Pat Buchanan left mainstream Conservatism for the Paleocon fever swamps some years ago, and has rarely ever made much sense since, but today the old Pat Buchanan is back and in fine form. In fact, Buchanan identifies precisely the tactics of bluffing and intimidation that the mouthpieces of the establishment are using to try to frighten the Republican leadership (which holds all the cards) into surrendering on tax increases to the impotent, discredited-by-reality, and sinking-daily-in-the-polls democrats. Pat Buchanan is right: the level of shrillness of the MSM commentariat is directly proportionate to their desperation. They know they’re losing.
By refusing to accept tax increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, Republicans are behaving like “fanatics,” writes David Brooks of The New York Times.
Anti-tax Republicans “have no sense of moral decency,” he adds.
They are “willing to stain their nation’s honor” to “worship their idol.” If this “deal of the century” goes down, as he calls the Barack Obama offer, “Republican fanaticism” will be the cause.
“The GOP has become a cult” that has replaced reason with “feverish” and “cockamamie beliefs,” writes Richard Cohen of The Washington Post. The Republican “presidential field (is) a virtual political Jonestown,” the Guyana site where more than 900 followers of the Peoples Temple drank the Kool-Aid that Rev. Jim Jones mixed for them.
Does anyone think this an appropriate description of such mild-mannered men as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman?
“The GOP’s Hezbollah Wing Is Now Fully in Control,” screams The New Republic over a recent lead editorial.
Other columnists charge the GOP with holding America “hostage” by refusing to accept tax hikes to avert a default on the debt.
What to make of this hysteria?
The Establishment is in a panic. It has been jolted awake to the realization that the GOP House, if it can summon the courage to use it, is holding a weapon that could enable it to bridle forever the federal monster that consumes 25 percent of gross domestic product.
To bully and blackmail the GOP into surrendering the weapon and betraying its principles and signing on to new taxes, that establishment has unleashed rhetoric more befitting a war on terror than a political dispute.
For how, exactly, are Republicans threatening the republic?
The House has not said it will not raise the debt ceiling. It must and will. It has not said it will not accept budget cuts. It has indicated a willingness to accept the budget cuts agreed to in the Biden negotiations.
Where the GOP has stood its ground is on tax increases. …
The Republican Party has not said it will refuse to raise the debt ceiling. It has an obligation to do so, and will.
The House has simply said it will not accept new taxes on a nation whose fiscal crisis comes from overspending.
If the GOP keeps its word, raises the debt ceiling and accepts budget cuts agreed to in the Biden negotiations, the only people who can prevent the debt ceiling’s being raised are Senate Democrats or Obama, in which case, they, not the GOP, will have thrown the nation into default.
It is the establishment that is resorting to extortion, saying, in effect, to the House GOP: Give us the new taxes we demand, or Obama will veto the debt ceiling and we will all blame you for the default.
They’re bluffing.
The GOP should stand its ground — and fix bayonets.
The Codex Calixtinus, reported stolen last Wednesday, is a 12th century manuscript, the earliest known version of a text constituting a guide and reference book for pilgrims to the Cathedral of the Apostle St. James the Great . The book, known also as Liber Sancti Jacobi, or the Book of Saint James, contains sermons, accounts of miracles, liturgical texts connected with devotions to Saint James, the patron saint of Spain, and some very important pieces of polyphonic music. The pilgrim’s guide contains descriptions of the route, advice on sights to be seen along the way, and descriptions of local customs.
The manuscript is believed to have been taken by professional thieves from a safe in the cathedral’s archives the previous Sunday (July 3) night.
Congaudeant catholici [Rejoice together, Catholics], the first known polyphonic chant for three voices, composed by Magister Albertus Parisiensis [Albert of Paris, cantor of Notre Dame Cathedral, in the 12th century, from the missing Codex Calixtinus.
Walter Russell Mead discusses the failure of the political program of the Progressive haute bourgeois elite to leave room in its urban paradises for the unskilled poor to make a living (except by bussing tables).
