Your government at work: Getting it wrong, with amazing consistency

Right now America desperately needs a competent government like the one our Founders gave us. What we have instead is one that is too big, too powerful and painfully dysfunctional.

The border with Mexico is poorly guarded and allows anybody to come into the United States unimpeded, which causes states along the border to waste millions of dollars dealing with illegal aliens, and puts American citizens at risk of physical violence and even death. The criminal element has turned Phoenix, Arizona into the city with the second most kidnappings in the entire world.

Obviously, a competent government would not allow this situation to have arisen, let alone to continue. But our government has done nothing to return security to the taxpaying citizens of Arizona who expect and deserve much better.

Faced with federal negligence on the border the state of Arizona passed a less strict version of the federal law that addresses illegal aliens in an effort to protect its citizens. And how did the federal government respond to that? It bad-mouthed the people of Arizona and threatened to sue the state.

In addition to government dysfunction, some of our citizens are badly confused on this issue, as well, and advocate boycotting Arizona businesses and call Arizonans “racists” for wanting to protect themselves from criminals. But what’s worse, there is evidence that the federal government may be participating in boycotting Arizona.

Arizona Democrat Representative Gabrielle Giffords issued a statement saying, “It is very troubling when the federal government becomes involved in a boycott against our state.” … “Although I personally disagree with the immigration law, it came about because of growing frustration over the federal government’s unwillingness to secure the border. The federal government’s participation in this boycott only adds to that frustration.”…

The government, predictably, has denied Congresswoman Giffords’ charge, however it cannot deny that the Department of Education moved its North American Mobility program convention scheduled for October in Tucson to Minnesota.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer recently met with President Barack Obama about the ridiculous border situation, and she said he told her the administration would provide some help soon. And sure enough, the president kept his word, having the feds post signs warning Arizonans to stay out of some areas of their own state because it is not safe to go there. No doubt Gov. Brewer feels much better now. These signs are 80 miles from the Mexican border, and 30 miles from the state capitol.

A monumental ecological disaster unfolds in the Gulf of Mexico when an oil rig explodes, killing 11 workers and unleashing a flow of oil into the waters of the Gulf, putting at risk wild life in the water and marshes, the jobs of thousands of Americans, and the beaches of the Gulf Coast. How does the federal government respond to this tragedy?

The government can’t fix the oil leak, of course, but when the president finally did something, he chose to threaten legal action against the company operating the oil rig instead of acting to help contain the oil. He then banned all drilling in the Gulf, putting thousands more jobs at risk.

Fortunately, a federal judge properly recognized that the ban was unwarranted and illegal and overturned the moratorium. And how did the administration react to the ruling? It threatened to issue another drilling moratorium.

When the federal government ignored offers of assistance at home and from abroad, and ignored desperate requests for help from states threatened by the oil flow, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal took matters into his own hands and began constructing sand bars to block the oil approaching his shores. And the US Coast Guard responded by shutting down the barges constructing the sand bars because it was unable to ascertain that the barges had the required fire extinguishers and life preservers on board.

These are the most recent examples of government ineptitude, but it goes back decades.

The current financial crisis is a nightmare scenario of government bungling that began in 1977 with the reckless Community Reinvestment Act to help people who couldn’t afford one to buy a home. Congressional meddling made that worse along the way, and then Congress changed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 to allow commercial banks to merge with investment banks. Capping off this litany of ineptness is the behavior of House Ways and Means Chairman Barney Frank, who in 2002 and 2003 fought off efforts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which collapsed not long thereafter.

After creating the environment that allowed financial institutions to run wild and bring on the financial crisis, Congress now thinks it needs to fix things with a financial reform bill. But the bill ignores two of the most needed reforms: fixing “too big to fail,” and once again separating banking functions from investment functions.

Despite these magnificent failures in housing, banking, border security and oil clean-up activities, Congress and the administration go merrily along inserting government where it doesn’t belong and cannot function without creating chaos.

As President Ronald Reagan famously said, government isn’t the solution, government is the problem.

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Going Rogue, Part II: the EPA forsakes rationality

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a rare step against a planned ‘mountaintop’ coal mine in West Virginia,” The Washington Post reported in March, “proposing to block the mine, despite the fact that it has a federal permit.” The story outlined the EPA’s authority to take such action, noting that “it has used that power only 12 times since 1972. It has never used the power in a case such as this, where the mine has a permit.”

Those concerned about water quality might think it is good that the government is looking out for the quality of streams affected by coal mining. However, for the EPA to protect streams from contamination it must compare the level of contaminants against realistic thresholds. That is not what the EPA does.

The agency’s recent guidance on water quality requirements relies completely on measuring conductivity – which is the ability of water to carry an electric current – to determine whether water is contaminated.

Stream biologist Ben Faulkner explains in a video produced by FACES of Coal that pure water does not conduct electricity; conductance requires solid material dissolved in water to do that. He also said that low conductivity is not a guarantee that water is safe.

The EPA has set 300 – 500 microSiemens per centimeter as the threshold for water purity; water with greater than 500 is contaminated, according to the EPA. But Mr. Faulkner notes that Evian bottled water has 558 microSiemens, Perrier has 712, apple juice has 1,919, and Gatorade has 2,580. By EPA standards, all of these products are harmful.

Iron, zinc, selenium and copper are common components in streams affected by mining, Mr. Faulkner said, and in combination over 500 microSiemens render a stream contaminated under the EPA standard. But he points out that these substances are vitamins, not toxic chemicals. Their presence in water is not automatically a problem. It’s the concentration of substances that is important, and when these metals or other contaminants are present in streams at elevated levels, mining processes are modified to control them. Even so, critics say the EPA threshold is too low; FACES of coal asserts that it is not achievable; and Mr. Faulkner says that conductivity is “a poor way to evaluate whether the stream is healthy or not.”

Yet conductivity at that level is how the EPA determines stream contamination. Is water quality the objective of the EPA, or is this a way to accomplish a political goal of the Obama administration?

