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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Tony Blankley</title>
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		<title>Secular, Liberal Egypt: We Hardly Knew Ya</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/secular-liberal-egypt-we-hardly-knew-ya/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=secular-liberal-egypt-we-hardly-knew-ya</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/secular-liberal-egypt-we-hardly-knew-ya/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:06:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim Brotherhod]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=115174</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The latest blunder by the political experts.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-11.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-115175" title="Picture-11" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-11.gif" alt="" width="375" height="247" /></a></p>
<p>One of the nice things about human history is that no matter how much people or their leaders misjudge events and make a hash of things, within a few centuries, the debris is cleared away, and we can have another go at getting things right.</p>
<p>Yes, I am thinking about the Middle East. Whether or not there is a message in that turn of events, I&#8217;ll leave it to theologians.</p>
<p>At the moment, I have in mind the latest blunder by the experts — their assessment, just a few months ago, of the nature of the Arab Spring and its democracy movement. Back in spring, the leading experts — from the Obama administration to the neoconservatives on the right to the major liberal media to most of the academic area specialists — were all overwhelmingly predicting that all those great secular, liberal, college-educated kids with their iPhones in Tahrir Square represented the new Egypt and would bring all their wonderful values to the revolution. It was primarily us cranky right-wingers who have been writing on radical Islamic politics (and, of course, the Israelis, who can&#8217;t afford to get it wrong on Muslim political habits) who warned that this was all going to end in the rise in still-ancient Egypt of radical Islamist, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti American and anti-Western governance.</p>
<p>So our government — as I said, cheered on by neoconservatives as well as liberals — undercut Hosni Mubarak&#8217;s regime and told us not to worry about the Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood were old, tired men who were no longer really radical and had been propped up by the regime just to provide it an opposition punching bag. Armed with their social media devices, the kids would run rings around the sorry excuse for Islamists and deliver real democracy.</p>
<p>Jeez, hadn&#8217;t any of those experts been to Egypt? Not a lot of secular liberals hanging out — even at the Universities — let alone in the thousands of villages and urban slums. Who the heck did the pundits think those angry, bearded men were, roaming around glaring at Westerners and Muslim women who dared to walk on the street? I saw them back in the 1960s and &#8217;70s, and even then, they were scary.</p>
<p>By the way, as I recall, Tahrir Square was pretty much a circle. But who&#8217;s counting when you are having deranged liberal fantasies? Even if these experts on Sunday political roundtable chatters had not been to Egypt, perhaps it was a clue that a Pew poll this spring said 65 percent of the public would vote Islamist.</p>
<p>Well, the early returns are in.</p>
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		<title>How to Break the Partisan Fever</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/how-to-break-the-partisan-fever/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-to-break-the-partisan-fever</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/how-to-break-the-partisan-fever/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:04:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bloody 8th]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[compromise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democrat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[partisanship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rep. Frank McCloskey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=114126</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Where did the animosity all begin? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Democrat-vs-Republican.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-114128" title="Democrat-vs-Republican" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Democrat-vs-Republican.gif" alt="" width="375" height="250" /></a></p>
<p>Sunday on &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; Colin Powell blamed divisive, poisonous Washington politics on the media and the Tea Party. The essence of Powell&#8217;s argument was: &#8220;Republicans and Democrats are focusing more and more on their extreme left and extreme right. And we have to come back toward the center in order to compromise. &#8230; The media has to help us. The media loves this game, where everybody is on the extreme. It makes for great television. &#8230; So what we have to do is sort of take some of the heat out of our political life in terms of the coverage of it, so these folks (Congress) can get to work quietly. &#8230; But the Tea Party point of view of no compromise whatsoever is not a point of view that will eventually produce a presidential candidate who will win.&#8221;</p>
<p>Of course this is ahistoric. The media has been a circulation-, listener- and viewer-motivated political snapping turtle since the country&#8217;s founding (and a liberal snapping turtle since the 1940s). And, of course, the rise of divisive Washington politics predates by decades the emergence of the Tea Party to national attention in 2009.</p>
<p>As a technical matter, many, if not most, congressional historians believe that conscious, congressional partisanship in recent times did not start with the Tea Party or Obama or Bush or Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton in the 90s.</p>
<p>It started in 1984, in the disputed congressional election of Indiana&#8217;s &#8220;bloody 8th&#8221; congressional district. A Republican, Richard McIntyre, won in a recount by 418 votes, according to the Indiana Republican secretary of state. Then the Democratic majority in the House set up a task force of two Democratic and one Republican congressmen to re-decide the state tally. The two Democrats on the commission concluded that the Democratic incumbent congressman, Rep. Frank McCloskey, won by four votes. Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright seated McCloskey.</p>
<p>The Republican Party, furious but impotent, became convinced that a corrupt Democratic Party majority would have to be defeated if progress on any front could be made. And thus was born modern congressional partisan self-consciousness.</p>
<p>Fifteen years later, Leon Panetta who in 1985 was the congressional chairman of the task force that reversed the election results admitted, according to the Los Angeles Times, that the &#8220;House vote to seat McCloskey would have been more broadly accepted if the task force had included an equal number of Democrats and Republicans and if there had been consensus in the finding. If the committee leans partisan, either Republican or Democratic, then it will always be viewed as a partisan result.&#8221;</p>
<p>But beyond the minor question of which event lit the fuse of partisanship, broader more significant forces have given rise to the current divisions.</p>
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		<title>Bowing to Beijing</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/bowing-to-beijing/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bowing-to-beijing</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/bowing-to-beijing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Nov 2011 04:14:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America's decline]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese domination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=112704</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Barack Obama is hastening America's decline and ushering a century of Chinese domination. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/BKbowing.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-112708" title="BKbowing" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/BKbowing.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="542" /></a></p>
<p>A just released book, &#8220;Bowing to Beijing&#8221; by Brett M. Decker and  William C. Triplett II, will change forever the way you think about  China — even if, like me, you already have the deepest worries about the  Chinese threat. As I opened the book, I was expecting to find many  useful examples of Chinese military and industrial efforts to get the  better of the United States and the West.</p>
<p>Indeed, there are 100 pages of examples of the most remorseless  Chinese successes at stealing the military and industrial secrets of the  West and converting them into a growing menace — soon to be a leviathan  — bent on domination and defeat of America. The authors itemize the  sheer, unprecedented magnitude of this effort. But the opening chapters  dealt with human rights abuses, and my first thought as I started  reading was that I wanted to get right to the military and industrial  examples.</p>
<p>But the authors were right to lead with 50 pages itemizing in grizzly  detail Chinese human rights abuses — for the profound reason that after  reading those first 50 pages, the reader will be impassioned to resist  Chinese domination not only on behalf of American interests, but also  for the sake of humanity.</p>
<p>Today, many people think America is in decline and mentally acquiesce  to the thought that the rise of China is inevitable. Those 50 pages  will stiffen your resolve to be part of the struggle to never let such a  malignancy spread to the rest of the world — let alone to America. One  of the authors, Brett Decker, is a friend — and I have never been more  proud of his (and his co-author&#8217;s) accomplishment of providing such a  deep moral vision in this carefully factual book.</p>
<p>In an astounding narrative, Decker and Triplett have refuted the  growing authoritarian temptation expressed for too many elite people  around the world by Thomas Friedman, the senior New York Times foreign-policy columnist who wrote recently: &#8220;One-party autocracy  certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably  enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great  advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but  critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the  21st century.&#8221;</p>
<p>The authors do not mention Friedman. In those first 50 pages, they  focus their compelling narrative on a strictly factual expose of the  moral horror being brought down on the Chinese people by their  ever-more-powerful Chinese leadership.</p>
<p>The authors carefully delineate the reversal in the last decade of  the previous modest Chinese movement toward rule of law and a small hint  at decency. It had been the hope of everyone from Richard Nixon and  Henry Kissinger onward that as China came into the world and embraced  capitalism it would become &#8220;a modern, progressive society that (would) eventually bring the communist state in line with  the rest of the civilized world.&#8221; That was the moral foundation for  &#8220;engaging&#8221; with China.</p>
