O'Donnell Right But...

When Christine O'Donnell said in a recent debate that there's no such thing as a separation of church and state in the Constitution she was right.

Republican Christine O'Donnell challenged her Democratic rival Tuesday to show where the Constitution"Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked while Democrat Chris Coons, an attorney, sat a few feet away.
Coons responded that O'Donnell's question "reveals her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is. ... The First Amendment establishes a separation."

requires separation of church and state, drawing swift criticism from her opponent, laughter from her law school audience and a quick defense from prominent conservatives.

In fact, O'Donnell is right and Coons is wrong. That phrase "separation of church and state" is NOT in the Constitution but first used in a letter by Thomas Jefferson.

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

In fact, the Constitution specifically forbids the state's establishment of religion not a separation of religion from the state.All those laughing are actually ignorant of the Constitution. 

The problem is that O'Donnell has yet to explain herself. She has yet to point out that the separation of church and state comes from a Jefferson letter and not the Constitution. She has yet to challenge the assertions. Instead, media continue to portray her as dumb and she has yet to counter.

Obama's Afghan Turnaround?

Former General Stanley McChrystal put President Obama into a near impossible position and President Obama may have turned that into a deciding turning point in the Afghan war.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday replaced Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan and nominated Gen. David Petraeus to replace him while affirming support for a counterinsurgency strategy encountering problems.

The dramatic shift came a day after McChrystal's disparaging comments about America's civilian leadership surfaced, and reignited the national debate on the war in Afghanistan -- now in its eighth year with a June death toll of coalition forces that is close to becoming the highest of the war.

Obama accepted McChrystal's resignation "with considerable regret" and named Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, to take over pending Senate confirmation.

Folks like Joe Liberman and John McCain are fond of saying...

General Petreaus literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency

That's because that is true both figuratively and literally. With the successful campaign in Iraq, Petraeus showed the world how to run a counterinsurgency manual. Meanwhile, his actual counterinsurgency manual was published in 2006, shortly before he went to Iraq. Petraeus is taking over with the Afghan theater in disarray but then again, nothing liked more dire than Iraq circa the beginning of 2007. Petraeus has an opportunity to make a case in every history book as America's greatest military person.

Afghanistan has three x factors: the rules of engagement, the timeline for withdrawal, and most importantly, Karzai. Immediately, we'll see if Petraeus will make the rules of engagement. The confirmation hearing should also be a pre qual to his battle over a timeline. Karzai remains the biggest concern. In Iraq, however, no one thought that Nuri Al Maliki could be a great leader right up until he was. Will Karzai go the way of Maliki or the South Vietnamese?

A Well Rounded Supreme Court Justice

With speculation about a new Supreme Court Justice now all over D.C., we also have the obligatory push by some to have a Supreme Court Justice that is outside of the judiciary.

We have blogged about this issue before, but I wanted to add a few thoughts anyway. In my view, the argument that a President should nominate someone to the Supreme Court who lacks experience in the court of appeals to ensure "diversity of experience" doesn't make a lot of sense. If typical Supreme Court nominees are 50 years old, and have spent 5-10 years on the appellate bench, they will have spent most of their lives doing something beyond filling up the Federal Reporter. The will have been practicing lawyers, public interest advocates, government officials, legislative staffers, academics, and the like.

True, few federal judges have experience in public office, a lack of experience that O'Neill finds troublesome. But then I'm not sure how that's relevant. Take the case of former legislators, who I would think are the most common type of former public officeholders who are often considered for judgeships. What exactly is it that legislators do that judges need to know? What does that experience teach that jurists who have not been elected to public office suffer from not knowing? Given the realities of work in Congress or state legislatures, I'm not sure.

Perhaps the argument is that those who want former legislators to become judges really don't want "diversity of experience," but rather like it when judges act like legislators. That is, maybe a former legislator is more likely to legislate from the bench -- an overused term, but here I think an accurate one -- and some think that's a good thing. Perhaps. But if so, I think that argument should be made directly, not hidden behind an argument for "diversity."

I've always wondered about this argument. I'm not saying that diversity of opinion is bad. I'm just not seeing why it's good. In fact, the last time this happened President Bush nominated Harriet Miers. What we learned was that Miers was a capable lawyer with plenty of life experience and she also was woefully low on Constitutional knowledge.

The Supreme Court is the ultimate place for elites. They need to know more about the Constitution, the law, and case law than anyone. I don't see how an individual would get that outside of a long time on the Judiciary. Furthermore, I don't see anyone could judge a nominee's grasp of all of this without a serious paper trail.

There are certainly other ways to get this without being on District Courts et al, but I don't see the fascination with it. I certainly think that being a law professor could also get that kind of experience and paper trail. Of course, most Supreme Court Justices did something prior to that. No one becomes a judge right out of law school. Still, the idea that we should nominate someone like Janet Napolitano simply because we would have a diversity of opinion seems to be fool hearty. We've seen just how much politicians lack a grasp of the Constitution with the health care debate. Do we really think that a career politician will know two hundred plus years of case law in a manner necessary of a Supreme Court Justice? So, why are some so fascinated with this diversity of experience?

Break Up the Banks and Presidential Power

This article got me thinking.

By all means, give regulators resolution authority and also impose the tightest regulations possible. But Congress and the White House shouldn’t stop there. Limits should be placed on how big big banks can become.

How big? No one has been able to show significiant efficiencies over $100 billion in assets. Make that the outside limit.