The minority staff of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee issued a report last month that answers that question: “Our investigation found that the Obama Administration is using the Clean Water Act Section 404 permitting process to dismantle the coal industry in the Appalachian region.”

The EPA also has the power – and according to the US Supreme Court, the duty – to regulate “greenhouse gases” under the Clean Air Act, and its December endangerment finding formalized its conclusion that these gases threaten the environment.

This finding sets the stage for the agency to act to reduce the emission of the six gases that are allegedly responsible for global warming /climate change, “allegedly” because manipulation of scientific data and outright fraud in the climate science arena have destroyed the credibility of evidence of manmade global warming/climate change. Furthermore, a sizeable body of climate scientists argues that human activities do not cause changes to Earth’s climate.

Despite this raging controversy over an unproved and vigorously debated theory, the EPA stampedes merrily ahead to restrict greenhouse gas emissions, with particular emphasis on carbon dioxide.

But industry sources say the Clean Air Act was designed to regulate localized air pollution, and is a clumsy tool for broader application. The US Chamber of Commerce, among others, thinks the endangerment declaration could lead to litigation that will harm the economy.

Carbon dioxide, like the vitamins dissolved in streams, is vital to the ecosphere; CO2 exhaled by humans and other animals is essential for plant life; the oxygen plants emit is essential for animal life, and a significant faction of scientists believe more CO2 is good, not bad.

The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change says on its Web site, CO2 Science, “Clearly, the panic-evoking extinction-predicting paradigms of the past are rapidly giving way to the realization they bear little resemblance to reality. Earth's plant and animal species are not slip-sliding away” to extinction. And the Center’s Dr. Craig Idso concludes that "Clearly, there is no way that these real-world observations can be construed to even hint at the possibility that a significant increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will necessarily lead to any global warming."

A resolution in the US Senate to stop unelected government officials at the EPA from micromanaging the economy was defeated 53-47 last week with just six Democrats joining Republicans in trying to protect us from runaway bureaucratic malfeasance, precisely what this column warned of in December in the first “Going rogue.”

The EPA has become nothing more than a political tool of leftist ideology that is taking aim at American industries, and may well be a key element in unraveling the US economy.

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Obama, Dems continue to get battered in the polls

Poll numbers are not improving for our young president. An ABC News/Washington Post Poll from June 3 through 6 questioned participants on whether they "approve or disapprove of the way Obama is handling" three different things.

On the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, 44 percent approved, while 49 percent disapproved.

On the economy, 50 percent approved while 49 percent disapproved.

On the federal budget deficit a mere 39 percent approved and 56 percent disapproved.

None of these numbers ought to surprise anyone; the Obama administration has been toothless in making appreciable differences in any of these serious issues. In fact, in every case its policies have made things worse without even a hint that there are plans that will turn things around.

The most serious poll result, however, came in response to the statement, “He understands the problems of people like you."

While 51 percent of respondents answered in the affirmative, Mr. Obama’s rating on this question has been in free fall since April of last year, when 73 percent of respondents answered affirmatively. By July his rating had dropped 10 points, and by January of this year, his rating was down to 57 percent. Disapproval ratings have risen roughly opposite the sinking approval numbers.

Congress fares no better.

Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll on June 8 and 9 revealed that only 22 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, while 69 percent disapprove, a negative margin of 47 points.

A week earlier, an ABC/Washington Post poll’s numbers were only slightly better, 26 favorable against 71 percent unfavorable, a 45-point deficit.

Back in May Democrats in Congress managed to please only 37 percent of the participants, against 61 percent who disapproved in an AP/Roper survey, while Republicans did as well on the approval side, but fared worse on the disapproval side, with 65 percent.

And, by a virtual two-to-one margin, a Gallup poll in the last week of May shows incumbents are in deep trouble. Asked whether they would rather vote for a candidate for Congress that has been in Congress or one that hasn’t, 60 percent said a candidate who has never been in Congress, while only 32 percent said they’d vote for someone with Congressional experience.

Republicans and Independents were clearly anti-incumbent (71-22 and 69-25, respectively), while Democrats were more evenly divided at 45-41 in favor of incumbents.

The Rasmussen Reports weekly Generic Congressional Ballot shows that since April 4 when the Democrats attracted 38 percent of the vote, the number is down to 36 percent on June 13, while Republicans garnered 47 percent on April 4 and 46 percent on June 13. Republicans are favored on the Generic Ballot over Democrats by a 10-point margin.

In what may be the most telling number, this month's Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll found that Mr. Obama’s approval rating of 51 percent, down from 77 percent at his inauguration, is significantly below Hillary Clinton’s rating , which has been in the 60s since she became Secretary of State.

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We’re from the government and we’re here to help. Or not!

Nearly two months after BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 workers and started spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, little has been done to slow the flow of oil from the seabed and less has been done to clean up the oil in Gulf waters and on beaches. People are angry, and rightly so.

Making decisions when you are angry usually produces bad decisions, and this situation proves the rule. Many questions are only partially answered and some not answered at all, and there’s no reason to have rushed to judgment. What we should have done is rush to the assistance of the people of Gulf Coast states. But instead, Washington sat on its hands, telling us “we were there from day one.”

The Dutch government offered its help and was rejected, and a number of creative ways of extracting the oil in the water have been suggested, but they have been ignored, lost in the bureaucracy, or couldn’t break through the blame-focused attitude of the Obama administration. The president should take a deep breath and change his focus from blaming and butt-kicking to actually doing something to help the people of Gulf Coast states. In other words, stop talking and do something!

Banning off shore drilling and boycotting BP are two popular actions favored by a large number of Americans. Such ideas appeal to the opportunist, or to people overcome with emotion who want to shoot first and ask questions later. Boycotts are sometimes effective tools to make a point. Often, however, they are ill-advised and, frankly, dumb. Boycotting BP stations falls squarely into the latter category. It’s like kicking the dog when your kid wrecked the car. Our friends, neighbors and acquaintances that own and work in these businesses are not to blame for the problems in the Gulf, so don’t punish them. And driving the company out of business would be counter-productive.