<p>It was also a convenient rationalization for trying to make a fortune in the vast Chinese market.</p>
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		<title>Curse of the Incumbent</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/curse-of-the-incumbent/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=curse-of-the-incumbent</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/curse-of-the-incumbent/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Sep 2011 04:08:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=105701</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Conventional wisdom on democratic elections has been turned on its head. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/092-0617192659-throw_bums_out2.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-105704" title="092-0617192659-throw_bums_out2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/092-0617192659-throw_bums_out2.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>Since the end of World War II, in both the United States and Western Europe, the best way to win a national election has been to be the incumbent political party. But that 3-generation-old predisposition of publics in Western democracies may be coming to an end.</p>
<p>We may well be entering a political epoch in which the best way to win a national election in the West is not to be the party in power.</p>
<p>For the last 65 years, the world economic order has been vastly favorable to the middle-class citizens and voters in the West with their incomes going steadily up or at least flattening at a predictable and comfortable material level. Moreover, the middle-class fears of economic hardship were virtually eliminated by the existence of the welfare safety net.</p>
<p>Thus, while incumbent governments eventually get defeated due to scandals or simply having worn out their welcome, general public satisfaction with their economic condition has benefited existing governments that as matter of course are seen to be delivering such prosperity.</p>
<p>As a result, in the U.S. — with the exception of Jimmy Carter who won in a fluke, because of the Watergate scandal — neither the Democratic nor Republican parties have held the White House for less than eight years in a row since World War II (A fact since Grover Cleveland left the presidency in 1896.) Similarly in Britain, the Conservative and the Labor Parties have traded periods of rule of 13, 15, 18 and 13 years&#8217; duration (again, with one short exception) since World War II. Germany, likewise, has traded long durations between their Christian Democratic and Social Democratic parties of 22, eight and 16 years. Chancellor Angela Merkel is currently in her seventh year. France also gave its Gaullist Party 23 straight years of rule followed by giving the Socialist Party 14 continuous years of rule.</p>
<p>It is this long tradition to which no living memory can recall an alternative that has guided the assumption that incumbent presidents and premiers are favored in re-election.</p>
<p>Also, whether consciously or not, it is this expectation of re-election (in the absence of scandal or other shocking development) that has tended to induce Western governments to kick the policy cans down the road rather than risk unlikely defeat by bold shifts of policy.</p>
<p>But if my theory is right, the electoral ground is shifting under the feet of elected leaders in the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Holland and most of the rest of the democratic world.</p>
<p>In virtually all the democratic countries, the current elected leaders are at 40 percent or below in job approval. Sixty-eight percent of French voters want to replace Nicolas Sarkozy. The Italian government coalition under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi suffered a crushing defeat in local elections a few months ago. British Prime Minster David Cameron has climbed back up to a mere 40 percent approval level after having increased his popularity by cutting short his vacation to come back and talk tough about London rioters.</p>
<p>This anti-incumbent bias against Western democratic governments will grow and persist until the correlation of world economic forces are seen to once again be favorable, or at least satisfactory, to the Western middle class.</p>
<p>This is a mighty challenge.</p>
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		<title>Beware of &#8220;Broken Government&#8221; Propaganda</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/beware-of-broken-government-propaganda/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=beware-of-broken-government-propaganda</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Aug 2011 04:04:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=102234</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The authoritarian temptation has always been irresistible to the Left.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/system_broken.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-102236" title="system_broken" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/system_broken.gif" alt="" width="375" height="252" /></a></p>
<p>In the weeks during and since the debt-ceiling debate, the media, pushed by the Democratic Party, has peddled the propaganda that our government is broken — because the Republicans in the House of Representatives negotiated a better deal than the liberals wanted.</p>
<p>While it was President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner who, during the debate, said they couldn&#8217;t assure payments of Social Security or interest on the federal debt payments (while Republican leaders guaranteed there would be no lapse in such payments) it was the GOP that the media accused of irresponsible threats.</p>
<p>It is par for the course for the losing side in a congressional fight to bewail the end of democracy in America. But it is rare for the major media to push and the broader public to bite on, such a line.</p>
<p>Yet the surprisingly gullible Wall Street and European opinion leaders bought in to that propaganda. Indeed, Standard and Poor&#8217;s downgraded U.S. Treasuries expressly on the preposterous proposition that the American governmental process was broken and unreliable. After all, a deficit bill passed without tax increases in it — the process must be broken. From their point of view, any system that doesn&#8217;t raise taxes is broken. (For explanations of why our governance is not broken, see Washington Post opinion writer Charles Krauthammer&#8217;s column last week, &#8220;The System Works&#8221; and my article &#8221; Is Our Government Really Broken?&#8221; from February 24, 2010.)</p>
<p>The immediate price of this &#8220;broken government&#8221; propaganda is several trillion dollars in lost equity value last week on the stock exchanges of the world. But, the enduring danger — if not intent — of such propaganda is its potential to undermine public confidence in representative government.</p>
<p>Make no mistake: If our form of government is &#8220;broken,&#8221; democracy&#8217;s challengers would &#8220;fix&#8221; it by castration. In our case, these critics would castrate the &#8220;representative&#8221; bit. We have seen this argument before in our history. Put forward by authoritarians and their supporters, it disdains the messy and disorderly process whereby free people thrash out the nation&#8217;s decisions.</p>
<p>The current recrudescence of this authoritarian temptation did not start with the debt-ceiling fight. Its been building for a couple of years. It comes — as it always does — at a moment when the nation faces serious economic or security dangers. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in September of 2009 gave early voice to the current authoritarian temptation: &#8220;One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.&#8221;</p>
<p>Abraham Lincoln could have been thinking of Thomas Friedman when he worried out loud in the Gettysburg Address whether any nation &#8220;conceived in liberty&#8230;could long endure.&#8221; Lincoln then called the nation to the &#8220;unfinished work&#8221; of maintaining a nation &#8220;of the people, by the people and for the people.&#8221; That work goes on today.</p>
<p>Friedman&#8217;s concern arose out of our current economic problems.</p>
<p>Not coincidentally, the last time we saw this urge, amongst &#8220;respectable&#8221; people, to seek an authoritarian alternative to the regular congressional process was during the Great Depression.</p>
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		<title>The End Is Not Nigh</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/the-end-is-not-nigh/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-end-is-not-nigh</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Aug 2011 04:04:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=101395</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Rekindling American optimism is vital for conquering tomorrow.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/optimism_m.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-101397" title="optimism_m" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/optimism_m.gif" alt="" width="306" height="207" /></a></p>
<p>Except according to the Lord&#8217;s plans — which are not known to man — the &#8220;end of the world&#8221; is not nigh, although to listen to politicians and pundits, we should be packed and ready to go by next Thursday.</p>
<p>Recently, the headlines have read like Woody Allen&#8217;s 1979 &#8220;My Speech to the Graduates&#8221;: &#8220;More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. I speak, by the way, not with any sense of futility, but with a panicky conviction.&#8221;</p>
<p>Woody Allen, please note, was writing as a comedian.</p>
<p>Of course, surely, with stock markets plunging, cruelly high unemployment and uncertain government (not just in the United States, but around the world) this is not a funny moment.</p>
<p>But then, throughout history few generations have been spared unfunny moments, civilization-threatening dangers and appalling tragedies.</p>
<p>After World War II, America had to face and manage the planet-destroying potential of the atomic bomb — the handling of which grayed and thinned the hair, raised the blood pressure and haunted the nights of every American president (and Soviet leaders, too).</p>
<p>The rising Japanese economy, double-digit inflation and high unemployment led 1970s Americans to fear the end of American prosperity and dominance. The Dow Jones had hit 1,000 in November of 1972, then slid to almost half — 577 — and did not return to 1,000 until 1982, a full decade later. For various reasons, (Nixon and Watergate, of course) but also including that decade-long, middle-class flatlining of economic hope implied by the Dow Jones average — all three 1970s presidencies (Nixon, Ford and Carter) ended in failure.</p>
<p>The generation before faced the Depression and World War II, the Europeans faced civilizational despair at the near- massacre of a whole generation of their young men in the trenches of World War I.</p>
<p>It is the plight of man constantly to face appalling dangers. It is not necessarily our plight to face such challenges with despair, foolishness and fatalism.</p>
<p>The 1980s and 1990s were decades of prosperity for America. Not coincidentally we were led during those years by presidents (Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton) who were optimistic — and knew how to share that optimism, convincingly, with the public.</p>
<p>During both those decades, with some heavy Newt Gingrich-led GOP policy wrestling with Clinton in 1993-1997, America benefited from sensible, traditional, more or less free-market policies coming out of Washington.</p>