To be sure, smaller banks might still be subject to runs. That’s why the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was created in the 1930s – to ensure depositors in the event a bank gets into trouble, so they won’t have to run to protect their savings. And why the Glass-Steagall Act was passed – to separate commercial banking (where depositors put their money) from investment banking (where betting is done). We could expand insurance to certain categories of bank creditor, and we should resurrect Glass-Stagall.

But the only way to make sure no bank it too big to fail is to make sure no bank is too big. If Congress and the White House fail to do this, you have every reason to believe it’s because Wall Street has paid them not to.

Teddy Roosevelt created not only a legacy but a near legend by using the power of Sherman Anti Trust.

One of his first notable acts as president was to deliver a 20,000-word address to Congress^[55] asking it to curb the power of large corporations (called "trusts"). For his aggressive attacks on trusts over his two terms he has been called a "trust-buster."

Roosevelt's legend was cemented when he broke up Standard Oil. Yet, post Roosevelt trust busting has been near non existent. The only high profile trust busted was AT&T in the 1980's and that was largely with the cooperation of AT&T itself.

On no level does this make sense. Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore. His legend was cemented by his high profile confrontations with the likes of Rockefeller. All Presidents worry about their legacies.

Beyond that, there's almost no power grab as large as trust busting. Is there anything more seductive in a presidency than power? Is there a greater power than trust busting? Even the power to wage war isn't as absolute as trust busting. Pop psychology would state that once a president got a taste of that power it would be like crack.

Not so, it worked for Roosevelt and then it went away. There is no logic to it. Almost everything President Obama has done has been one giant power grab yet. Yet, if Obama really wanted a power grab he'd break up the banks. The health care bill is small time compared to the power grab that trust busting the banks would be. It would also be a populist move. Nothing says your a man of the people like dismantling the biggest banks.

Furthermore, trust busting isn't something you can fit into an ideological box. This wouldn't be a clear liberal/conservative move. If the president were serious about post partisan, this is his move. Finally, isn't too big to fail the very epitome of a monopoly or trust? If Obama is trying to fix that problem, isn't this where he starts?

Never In History

Think about how many signs there have been that no one but the Democrats in D.C. wants this bill. First, there's the polls. They are all against the Democrats. Second, there was the town halls. They were rowdy and all against the bill. Then, there's the elections. In both New Jersey and in Virginia, Republicans cleaned clocks. If that wasn't enough, Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. Now, the phone lines are burning up and all against health care reform.



It's not hard to see what the people want. Yet, the Democrats are determined to pass it anyway. So, how do we measure what will happen? That's impossible because never have politicians been shown such a clear path and decided to move another way anyway. (at least on issues beside war) So, how badly will this hurt the Democrats? No one knows because the arrogance has never been this strong.

Fiscal Conservatism is the New Populism

The most famous populist is probably William Jennings Bryan. He rode a wave of man of the people appeal and almost won the presidency before the age of forty on a third party ticket.

The interesting thing about populism is that it doesn't fit into any traditional ideology. Anyone can be a populist because all it really means is a politician that is in touch with the thoughts and beliefs of the people. The "folks" is what Bill O'Reilly calls them as he applies his own brand of populism on his show.

Only three or four years ago, populism was associated with such concepts as universal health care, protecting U.S. jobs, and tax increases on the wealthy. That's why it's none too ironic that fiscal conservatism is the new populism.

That's the greatest accomplishment of the Tea Parties. They were the greatest visual evidence that the folks care about government spending, out of control government, and deficits. It was cool to be fiscally conservative.

This isn't only ironic but natural. It was populist to be for universal health care when that was merely a concept. When the folks got the bill for universal health care, the folks wanted someone that could spend their tax money wisely. Now, if you want to be a populist, you have to get your fiscal conservative bonafides.

Where's Andrew Jackson

The History Channel has a series on the American Presidents. In the episode about Andrew Jackson a historian said that the accomplishment Jackson himself was most proud of was cutting government spending and paying off in its entirety the entire national debt. In fact, according to letters, Jackson never slept as well as the night when the debt was finally entirely paid off. Where is Andrew Jackson when we need him?

Reconciliation?

Go to any left or far left sight these days and your bound to run into someone pushing the idea of reconciliation to pass health care reform. Really? Are the Democrats really going to go this way? Here's one example.

This week the President is hosting a bipartisan gab-fest at the White House to try to tease out some Republican votes for health care. It's a total waste of time. If Obama thinks he’s going to get a single Republican vote at this stage of the game, he’s fooling himself (or the American people). Many months ago, you may recall, the White House and Dem leaders in the Senate threatened to pass health care with 51 votes -- using a process called "reconciliation" that allows tax and spending bills to be enacted without filibuster -- unless Republicans came on board. It's time to pull the trigger.

Why haven’t the President and Senate Dems pulled the reconciliation trigger before now? I haven’t spoken directly with the President or with Harry Reid but I've spent the last several weeks sounding out contacts on the Hill and in the White House to find an answer. Here are the theories. None of them justifies waiting any longer.

It's important to note that the filibuster is NOT in the Constitution. The filibuster was created by the forefathers of the Senate in order to make the Senate the deliberative body. There is nothing in the Constitution that says you need 60% of the vote to pass a bill. Furthermore, the filibuster has been used a lot more often over the last few decades.

Reconciliation was a tool created to get budget items passed with only 51 votes. As Democrats like to point out, it was used by President Bush to get his tax cuts through.

There's a very easy way to judge if reconciliation is a good idea. If your bill is popular then you use it. If it isn't, you shouldn't pass it under any circumstances. The mere suggestion of Democrats, liberals and pundits that reconciliation is the way to go is proof positive that they still haven't figured it out. Their brand has been tarnished and that's largely because of this health care reform bill. It's a major reason why a Republican is now Massachusetts' new Senator.

