In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. – George Orwell

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We may not be in a time of universal deceit, but there is a “progressive” universe with its nexus in Washington where deceit is the coin of the realm.

One of the longest-running progressive deceits is Social Security. The falsehoods began early (e.g., in 1936, the government told citizens that $90 per year would be “the most you will ever pay“), and continue to this day in the discussions of an alleged “Trust Fund,” which in reality consists almost entirely of IOUs from a government that is itself $13.7 trillion in debt.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has called Social Security a “bankrupt Ponzi scheme” — because, well, it is.

“Bankrupt” — As of the end of 2009, Social Security had an actuarial liability of $7.7 trillion. Recently revised data from the Congressional Budget Office indicates that the program, which began running at a cash deficit in 2009, will continue to do so indefinitely, and at an accelerating rate. If Social Security were a private pension plan instead of a government-sponsored program, it could not continue. In fact, the government wouldn’t allow it to continue.

“Ponzi scheme” — In August, the estimable Walter Williams wrote (bolds are mine):

Why is Social Security a better deal for today’s seniors? Just look at what they paid in. From 1937 to 1949, the maximum annual Social Security tax was $60. It remained under $200 until 1956. After 1956, Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance was added and in 1966, Medicare was added. It wasn’t until 1969 that maximum Social Security taxes exceeded $2,000. Today, the maximum annual Social Security tax is $13,000 and the maximum annual benefit is $25,000.

As with any Ponzi scheme, the people who get on board early make out. This is pointed out by Geoffrey Kollmann and Dawn Nuschler of the Congressional Research Service in their report “Social Security Reform” (October 2002) They say, “Until recent years, Social Security recipients received more, often far more, than the value of the Social Security taxes they paid. … For example, for workers who earned average wages and retired in 1980 at age 65, it took 2.8 years to recover the value of the retirement portion of the combined employee and employer shares of their Social Security taxes plus interest. For their counterparts who retired at age 65 in 2002, it will take 16.9 years. For those retiring in 2020, it will take 20.9 years.” My question is: How can anyone who draws out every penny he’s put into Social Security in a few years say that he’s not living at the expense of another?

In my opinion, it takes a special form of callousness and disregard for the welfare of future generations of Americans for today’s senior citizens to fight against reform. Nobody’s talking about abolition of federal senior programs. We must accept that serious mistakes were made and we must take compassionate corrective action. But what the heck! … “Both today’s politicians and seniors will be dead so why should they make sacrifices now to prevent an economic calamity decades off into the future?”

That Perry’s “bankrupt Ponzi scheme” contention is at all controversial demonstrates the verity of Orwell’s statement — which was, it turns out, aimed directly at Communists and their “progressive” sympathizers.

Williams is incorrect on one point. The “calamity” isn’t “decades off in the future.” It’s on the front sidewalk, walking towards the front door:

Our ever-growing spending, deficit and debt will soon reach a size (possibly in 2020 or sooner) when America can no longer borrow money to finance its deficit spending.

The year 2020 is when CBO projections indicate that “U.S. debt held by the public,” currently $9.135 trillion, or about 65% of gross domestic product (GDP), will hit 90% of GDP. Many economists believe that level of debt to be the trigger point where lenders either stop buying government bonds because of concerns over whether they’ll get paid back, or demand higher interest rates to compensate for the higher risk of default.

That’s only a decade from now. There are plenty of reasons to believe that one of the following will instead occur:

• We’ll reach the public debt-to-GDP ratio of 90% earlier than CBO’s somewhat rosy projections predict.
• We’ll learn that the trigger point  really lower than 90% of GDP.
• The Federal Reserve and the government will decide to hyperinflate its way out of the problem. Ben Bernanke’s QE2 may be an indicator that, like it or not, they’re heading inexorably in that direction. If this happens, fortunes in financial-asset wealth held by individuals and families whose only “mistake” was to trust the system will be wiped out.

