Social Issues and the Santorum Surge

Jeff Bell, an 'early supply-sider,' on the roots of American social conservatism—and why the movement is crucial to building a Republican majority.

By JAMES TARANTO

If you're a Republican in New York or another big city, you may be anxious or even terrified at the prospect that Rick Santorum, the supposedly unelectable social conservative, may win the GOP presidential nomination. Jeffrey Bell would like to set your mind at ease.
Social conservatism, Mr. Bell argues in his forthcoming book, "The Case for Polarized Politics," has a winning track record for the GOP. "Social issues were nonexistent in the period 1932 to 1964," he observes. "The Republican Party won two presidential elections out of nine, and they had the Congress for all of four years in that entire period. . . . When social issues came into the mix—I would date it from the 1968 election . . . the Republican Party won seven out of 11 presidential elections."

Opinion: Why Social Conservatives Win

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Capitalism and the Right to Rise

In freedom lies the risk of failure. But in statism lies the certainty of stagnation.

By JEB BUSH

Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: "The right to rise."
Think about it. We talk about the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly. The right to rise doesn't seem like something we should have to protect.

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Is the not-Romney an improvement for conservatives?

By Jennifer Rubin

I had lunch with a conservative scholar and writer on Friday. Remarking on the rise of Rick Santorum, he exclaimed sarcastically, “Oh, swell, the Republicans have found a guy who’s a big spender AND an extremist on social issues!”
On one level it was a funny remark, symptomatic of the notion among many conservative curmudgeons that if there is a way to screw up an election the GOP will find it. On the other, it was an interesting statement that suggests that the Republicans, after winning a House majority in 2010 by stressing limited government and focusing much less on social issues, may undo their success by choosing a candidate with positions unpopular with a substantial majority of Americans — big government and excessive meddling in personal lives (having nothing to do with abortion, on which the GOP is virtually united and public opinion in general is at least evenly divided.)

Nigel Farage Παπαδήμος πρωτομάστορας της ευρωπ. αποτυχίας

For our Greek friends - Για τους Έλληνες φίλους μας

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Friday, February 17, 2012

Obama's Busted Budget. by Michael D. Tanner

In a town where bipartisan budget chicanery has been raised to an art form, President Obama's latest budget proposal should be hailed as the da Vinci of fiscal obfuscation.

The president claims that his budget proposal reduces debt by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, combining $2.4 trillion in spending cuts with $1.6 trillion in tax hikes. Almost none of that is true.
Let's start with the idea that the president's budget would reduce the debt. That is true only using Washington math, under which a smaller increase is actually a decrease. In reality, the president's budget adds $6.7 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, bringing it to nearly $25.5 trillion by 2022. That would be more than 100 percent of our GDP.

Wars Should Be Hard to Start. by Benjamin H. Friedman

The New York Times' report on Special Operation Command's proposal for more authority to deploy troops never quite says what new powers are sought. That vagueness, combined with the murky existing law on deploying special operations forces outside war zones, makes evaluating the proposal tough.

What is clear is that it is already too easy to deploy special operations forces on lethal missions. According to the Times, 12,000 special operators are deployed abroad and have operated in 70 nations in the last decade. Other reports claim that special operations forces have lately conducted operations in Syria, Nigeria, Iran, Algeria, and even Peru. In some cases, the special operators are reportedly collecting intelligence, a job various intelligence agencies already have. In others, the special operations forces are seemingly committing acts of war, which should require explicit congressional approval.

By George F. Will

James and Jeanne Harmon reside in and supposedly own a five-story brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a building that has been in their family since 1949. But they have, so to speak, houseguests who have overstayed their welcome by, in cumulative years, more than a century. They are the tenants — the same tenants — who have been living in the three of the Harmons’ six apartments that are rent controlled.
The Harmons want the Supreme Court to rule that their home has been effectively, and unconstitutionally, taken from them by notably foolish laws that advance no legitimate state interest. The court should.

We Are on the Road to Bankruptcy. By John Stossel

President Obama said in his State of the Union speech, "We've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings."
That was reassuring.

The new budget he released this week promises $4 trillion in "deficit reduction" -- about half in tax increases and half in spending cuts. But like most politicians, Obama misleads.
Cato Institute economist Dan Mitchell cut through the fog to get at the truth of the $2 trillion "cut."
"We have a budget of, what, almost $4 trillion? So if we're doing $2 trillion of cuts," Mitchell said, "we're cutting government in half. That sounds wonderful."

The most evil thing about the Obama administration’s recent violation of the separation of church and state is its deceptiveness. With his order requiring inclusion of contraception and abortifacient drugs in insurance coverage, the president is smuggling the hidden premises of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and other supporters of abortion into U.S. law, and doing so untruthfully.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) instruction attacking religious institutions such as hospitals, universities, and programs for the poor rests on four hidden premises.

Barack Obama on Meet the Press in 2008

Jonah Goldberg

‘My rival in this race,” President Obama announced early in 2007, “is not other candidates. It’s cynicism.”

It’s now clear that what he meant by this was other people’s cynicism — not his own.
As you may recall, Obama came into office a very inexperienced politician, spouting a lot of hopeful and idealistic rhetoric. He had made a name for himself by refusing to demonize conservatives and Republicans.
For instance, during a Nevada Democratic debate, then-senator Obama told the late Tim Russert that, “My greatest strength, I think, is the ability to bring people together from different perspectives to get them to recognize what they have in common and to move people in a different direction.”

Who Won the Payroll-Tax Fight?

By Kevin D. Williamson

Who has the power in Washington? Who won the payroll-tax battle? Not Republicans, not Democrats — government employees.

The new deal on the payroll-tax extension (which will do little or nothing to benefit the economy) was held up by a largely unrelated matter: requiring federal workers to contribute more toward the costs of their own pensions. (More, Congress? How does 100 percent strike you?) The original proposal would have required all federal workers to bear more of the costs of their own retirements, but Democrats representing Maryland, that tony little suburb of Leviathan, shrieked. The compromise instead will cover only new hires.

By Charles Krauthammer

Give him points for cleverness. President Obama’s birth control “accommodation” was as politically successful as it was morally meaningless. It was nothing but an accounting trick that still forces Catholic (and other religious) institutions to provide medical insurance that guarantees free birth control, tubal ligation and morning-after abortifacients — all of which violate church doctrine on the sanctity of life.
The trick is that these birth control/abortion services will supposedly be provided independently and free of charge by the religious institution’s insurance company. But this changes none of the moral calculus. Holy Cross Hospital, for example, is still required by law to engage an insurance company that is required by law to provide these doctrinally proscribed services to all Holy Cross employees.

Nonetheless, the accounting device worked politically. It took only a handful of compliant Catholic groups — Obamacare cheerleaders dying to return to the fold — to hail the alleged compromise and hand Obama a major political victory.

INTERMEX POWER

Sunday, February 19, 2012