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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Dick Morris</title>
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		<title>Obama: The Un-Lyndon Johnson</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/obama-the-un-lyndon-johnson/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-the-un-lyndon-johnson</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:06:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=100697</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Left turns on Obama.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/obama_economy.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-100699" title="obama_economy" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/obama_economy.gif" alt="" width="375" height="259" /></a></p>
<p>The pathetic performance of President Obama in the debt debate is showing the left how incompetent and weak a leader it selected. Many are wishing they had Hillary Clinton in the White House instead! Once the man has to move beyond a set teleprompter speech, he is lost. During the BP disaster, he showed what a poor administrator he is. And now he has belied any pretensions to legislative skill. He is the un-Lyndon Johnson.</p>
<p>The consequences of this disillusionment will be profoundly felt in the 2012 election. Republicans and independents will vote against Obama with their hands. Democrats and liberals will do so with their feet — by staying home. Turnout was the key to Obama’s 2008 electoral majority. The vote among under-30 whites, African-Americans and Hispanics set new records. Obama won, after all, about the same share of the white vote — in total — that Gore did in 2000. He only won because the young white turnout offset defections by middle-aged and elderly whites, black turnout rose from 11 percent to 14 percent and Hispanic votes rose by 1.5 percentage points. Any diminution of the white-hot intensity of enthusiasm that animated his 2008 election will cost him dearly.</p>
<p>Compare the performance of Bill Clinton in the 1995-96 government budget crisis with that of Obama in the latest skirmish. In Clinton campaign tracking polls, the president’s approval rating rose from 40 percent in May 1995 to 54 percent in January 1996. This 14-point increase has its opposite equivalent in Obama’s plunge from 55 percent approval in May 2011 to 40 percent approval in late July in the Gallup polling. The one went up and the other went down by nearly identical amounts.</p>
<p>For Clinton, the standoff was a chance to show his strength. No Republican ever believed the president with a reputation for wanting to please and waffling would ever stand up to the GOP. But Clinton did, day after day, hammering away at his position and defending it against all comers. Obama had no plan, and his positions shifted with the hour. First he wanted a clean debt-limit increase with no budgetary attachments. Then he would settle for cuts, but only minor ones. Then he signed on for major cuts as long as there were tax increases to go with them. Finally, he abandoned it all, asking only that the deal last until after the election so he would not have to go through this process again.</p>
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		<title>Raise Revenues While Shrinking Government</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/raise-revenues-while-shrinking-government/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=raise-revenues-while-shrinking-government</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:03:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=98804</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Some overlooked conservative alternatives to raising taxes. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/6a00d8341c4df253ef00e54f2d98b68834-800wi.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-98806" title="6a00d8341c4df253ef00e54f2d98b68834-800wi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/6a00d8341c4df253ef00e54f2d98b68834-800wi.gif" alt="" width="375" height="279" /></a></p>
<p>As Republicans scrounge for revenue sources that will satiate Democratic desires to extract more money for the public sector but will not run afoul of their pledges not to raise taxes, they should look carefully at some of the ideas pushed by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl and by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.</p>
<p>There are several sources of revenue that will not grow government, but will shrink it, warming the most conservative of hearts. Conservatives should not reject all efforts to increase revenues. Some are not taxes. Some are good common-sense policies that can help reduce the footprint of the federal bureaucracy, stop unnecessary subsidy of frivolous litigation, and increase our energy self-sufficiency, all while generating increased revenue to use in cutting the deficit.</p>
<p>Americans for Tax Reform points out that the federal government owns 650 million acres of land, which is about one-third the area of the United States. The Bureau of Land Management says that 3.3 million acres are suitable for sale to the private sector. Sell them off! The Heritage Foundation estimates that we spend $25 billion a year maintaining unused or vacant federal properties. Shrink government ownership and raise revenue at the same time.</p>
<p>Reducing the sway that federal bureaucrats at the Department of Interior have over federal land and putting the acreage to good use creating jobs is just the kind of free-market solution that Republicans love — and it brings in revenue. (Auctioning off the spectrum of bandwidth was a key source of revenue in the 1995-96 budget deal that eliminated the deficit.)</p>
<p>Sometimes politicians raise taxes and call them user fees. But artificially low fees really invite taxpayers to subsidize people and businesses that should be asked to pay their own way. This is particularly true in federal litigation. Conservatives embrace the idea of “loser pays” to force plaintiffs to bear the legal fees corporations, doctors and insurance companies must incur to defend against frivolous lawsuits. But what about the costs the taxpayer has to pay? Judicial salaries, court costs and courtroom facilities are all expensive, and user fees should be accurately adjusted so that those who use the system have to pay the costs. In a host of areas, user fees are artificially low and should be raised.</p>
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		<title>Obama Admin Lists Israel as a Terror Sponsor</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/obama-admin-lists-israel-as-a-terror-sponsor/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-admin-lists-israel-as-a-terror-sponsor</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Jul 2011 04:14:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=97568</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Shocking defamation of the Jewish State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ICESpecialAgentNew.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-97569" title="ICESpecialAgentNew" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ICESpecialAgentNew.gif" alt="" width="375" height="283" /></a></p>