The Tea Party-driven wave may have come just in time. It needs to cut government down to size and create the conditions enabling free-market capitalism to save us — and quickly.

All veterans today deserve a salute for serving their country. Heartfelt thanks to all for their service.

From the US Department of Veterans Affairs:

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11 a.m.

The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926, with these words:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

President Eisenhower signing HR7786, changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day. Standing (l. to r.) are: Alvin J. King, Wayne Richards, Arthur J. Connell, John T. Nation, Edward Rees, Richard L. Trombla, Howard W. Watts.

An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday – - a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as “Armistice Day.” Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting in its place the word “Veterans.” With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

* * * * *

Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first “Veterans Day Proclamation” which stated: “In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans’ organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible.” (Click here for the full text of the proclamation.)

On that same day, the President sent a letter to the Honorable Harvey V. Higley, Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs (VA), designating him as Chairman of the Veterans Day National Committee. Click here for the text of President Eisenhower’s letter.)

In 1958, the White House advised VA’s General Counsel that the 1954 designation of the VA Administrator as Chairman of the Veterans Day National Committee applied to all subsequent VA Administrators. Since March 1989 when VA was elevated to a cabinet level department, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs has served as the committee’s chairman.

The Uniforms Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 250)) was signed on June 28, 1968, and was intended to insure three-day weekends for Federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Mondays: Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day. It was thought that these extended weekends would encourage travel, recreational and cultural activities and stimulate greater industrial and commercial production. Many states did not agree with this decision and continued to celebrate the holidays on their original dates.

The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on October 25, 1971. It was quite apparent that the commemoration of this day was a matter of historic and patriotic significance to a great number of our citizens, and so on September 20th, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11, beginning in 1978. This action supported the desires of the overwhelming majority of state legislatures, all major veterans service organizations and the American people.

Veterans Day continues to be observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls. The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: A celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good. Veterans Day, 1954
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The politicians who received more votes than their opponents weren’t the only winners on Election Night.

Fox News’s dominance on Election Night was overwhelming. If the competition between Fox, CNN, and MSNBC had been instead been an electoral contest, they would have called it 30 seconds after the polls closed.

The graphic that follows illustrates just how big Fox’s gains were in 2010 compared to 2006, after a mediocre 2006 compared to 2002:

(Sources: Media Bistro — 2010, 2006)

Fox had over 60% of the total cable news Election Night audience, and not far from 60% of the 25-54 demographic. CNN’s audience share dropped almost 16 percentage points (over 13 points in the 25-54 demo), while MSNBC’s share dropped by over 7 points (9.5 points in the demo).

It looks like lots of viewers preferred their election coverage fair and balanced. After some of the Election Night shenanigans reported at NewsBusters relating to MSNBC, I can’t say I blame them.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Washington:

Posted 11/10/2010

Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy send the following Veterans Day message:

In 1918, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the belligerent parties of World War I ceased hostilities after years of brutal armed conflict. Two decades later, Nov. 11 became a legal federal holiday — Armistice Day — commemorating this 1918 event that was “to end all wars.” This would not come to pass, however, and in the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day was rightly re-designated “Veterans Day.”

Today, nearly a century later, Nov. 11 endures as the date for our nation to honor veterans of all wars. Patriotic Americans of every generation, including the more than 24 million living veterans, have endured the toil of war to defeat aggression, restore order and secure liberty and opportunity, the birthright of every American. We solemnly pay tribute especially to our servicemembers who gave their last full measure for freedom, and to those who remain missing in action. Their sacrifices have rendered and preserved that which we cherish most. Our humble repayment to them and their families begins with ensuring that they and their stories of valor remain always in our national consciousness.

This Veterans Day, we express sincere gratitude to our servicemembers, and profound appreciation for selfless families who, through their unflagging support for their loved ones who wear the cloth of the United States, also sacrifice for our country. Through their selflessness, our military members and families uphold our nation’s ideals, and honor the sacrifice of those who came before. We, as a nation, thank them all.

