Views on the News
April
17, 2010
Views on the News*
It's been almost a year since America's TEA Party protesters
first gathered to voice their opposition to Washington's profligate ways, and what
began as a loosely organized campaign against government spending has evolved
into a highly motivated, highly organized, politically potent movement
determined to restore American government to its proper constitutional sphere. On
Thursday millions of Americans came together across the United States at
hundreds of Tea Party protests to rally against higher taxes and bigger
government. The demographic composition
of the movement was an almost exact reflection of the American
population. This dynamic mix of
Republicans, Democrats, and Independents from diverse socioeconomic and racial
backgrounds came together to send the message that enough is enough. “Don’t Tread on Me”
flags were everywhere, as well as numerous American flags. The increasing desperation of the Beltway politicians
and Manhattan media pundits to discredit the TEA Party movement is the best
possible indicator of its success thus far, and more importantly, a hopeful
sign of its potential to effect real and lasting change in American
politics. Another sign of desperation was the inclusion of “Crash the Tea Party” saboteurs who tried
to agitate and cause problems… to no avail.
One of the things accounting for the TEA Party’s current popularity is
its identity as a phenomenon born outside of the entrenched special interests
to which both major parties are beholden. For Americans to be able to look to a party
that clearly articulates what it stands for and what principles it believes in,
and for the leaders of that party to actually live by those principles, would
be truly revolutionary. To be able
to trust that our elected representatives say what they mean and mean what they
say would do much to lift the cloud of suspicion and mistrust that currently
hangs over our nation's capitol. For aspiring political leaders to take
their charge as the people's representatives seriously, and to strive to live
lives, both public and private, which are above reproach would go a long way
toward restoring our faith in this republican experiment called the United
States of America. Maybe the TEA Party movement might give rise to a new
generation of true American statesmen, in contrast to the self-serving,
power-hungry charlatans currently running our government today?
(“Tea Anyone?”
by Ken Connor dated April 11, 2010 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/KenConnor/2010/04/11/tea_anyone
“Bachmann Blasts Gangster
Government” by Matt Madro dated April 16, 2010
published by Human Events at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36545
)
Maybe it is time to listen to what the TEA Partiers are actually
saying, because their main focus is to
return to the Constitutional principle that formed this country. The
TEA Party message comes together in the “Contract from America,” the product
of an online vote orchestrated for the Tea Party Patriots. With nearly 500,000 votes recorded in less
than two months, this Contract forms a blueprint of tea-party policy goals and
beliefs. All candidates for political office are being asked to sign this
contract:
·
We,
the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to
sign the Contract from America and
by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each
agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf
of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.
· Individual Liberty - Our
moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our
government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free
from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive
control over our economic choices.
· Limited Government - The
purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have
been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection
of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats
arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government
ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the
marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are
diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic
depression, and poverty increases.
· Economic Freedom - The
most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free
market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual
economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances
individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended
pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.
1) Protect the
Constitution - Require each bill to identify
the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do
what the bill does.
2) Reject Cap
& Trade - Stop costly new regulations
that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the
nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global
temperatures.
3) Demand a Balanced
Budget - Begin the Constitutional
amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority
needed for any tax hike.
4) Enact
Fundamental Tax Reform - Adopt a simple and fair
single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it
with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original
Constitution.
5) Restore
Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington - Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that
engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their
Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and
agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe
for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited
government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning.
6) End Runaway
Government Spending - Impose a statutory cap
limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the
inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.
7) Defund,
Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care - Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health
care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more
affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health
care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries.
8) Pass an
‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy - Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our
dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce
regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and
creating competition and jobs.
9) Stop the
Pork - Place a moratorium on all
earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass
any earmark.
10)
Stop
the Tax Hikes - Permanently repeal all tax
hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently
scheduled to begin in 2011.
What’s
so significant to me about this TEA Party “Contract from America” is the strong
emphasis on constitutional limits and restraints on legislation, spending,
taxing, and government control of the economy. Undoubtedly, the emphasis is there because no
one trusts Washington. TEA Partiers are
reminding all of us of the need for the Constitution to protect our freedoms
and a renewal of constitutional values, including a return to constitutional
limits on government. The TEA Partiers are demanding consent of the governed and a
reaffirmation that the government works for us, and we don’t work for it.