<p>The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) maintains a <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/us-designates-israel-country-tends-promo">list</a> of “specially designated countries” (SDCs) that “have shown a tendency to promote, produce or protect terrorist organizations or their members.” The folks from these nations get special scrutiny when they enter the U.S.</p>
<p>Here’s the list:</p>
<p>Afghanistan<br />
West Bank<br />
Algeria<br />
Bahrain<br />
Oman<br />
Bangladesh<br />
Pakistan<br />
Philippines<br />
Egypt<br />
Qatar<br />
Saudi Arabia<br />
Indonesia<br />
Somalia<br />
Iran<br />
Sudan<br />
Iraq<br />
Syria<br />
Israel<br />
And so forth.</p>
<p>Israel? Yes Israel is one of the thirty-six SDCs that “promote, produce, or protect” terrorists, according to the Obama Administration. With splendid equality, they manage to list the world’s biggest victim alongside the globe’s leading perpetrators of terrorism. Israelis coming into America get the same high level of scrutiny that Iranians do!</p>
<p>This information, which comes to us courtesy of the wonderful website www.ruthfullyyours.com, is as shocking as it is credible.</p>
<p>That Obama has tried to maintain that there is a moral equilibrium between Israel and the aggressive Arabs that surround it is well known. But to list Israel as a promoter, protector, or producer of terrorism is quite extraordinary.</p>
<p>Doubtless some politically correct soul at ICE or in the State Department felt that the U.S. needed to show impartiality in making up its list and include non-Muslim countries. What better rebuttal to those who would claim that the ICE is profiling Muslims than to say that Israel is also on the list?</p>
<p>But Israel’s inclusion on the list, to say nothing of the indignity inflicted on its citizens as they seek to enter the United States, is an insult and must be corrected at once!</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Phony Oil Company Tax</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/obamas-phony-oil-company-tax/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-phony-oil-company-tax</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/obamas-phony-oil-company-tax/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 May 2011 04:07:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=93358</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Now is the time to expose the president's anti-American energy policy.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/oil-pumpjack.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-93359" title="oil-pumpjack" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/oil-pumpjack.gif" alt="" width="375" height="295" /></a></p>
<p>In a desperate effort to divert anger from his administration over gas prices and to stop people from focusing on how his anti-drilling policies have caused us to be so vulnerable to these price fluctuations, President Obama is pushing anti-oil company rhetoric, demanding increases in oil company taxes. He is confident, in doing so, that the Republican aversion to any tax increase will lead them to shield big oil and incur populist wrath.</p>
<p>He&#8217;s right the GOP can&#8217;t approve raising oil company taxes and that its refusal to do so will raise the party&#8217;s negatives among a broad swath of the population.</p>
<p>But he&#8217;s dead wrong in believing that raising this issue will, in any way, make up for his failure to promote domestic drilling. Obama has been so outspoken in his demand that we move away from dependence on fossil fuels and so naively futuristic in depending on renewable energy to replace it, that the average motorist will still grit his teeth in anger at the president every time he gases up. People get that &#8220;drill, baby, drill&#8221; is the best and nearest-term solution to high gasoline prices, and they get that Obama is on the wrong side of the issue.</p>
<p>A more subtle point, lost in the debate, is that decreasing oil company tax breaks makes drilling and exploration more costly. But, in the current environment of massive oil company profits, this tax increase won&#8217;t matter much.</p>
<p>It is best that Republicans keep this idea to themselves and focus, instead, on the need for more domestic drilling.</p>
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		<title>How the Feds Hide Inflation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/how-the-feds-hide-inflation-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-the-feds-hide-inflation-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:14:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[consumer price index]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[core inflation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cost]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[era]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FED]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[household budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inflation fears]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inflation rate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[percent]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91796</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The economic tricks every American should know about. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ben_Bernanke-7540553.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91799" title="Ben_Bernanke-754055" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ben_Bernanke-7540553.gif" alt="" width="375" height="279" /></a></p>
<p>(Economist Barry Elias provided invaluable aid in researching this column)</p>
<p>If the same methodology that was used in 1980 to chronicle the double digit inflation of that era were in use today, we would have an inflation rate of ten percent right now, according to <a href="http://www.shadowstats.com/">Shadow Government Statistics</a>. We are entering a massive era of stagflation which recalls to us our writing in Catastrophe, published two years ago, that “inflation may well be the enduring legacy of the Obama presidency.”</p>
<p>How does the federal government understate the inflation rate? Let us count the ways:</p>
<p><strong>1.</strong> It excludes food and fuel costs from its rate of “core inflation.” Each month, the Federal Reserve calms national inflation fears by pointing to the low rate of core inflation, currently at an annual pace of just 2.1%. It reaffirms that the economy is meeting the goal set for it by the Fed of keeping core inflation around or below two percent.</p>
<p>Claiming that food and fuel are too unstable to be included in the inflation rate, it excludes precisely those areas in which inflation is felt most deeply. In the past year, the cost of commodities from corn to soybeans has doubled and the price of gasoline at the pump is one third higher than it was one year ago. The average American household budget devotes one-third of its cash to food and energy costs. Leaving these elements out of the inflation rate has no justification.</p>