The answer, if you're trying to improve your numbers, is to present something entirely different to the public. Instead, the Democrats are giving serious consideration to jamming a bad bill no one wants down everyone's throats. Worse than that, reconciliation would probably still not pass. First, to use reconciliation, you must adhere to all sorts of confusing standards. No one can really explain any of them. That bill will still need to be merged with the House's bill. The Democrats couldn't figure out how to do that without reconciliation. Are we really to believe they'll figure it out now?

Beyond that, not all Democrats are brain dead. Some realize that this health care bill is killing the party, and more importantly, their own reelection chances. Reconciliation or not, the Democrats still have the same problem. They don't have the votes to pass the bill. Even talking about reconciliation hurts their ratings, and they're doing it with a scheme that has no hope of working.

Fed Raises Discount Rate

Is this the beginning of the Fed's turnaround and tightening?

The Federal Reserve on Thursday raised its discount rate to 0.75% from 0.5%, an effort to return its lending facilities to more normalized levels.

The Fed said the move, along with other recent modifications to its credit programs, does not signal a change in its outlook for the economy or for monetary policy, and the more important fed funds rate remains in its range of 0% to 0.25%.

The Discount Rate is what the Federal Reserve charges banks to borrow in order to meet reserve requirements.

The Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, was very careful to use mild language in describing the future stance. The Fed Funds Rate was held at 0-.25%. So, it's still unclear if this is small augmentation or if it is the beginning of more serious.

The equity markets will be of great interest over the next few weeks. When Alan Greenspan raised rates suddenly, that popped the internet bubble. This was also a mild surprise and futures are already down on the news. So, it will be interesting to see what sort of a reaction equities will have.

Sarah Palin and Andrew Jackson

I'm not telling anyone to vote for Sarah Palin, like Sarah Palin, or even agree with her on anything. There is, however, a very curious criticism of Sarah Palin. That criticism is that she isn't bright enough to be President.

We've created a much more elitist standard for holding high office than when the country was created. In fact, politics has become an elitist endeavor. When it was founded, the creators had no intention of creating professional politicians. Now, most politicians rely on politics as their one and only source of income. We have operatives, analysts, and strategists. All of these are legitimate forms of professions.

In this context, Sarah Palin is not viewed as intelligent enough to serve. Her knowledge of policy, in the view of some detractors, is simply not deep enough to serve. I would ask compared to whom? President Obama won the presidency specifically by laying out a broad vision without laying out specifics. He promised to spend to bail out the economy, the banks, and health care and promised to cut taxes on 95% of the people without providing specifics for how this would happen.

Let's take Iran as an example. Is there any politician from any side that verbalizes a specific, cogent, and logical policy for how to stop that country from gaining nukes? I don't know of any. So, why is the criticism only of Palin that her policy knowledge isn't deep enough?

It's important to note that Andrew Jackson could barely read and write. Harry Truman only finished high school and Ronald Reagan finished Eureka College. Those are often included among our greatest presidents. If Andrew Jackson could barely read, how exactly is Sarah Palin not smart enough to be president?

The 355th, And Our Agent Orange Legacy in Thailand

In December 1991 Dr. Bob Kilgallon was informed at the VA center in Erie, Pa. that he had cancerous tumors on his left lung. Thus began a series of ailments that leaves Dr. Kilgallon totally debilitated and barely able to function today.

In January 1992, he went under the knife for six hours to remove these tumors. He spent a month recovering in the VA hospital. The Oncologist at the hospital sent sections of the tumors to two civilian labs and the VA lab in Washington, DC. The civilian labs stated that they were Hodgkin’s non lymphoma cancer. The VA stated that they were Thymoma cancer tumors.

In May of 1997 during his six month physical he was notified that he had several tumors growing on his left lung again, and that the VA would be able to remove them around September or October that year.

In June 1997, he was having chest pains and went to see the local lung specialist. That specialist informed Dr. Kilgallon that the tumors had grown twenty time larger and surgery was required. The specialist removed the five tumors and the thymus gland. He spent five hours in surgery and another two weeks recovering in the hospital. He got out of the hospital just in time to attend his mother's funeral. Soon after he lost his job.

In July 1997, he started developing double vision and was unable to keep his head up. He began wearing eye glasses for the first time in his life. He went to an optometrist and was informed that he had developed Myasthenia Gravis, an auto immune disease. Because of this disease, his body started to produce anti-bodies continually, and the antibodies no longer recognized the body as the host and starts attacking all his muscles. Now, basic bodily functions like swallowing, speaking, and even keeping his eyes up became a constant challenge.

Dr. Kilgallon began walking around with his head hanging down, a patch over his right eye, sounding like Elmer Fudd and Donald Duck, with the arms hanging down to one side. His wife had to dress him because he no longer had the strength to do it himself. He's currently on no less than 12 different medications all at once. These medications, however, only treat the symptoms and not the cause. The best that Dr. Kilgallon can hope for is a life where the pain and lack of function is managed and maintained.

Alan Cote first felt sick in1967. For the next nearly ten years, he went through bouts of shortness of breath. He often had no appetite. He began to lose his eye sight and had to begin to wear glasses. The military doctors initially diagnosed him with malaria but in 1976 he was diagnosed by a civilian doctor with type 1 diabetes. He's spent the last three plus decades carefully monitoring his diet, his blood sugar, and his weight. He's had a triple by pass surgery on his heart and he's developed prostate cancer. He continues to deal with multiple ailments all at once to this day.

Jim Richards didn't get sick until the mid 1990's.That's when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He's spent the last decade and a half monitoring his diet, taking insulin on a regular basis, and maintaining an optimum level of weight.