(“America’s Constitutional Revolt”
by Larry Kudlow dated April 15, 2010 published by
Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/LarryKudlow/2010/04/15/americas_constitutional_revolt
)
The American Left disdains the United States Constitution,
battered and weakened as it has been by precedents set by various liberal,
activist Supreme Courts, because it still guards the liberty of Americans
against the authoritarianism required to impose a fully socialist, or other
collectivist, regime. It now appears we are headed
towards the ultimate battle in the American Left's war on individual liberty. The catalyst is the newly enacted "health care reform" law that was
opposed by an outright majority of Americans. The focal point will be the "individual mandate" which requires
all Americans to buy health insurance. The
broader issue, however, is whether the Constitution in any way limits the power
that the federal government can wield over individuals. The Left says
"no." According to the
American Left (which now effectively controls the Democratic Party), the
commerce clause in the Constitution, which allows the federal government to
regulate interstate commerce, in reality allows the federal government to
regulate in any way it sees fit any activity that remotely could affect economic
activity -- in other words, just about anything, including, but not limited to,
an individual's decision to buy, or not to buy, health insurance. One would think that if the authors of the
Constitution really meant to say that the federal government has the power to
regulate any activity (or even non-activity) it wants, they would have said so,
instead of just saying that it has the right to regulate commerce across state
lines. Actually amending the
Constitution takes significant national consensus, but that's a problem when
you want to leverage one election victory based on platitudes and "hope" into "bringing fundamental change to America." It is so much easier to try to get enough
Supreme Court Justices appointed who share the view that the Constitution is
more of a loose guideline than a legal document, and who are willing to gut the
Constitution of all meaning in order to accommodate liberal policy objectives. To the American Left, the idea that the
Constitution exists to limit the power of the federal government is some moldy,
if quaint, notion, with no place in the "modern" world. Fortunately, the argument that seven decades
of precedent have made it settled law that the federal government has near
unlimited power allotted to it under the commerce clause is hogwash. Never before has the federal government
claimed the right to force individuals to purchase a certain service or product
due merely to the fact that they are alive. Other attempts to justify an expanded federal
role in state and individual affairs with tortured interpretations of the
commerce clause have, in fact, been shot down over the past couple of decades
by the Supreme Court. The case of the
individual mandate potentially carries the legal precedent that the Left has
long sought. If the Obama administration
and its Leftist allies can win this case when it comes before the Supreme
Court, which it ultimately will, they will have the legal ammunition to uphold
any federal infringement on individual liberty in the name of regulating a
"modern, national economy."
The rights of the individual will no
longer be protected by the Constitution, but merely allowed by the federal government,
subject to revision by whatever faction holds a political majority over one or
two elections. This is not just the
outcome that the American Left wants; it is the outcome the American Left needs
if it is to "bring fundamental
change to America." Most members of the current Democratic majority in both
houses of Congress have already shown that they do not care about public
opinion when it comes to redefining the relationship between citizens and the
federal government, and to preserve America as the land of the free, we need the Supreme Court to uphold its
solemn duty.
(“The End Game is Near” by
Brandon Crocker dated April 12, 2010 published by The American Spectator at http://spectator.org/archives/2010/04/12/the-end-game-is-near
)
The Obama victory rounds of applause from around the world in
November 2008 have been replaced by a deafening round of criticism. The
recent overseas report that French President Nicolas Sarkozy considers
President Obama “insane” for his
vision of global relations, and couple that report with the recent refusal of
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the Obama-led nuclear summit. What was once a reliable chorus of global
support for change after the Bush Administration is becoming an audible round
of grumbles from historical allies of the United States.