<p><strong>2.</strong> It substitutes less expensive products when prices rise When prices go up, the economists who generate the Consumer Price Index substitute less a expensive alternative product for the one that has risen in price. For example, if the cost of steak goes up, the CPI does not reflect the increase, but simply replaces steak with hamburger in computing the price index.</p>
<p><strong>3.</strong> It excludes “hedonistic” products as price rises The Fed adjusts for price rises by dumbing down the luxury elements of the products whose price it measures. It might, for example, measure the price of cars without air conditioning as a way of avoiding reporting the increase in the cost of automobiles. Even when the luxury features cannot easily be removed from the product, the CPI economists assume that they are.</p>
<p><strong>4.</strong> In averaging the price of different commodities, it uses a geometric — not an arithmetic mean. Since the geometric mean, which compares the square roots of product prices, comes out lower, it understates the rate of inflation. See the table below comparing two products’ prices a year apart:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Picture-17.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91801" title="Picture-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Picture-17.gif" alt="" width="597" height="161" /></a></p>
<p>To the layman, an increase in total spending of 50 cents on a base of $2 would represent a 25% increase in price. But that uses the arithmetic mean.</p>
<p>The geometric mean compares the square root of (new price / original price) multiplied by the same for the other commodity. Using this method of calculation, the increase in price would only be 22.5%.</p>
<p>The CPI switched to geometric comparison in 1994. Neat huh?</p>
<p>But no matter how the federal economists bend and twist the data, most Americans realize that we are in for a massive bout of inflation.</p>
<p>And this inflation is dramatically different from the last hyper inflation of the late 70s and early 80s. That inflation was caused by too much money chasing too few products. To slow down the economy and tame price increases, the Fed raised interest rates. But this inflation has nothing to do with demand. Rather, it is caused by the upward push of costs like gasoline, taxes, food, health insurance, and, soon, interest rates. This cost-push increase in prices cannot be tamed by cooling off the economy, which is, in fact, so cool already that it is approaching zero growth.</p>
<p>Stagflation, which will get worse and worse, may be Obama’s real legacy to this country.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Left Turn</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/obamas-left-turn/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-left-turn</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:13:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[class antagonisms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[federal outlays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gas price increase]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[middle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[populist rhetoric]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[problem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turnout]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91401</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the president has abandoned the centrist approach. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/obama-whcd-speech1.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91403" title="obama-whcd-speech" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/obama-whcd-speech1.gif" alt="" width="375" height="293" /></a></p>
<p>Two months ago, Washington was abuzz with speculation that Barack Obama was going to follow Bill Clinton&#8217;s re-election strategy and move to the center, forsaking his liberal agenda that cost him control of the House in 2010. Now, it is evident that he has decided to come down hard left and wage his re-election fight from his liberal bunker, firing shots at Republican cuts in Medicare, pushing tax increases on the rich and attributing the gas price increase to speculators.</p>
<p>Very possibly the decision to tack to the left was not entirely voluntary. With the Republicans constantly confronting him with budget cuts and spending reductions, Obama cannot portray himself as a centrist. Every day, he is on the defensive against proposals for Republican attempts to rein in federal outlays. Amid a background of repeated confrontations, he cannot move to the middle. Indeed, there is no middle. His budget compromises with House Speaker Boehner are not middle ground, they are partial surrenders, grudging acceptances of budget cuts he would never otherwise allow.</p>
<p>In the Clinton days, there were — and I suspect still are — two camps in the Democratic White House. There were those who advocated a fundamental repositioning in the center of our politics and those who wanted to battle along ideological lines, using economic populism and class antagonisms to bolster their chances of victory.</p>
<p>The problem with a leftist strategy is that the vote share a Democrat can attract with it has a very low ceiling — in the low 40s. Economic populism just doesn&#8217;t play that well outside of the Democratic left.</p>
<p>The key to this electoral model is, of course, turnout. Obama made it work and bring him a majority in 2008 by adding the votes of new, younger voters, increasing the African-American and Latino turnout, and playing on the unique economic panic of the times.</p>
<p>But, absent a big increase in liberal turnout, the appeal of class warfare and populist rhetoric is sharply limited.</p>
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		<title>Ryan&#8217;s Vision; Bachmann&#8217;s Courage</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/ryans-vision-bachmanns-courage/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ryans-vision-bachmanns-courage</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:15:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90263</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The core of the new, young Republican Party?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/PH2010071603163.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90264" title="PH2010071603163" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/PH2010071603163.gif" alt="" width="375" height="274" /></a></p>
<p>Amid a Congress of baby steps, Paul Ryan strides like a giant.</p>
<p>In a party of timidity, hand-wringing and hesitation, Michele Bachmann roars like a lioness.</p>
<p>Together, Ryan and Bachmann are the core of the new, young Republican Party in the making, rising — as Gingrich did in 1994 — from the ashes of the discredited establishment.</p>
<p>Rep. Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget blueprint is a thing of beauty. Stepping boldly on the third rails of our politics, he outlines a vision for a return to free enterprise and limited government that would have made Thomas Jefferson’s heart proud. His proposal to block-grant Medicaid and turn it over to the states breathes new life into federalism and gives us back the 10th Amendment. If courageous governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Kasich of Ohio, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Rick Scott of Florida can wrest education from the control of the labor unions and Ryan can free Medicaid from the feds, we can have state government again in America. His proposal to let the states determine eligibility and benefits and to let them experiment with Health Savings Accounts uses the laboratory of federalism to test solutions to our healthcare crisis — the opposite of the one-size-fits-all socialism of ObamaCare.</p>