All three of these men have several things in common. First, they each served in support roles in the Vietnam War. They were part of the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing in the Air Force. That's one of the most decorated units in the military. Their contemporaries are now stationed in Afghanistan helping to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda in that region. All spent all or most of their time outside of Vietnam itself. Mostly, they were stationed in parts of Thailand. All believe that their series of ailments are the direct result of exposure to Agent Orange. In fact, Dr. Kilgallon believes that he was exposed to Agent Blue, White, and Orange. In fact, he remembers seeing canisters with Blue, Orange, and White stripes on the base and believes these canisters had each of these agents stored in them. Furthermore, the government refuses, publicly at least, to acknowledge that their current series of ailments is the direct result of their time in the military.

Many people know about the deadly and debilitating effects of Agent Orange. Many also probably know that Vietnam War Vets were exposed to Agent Orange. What many people don't know is that the U.S. government will only acknowledge that they sprayed Agent Orange in Vietnam itself. So, if you were stationed outside of Vietnam, like in Thailand, your current set of ailments: diabetes, heart and lung problems, and even Myasthenia Gravis will not be covered financially by the VA. In fact, the Supreme Court will no longer even look at claims filed on behalf of those that served in Thailand to recover for compensation due to Agent Orange exposure, as Dr. Kilgallon found out the hard way.

Each of these three men also share another common characteristic: they've been fortunate financially. Dr. Kilgallon is a respected PH D and has published several books. As such, while he spends tens of thousands of dollars yearly on treatment, it hasn't bankrupted him YET. Alan Cote spent much of his time retired from the military at IBM. He was part of the team that produced the first PC in the late 1970's. His multiple ailments were always covered by the insurance at IBM. Jim Richards has also spent the last three plus decades in the corporate world and has been fortunate to receive enough insurance to cover his ailments.

Bob Kilgallon remembers nights when the outside of the base was sprayed with heavy doses of mosquito spray. He often worked on airplanes which had as their mission to spray Agent Orange on crops on the Ho Chi Minh trail. Alan Cote even remembers a specific incident when the exhaust on a plane he was working sprayed into his face. He first got sick the very next day. Jim Richards can't remember one specific incident. Instead, he remembers constantly working on planes that sprayed all sorts of things out of their exhausts, their engine and all sorts of other places.

In fact, for nearly the last three decades, all of Alan Cote's medical care has been covered by the U.S. government. They have in fact acknowledged that his diabetes was caused by his exposure to Agent Orange but it came with a very important stipulation. Cote spent a few weeks in Vietnam but his ailment occurred prior to his time in country. In fact, that he has diabetes at all is its own scandal. He should have been discharged immediately. No one with diabetes is allowed to serve. He remembers being treated by the military on numerous occasions and never once was he diagnosed with diabetes. Many of those records have since disappeared.

In fact, Cote remembers a meeting he had right around 1980 with several sharp dressed men in suits that represented the U.S. government. At this meeting, Cote attempted to convince them that he had been exposed to Agent Orange while in Thailand and this lead directly to his diabetes. The suits were having none of it until he said that of course they sprayed Agent Orange in Thailand. He knew this because they were in the base's in Udorn, where he was stationed, phonebook under the name Operation Ranch Hand. Upon hearing this, the suits ushered Cote out of the room for five minutes. When he returned, they told him that the government would pay for all his treatments for life as long he agreed to never speak publicly about what had just transpired. Jim Richards also remembers spending time in Vietnam. He would need records proving that to have the government pay for all his treatments. Richards didn't get sick until 1994 and by then the records no longer existed.

If the U.S. were to ever acknowledge that Agent Orange was used and sprayed in Thailand along with Vietnam, the ramifications would be monumental. Richards, Kilgallon, and Cote, are part of a network of about 300 Vets of the 355th that have contacted each other convinced that they're sick because of their exposure to Agent Orange in Thailand. There's tens of thousands of veterans who spent all or the majority of their time in Thailand and all would now be eligible for benefits. Thailand has the highest incidents of cancer in the world, and that may or may not be caused by the country's exposure to Agent Orange. Since it isn't even acknowledged, such cause and effect can't be studied. Tens of thousands of vets would now be eligible for full medical care for a series of debilitating diseases.

In the meantime, hundreds, thousands, and possibly even tens of thousands lie in constant pain and continue to die. What's most important is that each of the three had the financial resources to deal with their diseases. If they hadn't, they would have died years ago. Most Vietnam Vets aren't so lucky. Their stories will likely never be told because they died long ago. All three men told me they believe that if the government fully acknowledged what they'd done in Thailand, the VA system would be bankrupt. In the meantime, tens of thousands of Vietnam War vets, who never actually stepped foot in Vietnam, are left going bankrupt themselves and dying from their exposure to Agent Orange, even if it isn't acknowledged by our government.

Is America a Declining Power?

That was the tenor of the first two segments of the O'Reilly Factor last night. With rising deficits, unemployment, and the war in Afghanistan going poorly, O'Reilly made the thesis that we, as a nation, are in decline. He had on Lou Dobbs to concur with this opinion and then Ellis Henican to counter.



Unfortunately, the whole thing took on a partisan tone and so the point was lost. Dobbs is no fan of President Obama and so he agreed with O'Reilly's statements. He pointed to many of Obama's policies which are weakening the dollar and causing deficits we can't handle as evidence that we're declining. Meanwhile, Ellis Henican, himself a supporter of the President, sees our president as reestablishing our place in the world and so he sees Obama reestablishing us as a power.