This is a problem for America
internationally that has been ignored by its citizens due to their focus on
domestic issues. Many allies’ primary
gripe of the Bush White House – unilateral aggression in the war on terror – is
in the process of being replaced by a new frustration: this administration’s
unilateral vision of a “new world order”
that includes a balance of power amongst traditional foes regardless of the
threatening agendas therein. The
disapproval of Netanyahu and Sarkozy – coupled with the continued actions of
anti-American regimes such as Iran and North Korea – serve as a warning for
Americans that the alliances built by previous administrations to ensure
American safety could now come into question due to the Obama Administration’s willingness
to “balance” the scales of power. Such moves as the recent START treaty to
reduce the American nuclear arsenal by one-third comes at a time when countries
that we work to stabilize (e.g. Afghanistan under the Karzai Administration)
have thumbed their noses at American efforts and nations that we work to
improve relations with (e.g., the aforementioned Iran under both President
Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) call America “wicked” with an eye towards justifying their nuclear ambitions. With relations such as these brewing
throughout the world, the need for unity with America’s allies only
intensifies. Due to this, the longer the
simmering tensions between America’s traditional allies and the Obama
Administration continue, the more another major aspect of the 2008 Obama
Promise comes undone: namely, the Obama ability to “restore America’s standing throughout the world” among our allies
and those that once viewed the USA as the “shining
city on the hill.” The desire to have a world without nuclear weaponry is a
noble one, but the pursuit of such a world by balancing power with nations that
have vowed to “wipe” other nations
from the map only increases the likelihood that nuclear power will eventually
be tapped for sinister and war-time purposes. There seems to be a growing concern from our
allies that this basic reality is being overlooked by the current
administration due to its willingness to believe that the leadership of rogue
nations have, at its core, a desire to live cooperatively as global neighbors. However, rounds of historical evidence
highlighting human nature indicate that this never has been the case for very
long. Even if well-intended and
well-reasoned in private, the public rifts with Israel and France only serve as
fodder for inspiration for the growing threats coming from Iran and others. Those throughout the world inspired to cheer
on President-elect Barack Obama back in November 2008 now seem to choose to
withhold their applause. The expectation that America would seek a new level of
cooperative efforts with its allies is vanishing into the abyss of an
Obama-driven vision of less nukes, more balance, and world peace – even if that
vision is a unilateral directive that seems to be intolerant of historical
precedence or current events in its quest to bring about unwarranted global
military equality.
(“A chorus of remorse” by
Lenny McAlllister dated April 13, 2010 published by The Daily Caller at http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/13/a-chorus-of-remorse/
)
The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March and that sounds
impressive until you look more closely, since the 112,000 real new jobs were
fewer than the 150,000 needed to keep up with the growth of the U.S.
population. At least a third of them were
temporary government hires to take the census—better than no job but hardly
worth writing home about. It's far
better than it was, we're not hemorrhaging jobs as we did in 2008 and 2009, but
the bleeding hasn't stopped. Since the
start of the Great Recession in December 2007, the economy has shed 8.4 million
jobs and failed to create another 2.7 million required by an ever-larger pool
of potential workers. That leaves us
more than 11 million jobs behind. (The number is worse if you include everyone
working part-time who'd rather it be full-time, those working full-time at
fewer hours, and people who are overqualified for the jobs they're in.) This means even if we enjoy a vigorous
recovery that produces, say, 300,000 net new jobs a month, we could be looking
at five to eight years before catching up to where we were before the recession
began. What's likely to slow the jobs
recovery most, however, is the indubitable reality that many of the jobs that
have been lost will never return. Real
personal income for Americans has fallen by 3.2% since President Obama took
office in January 2009, according to the Commerce Department's Bureau of
Economic Analysis. The Great Recession
has accelerated a structural shift in the economy that had been slowly building
for years. Companies have used the
downturn to aggressively trim payrolls, making cuts they've been reluctant to
make before. Outsourcing abroad has
increased dramatically. Companies have
discovered that new software and computer technologies have made many workers
in Asia and Latin America almost as productive as Americans, and that the
Internet allows far more work to be efficiently moved to another country
without loss of control. Companies have
also cut costs by substituting more computerized equipment for labor. They've made greater use of numerically
controlled machine tools, robotics and a wide range of office software. The only way many of today's jobless are
likely to retain their jobs or get new ones is by settling for much lower wages
and benefits. The official unemployment
numbers hide the extent to which American workers are already on this downward
path, but if you look at income data you'll see the drop. Among those with jobs, more and more have
accepted lower pay and benefits as a condition for keeping them; or they have
lost higher-paying jobs and are now in new ones that pay less; or new hires are
paid far lower wages than the old. More
Americans will be working, but for pay they consider inadequate. The approaching recovery will be tepid because
so many people will lack the money needed to buy all the goods and services the
economy can produce. Under President
Obama, only federal spending is going up; jobs, business startups, and incomes
are all down which is proof that the government can't spend its way to
prosperity. Americans
will once again be employed, but they will also be back on the downward
escalator of declining pay they rode before the Great Recession.