<p>No less significant is Ryan’s plan to return non-defense discretionary spending to below its 2008 levels, reducing the cost and, inevitably, the power of Washington. By repealing ObamaCare, reining in the Environmental Protection Agency and rolling back the stimulus spending, he would scrub the budget clean of the scars of the Obama presidency.</p>
<p>His Medicare proposal repeals the $500 billion of cuts in healthcare to the elderly over the next 10 years that financed ObamaCare and implements vast savings in the program a decade hence. Any cuts in the federal budget over the next decade are, of course, conjectural. When one goes further out, it is fanciful. But Ryan shows us how to do it when we get there.</p>
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		<title>It&#8217;s No Deal, It&#8217;s a Sell Out</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/its-no-deal-its-a-sell-out/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=its-no-deal-its-a-sell-out</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:15:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90064</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[John Boehner gives away the Republican victory of 2010 at the bargaining table.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/john.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90070" title="john" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/john.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="274" /></a></p>
<p>John Boehner has just given away the Republican victory of 2010 at  the bargaining table.  Like the proverbial Uncle Sam who always wins the  war but loses the peace, he has unilaterally disarmed the Republican  Party by showing that he will not shut down the government and will,  instead, willingly give way on even the most modest of cuts in order to  avoid it.  He now has no arrows left in his quiver.</p>
<p>Having failed to stand firm for just $61 billion in cuts in a budget  of $3.7 trillion, how can we expect him to stand firm over the debt  limit extension or the 2012 budget?  We can’t.  The excellent budget  proposals of Paul Ryan are no more than a pipe dream now.  Boehner has sold us out now and he’ll sell us out again.</p>
<p>It is the duty of every Republican Congressman to vote no on this  terrible deal.  It violates our campaign promises to the American  people.  We promised $100 billion of cuts and we delivered $38 billion  ($62 billion on a twelve month basis).  In the Republican House’s first  real test out of the box it has broken the promise over which it was  elected.  Only in Meat Loaf’s music is “two out of three not bad.”</p>
<p>This concession makes it clear that:</p>
<p>*  Obamacare will not be defunded.<br />
*  The EPA will not be blocked from regulating carbon.<br />
*  The NLRB will not be stopped from forcing an end to secret ballots in union contests.<br />
*  Medicaid will not be block granted and turned over to the states.<br />
*  Welfare spending will not be cut nor work requirements imposed.<br />
*  The FCC will not be stopped from regulating talk radio.</p>
<p>In short, we have accomplished nothing by our hard work in 2010.</p>
<p>Except we have learned a lesson.</p>
<p>And the lesson is this:  We need to purify our party and purge it of  the likes of John Boehner and all those Congressmen who vote for the  budget sellout.  The Tea Party must take the lead in this purifying  fire.  We must not let the RINOs win!</p>
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		<title>A Budget Deal: Republican Suicide</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/a-budget-deal-republican-suicide/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-budget-deal-republican-suicide</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2011 04:00:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=89942</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why freshmen Republicans should heed the lesson of their ousted Democratic counterparts.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Picture-10.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-89943" title="Picture-10" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Picture-10.gif" alt="" width="375" height="297" /></a></p>
<p>We all watched in amazement and horror as the Democratic Party led its minions off the cliff and made them vote to jam through Obama’s health care law. We knew it was mass suicide, but we watched with incredulity as they bravely stepped up to drink the Kool-Aid. Now it is the turn of the Republicans freshmen — the very people who inherited the seats of those who walked the plank — to march off a cliff of their own.</p>
<p>The electorate that impelled the GOP triumph in 2010 will not tolerate a breaking of the Republican promise to cut $100 billion from the budget. They will accept, of course, the pro-rated share of the advertised total — $61 billion over seven months — but not anything less. It is a simple matter of keeping one’s campaign promises.</p>
<p>Any freshman who votes for a budget deal below $61 billion will face a primary and likely defeat either for the nomination of in the general election. That is just the fact of political life.</p>
<p>The Tea Party supporters and the aroused Republican electorate will not stand for it. The myopia which obscures Boehner’s and Cantor’s view of this reality is as blinding as that which made Pelosi, Obama, and Reid sacrifice their majority over health care.</p>
<p>If Boehner comes to a deal below $61 billion, he will face the massive defection of his own party. A fundamental split between Tea Party and establishment Republicans will have opened up and will not heal for the balance of the session. If Boehner needs to cross the aisle to borrow Democratic voters to pass the deal, he will become a coalition speaker — a coalition of donkeys and RINOs. The real Republican conservatives will be in the minority. But they will have with them the vast bulk of the GOP electorate, a re-alignment which will become painfully clear in 2012′s primaries.</p>
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		<title>Consumer Confidence Crashes</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/consumer-confidence-crashes/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=consumer-confidence-crashes</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=87818</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Will Obama's term be known as the "lost years"? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="highslide" onclick="return vz.expand(this)" href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/p.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-87819" title="p" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/p.gif" alt="" width="375" height="263" /></a></p>