President Barack Obama’s rash decision to stop all drilling in the Gulf and other off shore locations presents more serious problems. The president wants to insure there isn’t another accident like this, but he should know that as bad as this one is, it’s the first significant deep water accident in 40 years. He over-reacted.

Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute (API) told Congress that raising the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund cap from $75 million to $10 billion, as proposed by US Senate legislation, would jeopardize about 145,000 jobs. Further, Mr. Gerard said that raising the cap could raise costs for offshore operations. "The impacts would be devastating ... just a 10 percent increase in development costs could … [result in] reducing production, jobs, and put $7.6 billion in future government revenue at risk," he said.

API’s chief economist Dr. John Felmy predicts that the short-term implications of a drilling moratorium will easily affect thousands of jobs in the Gulf region. Each drilling platform has 100 to 200 people on it, he said, and there are up to 30 platforms in the Gulf. That means as many as 6,000 direct jobs will be lost, and Dr. Felmy says two to three times that many support jobs are also at risk.

If the Obama administration wanted a strategy to virtually destroy the economy of Gulf Coast states, it would be hard pressed to find one more effective than banning oil and natural gas drilling there.

And according to Dr. Felmy, longer term bans on drilling will have a substantial impact on domestic oil production, and that translates to higher prices and perhaps shortages of gasoline and other fuels.

API explains that about 30 percent of the nation’s total domestic oil production and 13 percent of domestic natural gas production comes from the Gulf of Mexico and that deepwater development produces approximately 80 percent of the oil and 45 percent of the natural gas in the Gulf.

The extremists among the drilling-ban crowd would be happy to see fossil fuel use end abruptly, but have given no thought to how we would deal with the chaos that would ensue. These ideologues couldn’t care less how many families are ruined by such actions.

However, the reality of the energy situation is that oil and natural gas are going to be essential to the US energy picture for decades to come because alternative energy sources are insufficiently developed to take up the slack.

But aside from energy, let’s not forget that petroleum is the basis of a vast array of products besides fuels and lubricants. Ranken Energy Corporation explains that one 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline, but more than half of it is used to make things like plastics, asphalt, waxes, golf balls, toothpaste, panty hose, contact lenses, lipstick, nail polish, insect repellant, hand lotion, antifreeze, heart valves, parachutes … approximately 6,000 individual products.

So put the ideology on hold, accept the fact that we need oil and we need more domestic oil, and let’s focus on fixing the problems this tragic explosion has caused, finding wrong-doing and compensating those who deserve compensation. But let’s pass on the opportunity to use this crisis to advance political and ideological goals.

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Economy slumping because of government efforts to turn it around

Try as he might, President Barack Obama just can’t put a pretty face on the latest economic figures.

Prior to the release of the May job numbers, economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected an increase of 540,000 nonfarm jobs, but when the jobs report came out, it showed only 431,000 jobs had been created.

Even so, Mr. Obama told us that the May job report is evidence that the U.S. economy is "getting stronger by the day," and then admitted that 411,000 of those were temporary government Census workers, which means, of course, that only 20,000 real jobs were created.

But even the new Census hiring is suspect. A number of Census workers have come forward saying that they were hired, trained, worked a day or two, were laid off, then rehired for a repeat of the cycle as many as three times. Each re-hire was counted as a new job, raising the new jobs total. But that doesn’t sound very much like a real job, does it? Not even a real “temporary” job.

This disappointing private payroll number was a much weaker result than many economists had expected, and that sentiment was shared by investors, who drove the Dow Industrials to a 323-point slide on Friday, the second time in two weeks the DJIA has closed below 10,000.

The small jobs increase was accompanied by a decrease in unemployment, which fell further than economists expected, dropping to 9.7 percent in May from 9.9 percent in April. But even that news has an asterisk beside it, since much of the decline came from 322,000 unemployed people who dropped out of the labor force and are no longer counted among the unemployed.

Looking deeper into the unemployment data, many analysts regard the number that includes discouraged workers – like those 322,000 who dropped out of the workforce, and those forced to work part-time because of the weak economy –as a more relevant measure of unemployment. That number is 16.6 percent.

Thirty months into the recession, unemployment continues at high levels. The low point in October of 2006, when the rate was 4.4 percent (five percent is considered full employment), is a distant memory, and the rate hovered just above that level until May of 2007, at which point it started to creep up, hitting 7.4 percent in December of 2008. Since then, there has been no good news on employment, and some economists predict the rate will bump up against 10 percent through the summer.

Employment is a lagging indicator of economic recovery, meaning that the economy will show improvement long before unemployment falls to acceptable levels. But the recovery is not gaining strength, either.

Gross Domestic Product was revised downward to 3.0 percent in the first quarter of 2010 from 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, supporting the idea that unemployment will continue at high levels for a long time. The lower GDP shows “that the recovery in the biggest economy in the world may not be as strong as many have expected,” according to analyst Anna Fedec. The downward revision in GDP “came from consumer consumption and business spending which are required components for growth to be called sustainable,” she said. “In fact, consumer spending, which is vital in elevating production levels, is weak, mostly due to [the] high unemployment rate.”

Unemployment is the most important thing on the minds of most Americans, and it also plays a role in stifling the recovery. People without jobs spend a lot less than people with jobs, and with demand for products and services reduced by high unemployment, new job creation also will languish.

Add to that scenario the fact that the Obama administration’s policies discourage job creation by keeping businesses wondering what tax, expense or government edict is going to be imposed on them next. This uncertainty breeds caution, and caution and uncertainty do not produce jobs.

A look at business cycle history shows that if left alone economic downturns self-correct rather quickly, and that includes every downturn up to 1930, at which point federal government bureaucrats and elected officials decided they knew more about business than business people. That was the blunder that created the Great Depression, and it is the blunder in this recession. Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek called such bureaucratic arrogance the “fatal conceit.”

Following Jimmy Carter’s disastrous economic policies in the late 70s, Ronald Reagan turned things around by cutting taxes. Economist Arthur Laffer points out that the. Reagan tax cuts – which were the engine of the 1983 expansion and unleashed the longest peacetime expansion the U.S. economy has ever experienced – are the mirror image of the Obama tax increases. And he said “the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010.” Mr. Laffer predicts that economic activity shifted to 2010 helps this year, but will produce an economic collapse next year. “If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain't seen nothing yet,” he said.