(“The Jobs Picture Still Looks
Bleak” by Robert Reich dated April 12, 2010 published by The Wall Street
Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304222504575173780671015468.html
“Income falls 3.2% during Obama’s
term” by Josph Curl dated April 13, 2010
published by The Washington Times at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/13/personal-income-falls-32-during-obamas-15-months/
)
There are good reasons to slow the rush by Senate Democrats to
pass a bureaucracy-heavy financial regulation bill just to hand President Obama
another legislative trophy in a tough election year, chief among them is to
give the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission a chance to complete its work and
report back on the factors that led to the devastating subprime mortgage
debacle that triggered the long recession we're slowly coming out of now. In
this case, the White House and Democratic leaders are going ahead with what
appears to be legislative overkill while the federal commission is in
midstream, taking testimony, collecting facts and digging into the reasons the
vast regulatory apparatus we have now didn't work. Dodd and the Big Government builders in the
administration have bigger targets in mind with their 1,336-page "Restoring American Financial Stability Act"
that took all of 22 minutes to rush through Dodd's Democrat-dominated committee
on a party line vote. They are going
after sweeping regulation of an entire financial industry, and maybe even other
sectors of our economy that had nothing to do with the causes of the recession. This bill will “institutionalize too big to
fail.” The bill authorizes the Fed to
regulate all non-bank financial institutions that are “systemically important”
or might cause instability in the U.S. financial system if they failed. These words mean something - that the companies designated for Fed regulation are too big
to fail. The market will see immediately
that the government has created Fannie Maes and
Freddie Macs in every sector of the financial system where these large
companies are designated for Fed regulation, including insurance companies,
hedge funds, finance companies, bank holding companies, securities firms, and
any other kind of financial institution the government wants to regulate. Since these firms will be too big to fail,
they will be seen in the market, just like Fannie and Freddie, as ultimately backed by the government and thus safer firms to lend
to than small firms that are not government backed. This will permanently distort the financial
market, favoring large companies over small ones, and eventually force a
consolidation of each market where these firms exist into a few large
competitors operating under the benign supervision of the government. This bill will provide for permanent bailouts. They protest that these firms have to be
wound down, not bailed out. Why then is
there a $50 billion fund set up to assist this wind down? The costs of liquidating the failed financial
firm will come from the $50 billion to pay off the creditors, so that the
market’s fear of a general collapse will be allayed. Remember, the theory under which the
administration and Dodd are operating is that the failure of one of these large
companies will cause a systemic breakdown or instability in the economy. The way to avoid that is to assure the market
(in other words the creditors) that they will be paid. The act of paying off the creditors when the
government takes over a failing firm is a bailout. The signal it sends to the market is the most
dangerous part of this bailout, because it tells the market that creditors will
be taking less risk when they lend to large companies than if they lend to
small ones, and this will simply provide the credit advantages to large
companies that will not be available to small companies. Again, like too big to fail, this will distort
and suppress competition in financial markets. Republicans have pledged to vote as a bloc to
filibuster a motion to proceed to a vote! This bill will have
the potential to change our competitive financial system, institutionalize
bailouts, and thus change the very nature of our economy.