<p>The combination of high oil and gasoline prices, rising food costs, higher health insurance premiums and the likelihood of future inflation has jarred consumer confidence, creating a major crisis for the Obama administration.</p>
<p>The collapse has been sudden and dramatic.</p>
<p>In December, the consumer confidence scale in the Rasmussen Poll stood at 81.7 percent. But in January, euphoria set in. President Obama compromised on the George W. Bush tax cuts, the nation seemed to be coming together after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, and a Republican House sat poised to stop any new spending or social experimentation. On Jan. 11, the Rasmussen confidence index rose to 88.3.</p>
<p>Then reality dawned. Unemployment remained persistently high, economic growth was largely stagnant, and partisan bickering resumed. The confidence level on Feb. 11 dropped to 84.5.</p>
<p>Then, the bottom fell out. The daily Rasmussen polling reflected a drop day after day until, by March 11, the index had fallen to 73.1, its lowest level since it registered a 69 in July of 2009, in the depths of the recession.</p>
<p>The false dawn of January has faded, and the hard, cold reality of a likely second recession is setting in. But this recession is accompanied by the likelihood of inflation, a stagflation syndrome that will probably grip America for years. And which will likely take a manmade recession, on the order of 1979-82, to counter it.</p>
<p>Will Obama get re-elected? No way! In the teeth of the economic catastrophe that is shaping up, his chances are doomed.</p>
<p>The tsunami in Japan, perhaps the greatest tragedy since 9-11, will further impede any prospect for economic growth. There will be a demand for spending to repair the devastation of the quake. But Japan is tied with China as the world&#8217;s second largest economy, generating12 percent of the global gross domestic product.</p>
<p>With Japan neither producing nor buying for the foreseeable future, the drag on the global economy will be profound.</p>
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		<title>Victory in Wisconsin &#8230; for Now</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/victory-in-wisconsin-for-now/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=victory-in-wisconsin-for-now</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:06:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=87456</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[All now hinges on the coming recall elections. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="highslide" onclick="return vz.expand(this)" href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/scott.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-87457" title="Scott Walker" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/scott.jpg" alt="" width="399" height="286" /></a></p>
<p>Gov. Scott Walker and the courageous state Senate Republicans struck a massive blow for education reform and quality schools by their passage of the restrictions on collective bargaining. Now it  will be possible, in Wisconsin, to limit teacher tenure — discharging  bad ones and promoting good ones. Merit pay, rewarding great teachers  with big salaries, will follow. And, should layoffs be needed, we will  be able to keep our best teachers regardless of seniority.</p>
<p>Nationally, Walker&#8217;s courage impairs the power of the teachers union  and undermines the stranglehold it has on our politics. His initiatives,  we hope, will spread throughout the nation.</p>
<p>But all will hinge on the coming recall elections. It now appears likely that the Democratic senators will  never return to the State Capitol in Madison. They will probably not  return to allow passage of the rest of Walker&#8217;s program, but will focus  instead on their efforts to recall the Republican senators and Walker  himself.</p>
<p>In turn, the Republicans will file recall petitions against the  absent Democratic state senators who have been AWOL throughout. Sometime  between July and October, the recall elections will be held, and we will see who wins.</p>
<p>Thus, in effect, Wisconsin is going to put the issue to a statewide referendum through the device of recall elections.</p>
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		<title>How to Shut Down the Government</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/how-to-shut-down-the-government/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-to-shut-down-the-government</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Mar 2011 04:01:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=87421</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Continuing resolutions on government funding cannot go on forever. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="highslide" onclick="return vz.expand(this)" href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/P1-AO495_STIMUL_G_20090128182942.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-87422" title="P1-AO495_STIMUL_G_20090128182942" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/P1-AO495_STIMUL_G_20090128182942.gif" alt="" width="375" height="345" /></a></p>
<p>At some point, the Obama administration will run out of cuts that it can live with, and the Republican House will have to decide whether to shut down the government by refusing to vote for ongoing continuing resolutions. The decision will be easy: Either shut down or shut up! There is no way the GOP can have any ongoing leverage if it refuses to close things down once Obama says no to further budget cuts.</p>
<p>The question is: How can the Republicans shut down the government without suffering the same defeat that President Clinton inflicted on them in 1995 and 1996?</p>
<p>A total government shutdown is like a strike in a labor dispute. The idea is to punish the public until it forces management (in this case, the Democrats) to give in. In any strike, the key to winning public sympathy and support is to articulate clearly one&#8217;s demands and to formulate them so that they elicit a positive response.</p>
<p>The central problem confronting the Republicans is that they seek a panoply of cuts ranging all across the federal budget. Their desired $61 billion of reductions ($100 billion annualized) go into practically every area of discretionary spending. There is no way to describe them in a sound bite.</p>
<p>And, when they cannot tell voters what the cuts are about, the electorate always imagines the worst. People assume the GOP is cutting Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits, Head Start and every other popular program. Republicans, helpless to describe what they are really cutting (because the cuts are so pluralistic), can only be defensive. Inevitably, the debate centers around numbers ($61 billion in cuts) rather than any substantive description of the cuts themselves.</p>
<p>To avoid this pitfall, Republicans should not simply shut down the government to achieve the multiple cuts in their proffered package of $61 billion in reductions. They need to scrap that agenda after the negotiations fail. Such a broad-based package of cuts is fine for negotiations, but it makes a poor message when the actual shutdown comes.</p>