<p>But recently, America has not been blessed with a reliable free market, fiscally sound policy, nor with much sincere, convincing optimism from our most senior Washington leaders — conspicuously including our president, who seems in recent weeks to have been captured by a sense of exhaustion, futility and helplessness.</p>
<p>He has cited the Japanese earthquake, the &#8220;Arab Spring,&#8221; oil prices and instability in Europe as forces beyond our government&#8217;s control that are causing our economic troubles.</p>
<p>I would suggest that the Republican candidate for president might want to respond to that with, &#8220;Respectfully, Mr. President, if you don&#8217;t know what to do with the presidency to save our economy, perhaps the office should be turned over to someone who does.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Out of Deficits, More Democracy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/out-of-deficits-more-democracy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=out-of-deficits-more-democracy</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:02:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=95334</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the failures of the European Union may bolster the conservative movement at home and abroad. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/eu_flag.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-95348" title="eu_flag" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/eu_flag.gif" alt="" width="375" height="262" /></a></p>
<p>While Western media continue to rhapsodize about the &#8220;Arab Spring democratic revolutions&#8221; in the Middle East, it may be that the real democratic revolution is beginning to occur in the European Union and the United States. And if the timing is right, the crisis in the European Union may play a decisive part in tipping the American electorate against President Obama and the Democrats in our 2012 elections.</p>
<p>Both by their votes and their demonstrations, the semi-enfranchised citizens of nations under the rule of the European Union are beginning to fight back against both the social welfare/debt and immigration/border policies that have been imposed on them.</p>
<p>The governing elite&#8217;s social welfare/debt policies are hollowing out the prosperity of hardworking Europeans, while exposing beneficiaries of the social largesse to the imminent withdrawal of payments and subsidies to which these many millions of people have become habituated.</p>
<p>At the same time, the elite&#8217;s immigration and multicultural policies are seen to be undercutting the ancient indigenous cultures of Europe. Punctuating the slowly developing anger of indigenous Europeans to their government&#8217;s multicultural policies is the shock of seeing hundreds of thousands of poor refugees from the &#8220;Arab Spring democratic revolutions&#8221; flooding Europe in a matter of weeks — forcing the hapless European governments to reverse on a dime their long-standing open-borders policy and try to re-establish border and passport control.</p>
<p>Thus, governments from Spain to France to Ireland to Italy to Germany are under fiercely increasing public pressure to abandon the rule and diktat of the European Union and once again try to protect the national interest — not the &#8220;European&#8221; interest.</p>
<p>Note that the voters are aroused in both the nations whose debt can no longer be locally paid and in those nations who are being asked to pay the debts of foreign countries. That is to say that the European social welfare/ deficit/debt problem has outraged both the debtors and the creditors. It takes a singularly disconnected and arrogant elite to create a set of policies that satisfies neither creditor nor debtor.</p>
<p>Both Euro economic and cultural/immigrant policies have been the cause of weakened European governments (from Finland to Germany to Spain and beyond) in the elections of 2009 and the more-recent elections. Caught in the pincers of these two issues that are emerging (in the eyes of many middle-class European voters) as existential to their culture, we should expect to see some existing governments fall by vote — or just conceivably by other means.</p>
<p>We are observing a rare process: Stark economic and cultural reality is neutering conventional political methods.</p>
<p>Established European political parties and politicians may be become extinct quite suddenly.</p>
<p>So far, the primary political beneficiaries of this crisis are third, fourth and fifth parties — some of them considered disreputable by the tottering elites:</p>
<p>In the Netherlands, the heroic Geert Wilders&#8217; Freedom Party; in Hungary, the center-right Fidesz Party and the anti-immigrant, hard-right Jobbik Party; in Austria, the right-wing Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZO); in Denmark, the hard-right Danish People&#8217;s Party; in Italy, the anti-immigrant Northern League; in Finland, the anti-illegal immigrant, Euro-skeptic True Finns Party; in Britain, the racist British National Party and the libertarian, anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party; in France, Jean-Marie (and now his daughter Marine) Le Pens&#8217; patriotic National Front. There are others in almost every European country.</p>
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		<title>Tricks of the Political Journalism Trade</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/tricks-of-the-political-journalism-trade/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=tricks-of-the-political-journalism-trade</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 May 2011 04:05:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[political journalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[president]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[raid]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=93094</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How to make talking points take the form of breaking news.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/newspaper_01.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-93099" title="newspaper_01" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/newspaper_01.gif" alt="" width="375" height="295" /></a></p>
<p>There is a particular media conceit that, in the garb of purported impeccable disclosure, is in fact a license for news sources to market talking points.</p>
<p>A hilarious example of the breed can be found in an article by Anne E. Kornblut in the Sunday Washington Post. The article is about the White House&#8217;s intended use of the bin Laden event and is titled &#8220;Bin Laden raid fits into Obama&#8217;s &#8216;big things&#8217; message.&#8221;</p>
<p>The phrase in question is the italicized words in the following quote: &#8220;A senior administration official, <em>who spoke on the conditions of anonymity to speak freely about internal thinking </em>, said the White House is not developing a strategy to leverage the raid in other difficult arenas, such as the budget or debt-ceiling negotiations with the Republicans. And the official insisted it would not change the overall message or approach of the 2012 campaign, which has long been described as a campaign focused on the economy.</p>
<p>&#8220;Still, it will almost certainly help a president elected on &#8216;hope&#8217; and &#8216;change&#8217; to shift his next campaign in a new direction.&#8221;</p>
<p>Of course, the entire point of the article was precisely the opposite of what the unnamed official said: that the White House staff, in fact, is itching to take political advantage of the bin Laden killing.</p>
<p>Indeed, the constant quotes of clumsy denials of political calculations by senior White House officials is the artful leitmotif of the entire article.</p>
<p>Admittedly, the senior official was merely following an old, regularly used Washington tactic: going on background not necessarily to speak the truth, but to spin the office talking point — and make it sound like it is an inside revelation, rather than just a standard piece of propaganda for mass consumption.</p>
<p>While the Post, The New York Times and other such media regularly use the italicized phrase, in this instance, the entire article is a substantive refutation of the phrase. As a result, the phrase is actually misreporting facts observed by the reporter.</p>
<p>(Let me emphasize, this is not the reporter&#8217;s fault. It is the news outlet&#8217;s policy and is enforced by their editors. The reporter has no say in such matters.)</p>
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		<title>The Middle East Drifts Away</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/the-middle-east-drifts-away/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-middle-east-drifts-away</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2011 04:28:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[hamas and fatah]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92415</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[But the US government and media don't seem to care. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/hosni-mubarak-2010-1-3-10-41-42.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92416" title="hosni-mubarak-2010-1-3-10-41-42" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/hosni-mubarak-2010-1-3-10-41-42.gif" alt="" width="375" height="263" /></a></p>
<p>If you threw a dart at the map of the Middle East and North Africa, you almost couldn&#8217;t miss hitting a spot where an historic event was unfolding.</p>
<p>In the headlines of just last Saturday and Sunday (normally slow news days), one could read of Syrian tanks slaughtering the rebellious civilians of Daraa; NATO bombs killing Gadhafi&#8217;s son and grandchildren (with the U.N. pulling out its staff from Tripoli as a result); 80 percent of Jordan&#8217;s gas supply taken off line by sabotage; the Taliban starting its spring military offensive in Afghanistan and President Saleh of Yemen refusing to sign a transition deal involving his removal from power, threatening to derail efforts by the Gulf states to control months of unrest in that key U.S. ally. The Washington Post headlined the question &#8220;Will Pakistan erupt like Egypt?&#8221;</p>
<p>Or perhaps you saw the headline that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal arrived in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on the unity deal between Hamas and Fatah, where Hamas officials reiterated Hamas&#8217; refusal to recognize Israel&#8217;s right to exist. Or perhaps you didn&#8217;t.</p>
<p>With so much going on simultaneously, neither the world&#8217;s statesmen nor the leading editors of worldwide journalism can agree on what to focus the world&#8217;s limited attention. This provides a golden opportunity to the world&#8217;s nefarious leaders for the foreign policy equivalent of getting away with murder in broad daylight — unnoticed.</p>
<p>And it brings to mind the observation in 1864 of Europe&#8217;s most brilliant diplomat, then-Prussian Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck, that the practice of diplomacy &#8220;teaches that one can be as shrewd as the shrewdest in the world and still at any moment go like a child into the dark.&#8221;</p>
<p>Last week&#8217;s news that the Egyptian government has brokered an agreement between the main Palestinian factions — Gaza-based terrorist Hamas and Fatah&#8217;s West Bank-based Palestinian Authority regime — should be shedding more light in the United States than it so far has on the darkness that is current Middle East events.</p>