Ultimately, whether we're a declining power is not a partisan issue. It's much bigger than President Obama. In fact, when a fellow blogger, Shanika Chapman, interviewed me, she asked me just this question and here's how I answered it.

I have no fears for the United States of America? This country has overcome so
much. It defeated the tyranny of the Monarchy of Britain. It overcame the evil of slavery and the country eventually gave women the full rights of men. In the long term, this country not only survives but it thrives.

The idea that America is in decline must be set into historical context. For instance, a $12 trillion debt is nothing compared to a country at war with itself. That's exactly what happened in 1861. The country not only survived that but thrived as a result. We spent the entire decade of the 1930's with double digit unemployment. It peaked at 25% and never fell below 13% during FDR's entire first two terms. We not only survived that but thrived through it.

Look at what awaited us in the beginning of the 1980's. We had just lost our first war not a decade earlier. We had double digit unemployment and inflation. Yet, we ended the decade with a thriving economy and having defeated the Soviet Union.

In the 1880's, the economy got so bad that we were facing a state of deflation for the first and only time in our history. In other words, goods and services were getting cheaper. We not only survived that period in our history but it ushered in the industrial revolution.

So, this country has been here before. It's faced challenges just like this before. No doubt there were plenty of pundits that claimed, much like O'Reilly now, that we were in decline then. Each and every time, we faced those challenges and thrived.

We have tough times. There's no doubt about that. There are no easy answers. There were, however, no easy answers in previous times of challenges. We made it through and I am fully confident we'll make it through again.

The Jobs Summit

The President held his jobs summit today.

Chronic unemployment isn't merely academic but rather "a struggle that cuts deep and touches people across the nation," President Obama said at a much-anticipated jobs summit Thursday where he acknowledged skepticism over the ability to produce results.

Still, the president claimed progress toward an economic recovery while saying much more work needs to be done -- even as the left wing of his party accused his administration of not doing enough to increase employment.

Obama sought fresh ideas from the 130 corporate executives, small business owners and labor leaders who attended the jobs forum. The president said the leading question of the day is "how do we get businesses to start hiring again."

After his opening remarks, the group broke into smaller study groups. Obama planned to address the entire group again at day's end.

I've said it before. Politicians hold summits, councils, and advisory committees when there's a problem they know they need to address and they have answers. Instead, politicians want the folks to think they're making every effort on this matter.

That's what's happening here. The optics on this thing, however, are horrible. In reality, it's the president's policies that are horrible. Wasn't the stimulus supposed to create jobs? Why has he been in office for nearly a year and only now getting ideas to create jobs? Wasn't job creation a top priority? Wouldn't a jobs summit have been the first thing he convened?

Of course, when things are going bad the optics are always bad on everything. The real problem is that we've spent record amounts of money and have a 10.2% unemployment rate to show for it. If he hadn't held a jobs sumit, his opponents would be complaining that people are struggling and the president isn't doing anything.

Now, they'll complain that it's either worthless or ten months too late. Either way, their complaints will resonate only because the unemployment rate is so high and there's a reason to complain.

Back when the stimulus was about to pass, Bill O'Reilly said that Obama was staking his presidency on its success. He said that there was something admirable in taking that large a gamble on such a policy. I suppose there is something admirable in believing so much in a policy that you stake your presidency on its success. It's even more admirable, however, if said policy actually works.

Back at the beginning of his presidency, Ronald Reagan faced a unique problem. He faced high unemployment and high inflation. While he was working on cutting taxes to stimulate the economy, Paul Volcker was raising interest rates to reverse inflation. Of course, the second stunted the first and it was driving factor in the double dip recession that occurred. Reagan never wavered and he never questioned Volcker as he was stemming inflation. I was too young to remember so I don't know if Reagan held any jobs summits in 1982 when things looked bleak. Reagan wound up watching his Republican allies suffer heavy losses in those mid terms. Then, in 1983, the economy began a remarkable turnaround that ultimately only ended in 2008. Reagan indeed, also, staked his presidency on a bold policy, dropping the top rate from 72% to 28%. It's even more admirable that he risked everything on a policy that worked.

The jury is still out on whether or not Obama's gambit will work. It may still shake out that running up a near $2 trillion deficit will create jobs. We're still years away from making a final judgment. That said, Obama is now married to his stimulus. The fate of his presidency rests entirely in it working and leading to economic prosperity. It will be that success or failure and not any jobs summit that will matter. This is the story of the day but the real story is the fate of the stimulus.

The Federal Reserve and Conflict of Interest

The Federal Reserve is among the most misunderstood organizations in our societies. For instance, most don't even know that it's privately owned. The folks that own the Fed are bankers themselves. In fact, it's the main names in the banking and financial services system: Goldman Sachs, Chasen, Wells Fargo, etc. The share of the Fed that each bank has is determined by the individual size of the bank. In other words, the larger the bank, the larger its share in ownership in the Fed. Then, each year each bank gets a dividend paid out from the Fed based on its share of the Federal Reserve ownership.

The Federal Reserve system is made up of twelve governors, and each is a political appointee. The Federal Reserve has two specific responsibilities: control the money supply and regulate the banking system.

Now, let's think about that for a minute. If the Fed is owned by the major players of the Federal Reserve, isn't there a natural conflict of interest in it regulating the banks. Isn't that what you'd call the fox guarding hen house.

Then, there's the Fed's ability to control the money supply. The Fed does this by buying and selling securities. Overwhelmingly, the Federal Reserve buys and sells U.S. Treasury bonds. In fact, the Federal Reserve has its preferred bond traders. It goes to these traders when it wants to buy and sell U.S. Treasury bonds.