<p>Instead, Republicans must do the opposite: concentrate their cuts on two or three vulnerable programs or agencies, while leaving all the others totally untouched. Such a strategy will let the party explain its cuts and phrase them in a broadly popular way.</p>
<p>For example, the federal government spends $40 billion a year on highway construction.</p>
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		<title>The U.S. Has Cut Emissions&#8230;Without Cap and Tax</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/the-u-s-has-cut-emissions-without-cap-and-tax/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-u-s-has-cut-emissions-without-cap-and-tax</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Feb 2011 04:16:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=85711</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why global warming legislation is about control over the economy, not our carbon footprint. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/carbon-emissions.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-85712" title="carbon-emissions" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/carbon-emissions.gif" alt="" width="375" height="313" /></a></p>
<p>While the federal Environmental Protection Administration is about to impose regulations and taxes on carbon emissions by executive fiat — in the name of stopping global climate change — the United States has already dramatically cut its emissions and probably has already complied with the Kyoto/Copenhagen goals for reduced emissions. And this has been done without taxes, without regulations and without government intervention.</p>
<p>In 2007, the U.S. emitted 6.12 billion metric tons of carbon. In 2008, emissions fell to 5.92. In 2009, while President Obama was promising that the U.S. would cut its emissions to 5.0 by 2015, the American economy and public — on their own — cut the emissions to 5.5 billion. Most likely, by the time the 2010 measurements are in, we will have reached the Obama goal.</p>
<p>While many attribute the cut to the recession, which presumably will end sometime, the fact is that emissions dropped before the recession hit and have continued to fall. A big part of the reason is the reduction in the use of coal to generate electricity.</p>
<p>As we explain in our new book, &#8220;Revolt!&#8221; (to be released on March 1), coal accounted for 52 percent of electric generation in 1996 but only for 45 percent today. In the past 12 months, coal&#8217;s share has dropped form 49 percent to 45 percent.</p>
<p>Natural gas has almost doubled its share from 13 percent in 1996 to 23 percent in 2009, while renewables have risen from 2 percent to 4 percent.<br />
Source —— 1996 —— 2009</p>
<p>Coal —— 52 percent —— 45 percent</p>
<p>Natural gas —— 13 percent —— 23 percent</p>
<p>Nuclear —— 20 percent —— 20 percent</p>
<p>Renewable —— 2 percent —— 4 percent</p>
<p>Source: US Energy Information Administration</p>
<p>The free market, free enterprise system has responded to persuasion and incentives like it does in free societies without the heavy hand of taxation, government regulation and coercion.</p>
<p>These data expose the basic truth: Cap-and-trade or carbon regulation is not necessary to lower U.S. emissions. The government bureaucratic/environmentalist alliance wants these measures to increase public control over our economy, not to fight global warming. Just as the Obama stimulus package was designed to increase public spending, not to stimulate anything, so the environmental regulations are exploiting public concern over climate change to ratify a growth in government power and oversight.</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s the inconvenient truth!</p>
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		<title>The GOP Must Shoot for the Sky on Budget Cuts</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/the-gop-must-shoot-for-the-sky-on-budget-cuts/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-gop-must-shoot-for-the-sky-on-budget-cuts</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2011 04:39:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=84925</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Will Republicans seize the moment? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/gopleaders-214-x-large.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-84928" title="gopleaders-214-x-large" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/gopleaders-214-x-large.gif" alt="" width="375" height="284" /></a></p>
<p>Now is the time for the House Republicans to challenge President Obama to cut spending by voting to slash non-defense discretionary spending by the full $100 billion they promised in their 2010 campaign!</p>
<p>The Republican leadership needs to make a bold statement and send Obama a bill that sticks in his big-spending throat. If the Senate won&#8217;t pass it or the president threatens a veto, even better. Obama&#8217;s approval ratings — recently rising to 51 percent from 41 percent in the past two months according to the Fox News poll — will fall back down again, and lower, if he gets into a fight against cutting government spending. The Republicans in the House will have called his bluff about moving to the center and will force the kind of fiscal belt-tightening they heralded during the campaign.</p>
<p>And if the government has to operate in a state of crisis, with continuing resolutions keeping it funded day after day, so much the better! It will call attention to how intractable the Democrats are in resisting any cut in spending.</p>
<p>On March 4, the federal government runs out of money. The continuing resolutions under which the government has been operating expire then. Since no budget was ever adopted by the Democratic Congress last year (so nobody would add up the numbers), when the resolution ends, so does all funding.</p>
<p>Republicans should seize this opportunity to demand major cuts in spending. House Republicans, led by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee, proposed a cut that, on an annualized basis, would reduce the budget by $100 billion below what Obama requested for 2012.</p>
<p>But, since Obama never got his budget passed — and there is only half a fiscal year left — the actual amount of Ryan&#8217;s cuts come to a paltry $35 billion below what was actually spent for half a year under the ancien regime.</p>
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		<title>Senate Democrats Drink More Kool-Aid</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/senate-democrats-drink-more-kool-aid/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=senate-democrats-drink-more-kool-aid</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:29:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=84670</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why Republicans are on their way to becoming the majority in the upper chamber. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/The-Senate-Democratic-Leadership-speaks-on-the-112th-Congress-in-Washington.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-84673" title="The-Senate-Democratic-Leadership-speaks-on-the-112th-Congress-in-Washington" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/The-Senate-Democratic-Leadership-speaks-on-the-112th-Congress-in-Washington.gif" alt="" width="375" height="290" /></a></p>