A humble and hearty thanks to all who have served, are currently serving, or who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

It’s here. The National Economic Rescue Initiative (NERI) home page is here (core URL is here).

The column will go up here at BizzyBlog on Thursday (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

I’m grateful that the PJ Institute has involved me in this project. It’s fired up and ready with its primary items; other developments and improvements will appear over the next several months.

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UPDATE: From PRNewswire, carried at Forbes —

App Models Future Tax Increases Needed to Stabilize U.S. Debt

The PJ Institute(TM), the research and education arm of Pajamas Media, today launched its National Economic Rescue Initiative, that projects the amount of additional taxes current and next generation American families may need to pay, over their working careers, to stabilize the U.S. debt. The initiative’s web-based app, the PFI Projector(TM), enables users to see a projection of future taxes their families may owe in order to keep the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio under 90 percent.

The PFI (Personal Financial Impact) Projector also enables Americans to model federal spending cuts in two ways. First, this application provides its users with information on current government spending trends, and it lets them estimate the cuts they think the U.S. Congress should make to entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security), defense and other programs. Second, users of this app can model and formulate their own recommendations, sharing them with others at the National Economic Rescue Initiative’s website.

“The American Dream is being turned in a nightmare by uncontrolled federal spending leading to skyrocketing levels of federal debt,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, the project’s chief economist. “The PFI Projector is a marvelous educational tool that helps us gain a deeper understanding of our country’s deteriorating fiscal and economic condition. Millions of Americans are extremely concerned about the problem. But the official deficit and debt numbers as well as the unofficial future spending obligations are so large, it’s tough to grasp them, let alone relate them to one’s own finances. With the PFI Projector, Americans clearly see the direct connection between government spending levels and America’s impending insolvency. They also see that the failure to control federal spending will personally cost them and their children in terms of dramatically higher future tax rates.”

The PFI Projector is the first educational tool released by the PJ Institute as part of its National Economic Rescue Initiative. For individuals who want to understand the issues behind the nation’s spending, deficits and debt, the PFI Projector provides historical, current and future perspectives.

At its website, the PJ Institute also provides an interactive capability that enables users to submit their recommendations on federal spending changes to a virtual Solution Design Center. Here, individuals can see the spending recommendations submitted by everyday Americans as well as from professionals with backgrounds in business, economics, financial services and other related areas. These recommendations are categorized by federal spending programs and the economic and financial aptitude of the Solution Design Center’s users.

About the PFI Projector

The PFI Projector, a web-based application, was developed by economists Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University, Thomas Saving of Texas A&M, and Edward Stringham of Fayetteville State University, working with IT developers at the California-based PJ Institute. Users of this app can plug themselves into its equations to see what their tab, or their children’s tab, could be if federal spending continues to spiral upward. Users can also model cuts to the spending levels of various government programs and see how that fiscal restraint could affect their future taxes. For each model the PFI Projector displays, it shows the assumptions being used and the reasons why future reality could turn out better or worse than the model.

About the National Economic Rescue Initiative

The flagship study of the PJ Institute is its National Economic Rescue Initiative (NERI). The American Dream, defined by the opportunity for Americans to create a better future for themselves and their children, is eroding fast. The initiative’s aim is to empower Americans with information and education and provide them with a forum where they can develop solutions to rescue the American Dream for current and future generations.

About the PJ Institute

The PJ Institute, the research and education division of Pajamas Media, provides practical, in-depth analysis of policies that impact the American people. PJI offers its research and commentary through web-based applications, text, video and podcast formats. PJI’s flagship study quantifies how Americans could be impacted financially in the coming years based on the U.S. government’s deficit spending and resulting national debt.