There's no evidence that the Fed tips off its owners when its about to buy or sell a lot of U.S. Treasury bonds overtly. Yet, banks like Chase, Goldman, etc. are tipped off either way. They have traders on the floor. Heck, for all we know, it's their traders that are the ones that the Fed goes to. In any case, Chase, Goldman et al know the Fed is making major purchase or sales long before the average person. Overt or not, that's not a free market but a rigged system. The banks that own the Fed know before everyone else when they make a move. If the average person got their hands on this information, that would be insider trading. In the case of Goldman, Chase, etc. it's the way business is done.

Now, while the Fed usually only trades in U.S. Treasury bonds, knowing what the Fed is doing provides a massive advantage over the average investor. Worst of all, the Fed has this power because the initial act that created it, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. That act moved the power to create money from the Congress, where it was in the Constitution, and moved it to the Federal Reserve. Since an audit has never been done of the Federal Reserve, we, the citizens, don't know just how much money its created since its own creation in 1913. It's a totally non transparent process. We don't however know if its owners know just how much money its created.

So, the banking system that the Federal Reserve is supposed to regulate is likely in a position to know more than the public at large. The conflicts, in effect, are numerous.

What 9/11 Means to Me

I know that prior to September 11th, 2001 I knew about the concept of good and evil. I'm sure that I thought I understood them. As I look back eight years later however, I now understand that I never really did until I saw those planes hit the towers on September 11th, 2001.



At the time, I was working for a bank in the suburbs. I was running late for work and I hadn't watched any television prior to work. I was listening to music on the radio on the ride in to work. I only heard an announcement of a third plane hitting the pentagon minutes before arriving. My co worker came in with the sort of shock and excitement that only happens when they've heard news that is both stunning and extraordinary. He told me the details of what had happened. I then put the events into place in my mind.



Still, while I knew what had happened, I still didn't really understand what had happened. In fact, I worked diligently most of the day even though everyone was buzzing about what had happened. I called my parents. I called my friends. A buddy of mine called me and told me that a conference had been cancelled or he would have been in the towers. At this point, the whole set of events had still been surreal.



Then, I went over to a friend's place. It was then that I saw video of the planes hitting the buildings. It's true that a picture is worth a thousand words. The second I saw the planes hit the tower I was overwhelmed by the evil of the act. I had trouble breathing. It was hundreds of emotions hitting me at once and I had trouble coping with the evil that I had witnessed. That's all I could think about. This was evil on a scale I had never witness. I may have read about evil acts like the Holocaust, Stalin and Pol Pot, but I was witnessing this with my own eyes.



That's all I could think about. I couldn't stop pondering the magnitude of this evil. It was all made worse by the fact that the station kept replaying it over and over. Personally, I was changed. I never used to think in good and evil. Now, I do. Now, I always examine things as good and evil, right and wrong. That's because on that day I witnessed evil for all its destruction. I saw it on its grandest scale. I saw it for its maximum impact. I understood it finally not merely as an abstract concept, but as reality. So, for the first time, I understood the magnitude of being on the side of good and I determined to follow that path from that day forward.



I haven't been perfect in that question, and far from it. I have a ways to go. Still, personally, what I'll always remember about 9/11 is that this was the day that evil touched me.

Our "Extraordinarily Intellectual" President

(H/T to Power Line) In this Washington Post story, there appears to be another reincarnation of the media's reminders of the public that President Obama is extraordinarily brilliant.

The president is a very sophisticated thinker and understands the implications of these decisions and events. . .I think he is making sure he makes the best decisions and sometimes you cannot just wipe the slate clean. You have to deal with what the facts are or you have to actually try to make sure you can ascertain the facts, as opposed to some of the hyperbole that is out there.

...

There are some things [Obama] recognizes are the attorney general's prerogative to do, but at the same time it's not like he just says, "well, whatever he does, he'll do. [Obama] wants to make sure we take into account those decisions and take the appropriate steps within the White House to deal with them, particularly from the standpoint of making sure we maintain that very capable, robust counterterrorism capability."

This has been repeated by some in the media that it's turned into a mantra and a broken record. The fixation by some to convince the public that President Obama is uniquely intelligent in a way no president has ever been before is equally misleading and totally without context. First, if geniuses made the best presidents, then all our presidents would have been geniuses. Second, it's far from clear that President Obama is uniquely intelligent in a way that no other president has ever been before.

Whenever anyone starts to measure the intellect of a president and use that intellect to try and prove some larger political point, I go back in history. First, Andrew Jackson could barely read. Jackson was far from an intellectual. While we can debate his place in history, it's hard to argue that Jackson was a unique and transformative president. Clearly, his lack of intellect didn't hurt him that much. Ronald Reagan graduated from Euraka College, not Harvard. No one is saying that Reagan was dumb, but he was certainly not a president of uniquely extraordinary intellect. Yet, he also was a transformative president. Abraham Lincoln wasn't necessarily a man of extraordinary intellect and yet he was instrumental in ending slavery.

I have no doubt that President Obama is extremely intelligent. I don't even doubt that he's more intelligent than the overwhelming majority of citizens of the U.S. I also don't doubt that most presidents are smarter than most of the citizenry they serve. No one has shown how Obama is somehow much smarter than most presidents. More than that, no one has show why it would even matter.

Whenever anyone makes the claim that Obama is really, really, really, really smart, what they are really saying is don't worry about his policies because you just don't get it. Obama, you see, just understands the world better than us simpletons. So, when we are concerned about his policies, that's because we don't get it.