<p>Last week&#8217;s Senate vote to reject the repeal of Obamacare offered stark evidence that the so-called moderate Democrats in the Senate will be forced to walk the plank and vote for Obama&#8217;s liberal positions in the 2011-2012 legislative session, guaranteeing that many don&#8217;t return. Every single Democrat stood up and voted against repeal (except for one absentee and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut).</p>
<p>Harry Reid and Obama might well have let them off the hook. They could easily have let the likes of Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., Joe Manchin, D-W.V., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., save their seats and vote for repeal. Then, either the remaining Senate Democrats could block a vote, or more likely, Obama would veto the repeal legislation and no override would be possible. Such a posture would have gone a long way toward saving the Senate Democratic majority.</p>
<p>But Obama and Reid would have none of it. Like Captain Ahab accepting no excuses for not killing the white whale, they are determined to sacrifice the cream of their Senate majority in order not to repeal a law that the courts are going to throw out as unconstitutional anyway.</p>
<p>And the &#8220;moderate&#8221; Democrats in question lacked the guts and integrity to stand up to their leaders and vote to repeal this massively unpopular law. So much for their supposed &#8220;moderation.&#8221;</p>
<p>Now the Republicans must trumpet their votes in their home states with ads that will assure their defeat in 2012. Remember, Blanche Lincoln, lately defeated for re-election in Arkansas, did not lose her seat in the fall of 2010. She fell hopelessly behind in the spring of that year, when she voted to pass Obamacare despite the pleading, importuning and outright begging of a majority of her constituents.</p>
<p>By the time the fall election had begun in earnest, she opened the race more than 30 points behind.</p>
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		<title>Obama: Egypt&#8217;s Hostage</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/obama-egypts-hostage/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-egypts-hostage</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 04:29:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Will Obama be known as the president who lost Egypt? ]]></description>
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<p>President Obama better hope that the crowds clamoring for an overthrow of the Hosni Mubarak regime really do achieve a functioning liberal democracy rather than an Iranian-style theocracy. His re-election hopes may be doomed if Iran takes over.</p>
<p>Just as Richard Nixon helped to discredit Harry Truman and defeat Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson in 1952 by trumpeting the question, &#8220;Who lost China?&#8221; Obama may well have to explain how and why he lost Egypt. If he permits Egypt to slip through our fingers and go over to the Iranian sphere of influence, he will pay for it politically in 2012. Imagine if this president, whose domestic policy initiatives are coming apart at the seams, loses office over a foreign policy blunder.</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood is allied closely with Hamas. To the extent that it masquerades as a peaceful body, it is a wolf in sheep&#8217;s clothing. Any coalition with the Brotherhood is as likely to remain secular as Adolf Hitler&#8217;s early coalition with Paul von Hindenburg in Germany was likely to stay non-Nazi. The Muslim Brotherhood will take over if it gets its foot in the door.</p>
<p>By failing to back Mubarak, Obama is committing the same sin that Dwight Eisenhower did in Cuba and Jimmy Carter did in Iran. He needs to understand that the radical Islamists mean us ill and that any effort to appease them is bound to fail.</p>
<p>If Egypt falls, Obama will have permanently damaged America&#8217;s vital interests. Look at what Carter&#8217;s abandonment of the Shah has cost the world and is likely to cost it in the future. We now face the possibility that a radicalized Egypt could be Obama&#8217;s gift to the globe.</p>
<p>Until now, Americans have regarded Obama&#8217;s flirtation with the Arab street with a mild concern that he may be too naive in his understanding of that part of the world.</p>
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		<title>Taking On the Teachers Union</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/taking-on-the-teachers-union/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taking-on-the-teachers-union</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:19:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=83470</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama wants to improve education in America -- but when will his union allies be held accountable?]]></description>
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<p>When Obama started to speak about the need to improve education, upgrade our schools and attract quality teachers, an elephant appeared in the living rooms of most Americans who were watching. Obama never mentioned the beast, but most of the country saw clearly the three letters on his back — AFT. American Federation of Teachers — the union that, along with its counterpart, the NEA, National Education Association, has destroyed public education in America.</p>
<p>How can we take seriously any proposal to improve schools that does not deal with the force that has dragged them down — the teachers union?</p>
<p>Detroit is a great example of the damage they have wrought. Due to the costs imposed by the union, the public school system has already had to close 59 of its 200 schools, and another 70 are slated for closure. The result will be eighth-grade classes of 40 children and high school classes predicted to have more than 60 students.</p>
<p>Why is Detroit in such bad shape? The same reason its car companies are broke: the unions. Not only do they get high salaries and benefits, but their union has a monopoly on health insurance coverage for teachers and marks the coverage up a third higher than private insurance companies with no better benefits — and it&#8217;s all paid by the taxpayer. Detroit will actually now have to pay teachers more to compensate them for their bigger class sizes.</p>
<p>In New York, it is almost impossible to fire an incompetent teacher. It took three years of litigation and $300,000 in legal fees to fire a teacher who sexually solicited a 16-year-old student.</p>
<p>Governors throughout the country are getting it, even if the president is not. Rick Scott in Florida, John Kasich in Ohio, Mitch Daniels in Indiana, Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania and Chris Christie of New Jersey have all proposed major new initiatives to promote school choice.</p>