From Monty Pelerin at American Thinker (“Bernanke’s Cowardice Has Sealed Our Fate”) –

Bernanke indicated that from 600 to 850 billion additional dollars would be created. To put this in perspective, the TARP package was in this range. The total Federal Reserve balance sheet was $829 billion at the end of 2004 and only $869 billion in August 2007. At the end of 2009, it had ballooned to over $2,200 billion. This announcement means it is headed to $3,000 billion (3 trillion).

… Mr. Bernanke was faced with two choices, neither of which were good. He could have refused to initiate another round of QE, which would have forced the government to make tough decisions. Such action might have put the economy into another Great Depression. He likely would have lost his job and been blamed for any economic difficulties that followed.

He chose the other option — provide the needed funds. As such, he chose to be the Enabler-in-Chief, reinforcing the out-of-control government fiscal policies.

In what would have been a true “Profiles in Courage” moment, George W. Bush could have stopped all of this before it started in September 2008. He didn’t.

In the past 60 days or so, Ben Bernanke could have stopped the collective lunacy. He didn’t. Now he’s part of it.

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At the UK Daily Mail (HT Pamela Geller at American Thinker) — “Airports accused of keeping queues long so they can cash in on £5 fast-track lanes.”

Pamela’s sadly accurate reax: “It’s just the next stage of the West’s ongoing Operation Fetal Position.”

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At Pajamas Media — “Massive Voting Fraud Reported in Massachusetts.” Just read the whole thing. Representative government may be lost in the Cradle of Liberty.

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Oklahoma’s not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.5% in September. That’s down from 6.7% in September 2009.

It’s been a bit more than three years since the Sooner State passed strict immigration enforcement legislation, known as “1804.” The state’s unemployment rate declined while the rest of the country’s was going up in 2008, and has stayed 3% or so below the national rate since then.

As I said six months ago: “If ’1804′ isn’t the reason Oklahoma has vastly outperformed most of the rest of the country, someone will have to try to explain what is” — and it’s not oil.

From Barcelona:

Nov 9, 2010 / 02:53 pm

Mayor of Barcelona, Jorge Hereu, has remarked that Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Spain was a “landmark” event in the country’s history.

The Pope’s Nov. 6 – 7 visit to the country included the dedication of the Church of the Holy Family in Barcelona. The Pontiff also consecrated it as a minor basilica.

According to the EFE news agency, the mayor noted the necessity of continuing work on the new basilica, which he called “one of the great universal icons of Barcelona.”

He invited all Spaniards to visit the Basilica of the Holy Family. “Up until now we have only seen the Holy Family from the outside, but now we can discover its marvelous interior,” he added.

Go here for the rest of the story.

A current headline at an Associated Press story (saved here at my web host in case it’s updated) has to be seen to be believed:

G20 leaders meet amid strains as US splashes cash

“Splashes Cash”? If the AP’s headline writer was trying to be cute, it didn’t work for me. Sadly, replacing “splashes” with “trashes” might have been more appropriate, but of course less “funny.”

The cash splash/trash is the U.S. Federal Reserve’s recently announced $600 billion second round of the “money from nothing” scheme known as “quantitative easing.”

Most of the rest of the nations whose officials are attending the G-20 Summit in Seoul also lack the AP headline writer’s alleged “humor.”

AP Business Writer Kelly Olsen mostly played her reporting straight, but two of her paragraphs were odd and oddly placed, respectively. The first quotes President Obama, who apparently doesn’t understand what the Fed’s mission is supposed to be:

As the Group of 20 major rich and developing nations prepare to meet in Seoul, President Barack Obama defended the Fed. He said the central bank was following its mandate to “grow our economy.”

This is odd, because growing the economy has never been an explicit part of the Fed’s mission. Page 15 of the its most recent “Purposes and Functions” report (a very large PDF) says the following:

Goals of Monetary Policy

The goals of monetary policy are spelled out in the Federal Reserve Act, which specifies that the Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee should seek “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” Stable prices in the long run are a precondition for maximum sustainable output growth and employment as well as moderate long-term interest rates.