<p>The U.S. identifies Hamas as a terrorist organization, thus by including Hamas in the PA regime, almost a billion dollars in yearly U.S.-led aid will presumably have to be cut off (and should be).</p>
<p>Already, Israel has cut off its prorated $80 million annual contribution.</p>
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		<title>Governing While Drunk on Partisanship</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:04:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[american prosperity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catastrophe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deficit]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90938</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The central indictment for the catastrophe that ended American prosperity and world dominance.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/obama-budget.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90941" title="Barack Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/obama-budget.jpg" alt="" width="512" height="332" /></a></p>
<p>If future historians look back on the ruins of the American economy  after a U.S. bond crisis struck in the second decade of the 21st  century, many causes will be noted. Obviously, it will be seen that for  decades before the catastrophe, the U.S. was spending vastly more than  it could afford on government health and <a id="itxthook0" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/governing-while-drunk-on-partisanship.html#">retirement programs</a>.</p>
<p>And, just as after the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11,  2011, blue-ribbon commissions will be incredulous that all the telltale  signs of the coming disaster were in plain view, yet were ignored.</p>
<p>But the central indictment for the catastrophe that ended American  prosperity and world dominance will be justly laid at the feet of those <a id="itxthook1" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/governing-while-drunk-on-partisanship.html#">Washington</a> politicians who continued to play for short-term partisan advantage,  even as the economic earth was beginning to move under their feet.</p>
<p>Of course, it may be claimed in partial mitigation of their guilt  that the politicians, like the witch in Goethe&#8217;s &#8220;Faust,&#8221; had become  acclimated to the noxious brew: &#8220;Here I have a bottle. From which, at  times, I wet my throttle; which now, not in the slightest, stinks.&#8221;</p>
<p>But the cup of Washington partisan politics is raising a higher and  higher stink among the public. And if the crisis comes while some  Washington politicians continue to get drunk on their business as usual  brew — the public is likely to choke on the defense of &#8220;governing while  drunk on partisanship.&#8221;</p>
<p>Former Clinton Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin warned in  January that most dangerously, there is a risk of disruption to our bond  and currency markets as a result of much higher interest rates due to  fiscal imbalances, fear of inflation and efforts to monetize our debt  (print money). Significant deficit premiums on bond market interest  rates would follow and seriously impede private <a id="itxthook2" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/governing-while-drunk-on-partisanship.html#">investment</a> and growth, causing an economic crisis.</p>
<p>To look more deeply just at the impending interest burden on the  federal budget, consider the assessment of economic analyst Craig  Steiner last week: &#8220;The problem is that the United States, with a $14  trillion national debt, cannot afford to pay a higher rate of interest.  President Obama&#8217;s budget proposal outlines <a id="itxthook3" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/governing-while-drunk-on-partisanship.html#">interest rates</a> of 3.2 percent this year, going up to 5.3 percent in 2021, and that  produces interest payments of $205 billion this year to $928 billion in  2021. The projected annual deficit is going from $841 billion in 2015 to  $1,116 billion in 2021. That means in 2021, 83 percent of the money we  borrow will be to pay interest on money we&#8217;ve already borrowed.</p>
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		<title>Making the World Safe for Targets of Lunatics</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tony-blankley/making-the-world-safe-for-targets-of-lunatics/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=making-the-world-safe-for-targets-of-lunatics</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:08:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=81708</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is the lesson of the Arizona horror that we must ban music, literature, and classic Greek philosophy?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Banned-Books.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-81710" title="Banned Books" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Banned-Books.gif" alt="" width="300" height="331" /></a></p>
<p>In the aftermath of the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Giffords and  others, it is predictable that some self-centered politicians and  political commentators quickly assumed the killer must have been  provoked by political comments.</p>
<p>Following on that conclusion, they naturally argue (notwithstanding  their exposure last week in the House to the reading of the  Constitution, including the First Amendment) that whatever political  words may have provoked him to his irrational violence should be  silenced.</p>
<p>But as news organizations have begun to flesh out the interests and  activities of the alleged psychotic killer, I am struck by several  non-political factors that may have both shaped his mind and provoked  his action.</p>
<p>(When dealing with the irrational mind, we must recognize it may be  influenced by anything from a fig to a figment of its imagination: All  must be grist for the suppression mill.)</p>
<p>Three reported non-political factors particularly are worthy of  consideration for governmental suppression (I would modestly propose):  1) music, 2) literature, and 3) classic Greek philosophy. In later  columns, I may discuss those second and third non-political influences  on the alleged psychotic killer. (Note the alleged psychotic killer&#8217;s  admiration for, amongst others: (literature) Ernest Hemingway&#8217;s &#8220;Old Man  and the Sea,&#8221; Lewis Carroll&#8217;s &#8220;Alice in Wonderland,&#8221; Jonathan Swift&#8217;s  &#8220;Gulliver&#8217;s Travels&#8221;; (classic Greek philosophy) Plato&#8217;s Republic,  Homer&#8217;s Odyssey and Aesop&#8217;s Fables — Today Aesop; Tomorrow the world!</p>
<p>In this column, however, I want to limit discussion to the first  factor: the unambiguous role music played in provoking the alleged  psychotic killer to violence.</p>
<p>According to the Associated Press: &#8220;A former Mountain View High  School classmate, Gabriella Carillo, 22 &#8230; remembered Loughner as a  tall, thin, intelligent teenager who was good at basketball, liked to  read and worked hard in his high school band classes but didn&#8217;t seem to  apply himself in other courses.</p>
<p>&#8220;I know that he caused a lot of trouble in his classes other than  band,&#8221; she said. Carillo, who played in the high school orchestra, said  Loughner had few friends, and <em> most of them were in band</em>.&#8221; (Emphasis  added to last six words.) According to the alleged killer&#8217;s close  friend Bryce Tierney: &#8220;He was raised on writing and reading music.&#8221;</p>
<p>Apparently, in high school, only his exposure to music and musicians  kept his absorbed attention — a key indicator of the real culprit  (music!) in provoking him to violence. Note also that his recent social  media postings were filled with both music and musical references. Keep  in mind that music is intentionally composed and performed to elicit  strong emotions in the audience.</p>
<p>Musicologist Julius Portnoy has found that &#8220;music can change  metabolic rates, increase or decrease blood pressure, effect energy  levels, and digestion, positively or negatively, depending on the type  of music.</p>
<p>Both hemispheres of the brain are involved in processing music. The  music in these studies is not the &#8216;lyrics&#8217;, but the music itself, the  melody, the tones, the tunes, the rhythm, the chords, etc.</p>
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		<title>Wiki Espionage</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/tony-blankley/wiki-espionage/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=wiki-espionage</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Aug 2010 04:08:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=67987</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If Julian Assange insists on playing spy games, then let him face what comes with the territory. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/aaaaaalead_assange-420x0.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-67998" title="aaaaaalead_assange-420x0" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/aaaaaalead_assange-420x0.gif" alt="" width="375" height="289" /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;Wiki&#8221; is a cute Hawaiian word for &#8220;quick&#8221; — borrowed by Ward Cunningham, creator of the first Internet wiki — from the name of a fast little interterminal shuttle at Honolulu International Airport.</p>
<p>But cute and innocent as the word may sound, when attached to damaging wartime leaks by WikiLeaks operator Julian Assange, its cuteness should not protect Mr. Assange from being prosecuted and possibly executed by the U.S. government for wartime espionage.</p>
<p>Title 18 U.S. Code, Section 794, Paragraph (b) reads:</p>
<blockquote><p>Whoever, in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy, collects, records, publishes, or communicates, or attempts to elicit any information with respect to the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval or military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification or defense of any place, or any other information relating to the public defense, which might be useful to the enemy, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.</p></blockquote>
<p>Our friends at The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel — who coordinated the publication of his leaks — might find the following Subsection (c) also to be a revealing read:</p>
<blockquote><p>If two or more persons conspire to violate this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.</p></blockquote>
<p>And, according to Friday&#8217;s New York Times, &#8220;Justice Department lawyers are exploring whether Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks could be charged with inducing, or conspiring in violations of the Espionage Act.&#8221;</p>
<p>Now, as regular readers of this column know, I have written a dozen columns, starting last August, opposing the Afghan war because I think our war-fighting strategy, resources and senior civilian leadership (outside the Pentagon) will fail in their objectives and thus needlessly sacrifice the lives of far too many American troops.</p>
<p>But however wise one may think one&#8217;s policy goals are, that is absolutely no justification (or even mitigation) for committing espionage to advance them.</p>
<p>And note, Mr. Assange — you ideological cold-blooded killer of Afghans working with our troops — unlike with the crime of treason, one does not need to be an American citizen to be convicted and executed for espionage against America.</p>
<p>How much damage did this heartless ideologue commit? I don&#8217;t know.</p>