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		<title>States Need Bankruptcy Option</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/states-need-bankruptcy-option/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=states-need-bankruptcy-option</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2011 04:33:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why state insolvency will help shake the Left's power structure. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/file-personal-bankruptcy.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-83223" title="file-personal-bankruptcy" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/file-personal-bankruptcy.gif" alt="" width="375" height="298" /></a></p>
<p>When state governments — facing intractable budget problems — come to the Republican House asking for more bailout money, most GOP congressmen are determined to speak with one voice and say &#8220;no.&#8221; But where will the &#8220;no&#8221; leave the states and their citizens? Can they fix their fiscal woes by their own efforts?</p>
<p>They can raise taxes, of course, and set their states on a death spiral akin to that which has already destroyed Detroit and much of upstate New York. Or they can cut spending, slicing the heart out of vital services like education and police protection. Cuts of this magnitude will almost destroy the education of a large part of this generation of students.</p>
<p>There is a third way: to get to the root of the reasons for their dire crisis in the first place and abrogate their collective bargaining agreements with municipal unions that have brought them to this condition.</p>
<p>States cannot do so on their own. They need the federal government to adopt a bankruptcy procedure to allow them to do it. States are constitutionally bound to honor contracts, so it is only through a federal bankruptcy court that they can be released from the ill-considered and overly generous agreements that bind them.</p>
<p>In bankruptcy, municipal bondholders will — and must — be protected. But the bankruptcy court can offer states the option of renegotiating their union agreements to avoid raising taxes or eviscerating their schools. (States would not be forced into bankruptcy, but would enter it voluntarily, seeking the protection of Chapter 9.)</p>
<p>Even if the states had the legal means to get out of their union contracts without federal intervention, they could not do so politically. Union political power is too entrenched to be dislodged even by a determined governor and state legislature.</p>
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		<title>The Perils of Palin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/the-perils-of-palin/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-perils-of-palin</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jan 2011 04:42:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Is the Left playing Sarah Palin like a fiddle? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/SarahPalin8TVguide.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-82527" title="SarahPalin8TVguide" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/SarahPalin8TVguide.gif" alt="" width="375" height="309" /></a></p>
<p>After Tucson, Ariz., shootings, Sarah Palin&#8217;s unfavorable rating in the CNN poll rose from 49 percent before the midterm elections to 56 percent now. It was not the left-wing charges that Sarah Palin had somehow incited the Tucson shooter by her aggressive political rhetoric that did her damage. Polls show that voters discounted these statements and even Rep. Giffords&#8217; husband has made clear that there was no political motive involved. It was Palin&#8217;s response to these attacks that got her in trouble. Her highly publicized accusation that the criticism was a &#8220;blood libel&#8221; turned voters off. As sincere admirers of hers, we hope she learns a lesson from this exchange.</p>
<p>The lesson is simply this: She should not become a battering ram hammering at liberal critics — getting down into the mud with them — answering every attack, no matter how low, personal or undeserved it is. She is a potential presidential candidate for the Republican Party. As such, she needs to keep her own head unbloodied and intact. Battering rams don&#8217;t find that easy to do.</p>
<p>The left plays Sarah like a fiddle. They pile on with totally outrageous attacks aiming at her personal life, her children and her family, and — now — linking her to murder. These disgraceful attacks do not score points with the voters. In fact, they tend to trigger a sympathetic feeling toward Sarah when they are leveled. But, for some reason, Palin feels compelled to answer them, to reply, to tell her side of the story (aka the truth).</p>
<p>The result of the exchange is that both sides lose: Her attackers and Palin herself both suffer.</p>
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		<title>Obamacare: Round Two &#8212; Awake Conservatives!</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dick-morris/obamacare-round-two-awake-conservatives/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-round-two-awake-conservatives</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Jan 2011 04:16:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Is the counteroffensive ready?  ]]></description>
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<p>Now for the counteroffensive. The House Republicans are pushing to repeal Obamacare. While they will doubtless succeed in the House and either fail in the Senate or face a Barack Obama veto, their decision to raise and debate the issue is a crucial one. As happened when it passed last year, Obamacare will ignite a national controversy.</p>
<p>But are conservatives prepared to win the debate? When Obamacare was being pushed through Congress by the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Obama and Rahm Emanuel, the right was galvanized. Rallies, demonstrations, town hall forums, television ads, letters to the editor, television commentary all bombarded the nation emphasizing the faults of the bill. But now these voices are stilled, complacent, perhaps exhausted. Or are they intimidated by the liberal spin on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting that we all must lower our voices?</p>
<p>Already, liberal groups and unions are running ads calling on House Republicans not to repeal Obamacare. One such, paid for by Americans United for Change, says:</p>
<p>&#8220;Members of Congress know that their health insurance plan can&#8217;t deny coverage for their kids. Congressmen can rest assured that their insurance plan won&#8217;t drop their families if they get sick. The Affordable Care Act gave your family the same protections that members of Congress get. But Republicans want to take that protection away from your family. They want to put insurance companies back in charge. Call Congress. Tell them you deserve the same health insurance protection they get. Tell them: Don&#8217;t repeal the Affordable Care Act. You deserve the same health insurance protections as Congress.&#8221;</p>
<p>Where is the conservative reply? Where are the conservative voices? Could the opportunity to repeal Obamacare give the left a chance to make their case without an answer?</p>
<p>Voters still oppose Obamacare. The Rasmussen Poll has them backing repeal by 55 percent to 40 percent. But, if opponents of the program rest complacent, those numbers could change quickly.</p>
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