This is no mere quibble. The Fed is supposed to create the conditions that might enable economic growth to occur. Its mission isn’t to somehow directly intervene with the express intent to “grow the economy.” President Obama seems to be outsourcing responsibility for how the economy performs to the Fed, as if Congress and the Executive branch have nothing to do with it — and conveniently, have had little or nothing to do with the pathetic economic growth that has occurred during this alleged “recovery.” Nice try, guy. No sale.

Olsen’s other paragraph was odd because of how late it appeared (at Paragraph 16) in her report:

But tensions re-emerged when the Fed announced its bond buying plan last Wednesday. Aside from concerns about exports, the massive increase in the supply of dollars is a potential threat to the wealth of many nations because the bulk of their foreign currency reserves are stored in dollar-denominated assets.

Uh, yeah, if Ben Bernanke and the Fed inflate the currency, assets denominated in dollars becomes worth less. If they allow the situation to get out of control, the dollar will become nearly worthless.

Memo to AP headline writer: This possibility is decidedly not funny.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

UPDATE, 9:15 a.m.: I finally had a chance to take a closer look at the unemployment and jobs numbers in last Friday’s report. See the update in the last section of Friday’s post.

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Here we go again: Our President knocks his country while out of the country:

Implicitly acknowledging the decline of American dominance, Barack Obama on Sunday said the US was no longer in a position to “meet the rest of the world economically on our terms”.

Looks pretty explicit to me. Said decline is due to Barack Obama and his party.

He doesn’t seem to mind, does he? He doesn’t seem particularly interested in reversing the decline, does he?

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Here’s another guy doing an Eeyore imitation, who also disses Ben Bernanke’s second round of “quantitative easing” (i.e., creating money out of nothing):

Paul Volcker, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, said Tuesday he sees no short-term way to reduce high U.S. unemployment and expects slow growth for the next year or more.

… Speaking last week in Seoul, Volcker said the Fed’s bond plan was unlikely to change the overall economic outlook or boost the recovery.

Then why is the Fed doing it? Answer: Because this administration refuses to exercise fiscal restraint, and has basically told Bernanke: “You can print the money or watch the economy down. If you do the latter, we’ll make sure that the blame all goes to you. Oh, and we don’t care if we’re being irresponsible.”

Other countries are justifiably not pleased:

The Fed’s move has sparked complaints by China, Germany, Brazil and others that the Fed’s move might fuel inflation or hurt developing countries by triggering an influx of money as investors seek better returns. That would push up exchange rates and hurt exports by making their goods more expensive.

On Tuesday, a Chinese official speaking before Volcker at the financial forum repeated Beijing’s criticism of the move.

Y’know, it’s pretty bad when we’re getting lectures from a communist country about our excessive statism.

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Directly contradictory items from Ted Strickland, on Election Night:

Mr. Strickland called Mr. Kasich early Wednesday before delivering his concession speech. He told the governor-elect that he would work to make the transition successful.

… (in his concession speech, echoing his unhinged Labor Day rant) “I have been humbled by this opportunity to be your governor,” Mr. Strickland said. “And one thing I will continue to do and that is to fight against the voices that only seem to want to tear our state down…”

For a guy who said he wants to “make the transition successful,” Strickland has a funny way of showing it (HT 3BP). :

(Ohio Governor-elect John) Kasich sent a letter to Strickland asking him to cancel all contracts for the project and also wrote to President Barack Obama asking him to instead reallocate the $400 million that Ohio received for the rail project for freight rail or roads in the state.

… In his letter to Strickland, Kasich noted that Ohio is facing an $8 billion budget deficit next year and “every step should be taken to eliminate waste and prevent unnecessary spending.”

… But Strickland won’t oblige Kasich, saying a $25 million study already is under way and will produce valuable information that could prove useful even if the current proposal doesn’t go forward.

… The initial phase of the contracts is estimated at $15 million. State officials have not said how much work on those contracts has been completed, but under the contracts, the state can end work at any time and pay only for work completed.