I would challenge all of it. If Obama is so smart, why did he think that saddling the country with overwhelming debt was the only way to move us out of a recession. Warren Harding, no intellectual heavy weight, cut spending and taxes when he faced a severe recession in the beginning of his administration. That recession did not lead to a depression and in fact ushered in a decade of outstanding growth. If Obama is so smart, why does he think that a big government overhaul of health care is the best option? Furthermore, if he's so smart why can't he see that his health care reform package has no hope of passing?

The reality is that alluding to Obama being extraordinarily intellectual is a trojan horse. It's a way to change the debate from the subject at hand. In the Washington Post piece, the story was actually about AG Holder's appointment of a special prosecutor for the CIA investigation. In this case, Obama's intellect should be of no relevance. The decision was supposedly entirely that of Holders. So, who cares how smart Obama is? This is a constant technique of many in the media. It's subtle justification for a policy. It isn't the job of the media to offer justifications for Obama's policies. His intellect is irrelevant. As such, his policies need to be analyzed on their merits not on his supposed extraordinary intellect.

Ted Kennedy's Legacy: The Consummate Legislator

I have no doubt that many of my conservative readers will protest what I am about to write. To many on the right, any praise for Kennedy is blasphemy. This is also not an analysis on his personal life or on the accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne. I wasn't there to witness either and so I am in no position to judge. I'm also in no position to judge other's personal failings.

That said, Kennedy spent nearly five decades as a legislator, and there's no doubt that he was extremely effective in his job. More than 300 bills that eventually became laws had Ted Kennedy's name on them. Think about that for a minute. John F. Kerry has less than ten in a similar time in the Senate.

Ted Kennedy was an unabashed liberal. Yet, in a career that spanned 47 years, ten presidents, all sorts of dynamics of power structures, all Kennedy did was introduce legislation and more than anyone that legislation turned into law. This legislation spanned the spectrum of issues. He was instrumental in the Voting Rights Act, SCHIP, No Child Left Behind, Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Prescription Drug Benefit.

It's no secret that Kennedy wanted a single payer health care system. Yet, he was able to work with the likes of President Bush to turn into law legislation that went much less than that. Compare that to Hillary Clinton who refused to budge when Hillary Care blew up. Kennedy is the liberal lion and yet he worked with Republicans like John McCain, George Bush, and Orrin Hatch, to name just three, in passing legislation. Call them what you will, but none are liberals.

In August of 2001, he reached out to President Bush and they crafted into law No Child Left Behind. In 2003, he again worked with President Bush to craft into law the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. In the middle of it, he criticized Bush relentlessly for the war in Iraq. There's no minimizing the legislative skills of a Senator when they can essentially call the president a liar in public and turn around and in private work with them on crafting a bill. Yet, that's exactly what Kennedy did.

I am not here to judge the worthiness of the legislation he turned into law. For one, there's so much of it that such an endeavor would be impossible. I'm simply here to say that we should all realize that the sheer magnitude, scope, and breadth of his legislation prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ted Kennedy was a unique and effective legislator. Since that's the number one job of any Senator, I believe that's a very important part of his legacy.

Is Government Mandated Health Insurance Constitutional?

There is some debate on places that find such questions interesting. Is it even constitutional to mandate that someone have health insurance under the penalty of a tax? First, there is no cut and dry answer to this question? Second, the way you view this says a lot about the way you view our government and constitution.

First, there is certainly no explicity power to tax any one that doesn't have health insurance in the Constitution. There are, of course, dozens of powers that aren't specifically enumerated in the constitution that are still used by the government. The Constitution is very specific in certain places and in other places it's very vague. So, it can be perfectly legitimate for Congress to draw power from any number of vague passages of the Constitution.

The power can come from one of two places. The first place is the Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce.

The Commerce Clause is an enumerated power listed in the United States
Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that Congress has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the states, and with the Native American tribes.

Now, there's no question that health care is interstate commerce. Drugs are interstate commerce. Ironically enough, health insurance is NOT interstate commerce. That's because you can't buy health insurance across state lines. Yet, can the Congress force you to buy health insurance by the Commerce clause? To believe this you would have to have a very expansive view of government power. To believe this you would have to believe that your very participation in the health care system at all means that you are engaged in interstate commerce. In other words, you would have to believe that no specific act would be considered interstate commerce. Some people compare this to mandatory car insurance, but no one forces anyone to drive. The mandatory car insurance is for drivers only. Mandatory health insurance is for everyone. You would simply see health care as an interstate commerce endeavor and thus your very participation in it means that your behavior can be regulated. That views the power of the government as extremely expanded.

The second power from which to draw on is the Congress' power to tax.

The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

This power, as you can read, is very vague. It's left to interpretation. The difference between the Congress' prior power to tax and the proposal to mandate universal health insurance or face a penalty is that this would be the first time that Congress would tax you for action not taken. All prior taxes are on actions taken: income, sales, property, etc. As such, they are in a sense voluntary. No one is forced to buy anything and so you aren't forced into a sales tax. If a business loses money in a given year, they aren't taxed. In this case, the tax would be on action not taken. As such, each consumer would face fees either way. Either someone would pay for health insurance or they pay a tax. It would be the first time that the government would impose payment on an individual or impose a tax. That's never happened before. So, if you believe that such power is proper under the Constitution, then you view the Constitution as giving expansive tax power to the government.

So, while I believe the question of Constitutionality is open, there's no question that to believe that mandated health insurance is Constitution is to believe in a very expansive power to the government.

A Stunning Revelation on Rather Gate

We all know what happened in Rather Gate. Dan Rather went on 60 minutes with documents that were fake. These documents were obviously not properly vetted prior to them being aired because they were fake and they wound up on the air. These documents purported to show that Bush used political influence to get into the guard to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. They also showed him to be lazy. Of course, none of it was true. Dan Rather wound up losing his job and so did Mary Mapes.