(“Institutionalizing ‘Too Big to
Fail’” by Peter J. Wallison dated April 15, 2010
published by American Magazine at http://blog.american.com/?p=12786
“Examine Causes Before Rushing to
Solution” by Donald Lambro dated April 15, 2010
published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/DonaldLambro/2010/04/15/examine_causes_before_rushing_to_solution
“GOP unites, urges Reid to reopen
bipartisan talks on Wall Street bill” by Alexander Bolton dated April 16,
2010 published by The Hill at http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/92745-forty-one-republicans-pledge-opposition-but-not-a-filibuster-of-wall-street-reform-bill
)
President Obama has an unsettling defense of his health-care
reform since it is merely a version of the plan implemented by Massachusetts
with its unsustainably high costs and high insurance premiums which are leading
inexorably toward price controls and rationing. Obama
wants to associate his reform with the one championed by Mitt Romney in 2006
when he was governor of the Bay State. If
the liberal Democrat Obama and the conservative Republican Romney passed
similar plans, what can be so radical about Obama's reform? It not only gives Obama's plan a centrist
patina, it shines a light on a significant obstacle to Romney's likely repeat
bid for the Republican presidential nomination, except for the fact the
Massachusetts reform is spiraling out of control. Obama is correct that his plan and Romney's
share essential features: a mandate that individuals buy insurance, fines on
business for not offering coverage, heavily regulated insurance exchanges, and
large-scale insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion. They share something else - utterly fanciful
notions of cost control. Massachusetts
has created a different cost-shift problem through its ObamaCare-style
guarantee that people can wait to get coverage until they're sick or want
medical procedures. Thousands of
consumers are gaming Massachusetts' 2006 health
insurance law by buying insurance when they need to cover pricey medical care,
such as fertility treatments and knee surgery, and then swiftly dropping coverage;
a practice that insurance executives say is driving up costs for other people
and small businesses. Predictably, costs
in Massachusetts have only gone higher; the state now spends about 30% more per
capita on health care than the rest of the nation. Predictably, the insurance regulations have
only made insurance more expensive, as has been the case elsewhere; premiums in
the individual market have been growing at a 30% annual rate. Predictably, the new health-care program has
cost more than expected; spending grew by about 40% from 2006 to 2009. At first, Massachusetts plugged the holes with
more taxes and fees. Now, just as Obama
is hailing the state as his opening act, it is moving to the next inevitable
phase: unapologetic price controls. The
state's arbitrary clamp-down on rates will force insurers to cut access to
care, or go out of business. Insurers
have taken to the courts, and most of them stopped offering new coverage for
individuals and small businesses pending a ruling on their request for an
injunction. The free lunch promised
Massachusetts in 2006 devolves toward a fiscally beleaguered government setting
prices and limiting care, exactly the downward spiral critics
fear from ObamaCare. At least Romney can say he didn't know how his experiment
would end, but now Obama has been warned, and still embraces Massachusetts as
our national future.
(“ObamaCare’s already had a disastrous preview” by Rich Lowry dated
April 9, 2010 published by The Salt Lake Tribune at http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_14853987
)
Barack Obama has found yet another way to express his special
brand of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel, while the Mainstream Media looks
the other way. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu dropped
out of Obama’s 47-nation nuclear security summit, after discovering that Israel
was going to be pressured there to sign on to the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty, which would drastically weaken Israel’s defenses. And you won’t find it in the American press,
but the Israeli publication NRG/Maariv
reported that employees of Israel’s
Dimona nuclear reactor are now being denied entry into the
United States. These Jewish scientists
and plant workers want to come to America to study nuclear engineering,
chemistry and physics, but Obama won’t let them in, just because they work in a
nuclear plant in the Jewish homeland. Meanwhile
Obama hasn’t made any move to bar Muslims from studying nuclear engineering in
the U.S, only Jews. Contrast this to
Obama’s behavior toward Syria. Syria has
aided Al Qaeda in Iraq and is today working on a nuclear reactor with help from
North Korea. Numerous jihad terror
organizations and individuals that have vowed to destroy Israel are
headquartered in Damascus. The State
Department listed Syria as a State Sponsor of Terrorism on December 29, 1979,
and has never removed this label. This
designation, according to the State Department, results in “restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a
ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use
items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions,” or at least
it’s supposed to but not in Obama’s America. Within weeks of taking office, Obama announced
plans to ease sanctions that had been put into place against Syria because of
its involvement in enabling the global jihad. In October 2009 it came to light that the
Obama Administration had played a key role in smoothing the progress of a trade
agreement between Syria and the European Union that would mean as much as seven
billion dollars a year for the slumping Syrian economy. The deal had been in the offing since 2004,
but the Bush Administration had opposed it because of Syria’s ties to Hezbollah
and Iran. Without asking for anything
but promises in return, Obama dropped American opposition to the deal, and it
went through. Obama restored the U.S.
ambassador to Syria that Bush had recalled in 2005. Barack Obama is the most anti-Israel
president we have had since the State of Israel was formed, yet American Jews
voted overwhelmingly for him. They still
love him, even as he has worked for the destruction of Israel, even as he grew
ever more hostile toward Israel. The American Jews who voted so overwhelmingly for Obama could
have seen it coming all along, but the Mainstream Media didn’t tell them in the
past and won’t tell them in the future.