Ohio can’t afford to spend money on “could be’s.” If the money would only go back to Washington, as Strickland claims, that’s okay, because Uncle Sam can’t afford to spend money on “could be’s.” Regardless, Strickland’s action is irresponsible, and typifies his political career, which is thankfully over.

While we’re noting the demise of the political plague known as Ted Strickland , let’s never forget that:

• Ted Strickland is the first incumbent Buckeye State governor to lose his reelection bid since Democrat John Gilligan lost to Republican Jim Rhodes in a dramatic overnight reversal in 1974.
• Strickland owes the existence of his political career to the bad judgment of this guy. Thanks, Bob (/sarc).

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If the entire Senate had been up for reelection this year, left-leaning Nate Silver at his New York Times blog believes that the GOP would have achieved its own filibuster-proof majority of 60 and possibly a veto-proof majority of 67. (I’m not HT’ing the place I originally saw this because for some reason they didn’t link to it).

Silver wrote that a week before the elections.

The 2012 Senate lineup is heavily weighted with Dems who in the current electoral landscape would surely be vulnerable. Just a few: VA’s Webb (which explains why he’s doing a too-little, too-late critique of racial preferences), MT’s Tester, MI’s Stabenow (who didn’t win by much in 2006), WI’s Kohl (who is clearly to the left of the departing Russ Feingold), MN’s Klobuchar, ND’s Conrad, and PA’s Casey.

Then there’s Ohio’s Invisible Sherrod Brown, who supplied the final vote in February 2009 enabling the now-proven failureknow as the stimulus bill to pass.

Of course, the defeat of an incumbent senator is no easy task. An opponent who has legitimate Tea Party values would clearly have a better chance of defeating Brown than a go-along, get-along RINO. Sadly, given past form, ORPINO (Ohio Republican Party in Name Only) Chairman Kevin DeWine, whose hand-picked relative underperformed the rest of the ticket and nearly lost, is probably working on finding someone who doesn’t have those values as you read this. Perhaps the several new State Central Committee members who campaigned as legitimate Tea Partiers in May can remind DeWine that Josh Mandel, the candidate with the strongest sensible conservative credentials and values, achieved the largest victory margin of any candidate for state office on the ticket.

From Washington:

Nov 5, 2010 / 06:01 am

Pro-life Republican gains in Congress are “substantial” and are likely due to the Catholic vote, according to two pro-life leaders. However, a pro-life Democrat lamented her caucus’ losses, noting the need for reconciliation with the Catholic Church after a tough political fight over health care legislation.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), told CNA that the pro-life issue motivated a lot of voters. From the NRLC’s perspective, there were “very, very substantial” improvements in about 65 House seats.

“Either a hardcore pro-abortion candidate was defeated by a pro-life challenger, or someone with a mixed record, like on the health care bill, was replaced.”

The bulk of the candidates, about 40, were “hardcore pro-abortion people” who voted for pro-life legislation “seldom if ever.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said her organization’s “Votes Have Consequences” program was a “huge success” in targeting supporters of the health care legislation.

“When you can successfully defeat 15 out of 20 members of Congress, you know something about the future of the movement,” she continued, calling its future “extremely bright.”

Expressing her “excitement” about the state of contemporary politics, she discussed a “strong pro-life trend” in America among women as well.

“We are seeing a surge of women candidates who are strongly pro-life.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

What other description fits when they insist on doing more of what hasn’t worked?

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Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Saturday.

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If there has been a side benefit of having to endure and court the serious dangers of what has surely been the most radical first two years of an American presidency since Franklin Delano Roosevelt (possibly moreso by the time the historical dust settles), it’s that so many leftist pundits and others who have made careers of attempting to pose as supposedly reasonable people have revealed that they are on the wrong side of the lunatic line.