The Obama administration has failed to learn the lessons of 1930 and 1983, to our great detriment.
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Technorati Tags: Economy, Government, Liberalism, Democrats

“Chicago on the Potomac” is not popular with the American people

In four major areas – health care, illegal immigration, the Gulf oil spill, and the direction of the country – the American people do not support Barack Obama and his policies, as reflected in recent opinion polls.

From May 21 to 23, CNN/Opinion Research Corporation asked whether participants think the changes the Democrat’s law will make to the country's health care system will be generally good for the country or generally bad for the country. More than half the participants said “bad,” while 46 percent said “good.” A more direct question followed: “Do you approve or disapprove of the passage of the health care bill which became law in April?” The margin was 13 points; 56 percent disapprove, 43 percent approve.

Another hot topic is illegal immigration and the illegal alien problem in Arizona, and on this one the president and his administration are once again taking a hit. Fifty-nine percent responding in the Quinnipiac University Poll from May 19-24 believe that illegal immigration is a very serious problem, while only 10 percent think it is not very serious. Another 26 percent believe illegal immigration is somewhat serious, and just four percent think it is not a problem at all. All told, 85 percent think this problem is serious.

Not surprisingly, 66 percent also think immigration reform should primarily move in the in the direction of stricter enforcement of laws against illegal immigration rather than in the direction of integrating illegal immigrants into American society, and respondents approve of the Arizona law by a 51 to 31 margin.

On the oil spill in the Gulf, the division is less severe, but only 39 percent of participants approve of the way President Obama is handling the crisis, while 42 percent disapprove, in the Quinnipiac University Poll, May 19-24. Perhaps more pertinent, to the question, "To help solve the energy crisis and make America less dependent on foreign oil, do you support or oppose drilling for new oil supplies in currently protected areas off shore?" 53 support new drilling, against 40 percent who oppose it.

And in a Research 2000 poll conducted for the Daily Kos May 24 through 27 asking about the direction the country is heading, 56 percent said the wrong direction, while 40 percent said the right direction.

Barack Obama and his administration are clearly on the wrong side of the majority of Americans on three important issues and the direction he and the Democrat-controlled Congress are taking the country.

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Technorati Tags: Obama, Liberalism, Government, Democrats

The Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery

Memorial Day is a time when America acknowledges the service and sacrifices of the men and women of our armed forces. At Arlington National Cemetery an observance has taken place for 142 years, and the focus of the modern observance is the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns by the President of the United States, which presidents have taken part in since Lyndon Johnson first did in 1968.

From that time forward, with few exceptions, American presidents have paid tribute to the brave men and women who have served their country and the thousands who paid the ultimate price to guarantee us the freedoms won for us in the Revolutionary War.

This year, the Arlington ceremony has become the center of attention, and as this is written, President Barack Obama plans to pass on the Arlington ceremony, and take the family to Chicago for the weekend. Information on who did and didn’t participate in the Arlington ceremonies each year is difficult to find, but it is documented that in recent memory three presidents did not participate at Arlington at least once during their terms: George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Why did they pass up the opportunity and the duty to honor America’s fighting men and women at Arlington?

Ronald Reagan chaired a summit in 1983 in Williamsburg “to mobilise (sic) a common Western position in confronting the Soviet Union in the final stage of the Cold War,” according to Nicholas Bayne in the (begin ital) History of the G7 Summit: The Importance of American Leadership.(end ital) With Reagan as chairman, “the summits reached some pioneering political agreements, stimulated by the US,” and succeeded in having US Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe to counter Soviet missiles placed nearby. The meeting was a serious and important event, and Mr. Reagan can be forgiven for asking someone to stand in for him at the Memorial Day ceremony while he tended to the nation’s business.

On Memorial Day, 2002, a day after attending the NATO summit in Rome, President George W. Bush, along with Secretary of State Colon Powell, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, members of the U.S. Congress, members of the U.S. Armed Services and American veterans celebrated Memorial Day at the Normandy American Cemetery, and Colleville-Sur-Mer, France. Mr. Bush was not at Arlington, but he did honor the thousands of Americans buried in France who helped liberate Europe during WWII.

Some people say that in 2007 Mr. Bush was at his ranch in Texas, and Vice President Dick Cheney placed the wreath, however, the Arlington Cemetery Website contains remarks by Mr. Bush dated Memorial Day 2007.

George H. W. Bush, however, is another matter. One account said that in his four years as president he did not attend the Arlington ceremony a single time. One year, he attended a Memorial Day ceremony in Rome, but he spent the others vacationing in Kennebunkport, Maine, and attending ceremonies there, while other officials attended the Arlington ceremonies. However, it is well known that the senior President Bush postponed going to college to serve in the military during WWII and became the youngest aviator in the US Navy at the age of 18. He flew 58 combat missions and was decorated three times, with the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation. His patriotism and commitment to the military are beyond question.

On Memorial Day 2009, a few months after being sworn in as President, Barack Obama attended the laying of the wreath at Arlington. The Associated Press reported that “Barack Obama marked his first Memorial Day as president on Monday, saluting the men and women of America's fighting forces, both living and dead, as ‘the best of America’” by laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

This year, the news stories read somewhat differently. Under the headline, “President Obama, Vice President Biden to Participate in Memorial Day Ceremonies” was this report: “On Thursday, May 27, President Barack Obama and his family will travel to Chicago, where they will spend the weekend. On Monday, the President will participate in a Memorial Day ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois … [and] Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden … will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.”

Why did President Obama decline to honor America’s fighting men and women at Arlington this year, as most presidents do each year, and instead chose to take his family to Chicago? Well, depending upon which perspective you hold, he is either doing an honorable thing and keeping a campaign promise to visit his adopted home town and attending a ceremony there, or instead of doing his patriotic duty at Arlington he is taking the family on a vacation.