(“MSM, American Jews look the
Other Way as Obama Wages Diplomatic Jihad Against Israel” by Pamela Geller
dated April 10, 2010 published by Big Journalism at http://bigjournalism.com/pgeller/2010/04/10/msm-american-jews-looks-the-other-way-as-obama-wages-diplomatic-jihad-against-israel/print/
)
The Obama administration has seen a frustrating lack of progress
in diplomatic relations and anything claimed as a success has involved movement
on America's part, not on the part of a foreign power, be it friendly or
hostile. From a lackluster climate agreement to Iranian
flouting of international pressure, President Obama's vaunted international
prestige has proven itself no more than meaningless popularity. Obama has pursued a confused and aimless
foreign policy based on the idea that he can personally sway foreign heads of
state with his charisma. Unfortunately for our nation his "follow me because I'm charismatic"
policy has proven to be devastatingly ineffective. Obama alienates our friends
and appears cowardly by appeasing our enemies.
At the conclusion of the Nuclear Security Summit, when everyone had
agreed to voluntary measures to secure loose nukes, the President pronounced himself very satisfied and confident that the world will
make "enormous progress" on
controlling nuclear proliferation. The
administration assembled an elaborate tableau to feign progress on nuclear
proliferation while patently failing to grapple with the most obvious, ominous,
and imminent threat - Iran. Iran is not
a normal state eager for international recognition and bilateral negotiations;
it is a revolutionary state with ambitions to dominate not just the entire
region but the whole Muslim world. To
that end, it has engaged in sustained terrorist violence under a variety of
guises. The current iteration of
America's disappointing negotiations involves China. In complete contradiction to American hopes
and the Obama administration's claims, this week China renewed their opposition
to sanctions on Iran. Moreover, in
exchange for Iranian oil to fuel their growing economy, China has poured money
and technology into Iran. China is not
the first country to back out of proposed sanctions. Just last week, the president of Russia told
the world that there was only so far they would go with Iranian sanctions --
and it wasn't as far as American leaders has pushed, nor the victory they had
claimed. President Obama has scored PR
points, and a Nobel Prize, with his emphasis on curbing nuclear weapons. Obama still has not learned that he can oppose
nuclear weapons, work actively for disarmament, develop strong alliances, and
captivate the imagination of the world, while still keeping America safe,
strong and secure. This world is a
dangerous place, since the threats against us are real. Obama is pursuing a policy based on the idea
that he would rather be loved than feared.
Obama's position of negotiating through weakness is damaging the
credibility of our once great nation. We can’t afford to let other nations call the shots, because
international cooperation can work, but on some issues
we simply can’t compromise.
(“The Diplomacy of Change is
Failing America” by Michael Reagan dated April 14, 2010 published by Town
Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelReagan/2010/04/14/the_diplomacy_of_change_is_failing_america
“A Pathetic Response to an ‘Unprecedented Threat’” by Mona Charen dated April 16, 2010 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2010/04/16/a_pathetic_response_to_an_unprecedented_threat
“Barack Obama’s Cowardly Foreign Policy”
by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown dated April 16, 2010 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/FloydandMaryBethBrown/2010/04/16/barack_obamas_cowardly_foreign_policy
)
* There is so much published each week that unless
you search for it, you will miss important breaking news. I try to package the best of this information
into my “Views on the News”
each Saturday morning. Individual issue
updates this week include:
· Bibliography
at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/welcome/bibliography.php
· Preface at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/welcome/preface.php
· Philosophy
at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/intro/philosophy.php
· Agriculture
at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/agriculture.php
· Budget at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/budget.php
· Education at
http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/education.php
· Elections at
http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/elections.php
· Energy at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/energy.php
· Homeland
Security at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/homelandsecurity.php
· Legal at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/legal.php
· Taxes at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/taxes.php
· Welfare at http://returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/welfare.php
David Coughlin
Hawthorne, NY