One such person is Peter Beinart. He often tries to come across as level-headed, as in this snippet from a Daily Beast critique of Jon Stewart’s late-October Washington rally:

The Tea Partiers, in other words, are making a serious argument, which the left too often tries to dismiss by calling them nuts.

Even in that column, though, Beinart gives off a heavy clue that he’s not too impressed with the origins of the country in which he lives:

They’re tapping into a deeply-rooted American fear of government power … And in the process, they’re conjuring, once again, the myth that America was born free, and surrenders a smidgen of liberty every time Washington imposes another tax or establishes another government agency.

That’s no myth, as anyone who has dealt with employment law or existing health care regulations — let alone what’s impending if ObamaCare is allowed to kick in — would tell you.

Beinart went code red in the wake of Tuesday’s election results, which as of this writing had Republicans picking up at least five U.S. Senate seats, gaining 60-plus House seats and a congressional majority, and achieving historic domination in state capitals:

… rather than looking at what those other countries are doing right, the Republicans have taken refuge in an anti-government ideology premised on the lunatic notion that America is the only truly free and successful country in the world. That ideology won last night, and Keynesianism lost.

As tempting as it would be to do a riff on Beinart’s miscasting of the sensible conservative take on freedom and success, I’ll mostly resist, simply because nobody I know of or have read is claiming that the U.S. is the “only free and successful country.” They do correctly assert that it has historically been the most free and successful — well, at least until what I have been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy took root in mid-2008.

Beinart has somehow missed the news that Keynesianism has suffered at least three big losses in the past 80 years. The first occurred in the 1930s, beginning under Herbert Hoover and then proceeding on steroids during FDR’s New Deal. This is an era appropriately characterized in retrospect as the “Stuck on Stupid” decade. UCLA professor Lee Ohanian notes: “[P]rivate-sector job growth did not come back under Roosevelt.” The unemployment rate was 17% at the end of the decade. Meanwhile, the jobless rate throughout Europe during the 1930s was consistently lower.

The second big loss for Keynesianism occurred in Japan during the 1990s. Government debt as a percentage of annual economic output soared with repeated attempts at stimulus, while economic growth was and has continued to be anemic. All that has resulted from this massive overindulgence was what many have referred to as a “zombie economy” and a populace that even the spend-happy New York Times described in-mid-October as having gone “from dynamic to disheartened.”

If what happened in Japan is starting to seem familiar, it’s because we’re living in the midst of Barack Obama’s and Ben Bernanke’s multitrillion-dollar stimulus. There is no doubt that it represents Keynesianism’s third big loss:

• In the first five quarters after the 2008-2009 recession officially ended, the economy has grown only 3.5%; during the first five quarters of the tax cut-driven recovery under Ronald Reagan, whom Beinart would probably also throw into the “lunatic” category, the economy grew by a “crazy” 7.8%.
• Under Obama/Bernanke, the economy has in five quarters only recovered about 80% of what was lost during the four quarters of the recession as normal people define it. Under Reagan, the economy recouped previous losses by the end of the recovery’s third quarter, and kept going strong.
• Under Obama/Bernanke, the official seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has been stuck at 9.4% or higher since the recession ended. Under Reagan, whose policies didn’t take meaningful effect until late 1982, the rate dropped from 10.8% at the end of that year to 7.3% at the end of 1984.

Keep in mind that the Obama/Bernanke stimulus has taken three forms: the stimulus plan passed by Congress in February 2009, massive increases in government spending beyond the stimulus, and Ben Bernanke’s quantitative easing. Together, they have amounted to at least $3.5 trillion since Obama took office. Also note that if nothing is done, we are already on a crash Keynesian course. Under the current policy structure, even using overoptimistic assumptions, annual deficits in future years are on track to exceed $500 billion as far as the eye can see.