Do you believe Mr. Obama’s reasons for missing the Arlington ceremony are as good as Mr. Reagan’s or the younger Bush’s, or that he has earned a pass like Bush senior through his service? Or do you think that he is abandoning an American tradition and shirking his duty?

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Bones: Obama's nightmare

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Feds next target: News media?

Been wondering which American industry is next to be consumed by our ravenous federal government? You may find the answer in a report released this month suggesting that the news media can only survive if it is a public media.

This suggestion is contained in a paper titled “New Public Media: A Plan for Action,” in which the authors say: “Take a close look at the American journalism landscape in 2010, and the scene is grim. Ad revenue is down; job cuts are up; and new business models have yet to prove sustainable. In recent decades, media consolidation, poor business decisions and the drive for ever higher profit margins have pushed many traditional news outlets to the brink — even before the recession and the collapse of traditional advertising. Today, we have a news industry in steep decline, with no sign of a long-term recovery.”

The authors don’t want the federal government to own the media, but they want substantial involvement by the feds, which ultimately means a high degree of control. “The idea of combining media, public policy and local entrepreneurship to support a robust marketplace” isn’t a new one, they tell us. “Since the nation’s founding, government policy has played a central role in protecting free speech and ensuring a robust and free press. In the 18th and 19th centuries, postal subsidies dramatically reduced the cost of sending newspapers and were essential to the effective dissemination of news and information. ‘Common carrier’ rules dating back close to a century helped to build a robust and universal communications infrastructure. In 1967, the Public Broadcasting Act led to the founding of NPR, PBS and other alternatives to commercial media fare. Each policy change was the result of advances in technology and the need to protect the public interest.”

See how it works? First, the government took certain steps that helped newspapers and later helped broadcasting. But then it formed public broadcasting networks, and now there’s the suggestion it take control of the news media by making it a public entity. As with health care, ultimately the government seeks total control. The same sort of incremental encroachment has substantially taken control of the nation’s public schools.

The authors are correct that journalism is experiencing change, but change does not translate to collapse. This is not journalism’s first such crisis; it is the third one since the printing press shoved the town crier into the unemployment line. In the 1930s newspapers were challenged by the advent of network radio news. And in the 50s both newspapers and radio were challenged by network television news, and that change is still evolving. What journalism also faces today is yet another new element, the Internet. Technology has again produced change; but change is nothing new for the news media, and it isn’t fatal, so we don’t need the government to rush in to save the day.

The authors’ concept fits comfortably into the philosophy espoused by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.” And if there isn’t a convenient crisis afoot, make one up. Hence the title of the report’s opening section: “Crisis and Opportunity.”

This paper was produced by Free Press, a left-wing organization reportedly close to the Obama administration describing itself as “a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to reform the media.” Free Press is listed first among coalition partners of StopBigMedia.com, a major initiative of which is Net Neutrality, a movement to impose a Fairness Doctrine (read “government control”) on the Internet. Other left-wing partners include: Service Employees International Union (SEIU); AFL-CIO, Department for Professional Employees; Rainbow/PUSH Coalition; National Organization for Women; Feminist Majority; Common Cause; Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting; ACLU of Iowa; Coalition Against Hate Media; and Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda.

Free Press wants to create the idea that private media has failed, and use it as an excuse for the government to “save” yet another industry for the good of all mankind. However, lower revenues and job cuts are normal business problems, sometimes as a result of bad business decisions, sometimes as a result of economic recession. If we can keep the predatory, gluttonous feds at bay long enough, private sector media will adapt to changing circumstances, as it has done throughout history, and strong companies will emerge, survive and thrive.

One wonders if liberals believe there is any element of our lives that would not be better under government control. But imagine what a nightmare it will be if things devolve to the point where government chooses who can report news in a newspaper, or on radio, television, or the Internet.

Defeating this power grab depends upon the free flow of reliable information, which is a significant challenge, given the degree to which the mainstream media has abandoned its duty to produce balanced and accurate reporting to keep the citizenry well informed.

Barack Obama believes there is too much information available to people and that they can’t tell the good from the bad. That’s insulting. The answer is more information, not less, and less information is what we’ll have with government management of the news.

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Technorati Tags: Government, Politics, Freedom of the Press, Liberalism

The Gulf accident doesn’t justify reducing domestic oil production

Last month’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion sent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, creating a crisis for coastal states and Mexico. In its aftermath there is a lot of finger-pointing and blame-fixing, but exactly what happened and who bears responsibility has yet to be precisely determined.

The incident has been a boon for opponents of fossil fuels in general, and of oil in particular. One enemy of domestic oil is Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who used the opportunity to call for a total ban on offshore drilling. Appearing on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC she said, "We see now just how dangerous this can be in the Gulf of Mexico and how important it is to protect the pristine shorelines of Washington, California and Oregon. These are vital economies and we don't need to keep drilling for oil."

Protecting the nation’s pristine beaches and vital economies is certainly important, but Ms. Cantwell is perhaps too eager to stop offshore drilling. This is the first bad oil accident in 30 years, a result of the industry developing generally safe and reliable equipment and techniques. Furthermore, we don’t yet know the extent of the damage, or just how seriously the oil will affect wildlife and shorelines.

Casting some needed light on the nature of oil spills, Merv Fingas, of McGill University and Environment Canada, wrote a piece published on the Minerals Management Service Web site, explaining that a lot of the spilled oil isn’t going to be a problem. “Evaporation is the most important change that most oil spills undergo. In a few days, light crudes can evaporate as much as 75 percent of the starting oil mass and medium crudes up to 40 percent.”Some of the rest of the oil is absorbed by seabed sediment and never reaches the surface or shorelines.

Sen. Cantwell said that “the United States has only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, and so the notion that we are going to affect gasoline prices, or [become] a world oil supplier; we are not,” and so “it’s time to start migrating off of oil and on to other sources of energy,” she said.