The bien-pensant gentry politics that dominates political discussion in respectable circles has lost touch with the realities of American life and no longer really comprehends the issues at stake. To some degree this impoverished policy conversation reflects the declining financial and intellectual firepower of the private sector labor movement — itself a consequence of the automation driven transformation of American and world manufacturing. The “clean†wing of progressive politics has almost entirely driven the “smokestack†wing out of business, so that liberal policy discussions tend to revolve around quality of life issues primarily of interest to the upper middle class. …
“Progressive†policy now increasingly means policy that benefits genteel upper middle class liberals and public sector government workers; the resulting mix of complex and poorly applied regulations, high costs and high taxes throttles the only kind of job creation that could offer most inner city residents a feasible step up.
Giant hogweed, a species native to the Caucausus and Central Asia, was introduced in Britain in the 19th century as an ornamental. It has spread subsequently to Continental Europe, Canada, and the United States.
Giant hogweed can grow to a height of 23 feet (7 m.). It is invasive and its sap is highly toxic producing phytophotodermatitis, a chemical reaction causing skin cells to become hypersensitive to ultraviolet light, resulting in blisters, long-lasting scarring, and even blindness.
Giant hogweed has been found to date in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Vermont.
Michelle Bachmann began running a new 30 second ad in Iowa today which emphasizes her small town roots, her fiscal conservatism, and which makes effective use of her personal attractiveness.
Milton R. Wolf says that re-election panic is visible everywhere these days, and oh, my! how Obama’s unflappable image is changing now that the pressure’s on.
Something unexpected happened along the president’s breezy cruise to re-election. “No drama†Obama is suddenly looking about as calm as Jerry Lewis in a French film, about as brave as Ted Kennedy after an evening drive through Chappaquiddick. Witness Team Obama’s recent panicky behavior.
Obamanomics anxiety. The White House is reeling as its reverse Midas touch to the economy is being exposed. Its own economists acknowledge now that each job created or “saved†by the so-called “stimulus†cost taxpayers a whopping $278,000. This is still fantasyland because there are 1.9 million fewer jobs on record now than on the day the stimulus was signed into law, but nonetheless, the quiet pre-holiday Friday night news dump of an announcement reveals the administration’s worry. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke admitted last month that he’s clueless why America’s economic malaise continues. Tax cheat and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who called President Obama’s budget “unsustainable,†wants to abandon ship along with the rest of the “economic dream team†escapees: Lawrence H. Summers, Christina Romer and Austan Goolsbee. Meanwhile, the president, apparently believing no news is good news, has put his fingers in his ears – “La la la, I cannot hear you†– and, at one point, canceled his daily economic briefings.
The Washington Times’ editorial titled: Obama plays hide the Somali, which argues that the Obama administration hid captured Somali Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame on a US warship for two months before presenting him for indictment in Federal Court in New York in an end run around a Congressional ban on the transfer of terrorist detainees to US soil.
Barack Obama, that totally-cool-and-with-it president, recently decided to conduct a “Twitter town hall.” Iowahawk is on Twitter (I follow him), and whipped up a number of questions just for Barry.
Samples:
Serious question: what’s the biggest hardship you’ve ever dealt with in your life?
Have you ever had a menial job, changed your own oil, or fixed a toilet?
Subtract Malia’s age from the number of states. Multiply the result by the number of jobs saved or created.
Math wasn’t your strong suit, was it?
I let my Mexican drug lord license expire. Am I still eligible for the free machine gun program?
When you’re visiting his volcano lair, does George Soros let you feed the laser sharks?
The staffer who suggested this Twitter Town Hall is fired, isn’t he?
Are you smart enough to create a problem so big that even you could not solve it?
Why isn’t your cabinet unionized?
If Joe Biden has a massive stroke, (a) do you have a replacement in mind, and (b) how would you tell?
Is there any job you’d be better at than president?