So what do Beinart, James Fallows (who brazenly asserted on NPR that “there is essentially no disagreement whatsoever” among economists on this matter), Paul Krugman, and all the self-appointed smarties want to do? You guessed it: even more stimulus. Sadly, they’re already getting their way before Congress reconvenes, as Ben Bernanke has announced $600 billion more of “money from nothing” quantitative easing. But even that’s not enough for these guys.

It hasn’t worked to this point. It historically hasn’t worked. As noted, it’s still being done, and it’s still not working. Countries like Germany, which resisted Obama’s clarion call to keep stimulating, are growing nicely. Yet our leaders and their apparatchiks want more.

Geez Peter, Paul, et al, to find people holding lunatic notions, all you need to do is either look in the mirror, or over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Where is the “mainstream”? Pollster Frank Luntz identifies it:

(The American people) show clear support for the following five ideas:

(1) Balance the budget as quickly as possible through meaningful spending reductions, a hard spending cap and a constitutional amendment so that it never gets unbalanced again.

(2) Eliminate all earmarks until the budget is balanced, then require a two-thirds vote by Congress for future earmark legislation.

(3) Keep taxes down by requiring supermajorities for increases, and eventually enact tax reform with a simple, low, fair rate that drastically reduces the length of the IRS code.

(4) Create a blue-ribbon task force that engages in a complete, line-by-line forensic audit of federal agencies and programs to end waste and reduce red tape and bureaucracy.

(5) And require Congress to provide specific constitutional authorization for every bill it passes so that the government stays within the boundaries imagined by the founders.

I’ve found that each of these policies has at least 60 percent public support, so if you agree with most of them, it means you’re in the American mainstream. It also means that – wait for it – you agree with the tea party.

These points come directly from the tea-party-backed “Contract From America,” a document compiled from and voted on by the various tea party organizations and promoted by FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group. This governing agenda is supported not only by conservatives, but also by largely nonideological, anti-political voters in the middle.

The tea party is not some fringe coalition hopelessly removed from the mainstream.

The Tea Party is the mainstream. Millions of Americans hold “Tea Party Values” and don’t even know it. The establishment press sees an important part of its job as making sure that as many of them as possible never figure that out.

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It’s a good thing I didn’t waste a lot of energy on this. What a joke (both Keith Olbermann and MSNBC).

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters detects the distinct aroma of a planted controversy:

Something that has bothered me about this story from the beginning was that I couldn’t find anything at the FEC website about Olbermann’s contributions. Go here, type in “Olbermann, Keith,” and nothing shows.

Noel wonders how the Politico learned of Olbermann’s contributions. Given the almost non-existent length of Olbmermann’s suspension, so do I. I think the Politico owes readers a specific identification of the “filing” they saw, and how they got it, since the rest of us somehow can’t.

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Instpundit, on the President’s Indian adventure: “If he were a Republican, we’d be hearing about the “Imperial Presidency” in the American press. Instead, such criticism is left to the British.”

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Friday was the anniversary of the Ft. Hood massacre. 12 soldiers, one civilian, and one unborn child were murdered.

Last time I checked, the President of the United States was commander-in-chief of our armed forces.

Yet a search of the White House web site for “Ft. Hood” and “Fort Hood” (each without quotes and sorted by date) returns no record of any recognition of the massacre’s anniversary.

Using a word the President inexplicably used last year at a service for those who died, I find the lack of remembrance “incomprehensible.”

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It’s so bad, Democrats have to pay to get “volunteers,” and then they mess up the process of paying them (HT 3BP):

A rough week for Ohio Democrats continued on Wednesday after organizers were accused of failing to pay campaign workers on time.

At one point, police officers were called to the party’s downtown headquarters to keep tempers in check, 10TV’s AJ Smith said.

… hundreds of other people (were) waiting in line (to get paid).

After waiting in line for six hours — a wait that included a parking ticket — … (one worker) made his way inside the building, only to find out that the Democratic Party had again run out of checks.

Aha!

We finally have figured out an ingenious way to keep Democrats from spending: Stop printing checks. As long as they have ‘em, they think they have money.