However, two percent of the world supply is a good bit of oil, approximately 21 billion barrels. The American Petroleum Institute’s (API) Energy Tomorrow blog says, “The government estimates our federal lands hold enough oil to power more than 65 million cars for the next six decades,” and went on to say that today's technologies can locate previously unknown deposits of oil. For example, the Gulf of Mexico initially was believed to contain 9 billion barrels of oil, but new estimates predict 45 billion barrels, an increase of 500 percent. There’s more U.S. oil around than she thinks.

This crisis has provided the enemies of oil the opportunity to throw gasoline on the fire to try to shut down domestic oil production. But now is not the time to abandon domestic oil or cease increasing the production of domestic oil to reduce our dependency on foreign suppliers. As appealing as the idea of renewable energy replacing fossil fuels may be to some, the fact is that solar and wind, so-called “green” technologies, are incapable of filling the gap because they are insufficiently developed; and, the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. Even if these technologies were able to pick up the slack left by stopping the use of fossil fuels, electricity from these technologies is far more expensive than electricity from coal, oil and natural gas.

In the wake of the Gulf catastrophe, a congressional proposal would raise the liability limit on producers from $75 million to $10 billion, and Energy Tomorrow says that "could threaten the viability of deepwater operations, significantly reduce U. S. domestic oil production, and harm U.S. energy security." API believes a $10 billion-per-well insurance policy would drive small and mid-size offshore operators out of the market, and even if such humongous policies were available, their cost could potentially increase oil production costs by 25 percent.

This is just what the enemies of domestic oil production want, of course. If we can't drill for oil because of a slight chance of disasters like Deepwater Horizon, and if regulations produce high production costs that drive small producers out of business and raise the cost of electricity, gasoline and heating oil, then the only alternative will be new green energy technologies, which will have to be shoved down our throats like health care reform was.

"Now we have a very visual, damaging situation and we now know that the risk is far greater than anybody ever realized,” Sen. Cantwell proclaimed. “But I know that this [crisis] is going to be something that is going to be helpful to my colleagues ..."

Critics of oil just have to face the fact that is isn’t possible to abandon fossil fuels anytime soon, or even make a significant reduction in their use, so we had best move to develop our own resources and wean ourselves off foreign oil, and at the same time work to make oil drilling safer without imposing crippling, cost-raising regulations.

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Technorati Tags: Energy, Politics, Environment, Economy

America has become “the land of the freaks and the home of the braindead”

Stupid is as stupid does, an old saying goes, and evidence is rampant these days that America is getting “progressively” dumber by the day.

Herewith a partial list of idiocy on parade:

U.S. Army Major Dr. Nidal Hassan, after showing signs of radical Islamism that the Army ignored, walked into a building occupied by a large number of his fellow soldiers, shouted Allahu Akbar (God is great), and proceeded to shoot 12 people dead. Why was this scum in the Army to begin with? Stupid.

The panty bomber tried and failed to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day, and was promptly given approximately the same treatment as a shoplifter. The seven-page indictment detailing charges against him contained no specific mention of terrorism in it. Stupid.

The jackass who left an SUV with explosives inside it in Times Square in New York City is a naturalized U.S. citizen who recently spent five months in Pakistan, and somehow managed to hop a plane for Dubai following his inept bombing attempt, despite being on the federal "no-fly" list. Stupid.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg immediately commented that the Times Square terrorist attempt was likely “homegrown” and then speculated it could have been perpetrated by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something.” Someone tries to blow up Times Square, and the mayor of New York wants to blame it on an American citizen upset over the health care bill. Stooooopid.

Attorney General Eric Holder refused to acknowledge that radical Islam is responsible for the latest spate of terrorist attacks in testimony before Congress. “I don’t want to say anything negative about a religion …,” said Mr. Holder, and then did the mambo, the cha-cha, and the waltz to avoid using the term “radical Islam” in connection with terrorist activities of radical Islamists. Stupid.

The left, including most of the major media, demean the normal Americans who have been driven by the actions of their arrogant and elitist leaders to public protests in tea party gatherings across the nation. Stupid.

The United States government refuses to secure its borders, exposing its citizens to illegal aliens some of whom live off taxpayers, others of whom wreak havoc and violence on citizens. Stupid.

The administration of Live Oak High School in California allowed Hispanic students to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican observance, but sent five students home whose clothing displayed the American flag. Stupid.

People from south of the border come to America – and many of them sneak in – because they think our country is better than theirs, then publicly demonstrate that they value the country they left more than they value America. Stooooopid. Message to immigrants: This is America. You came here of your own accord. No one forced you to come. If you don’t like the way things are done here, go back where you came from.

Almost before the door closed behind him after being sworn in as president, Barack Obama ordered the closing of the Guantanamo prison within a year. Stupid.

Against the wishes and the better judgment of a decided majority of Americans, President Obama and Congressional Democrats jammed through a controversial and catastrophically flawed health care reform bill that will raise costs and taxes on virtually every American. Stupid.

Mr. Obama decides to quit calling terrorism what it is and instead substitutes dopey euphemisms, such as renaming the war on terrorism “overseas contingency operations,” and calling terrorist attacks “man-caused disasters.” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commented that “we want to move away from the politics of fear (read ‘reality’).” Really stupid.

Instead of continuing to fight terrorism and its supporters head on, Mr. Obama prefers to play kissy-face with Islamist lunatics who cloak their lunacy in a perverted religion. Stupid.

The nation entered the most severe economic crisis in nearly 100 years in 2008, and the current administration and Congress continue to spend money we don’t have and fail to enact policies that will hasten a recovery. Stupid.

There you have it, a brief list of some really stupid behavior that America is now awash in.

The Supreme Court has issued binding edicts in 5-4 votes that Americans would never approve at the ballot box in a million years.

"As Americans and as a nation, we will not be terrorized. We will not cower in fear. We will not be intimidated," President Obama said. Really? Well if so, Mr. President, you had better wise up and act like terrorism is real and undo this goofy policies you have put in place that fosters terrorist activities.

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Technorati Tags: Liberalism, Politics, War on Terror, Democrats

Liberal politics putting nation at risk of depression

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Friday that nonfarm payroll employment rose by 290,000 in April, a piece of good news on the job front. Gains occurred in manufacturing, professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality, as did federal government employment, reflecting the hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010.