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		<title>The Democrats’ Putsch Against the Constitution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/tony-blankley/the-democrats%e2%80%99-putsch-against-the-constitution/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-democrats%25e2%2580%2599-putsch-against-the-constitution</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:00:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=54977</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How far will Pelosi and Co. go to pass ObamaCare?]]></description>
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<p>The president and the Democratic congressional leadership are fighting furiously to pass, with no Republican votes, the ever-less-popular health bill. An Associated Press poll last week shows that four in five Americans don&#8217;t want the Democrats to pass a health care bill without bipartisan support, while almost all polls are showing support for the current bill to be at only 25 percent to 35 percent. And all polls show high negative intensity.</p>
<p>The resistance of our governing system to passing so unpopular a bill is so <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/constitutional-law-101.html#" target="_blank">powerful</a> that it has driven Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Chairwoman of the Rules Committee Louise Slaughter — at least for the moment — to actually publicly consider violating the constitutional process for enacting laws.</p>
<p>Under their announced scheme, instead of following the constitutional voting process — i.e., 1) The House first votes for the despised Senate bill, then 2) after that is signed into law by the president and 3) the Senate passes the popular amendments that the House wants, 4) the House votes for that second Senate bill of amendments, which, 5) the President then signs into law — under the proposed scheme, the Senate bill would be &#8220;deemed&#8221; to have passed the House and become law without a presidential signature. Then the Senate would pass the House-demanded amendments, and the House members would then cast only one vote — for the amendments they like, rather than the underlying Senate bill they hate. Thus (so Pelosi&#8217;s theory holds) politically protecting House members, who could say they never actually voted for the publicly despised Senate bill.</p>
<p>But, as has been pointed out in several venues in the last few days, Article 1 Section 7 of the U.S. <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/constitutional-law-101.html#" target="_blank">Constitution</a> requires that before a bill becomes law, (1) &#8220;Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it&#8221;; and, (2) &#8220;in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively.&#8221;</p>
<p>It is those two provisions of the Constitution that would be evaded: 1) the House vote, with the names and votes of the individual members publicly published, and 2) the president&#8217;s signature. That is James Madison&#8217;s precise 18th century version of transparency and accountability.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court has only recently emphasized that those procedures must be followed precisely.</p>
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<p>In Clinton v. New York City, 1998, (In which the court found the line-item veto as passed by Congress unconstitutional), Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion:</p>
<p>&#8220;The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 is a 500-page document that became &#8216;Public Law 105-33&#8242; after three procedural steps were taken:</p>
<p>(1) a bill containing its exact text was approved by a majority of the Members of <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/constitutional-law-101.html#" target="_blank">the House of Representatives</a>;</p>
<p>(2) the Senate approved precisely the same text; and (3) that text was signed into law by the President. The Constitution explicitly requires that each of those three steps be taken before a bill may &#8216;become a law.&#8217;&#8221; Article I, Section 7.</p>
<p>And:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;The procedures governing the enactment of statutes set forth in the text of Article I were the product of the great debates and compromises that produced the Constitution itself. Familiar historical materials provide abundant support for the conclusion that the <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/constitutional-law-101.html#" target="_blank">power</a> to enact statutes may only &#8216;be exercised in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure.&#8217; Chadha, 462 U.S., at 951.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Some have argued that the &#8220;Gephardt Rule&#8221; (House Rule XXVII) — in which a similar &#8220;self-executing rule&#8221; &#8220;deemed&#8221; the House to have voted on a new debt ceiling, is valid precedent. Wrong. That rule was for a joint resolution — not a bill. A joint resolution is a guide to the House. It is not a bill under the Constitution and has no force of law. Because a president has nothing to do with a resolution, a self-executing rule is valid for a resolution, but not for a bill.</p>
<p>It speaks to the sturdiness of the <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/tony-blankley/constitutional-law-101.html#" target="_blank">system</a> our founders installed that it is, as intended, so resistant to passing major legal and cultural changes against the overwhelming will of the public. So resistant that, in frustration, the Democratic speaker of the House has been driven to consider breaking her oath of office and violate the Constitution in order to get her way. Presumably, when she is better counseled, she will dismiss this wayward idea.</p>
<p>Should she follow through on her threat, however, the product would not be a law, but a nullity — an aborted, inert thing.</p>
<p>It would be, in essence, an attempted congressional putsch against the Constitution.</p>
<p>But still our governing system would not be broken as long as the president would do his constitutional duty — as assuredly he would — and neither sign nor veto it, but rather, publicly declare it a nullity, tear it up and burn it, as one would a piece of trash.</p>
<p>I refuse to conjecture on any alternative action by the president.</p>
<p>In other news, the White House spokesman last week engaged in an indecorous public exchange with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.</p>
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		<title>Debunking Anti-Anti-Islamist Myths</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/tony-blankley/debunking-anti-anti-islamist-myths-tony-blankley/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=debunking-anti-anti-islamist-myths-tony-blankley</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:00:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=46049</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The politically correct classes see no evil on radical Islam.]]></description>
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<p>Anti-anti-Islamic radicalism is growing amongst Western elites. In the aftermath of the Fort Hood Islamist terror attack on our troops by United States Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and the Christmas day airline Islamist terror attack attempt, it is becoming ever more obvious that there is a widening gap between public common sense and governing class idiocy when it comes to spotting Islamist danger in our midst — and doing something about it.</p>
<p>Against all evidence, it has become an <em>idee fixe</em> in the collective mind of European and American governments, academe, journalism and foreign policy establishments that radical Muslims in the West are the victims of Western bigotry and cultural hostility — rather than, primarily, the other way around. Dangerously, these attitudes continue to shape both the premises and procedures of government policies even after nine years of post-Sept. 11 evidence to the contrary. The slaughtered American troops at Fort Hood are just among the early few in what will surely become whole legions of the dead victims of political correctness — if the public does not soon succeed at overruling the Western governing elite&#8217;s unconscionable moral blindness to the malign danger in our midst.</p>
<p>This willful refusal to look Islamist/Western reality straight-on is epitomized by a series of recent articles that mostly sneer at even a discussion of the threat. As one of the constantly named authors of recent books (along with Mark Steyn, Oriana Fallaci, Bernard Lewis, Bruce Bawer, Bat Ye&#8217;or and Christopher Caldwell) that are alleged to be guilty of seeing evidence of an Islamist cultural (as well as terrorist) threat to the West, I thought it might be time to respond.</p>
<p>Among other articles that criticize me and the other named authors are: &#8220;A Eurabian Civil War&#8221; by British Independent columnist Johann Hari; &#8220;Why Fears of a Muslim Takeover Are All Wrong&#8221; in Newsweek by William Underhill; &#8220;Eurabian Follies&#8221; in Foreign Policy magazine by former French Foreign Ministry official Justin Vaisse; and &#8220;&#8216;Eurabia&#8217; Debunked&#8221; in Commentary Magazine online, by (the always polite and thoughtful — an exception to the rule) Max Boot.</p>
<p>My contribution to the oeuvre of radical Islamist alarmism was my 2005 book, &#8220;The West&#8217;s Last Chance,&#8221; which, by the way, predicted the terrorist attack in London, Muslim riots in Paris, worldwide violent Muslim reaction to blasphemous Western artistic representations and the emergence of growing acquiescence to Sharia law in the West.</p>
<p>It is hard to know whether the authors (and the majority elite opinion they represent) don&#8217;t get it, or don&#8217;t want to get it. For example, on the question of whether Europe could become increasingly culturally dominated by Islam as the 21st century unfolds, all the articles question the demographic projections (which, in my and some other books, are official United Nations data.).</p>
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<p>The authors make the triumphant case that it will be generations, if then, before Islam is a majority in Europe. (Which is also what I conclude in my book).</p>
<p>What they choose to ignore is the already obviously powerful impact of even very small numbers of determined people in a host country riddled with guilt and political correctness. The dead at Fort Hood are testament to radical Islam&#8217;s success already at inducing the U.S. Army to treat an obviously dangerous Muslim officer preferentially. His conduct — if by a Christian, Jew or atheist —surely would have been stopped well before the slaughters started.</p>
<p>More dangerous, is the (simplistic and obvious) self-satisfied assertion that we are unduly alarmed of a danger from radical Muslims in the West because it is a &#8220;myth (that there exists) a united Islam, a bloc capable of collective and potentially dangerous action. The truth is that there are no powerful Muslim political movements in Europe, either continent-wide or at the national level, and the divisions that separate Muslims wordwide, most obviously between Sunnis and Shiites, are apparent in Europe as well.&#8221; (Newsweek, July 11, 2009, William Underhill.)</p>
<p>Neither I, nor to the best of my knowledge any of the other criticized authors, have asserted that a caliphate, or anything like it, was likely to re-emerge. The already present danger — which will only expand if not checked — is a constant cultural intrusion that will change adversely the very nature of our way of life.</p>