Now, Bernie Goldberg has just added a twist to the story. According to Goldberg, a source told him that on page 130 of CBS' own investigation there is startling information. The CBS investigation is available on their web site. On page 130, there is information that Mary Mapes was told by multiple sources that Bush stated that he vounteered to serve in Vietnam. Here's how Goldberg put it.

Mapes had information prior to the airing of the September 8 [2004] Segment that
President Bush, while in the TexANG [Texas Air National Guard] did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots. For example, a flight instructor who served in the TexANG with Lieutenant Bush advised Mapes in 1999 that Lieutenant Bush “did want to go to Vietnam but others went first.” Similarly, several others advised Mapes in 1999, and again in 2004 before September 8, that Lieutenant Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but did not have enough flight hours to qualify.

It appears that he told people that he didn't want to serve in infantry but that he did want to fly in Vietnam. According to multiple sources that spoke with Mapes prior to the story being aired, they told her that Bush entered the National Guard in order to get enough hours to be able to fly in Vietnam.

It's important to note that it is not at all clear if Bush really was gung ho about serving in Vietnam. Bush ultimately didn't have enough hours to serve as a pilot in Vietnam, and, as Bernie Goldberg suggested, a cynic would say that Bush volunteered to serve knowing all this. What is clear was that Mapes was presented with evidence that he was. It is also clear that this information was never aired even though it's clearly relevant. In other words, the story was now clearly manipuated by those with an agenda, and relevent facts were held back purposely. Both Mapes and Rather cried that they made a mistake. It's now clear that Mapes at least didn't merely make a mistake. She willfully withheld information that would have made Bush more sympathetic. What is still not clear is whether or not Dan Rather knew about this. Mary Mapes has a lot to answer for, even more than she already has to answer for. There are now all sorts of new questions for Dan Rather.

This story was already one of the biggest pieces of journalistic corruption. This new revelation means the corruption was even worse than before.

Krugman's One Man Reagan Assault Continues

Paul Krugman appears to be determined to try and rewrite the history of the Reagan years all on his own. He continues with this piece.

Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.

First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.

To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.

Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.

Only Paul Krugman would think that the years 1981-2007 were bad for all Americans. Furthermore, he seems to blame Reagan for the Bush years even though Reagan had been out o office for 16 years by then. First, comparing the year 1953-1980 to 1981-2007 is totally misleading. We were still only ten years removed from the Great depression at the beginning of that era. Much of the gains were making up for years and years of enormous economic losses. Furthermore, the "income" gained in most of the seventies were due mostly to inflation. None of this Krugman puts into context.



More than that, here's a very inconvenient fact that Krugman also doesn't mention about the Reagan years. The last two years of the Carter Presidency produced stagflation which continued into the Reagan presidency. A recession was created largely because Paul Volcker raised interest rates in order to beat the inflation that was occurring after Carter's reign. So, poverty, which began rising in 1978, didn't stop rising until 1983. From there, it continued to drop steadily until it reached levels of 1978.



All of this is simply economic nonsense. No one doubts that the years 1983-2007 were 25 years of near uninterrupted growth. So, some, like Krugman, will isolate misleading statistics in order to make it seem as though Reagan's policies didn't benefit all. Frankly, I'm sure they didn't. It isn't the president's job to see to it that each and every American succeeds. That's up to each individual. The president is supposed to create an economic environment most conducive for success. That's exactly what Reagan did with his tax cuts and deregulation. The rest was up to the individual.



Worse than that, Krugman continues to blame the era of "deregulation" on the mortgage crisis and he furthermore blames Reagan for all of this.

There’s a lot to be said about the financial disaster of the last two years, but the short version is simple: politicians in the thrall of Reaganite ideology dismantled the New Deal regulations that had prevented banking crises for half a century, believing that financial markets could take care of themselves. The effect was to make the financial system vulnerable to a 1930s-style crisis — and the crisis came.

“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. “We know now that it is bad economics.” And last year we learned that lesson all over again.

Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.

This is the standard liberal line, deregulation caused the crisis. Krugman, like most liberals, can't actually point to a specific piece of deregulation which shows you just how weak the case is. I'll say the same thing that I say each and every time this argument is advanced. Fraud, more than anything, contributed to the crisis. Fraud is not now, was not then, nor will ever be legal. No one deregulated fraud out of our regulatory handbook. As such, most of the problematic loans, and the financial instruments they created, were not done legally. That isn't a lack of regulation but enforcement, and that's a totally different problem. It's not Ronald Reagan's fault that regulators looked the other way while teachers, plumbers, and janitors systematically ballooned their incomes on application in order to qualify for loans.



All of this Krugman uses to make an absurd argument for the public option.

The debate over the public option has, as I said, been depressing in its inanity. Opponents of the option — not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson — have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance — which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.

But it’s much the same on other fronts. Efforts to strengthen bank regulation appear to be losing steam, as opponents of reform declare that more regulation would lead to less financial innovation — this just months after the wonders of innovation brought our financial system to the edge of collapse, a collapse that was averted only with huge infusions of taxpayer funds.

Krugman goes on to quote Upton Sinclair in saying "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” The implication being that opponents of the public option are simply tools of the health insurance industry. The irony here is that the charge would apply to Krugman himself. He's made quite a living espousing Keynesian style economics and bigger government. In that respect, the "public option" is near a fantasy. There are plenty of good arguments against it but Krugman would never hear of them since his entire paycheck depends on believing something different.