The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say, is far less rosy, as the unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent, where it had been for the first 3 months of this year, to 9.9 percent.

How can the nation increase jobs and increase unemployment at the same time, you ask? The number of people looking for a job increased, as new workers entered the job market, and 195,000 of those who had dropped out because they couldn’t find a job have begun looking for work again.

The unemployment rate is not the only negative news on the jobs front. The federal government, the largest employer in the United States, now employs more than 2,700,000, which is about 2.0 percent of the nation's work force and the federal workforce is expanding significantly under the Obama administration. Add state and local government workers into the mix, and approximately 17 percent of the 132,121,000 employed persons in the United States as of June 2009, or 22.6 million people, work for one level of government or another, according to the BLS.

Federal employees make an average annual salary exceeding $79,197 and the average total annual federal workers compensation in 2008, including pay plus benefits, was $119,982 compared to just $59,909 for the private sector, according to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Continued high unemployment, the growth in public sector jobs, the high level of union membership among public sector workers, the dangerously high budget deficits and national debt are ominous signs for the United States.

The Beatles’ John Lennon, who was regarded as somewhat of a guru, said many years ago that “America is Rome,” meaning that the United States was following the same sort of self-destructive path as the Roman Empire had centuries before. He was wrong: America was not and is not Rome; America is Greece.

While the ancient Greeks made marvelous contributions to culture, literature, philosophy and science, and gave us democratic government, the modern Greeks provide an unsatisfactory economic model.

Greece has spent itself into a crisis of immense proportions, with some observers predicting a depression not unlike the Great Depression of the 30s. The Greek government has subsidized everything from health care to vacations to pensions, and has a public sector comprising 20 percent of all workers, the vast majority of whom hold constitutionally protected jobs from which they cannot be fired. Some workers can retire with pensions at 45 years of age. Furthermore, tax evasion is rampant, depriving the government of needed revenue.

The Greek economy is tanking, and some observers believe Greece’s collapse signals the end of European-style socialist economies in general, with Portugal and Spain following not far behind Greece.

Athens rang up an outrageous and unsustainable debt, and the bill has come due. The government can’t pay it, so it has adopted an austerity program that includes cuts in government spending, reductions in the size of the public sector, decreases in tax evasion, reforms to the health care and pension systems, and improvements in competitiveness through reforms to the labor and product markets.

None of this sits well with the citizenry. When you have come to depend on the government to support you, as the Greeks have, and then it no longer can, that creates a crisis and the Greek people are in revolt. Violence has broken out across the country, resulting in deaths and anarchy.

Some economic data for Greece (estimated figures):
• In 2009 Greece collected $108.7 billion, but spent $145.2 billion
• Its public debt was 113.4 percent of GDP, up from 97.4 percent of GDP in 2008
• It has an unemployment rate of 9.0 percent
• 20 percent of Greek workers are employed by government

We don’t want to become Greece, but we’re on the same path. Consider:
• Estimated receipts for fiscal year 2010 are $2.381 trillion, an estimated decrease of 11percent from 2009. The President's budget for 2010 totals $3.55 trillion.
• The U.S. public debt is 94.27 percent of GDP
• Unemployment rose in April to 9.9 percent
• 17 percent of American workers are employed by government

Our tax receipts are dropping, we have spent more than we have collected, we owe nearly as much as we produce in a year, one-in-ten of us is unemployed, and nearly one-in-five of us is paid by taxes collected from the other four.

We have not taken the right steps to speed the economic recovery, but have made the same mistakes that were made in the 1930s, when money circulated more slowly and banks lent only a little of the money available. Anti-business rhetoric and anti-business policies emanated from Washington, creating a lack of confidence.

Unless a good dose of common sense overcomes Washington, we are likely to replay the 1930s and follow Greece into a depression.

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Technorati Tags: Culture, Politics, Economics, Liberalism

Arizona forced to act by the federal government’s willful negligence

"Southern Arizona is a war zone controlled by outside criminal forces," said Patrick Bray of the Arizona Cattlemen's Association, and ranchers say the problem has been festering for years. They have been warning of the rising level of drug-cartel-related violence that has already claimed the lives of 10,000 people in Mexico since late 2006, and could further spill into the U.S. That assertion is supported by the murder of 58 year-old Robert Krentz on his Arizona ranch in March, and a deputy sheriff who was shot by a group of suspected illegal alien drug runners just recently.

Arizona is a main corridor for human and drug smuggling, and Phoenix now ranks second in the world in kidnappings for ransom, reporting 366 abductions in 2008, mostly tied to Mexican human smugglers and narcotics gangs.

In case you didn’t grasp that, here it is again: Phoenix – an American city – ranked second in the world for kidnappings for ransom by Mexicans two years ago. Folks, that is plainly not acceptable.

Arizonans are rightly concerned for their own safety and that of their families, friends and neighbors. They are justified in being angry at the gross negligence of the federal government on the border issue, and are so desperate for a solution to this intolerable situation that they took matters into their own hands and passed a law that enables state, county and municipal law enforcement officers to do what the feds refuse to do: check the status of people who as a result of lawful contact may be suspected of being illegally in the U.S. (and Arizona).

This measure has the support of fully 70 percent of Arizonans, including 51 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents and 80 percent of Republicans.

Incredibly, this necessary action has prompted a variety of hysterical responses from enablers of illegal aliens. Take the Ms. Foundation for Women, for example. The subject line of an email message screeched, “Arizona Governor Signs Racist, Anti-Immigrant Legislation,” and then goes on to say, “Last Friday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the horrific anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 into law, explicitly condoning racial profiling and the criminalization of undocumented immigrants. We're appalled.” What is appalling, ladies, is your factual inaccuracies.

Granted, being murdered or kidnapped isn’t nearly as serious as the possibility someone may have to produce a Green Card or other proof they are here legally when being questioned by police about a crime, but it ought to rate some concern among fellow Americans.