<p>Radical Islam doesn&#8217;t have to win elections (or even win street riots) if they win by intimidation the policies and conduct they seek. For example, as I warned in my book (and came about in the Danish cartoon event a few years ago) the threat of radical Muslim violence succeeded in coercing all but two American newspapers and most European newspapers from exercising their free speech and press right to publish the Danish cartoon.</p>
<p>In fact, just a few weeks ago, the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, was attacked in his home by a Somali Muslim aroused by the alleged blasphemy. Shockingly, most European journalistic commentary argued that Western writers and artists should, for prudence sake, abstain from such expression.</p>
<p>But it is worse than imprudent for Americans (or Europeans) to give up freedoms and ways of life that have been defended for centuries by the martial sacrifice of our ancestors (and current warriors) — and by the intellectual courage of our writers and artists — just because our morally feeble, self-proclaimed &#8220;educated class&#8221; and elites have lost the will to defend our civilization.</p>
<p>As the American people arise to take back our government and our property this November, we should also seek out candidates who are not afraid to oppose such threats to our way of life.</p>
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		<title>Learning From Winston Churchill &#8211; by Tony Blankley</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:07:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45145</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The life of the great statesman instructs how to dissent with honor and boldness.]]></description>
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<p>Over the Christmas holiday, I read a couple of books that, at least for me, may provide some guidance in the upcoming tumultuous and probably consequential year. The first book was <em>Munich, 1938</em> by David Faber (grandson of former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan), by far the most authoritative book on that world-changing event.</p>
<p>Beyond the obvious policy point that appeasement is generally bad, the value of the book is in its dissection of how the experienced leadership class of the then-leading power — the British Empire — was able to think, talk and deceive itself to a catastrophically bad policy decision. The author reveals in minute example how domestic politics, leaks and counter leaks to major newspapers shaped — and misshaped — both vital foreign policy judgment and how the world construed and misconstrued British strategic thinking.</p>
<p>The author also reveals in fresh details the well-known story of how Winston Churchill, Duff Cooper and a handful of others — in and out of government — dissented from the policy.</p>
<p>The other half of the story of <em>Munich, 1938</em> was events in Germany, where, unlike in Britain, the problem was a war policy advocated by Hitler that was opposed by most of the institutional leadership (including many of the very top generals) and by the general public, which feared another war. (As Hitler paraded his armored columns through Berlin in preparation for entering Czechoslovakia, according to a witness, &#8220;(T)he people of Berlin ducked into subways, refused to look on, and the handful that did stood at the curb in utter silence. It was the most striking demonstration against the war I&#8217;ve ever seen.&#8221; Hitler watched it from a window and, in furious contempt of the German people, complained that &#8220;With such people I cannot wage war.&#8221; Of course he did, in part because of what the author points out was Hitler&#8217;s &#8220;exceptional insight into the tendency of men torn between conscience and self-interest to welcome what made it easier to opt for the latter.&#8221;)</p>
<p>The second book is a new short biography of Winston Churchill by the prolific English writer Paul Johnson. It has the advantage of being probably the last Churchill biography that will be written by an author who personally knew the great man — and is filled with personal tidbits that bring further color to the well-known story of Churchill&#8217;s life.</p>
<p>At a mere 166 pages, the book, among other things, encapsulates how to dissent on the great policies of war and peace by a politician who is both personally ambitious and honorable.</p>
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<p>It also brings to life how such a man fights on in the face of overwhelming public opposition and elite scorn. These are lessons we need to learn and practice here in America in 2010.</p>
<p>The author identifies five Churchillian attributes that guided his eventual success: 1) He aimed high, but never cadged or demeaned himself to gain office or objectives, 2) there was no substitute for hard work — even though he was brilliant, 3) Churchill &#8220;never allowed mistakes, disasters — personal or national — accidents, illnesses, unpopularity, and criticism to get him down. His powers of recuperation, both in physical illness and in psychological responses to abject failure, were astounding,&#8221; 4) Churchill wasted extraordinarily small amounts of energy on hatred, recrimination, malice, revenge grudges, rumor mongering or vendettas. Energy expended on hate was energy lost to productive activity, and 5) he always had something other than politics to give joy to his life.</p>
<p>My old boss Newt Gingrich used to say that he studied history as a practical guide for a working politician and political activist. And it is with that in mind that I offer the foregoing.</p>
<p>2010 is going to be a tough year. We are going to have huge struggles over terrorism, war, shockingly large new deficits and public debt policies, crushing tax proposals on energy, income, health care and many other human activities. We have every right to dissent, and to do so vigorously even on such matters as terrorism policy.</p>
<p>Contrary to White House and Democratic Party complaints in the last few days, there is nothing partisan or improper about sharply criticizing such administration policy. As a loyal conservative Republican, I nonetheless wrote an entire book in 2005 criticizing Bush&#8217;s anti-terrorism policy and operations. As did many other conservative Republicans dissent. At a much, much grander level, Winston Churchill in the 1930s powerfully dissented from a policy of appeasement that Britain&#8217;s leaders at the time were convinced were vital to secure the peace. Dissenting with honesty, ferocity and courage is one of Churchill&#8217;s lessons to us today.</p>
<p>And, whether fighting as an underdog in a political struggle or trying to keep things together as a breadwinner in this second hard economic winter, Churchill&#8217;s last words in his last speech in Parliament as prime minister in 1955 are sturdy guides to conduct: &#8220;Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Three Undemocratic Temptations &#8211; by Tony Blankley</title>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:01:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=42300</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Democrats trample on the constitutional process. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42302" title="constitution" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/constitution.jpg" alt="constitution" width="426" height="282" /></p>
<p>As the Democrats in Congress approach the end of a frustrating first year&#8217;s legislative effort, their leaders and the White House are being tempted by three possible shortcuts around the regular lawmaking process.</p>
<p>Though the Democrats have a majority of 20 seats in the Senate and 79 seats in the House, now, just a week before Christmas, the <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">speaker</a> of the House, the Senate majority leader and the White House have failed — so far — to pass into law their desired legislation in the matters of 1) health care provision and financing, 2) public debt and deficit reduction, and 3) carbon regulation and taxation.</p>
<p>Given the extraordinary effects such policy changes would have on the American economy and the American way of life, to enact such changes without benefit of informed majority votes in the House and Senate would be in violation of the constitutional process — certainly in spirit, perhaps in form.</p>
<p>The schemes, I suppose, are thought to be clever. On health care, because the Constitution requires revenue bills to originate in the House, the plan would take the shell of a minor House revenue bill, and then inserted in it would be the entire final health bill (called a Senate &#8220;manager&#8217;s amendment&#8221;), negotiated largely among Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and such other party leaders as are necessary to ensure that the bill would pass both houses.</p>
<p>Then, with only minutes&#8217; notice, they could pass it in the Senate and hours later in the House, and it would be on the president&#8217;s desk within a few more hours for his signature.</p>
<p>The provisions never would be seen or comprehended by most of even the Democratic Party members of the House and Senate. Certainly the public would have no chance to hear about the details, let alone a chance to <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">contact</a> their congressmen to express opinions.</p>
<p>(By contrast, the original Medicare bills were designated as H.R. 1 and S. 1 in January 1965. The House bill moved forward to markup in the Ways and Means Committee and then to passage on the floor of the House on April 8, by a vote of 313-115. The Senate approved its version July 9, 68-21. A <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">conference</a> committee worked for more than a week in mid-July to reconcile 513 differences between the two versions of the bill. President Lyndon Johnson then signed the Medicare bill into law, July 30, 1965.)</p>
<p>On the public debt and deficit crisis, the White House, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, Judd Gregg (the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee) and other leaders (but not Speaker Pelosi, yet) want Congress to create a bipartisan <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">commission</a> that would have authority to add new taxes and rewrite all the tax codes, all the entitlement laws and any other laws affecting revenues or expenses in order to reduce the deficit to no more than 3 percent of gross domestic product. In other words, the commission could transmogrify the entire body of U.S. law, and then — reporting back to Congress after the election — each house of Congress would have one unamendable up-or-down vote.</p>
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<p>What a shocking abrogation of representative government. This is not a matter of policy; it is a matter of constitutional process. Even our friends at the left-wing Daily Kos condemned this as &#8220;particularly galling&#8221; and favorably quoted the &#8220;strong opposition&#8221; statement of the progressive Campaign for America&#8217;s Future, as do I:</p>
<p>&#8220;Those supporting this circumvention of the normal process have stated openly the desire to avoid political accountability. Americans — seniors, women, working families, people with disabilities, young adults, children, people of color, veterans, communities of faith and others — expect their elected representatives to be responsible and accountable for shaping such significant, far-reaching legislation.&#8221;</p>
