else. Combined with a dollop of totalitarianism, egalitarianism has replaced communism as the dominant ideal in our most prestigious universities. Mr. Obama and his colleagues are the product of those universities, and they have their marching orders.





The most important point is that Mr. Obama does not consider himself bound by the Constitution. He could not have made that more clear. He has drawn a line in the concrete and we cannot ignore it.





Those who currently hold political office, and who want to keep our system of government, need to act now. Surely, rejection of the Constitution is grounds for impeachment and charges should be filed. In addition, there are many other actions that Congressmen can and should take—actions that will tell Mr. Obama that we have seen where he is going and we will not let our country go without a fight.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government had been created. “A republic,” he replied, “if you can keep it.”





We are losing it. If Mr. Obama’s reach for unprecedented power is not stopped, that will be the end. Everyone who values his life and liberty should find some way to say “No!” “Not now!” “Not yet!” “Not ever!”
M. Northrup Buechner is Associate Professor of Economics at St. John’s University, New York.

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