But no: A ridiculously large number of people are more concerned about the possible inconvenience to Hispanic-looking people than they are about actual violence against the citizens of Arizona. There are an estimated 460,000 illegal aliens in Arizona – one of every 15 residents – and some of them are most likely guilty of more than just being an illegal alien, like kidnapping or murder or drug trafficking. The wild-eyed and inaccurate statement by the Ms. Foundation for Women and the misinformed and emotional reaction to the new law by others who prefer protecting illegal aliens to protecting fellow Americans do nothing to improve the situation for Arizona’s residents, and that should be the primary concern for every American.

Those who have the word “racism” on the tip of their tongue ready to spit it out at every opportunity charge the law is deficient in three areas:

• It is unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them
• "Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct
• The law will allow police to engage in racial profiling

This view has broad support among the enablers of illegal aliens, however, the Center for Policy Analysis has compared the federal statute and the Arizona law and demonstrated that there is no material difference in the two, revealing those criticisms to be gross (and perhaps deliberate) distortions.

Some legal authorities say the law is unconstitutional because immigration, including illegal aliens, is a federal matter, and that means Arizona’s situation may prompt a federalism showdown. Karl Manheim of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles comments: “States have no power to pass immigration laws because it’s an attribute of foreign affairs. Just as states can’t have their own foreign policies or enter into treaties, they can’t have their own immigration laws either.”

However, if someone in Arizona is illegally in the United States he or she is de facto illegally in Arizona. Since the federal government is willfully negligent in securing the borders, it is sheer idiocy that a state could be prohibited from protecting its citizens from the criminal acts of illegal aliens, and particularly so if it deals with illegal aliens in the same manner as the federal government would were it doing its job. The Framers of our Constitution never intended that the states should be so restrained.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano argues that the borders are more secure now than ever. That’s irrelevant, Madam Secretary. They aren’t secure enough, and you are partly responsible for securing them.

Meanwhile, opponents of Arizona’s efforts to protect its citizens urge people to boycott the state. Let’s hope that only illegal aliens follow that request.

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Technorati Tags: Illegal Immigration, Politics, National Security, Liberalism

Economic confusion, nonsense, obfuscation, distortions and falsehoods

Recently at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Miami President Barack Obama said he was “amused” by the Tea Party tax day protests going on around the country highlighted by criticisms of his policies. “You would think they would be saying ‘thank you.’ That’s what you’d think,” he said.

Those petulant and non-presidential remarks were based upon his expectation that Americans would drop to their knees before him in grateful appreciation because of his pledge not to raise taxes for most people. “I can make a firm pledge,” Mr. Obama declared on the campaign trail. “Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase; not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes; not any of your taxes.” Rather than raise taxes on middle and low income earners, he said he’ll raise taxes on the “rich.”

The nation’s tax system is so badly skewed that approximately 47 percent of U.S. citizens paid no federal income taxes last year, up 17 percent from 2004. An analysis by Deloitte Tax found that "a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009." At this rate, by 2012 the majority of voters will pay no federal taxes, will contribute nothing to the operation of their federal government, and currently between 40 million and 50 million people are getting some form of support from the government – about one in six people, including children.

Those making less than $32,879 a year – the 108 million in the bottom 50 percent of earners – paid less than three percent of federal income taxes, while the nearly 11 million comprising the top five percent, making $160,000 and up, paid more than 60 percent of federal income taxes.

So, a relative few pay most of the cost of government and nearly half of us pay nothing, about which a few questions arise. Is this really fair? Is it healthy? As a matter of good citizenship and personal responsibility, shouldn’t nearly everyone pay something? If you pay nothing to support your government, do you really care what it does? And, how much say-so should you have about what it does?

Despite President Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on most Americans, since taking office 15 months ago, he and Congressional Democrats have pushed through measures that include tax increases totaling more than $670 billion, which is more than $2,100 for every man, woman and child in the United States. And there are at least 14 new taxes that violate his “no tax increases” vow.

The health care reform bill, of which the Democrats are so proud, creates 20 new taxes, including the following:

~ A new tax on individuals who do not purchase government‐approved health insurance
~ A new tax on employers who fail to fully comply with government health insurance mandates
~ A new 40 percent excise tax on certain high‐cost health plans
~ An increase in the Medicare tax on wages and self‐employment income by 0.9 percent
~ A new ban on the purchase of over‐the‐counter drugs using funds from FSAs, HSAs and HRAs
~ An increase, from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of income, in the threshold after which individuals can deduct out-of-pocket medical expenses
~ A new annual tax on health insurance and a new annual tax on brand name pharmaceuticals
~ A new 2.3 percent excise tax on certain medical devices, and a new tax on insured and self‐insured health plans

Most of these will affect people well below the president’s $250,000 threshold, which reminds us that there are people who will do and say anything to win elections or push their hidden agendas through. It’s all a big game to them, and it’s a game the people invariably lose.

Mr. Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Following that advice, the Congress and the administration sold the idea that the economic crisis could only be cured by massive spending, and in passing the so-called stimulus bill Congress doubled the deficit George Bush left behind. The plan failed to stimulate much of anything, because it was primarily an excuse to hand out money to favored special interests.

In the confusion surrounding the economic crisis, and in opposition to the will of a majority of Americans, Congress passed the radical health care reform bill in one of the ugliest episodes in the history of the House of Representatives. That bill created a new entitlement of approximately $2 trillion, and imposed taxes on middle and low income earners. And, the enormous Obama deficit increased the national debt to $8.2 trillion, which will grow to $20.3 trillion by 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Since Democrats hate spending cuts, we’ll be told that only new taxes and higher rates can solve the deficit/debt problem, so get ready. A lot of “not rich” Americans are going to feel the pain of the president’s broken promises.

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Technorati Tags: Economics, Politics, Government, Liberalism

Obama to cut $100 million in spending

Here's a video that puts President Obama's promise to cut $100 million of government spending in sharp perspective.

Budgetary reality

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Technorati Tags: Obama, Politics, Economics, Democrats

The Latest from Bones

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Technorati Tags: Culture, Politics, Immigration, Liberalism