<p>Amen, my brothers and <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">sisters</a> of the left. The day that either of us loves our constitutional process less than we would love to see some particular policy enacted — that&#8217;s the day democracy dies in America.</p>
<p>Finally, as the White House does not expect to be able to pass a cap-and-trade bill in the Senate, it has announced that it intends — without benefit of legislation — to have the Environmental Protection Agency regulate (i.e., tax, restrict or prohibit) any source that emits as little as 250 tons of carbon dioxide a year (or, in some cases, 100 tons). At 250 tons a year, the kitchen in a restaurant, the heating system in an apartment or office building, or the running a family farm would trigger federal regulation; potentially, more than 1 million buildings, 200,000 manufacturing operations and 20,000 farms would fall under the arbitrary power of the state.</p>
<p>Of course, all these methods have been used before — commissions to decide base closings or Social Security changes, sharply interpreted expansion of regulatory authority over some small new category of creature or process, middle-of-the-night legislative passage of a pork-laden spending bill.</p>
<p>But the proposals before us now are of such a magnitude as to transform American life and work as we have known it. To have such momentous decisions made in the backroom by a half-dozen leaders (without the public&#8217;s having a chance to comment) and then to have it rubber-stamped by obedient backbench representatives and senators who have not even asserted their prerogative to read the bills they are told to vote for — if that were to happen, then our people&#8217;s Congress would become like the lackey-filled old Soviet Parliament.</p>
<p>To paraphrase Hannah Arendt: For the leaders to &#8220;speak in the form of commanding&#8221; and for the rank and file to &#8220;hear in the form of obeying&#8221; is not a transaction between free people.</p>
<p>Whatever the motives of their leaders, it is within the power — and it is the duty — of the rank-and-file members of Congress to insist on regular legislative order. Their careers — to say nothing of the republic — may require that insistence.</p>
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		<title>The Flight from Fiscal Responsibility – by Tony Blankley</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/tony-blankley/the-flight-from-fiscal-responsibility-%e2%80%93-by-tony-blankley/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-flight-from-fiscal-responsibility-%25e2%2580%2593-by-tony-blankley</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/tony-blankley/the-flight-from-fiscal-responsibility-%e2%80%93-by-tony-blankley/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:04:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=40857</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Paying the price for deficits, debts and the falling dollar.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-40860" title="makemoneyduringworldwideeconomiccollapsedepressionrecession-main_Full" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/makemoneyduringworldwideeconomiccollapsedepressionrecession-main_Full.jpg" alt="makemoneyduringworldwideeconomiccollapsedepressionrecession-main_Full" width="424" height="315" /></p>
<p>Regularly reading the <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">Financial</a> Times (Britain&#8217;s leading financial daily) can put an American in a fighting spirit. At least, it puts this American (transplanted former Englishman and naturalized American citizen that I am) in such a disposition.</p>
<p>I have in mind, this time, an article in Monday&#8217;s edition by Jeffrey Garten, titled &#8220;We must get ready for a weak-dollar world.&#8221; The article makes two broad assessments:</p>
<p>1) &#8220;The two most significant structural consequences of the recent financial debacle are the massive deficits and debts of the US and the shift of economic power from west to east. There is only one effective way for governments to address the combined impact of both: press for a sea change in currency relationships, especially a permanently and greatly weakened dollar.&#8221;</p>
<p>2) &#8220;The issue is no longer whether the dollar is in long-term decline but which of two options will be taken. Should Washington and other capitals calmly and deliberately manage the transition to a new era, or, by default, should they let the market do it, with the risk of massive financial disturbances. Today, governments have a choice. Soon they may not.&#8221;</p>
<p>What I don&#8217;t like about the article is that it is — from an American point of view — defeatist and that objectively, it may turn out to be true.</p>
<p>But before contesting the latter point — that such decline is inevitable — it is vital to understand that a weak dollar driven by permanently excessive public debt directly threatens not only our prosperity but also our sovereign ability to protect our liberty in this heartless world. There is no better evidence of such a possible American future than the event 53 years ago this month that put paid to British pretensions to greatness and independence — the Suez crisis of 1956.</p>
<p>Briefly in 1956, when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the British- and French-owned Suez Canal, Britain took understandable offense and <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">organized</a> its retaking. Allied with Israel and France, Britain arranged for Israel to invade Sinai, after which Britain and France militarily intervened with the intent to have the world agree to let them continue to manage the canal.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Britain, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower disapproved of the effort. (He was up for re-election, and the Soviets had just invaded Hungary. Ike didn&#8217;t like being surprised by America&#8217;s closest ally, Britain, and he didn&#8217;t want the Third World to see America as complicit with colonialism.) Also, unfortunately for Britain, though it still had the army, navy and obligations of a great power, it relied on America for financial help.</p>
<p>Britain could not maintain its currency, the pound sterling, at the pound&#8217;s needed reserve currency value of $2.80 without American help. Also, Britain needed petroleum, which was being cut off by the Suez crisis.</p>
<p>The &#8220;genial&#8221; Eisenhower (who had worked side by side with British Prime Minister Anthony Eden when Eden was top foreign policy aide to Winston Churchill during World War II) had had enough. He instructed his treasury secretary, George Humphrey, to sell off the pound, break the British currency and economy and refuse to sell Britain any American oil (which we then had in abundance) until Britain gave up its military action.</p>
<p>And so effectively ended the British empire, not at the hands of an enemy, but by the ungentle touch of its closest ally, <a style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; FONT-SIZE: 100%! important; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; COLOR: darkgreen! important; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: darkgreen 1px dotted; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent! important; TEXT-DECORATION: none! important" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">the United States<img style="display: inline! important; left: 1px; float: none; margin: 0px; width: 10px; position: relative; top: 1px; height: 10px; border-width: 0px; padding: 0px;" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif" alt="" /></a>, to whom its weak currency and debt-ridden economy was perennially dependent.</p>
<p>Eden had a nervous breakdown and retired from government. That December, his replacement, Harold Macmillan, commented to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles:</p>
<p>&#8220;The British action (at Suez) was the last gasp of a declining power. &#8230; Perhaps in 200 years, the United States (will) know how we felt.&#8221;</p>
<p>Well, here we are, 147 years shy of that predicted American comeuppance date of A.D. 2156. And now the stately British Financial Times is suggesting that the United States may be imminently vulnerable to a not-so-friendly China playing Ike&#8217;s role of spoiler of American sovereignty to our role as the dear old broke Britain of 1956.</p>
<p>That is why the United States should not accept the shrewd but not yet inevitable prognosis of the Financial Times. In the next few years — and starting immediately, while our gross domestic product is still bigger than the combined economies of China, Japan, Germany and Russia — we must start radically cutting our spending until our fiscal condition supports a strong dollar and low <a style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; FONT-SIZE: 100%! important; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px! important; COLOR: darkgreen! important; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: darkgreen 0.07em solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent! important; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">taxes</a>.</p>
<p>It is an open political question whether the majority of Americans love our country, our children and our grandchildren enough to take the painful sacrifice (vast reductions in entitlement benefits) it will take to guarantee our sovereign and prosperous future.</p>
<p>But we are being given that rare chance to glimpse into our near future and see what will befall our children after the past 40 years of spending excess compounded by this latest year of spending madness. What a fine theme for the 2010 election cycle.</p>
<p>But are we Americans still brave enough to remain free? My guess is that neither the two major political parties nor the majority of the public loves America enough to campaign and vote on the hard, bitter truth about our condition.</p>
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		<title>A Tale of Two Leaks – by Tony Blankley</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/tony-blankley/a-tale-of-two-leaks-%e2%80%93-by-tony-blankley/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-tale-of-two-leaks-%25e2%2580%2593-by-tony-blankley</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/tony-blankley/a-tale-of-two-leaks-%e2%80%93-by-tony-blankley/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=34974</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The latest intelligence outrage attracts a curious lack of curiosity.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-34984" title="hamid-karzai-barack-obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/hamid-karzai-barack-obama.jpg" alt="hamid-karzai-barack-obama" width="360" height="280" /></p>
<p>Not so long ago, there was a furious fight among different tribes in the White House, CIA and State and Defense departments over the correct war-fighting strategy. The coin of the realm back then was intelligence. Intelligence that pointed in the right policy direction was cherry-picked and shown to the public; covert players connected to undesirable conclusions were outed or disparaged. This fight for the hearts and minds of Washington opinion shapers was fought out on the battlefields of <em>The Washington Post</em> and <em>The New York Times</em> — and from them to the networks and news outlets across the country and around the world.</p>
<p>These descriptions may remind you of Valerie Plame — a CIA operations officer with relatively minor responsibilities who was outed by someone in the George W. Bush administration. As soon as the press corps came to believe that someone — perhaps close to the president — had leaked her name to Bob Novak, the hunt was on. The media screamed for investigations. The CIA called for a Justice Department investigation. The opposition Democrats called for a special prosecutor to probe the unconscionable breach. The prosecutor was appointed by Bush. A trial was held.</p>
<p>People were less concerned with what they substantively had learned about Iraq&#8217;s yellowcake uranium policy — that the past decision to go to war in Iraq may have been made against the advice and proffered ambiguous evidence of Plame&#8217;s husband — than with the identity of the government official who despicably and feloniously had &#8220;blown her cover.&#8221;</p>
<p>Well, last week, <em>The New York Times</em> again published on the front page the name of an alleged CIA-paid undercover asset. This time, it was none other than Ahmed Wali Karzai, the powerful brother of the Afghan president. The <em>Times </em>cited, on background, Obama administration &#8220;political officials,&#8221; &#8220;senior administration officials&#8221; and others as its sources to the effect that Karzai has been secretly on the CIA payroll for eight years and has been helping the United States with intelligence, logistic and base support for our special forces, and recruiting and running an Afghan paramilitary force on the instruction of the CIA — as well as being a major narcotics trafficker.</p>
<p>This may well be the most egregious compromise of an extraordinarily valuable and inflammatory secret CIA operative in our history. It was leaked not after the policy was carried out — as in the Plame case — but just weeks before the president will be making his fateful strategy and manpower decision for the Afghan war. It is also just days before the runoff election in Afghanistan, which may well be affected by the release of this shocking information.</p>
<p>The <em>Times</em>&#8216; reporters on this story are the estimable James Risen, Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti. They were doubtlessly the target of an intentional leak, but their top-rate professional reputations can assure us that they have been scrupulously accurate in describing their sources as Obama administration &#8220;political officials&#8221; and &#8220;senior administration officials,&#8221; among others.</p>
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<p>Those characterizations can mean nothing less than high sub-Cabinet or Cabinet officials and/or White House deputy assistants or assistants to the president. On a stretch, the political officials might be special assistants to the president.</p>
<p>In all such categories, their investigation and prosecution (it is a very serious felony for an official with the authority to possess such information to reveal it) would need to be carried out by a special prosecutor, as the attorney general would be judged to have a conflict of interest to prosecute someone appointed by the president and so close to him.</p>
<p>At such a moment, two questions promptly and almost invariably arise across the media, across Washington and across the country: Who did it and why? The search starts with the answer to this age-old question: <em>Cui bono </em>? (Who benefits?) No one knows yet. I certainly do not. But people are speculating. Was it done to shape presidential policy not yet made or to justify a policy already made but not yet announced?</p>
<p>Is it the group in the White House around the vice president that does not want to have our country ally with a corrupt Afghan government<img style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline ! important; left: 1px; float: none; width: 10px; position: relative; top: 1px; height: 10px;" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2.gif" alt="" width="10" height="10" /> (and thus wants to reduce, not increase, troop levels)?</p>
<p>Is it the political operatives in the White House who desperately do not want the president to get bogged down in &#8220;his&#8221; Vietnam and who are allied with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (who herself is in open war against the CIA, calling them criminal liars to Congress)?</p>
<p>Is it a senior diplomat with personal grievances?</p>
<p>Is it the group in the White House closely allied with the Defense Department, which — for deep institutional reasons that transcend policy, partisan politics and administrations — is often on the lookout to give the CIA a black eye?</p>
<p>Is it some political player at the White House acting in the interest of some other faction at the CIA, which many knowledgeable people believe has been supporting all sides in Afghanistan — Taliban, narco-traffickers, warlords, other mujahedeen, different wings of the Karzai government, Pakistan&#8217;s Inter-Services Intelligence, Iran, India and Russia?</p>
<p>The CIA should order its inspector general to investigate. There should be a Justice Department leak probe. A special prosecutor must be appointed. Sen. Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, should raise holy hell. And he knows how to do it.</p>
<p>Of course, you have not heard anyone asking these questions &#8230; yet, because in today&#8217;s Washington, there is a curious lack of curiosity regarding possible wrongdoing by the administration&#8217;s staff.</p>
<p>But you will hear these questions — and more. Because there are some powerful cliques in this town with powerful interests in seeing justice done in this &#8220;intelligence betrayal of the century.&#8221; Ticktock &#8230; ticktock. The squirming already has begun.</p>
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		<title>The World Won&#8217;t Wait On Obama &#8211; by Tony Blankley</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/tony-blankley/the-world-wont-wait-on-obama-by-tony-blankley/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-world-wont-wait-on-obama-by-tony-blankley</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:01:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=32055</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The U.S. President's dithering on foreign policy inflicts irreversible damage to our national security -- and the security of our allies. ]]></description>
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<p>On three fronts — South Korean trade, Ukrainian/Russian diplomacy and Afghan war fighting — the Obama administration is being increasingly pressured by unfolding events to shed ideology and rationalizations and come quickly to a realistic analysis of world events and their consequences. In each of these cases, in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, we shall incur long-term irreversible economic, geopolitical or national security harm. I will discuss the Afghan war decision in a future column.</p>
<p>In the case of South Korea, last week the European Union completed a bilateral trade deal (requiring approval by the European Parliament) with South Korea. While the 2006 U.S. deal with South Korea languishes unratified by both a Congress and White House controlled by the evidently protectionist wing of the Democratic Party, the Europeans cannot believe their luck. They basically copied our hard-negotiated tentative agreement, and if they soon ratify it, they will be able to take economic advantages over the United States.</p>
<p>European officials are &#8220;ecstatic&#8221; about the access they have gained. Catherine Ashton, the EU trade commissioner, told the Financial Times, &#8220;I think the package is the best we&#8217;ll ever get and I think it&#8217;s a fantastic package for Europe.&#8221; &#8220;There is no doubt the Korea-US agreement was used as a benchmark or even a model from the Korean side,&#8221; Christopher Dent, professor of East Asian political economy at the University of Leeds, told the Financial Times last week.</p>
<p>The pact would increase trade for South Korea-EU by about 20 percent — surging past current U.S.-South Korean trade levels if the U.S. fails to ratify our treaty first. Indecision by the U.S. government will in fact be a decision to lose up to $25 billion per annum of trade and jobs to the Europeans.</p>
<p>On the Ukrainian front, Russia is ratcheting up heavy pressure on the country to vote for the pro-Russia candidate in the January election, while ambiguous American policy and actions are undercutting pro-Western forces in Ukraine.</p>
<p>Last week, The Guardian — a prestigious leftist British newspaper — headlined an article thus: &#8220;Ukraine fears for its future as Moscow muscles in on Crimea. As Ukraine prepares for its first presidential election since the Orange Revolution, there are signs that its giant neighbour to the east will not tolerate a pro-western outcome.&#8221;</p>
<p>The crunch may come over Crimea, currently part of Ukraine but sought by Russia as in olden days.</p>
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<p>It was, of course, at Yalta, in Crimea, that the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union drew spheres of influence that deeply shaped the Cold War that followed.</p>
<p>Today, as The Guardian ruefully notes, &#8220;almost 65 years after the &#8216;big three&#8217; met in the Crimean seaside resort of Yalta — now in Ukraine — the question of zones of influence has come back to haunt Europe. Russia has made it clear that it sees Ukraine as crucial to its bold claim that it is entitled to a zone of influence in its post-Soviet backyard.&#8221;</p>
<p>This follows Russian President Dmitry Medvedev&#8217;s August letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, seen by diplomats as an &#8220;unprecedented diplomatic mugging &#8230; a seething letter,&#8221; which said not only that Yushchenko is a &#8220;nonperson&#8221; but also that Russia was reviewing Russia and Ukraine&#8217;s 1997 friendship treaty, a reference that The Guardian characterized as &#8220;a hint that Moscow may no longer respect Ukraine&#8217;s sovereign borders.&#8221;</p>
<p>These disturbing events are being seen explicitly by Europe and Ukraine in the context of President Barack Obama&#8217;s recent decision to reverse our policy to place anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Again, as even the leftist Guardian explains:</p>
<p>&#8220;&#8216;A lot of people in this part of the world are seriously s——ing themselves,&#8217; one analyst in Yalta admitted bluntly. &#8216;We don&#8217;t know what Obama&#8217;s deal (with Moscow) was. They think that Russia will take it as a green light,&#8217; he added. Washington insists it dropped the shield following a new assessment of Iran&#8217;s nuclear threat. But many in Ukraine believe the White House sacrificed its commitments to eastern Europe in order to &#8216;reset&#8217; relations with Moscow.&#8221;</p>
<p>President Obama&#8217;s refusal to meet with Yushchenko when they were both in New York for the recent United Nations conference is taken by some as further evidence that Washington is abandoning to Russian suzerainty the former Soviet-controlled states of eastern Europe.</p>
<p>The Europeans strongly oppose Moscow&#8217;s imperial assertions but seem unable to speak out, let alone act, without American leadership. In fact, Brussels has indicated that Ukraine has no hope of joining the EU in the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>This European passivity comes in the face of President Obama&#8217;s idealistic call at the U.N. last month that &#8220;those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world&#8217;s problems alone.&#8221;</p>
<p>It seems that Europe, in fact, will stand by. The world may say it disapproves of bold American leadership, but it fears — and is powerless in — its absence. Except, of course, to nibble at our economic ankles while we are inattentive.</p>
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