****Look Who's Dissing The Economy Now****

Eight years ago, when President-elect Bush warned about a coming recession, he was attacked for "talking down the economy." So where are the complaints about President-elect Obama's dire forecast?  At a press conference in December 2000, when Bush announced his pick for Treasury secretary, a reporter asked if he was "concerned" about "talking down our economy" to make "the possibility of tax relief more real."

The same charge was made by Democrats well into 2001. "I think what we're seeing is a talking down of the economy," then House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said that March. "I think that kind of economic leadership is irresponsible."  Big media also chimed in. "It is important for President Bush to quit talking down the economy in order to build congressional and public support for his tax cut," said the New York Times. "A high-risk bid to win support for his tax cuts" is how Time put it.

Gene Sperling, a key economic adviser to President Clinton, said "it is very possible that the president's continued drumbeat on talking down the economy has become a self-fulfilling prophecy."  Pretty damning, if true. Except that Bush and Vice President-elect Cheney were right: The economy was on the front edge of a recession in December 2000 -- it started in March 2001 and ended that November -- and his tax plan almost certainly helped make it one of the mildest downturns on record.

Fast forward to this week. In announcing his Treasury pick, Obama painted an exceedingly grim picture -- that of an economy "trapped in a vicious cycle," "likely to get worse before it gets better" and in danger of losing "millions of jobs" next year.  Not a peep, however, has been heard about Obama "talking down the economy" to serve his political interests.

The new president stands a better chance of enacting his agenda if the public believes the economy is on the edge of the abyss. And if things don't turn out as bad as he's saying, Obama can later claim credit for preventing a catastrophe.  But then, why should the media start complaining now? They've let Democrats get away with their trash talk for years...

Having the president, congressional leaders and the media continually talking about depressions, catastrophes, historic crises and vicious cycles is a good way of making sure it all comes true.

       ---Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
          November 25, 2008

****Russia's Challenge On The High Seas****

As Russian warships steam into Venezuelan waters, the show is dismissed by some as rust-bucket bravado. But for all its navy's flaws, Russia's maneuvers herald challenges to the U.S. -- and not just in Venezuela.  Russian warships from its Northern Fleet reached the Venezuelan port of La Guaira in a first 15,000-mile global journey in decades. Led by the missile cruiser Peter the Great, and conducting live-fire exercises, it's the first Russian demonstration of force in waters adjacent to our own shores in 20 years.

The White House downplayed it, and the State Department said they don't view the maneuver as aggressive. Officials even laughingly wondered earlier if the Russian rustbuckets would be accompanied by tugboats. But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack noted Tuesday that the U.S. will be watching closely. That's good, because there are signs Russia intends to become more than a rust-bucket navy on the water. It's not only beefing up its navy, it's got a very broad plan to challenge U.S. naval dominance and control critical sea lanes through alliances with Venezuela and others.

Fueled by the bounty from high oil prices, Russia's defense budget has increased fourfold in the last seven years. It's expected to go up 20% to $40 billion in 2008, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a private forecaster. It spends about 8% of its budget on the military, or about 2.7% of GDP, less than the 13% it spent in final Soviet days.  Although Russia has been hard hit by the financial crisis along with investment outflows in the aftermath of its Georgia invasion, it still can divert resources if not raise spending for the military.  What's more, there seems to be will to do this. Russian officials continuously state that they intend to raise their navy's global profile and restore lost glory. In May, Novosti reported that Russia will build up its naval presence across the world in 2008...

Falling oil revenues may well someday scupper Russia's ambitions, but haven't stopped it from making its presence felt now.  After visiting Venezuela, Russia's flotilla will move on to the Indian Ocean basin for maneuvers, reportedly near the U.S. naval support station on Diego Garcia island.  Rust bucket or not, Russia seems to want to prove something by beefing up its navy. It may mean Russia will continue to look for trouble until it actually finds it.

       ---Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
          November 25, 2008

****A Criminal Charity****

U.S. citizens have spoken with a resounding verdict of GUILTY and said they're not going to tolerate those who fund terror in this country under the cover of Muslim charity.  In one of the biggest wins yet in the battle against terror-financing, federal prosecutors convinced a Texas jury to convict the nation's largest Muslim charity and five of its former organizers of illegally funneling more than $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.  Jurors read guilty verdicts on all 108 felony charges in the conspiracy -- a clean sweep for the Justice Department, which streamlined its case against the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation after a mistrial last year. It also got a new judge, who allowed previously banned evidence.

Donations are the lifeblood of jihadist groups such as Hamas. With the help of willing co-conspirators, they conceal their activities and use the Muslim obligation of charitable giving to mask support for their murderous agenda.  But Americans won't be fooled. This verdict sends a clear message to Islamists still operating within the terror-support network in America that the courts will view their cash as the moral equivalent of a car bomb. And that this country will not be used as a cash cow for terrorists operating here or abroad...

Thanks to the Holy Land trial, we now know the true agenda of CAIR and other Islamist groups in the U.S.: the abolition of the U.S. system as we know it, and support for designated terror groups.

       ---Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
          November 25, 2008

****Behind The Bias: A Drive For 'Social Justice'****
       
That the news media were biased in the 2008 presidential election is now acknowledged by fair-minded people, left or right.  As Time Magazine's Mark Halperin said last weekend at a Politico/USC Conference on the 2008 election: "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business. . . . It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."

Given how obvious this bias is, the question is not whether liberals in the media tend to offer biased reporting. The question is why? Why can't liberal news people report the news without any slant?  The answer is that for people on the left, all -- I repeat, all -- professions are a means to an end, not ends in themselves. That end is the social transformation of society, meaning the promoting of "social justice" as the left understands that term.

For most liberal news reporters, therefore, the purpose of news reporting is not to report news as objectively as possible. The purpose of the media in general and of reporting specifically is to promote social justice and the social transformation of society.

For most liberal judges, the primary purpose of being a judge is to promote social justice and transform society. That is why liberal judges are so much more likely to be judicial activists than conservative judges.  Most liberal judges do not see their roles as merely adjudicating a dispute according to the law. They see their role primarily as using the law and their power to rule on the law to promote social justice.

For most university professors -- and many high school teachers, as well -- outside of the natural sciences and math, the same holds true. The task of a teacher is to teach, i.e., to convey the most important information as honestly as possible. But, again, this conflicts with the social justice goal of the left.

History teachers who merely teach history are of little use to the left. History -- and English and political science, and sociology and other liberal arts -- teachers must use their classroom to produce young people who will wish to engage in society-transforming work for social justice.

For most liberals in the arts (there are very few conservatives in the arts) there is no denial of their having an agenda...

       ---Dennis Prager, Investor's Business Daily
          November 25, 2008

****Time To Follow Reagan's Example****

Conservatives face a major political challenge, but they can tackle and overcome it as they have done three times before. Three prior examples demonstrate the right way and the wrong ways to put America back on track and bounce back from a disappointing election.  In 1964, Lyndon Johnson won in a landslide over Barry Goldwater; in 1976, Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in a close election; and in 1992, Bill Clinton crushed the first George Bush. Those defeats and subsequent Republican recoveries contain lessons to be learned.  After 1964, conservatives were persuaded to support the moderate candidate who had cozied up to the Rockefeller establishment, Richard Nixon, instead of Ronald Reagan, who was also available. In preferring Nixon and electing him in 1968, conservatives mistakenly overemphasized experience.

The 2008 election showed that popular culture and voter mobilization are far more powerful than public appreciation for experience. Of course, the liberal media covered for Barack Obama's shortcomings in a way they never do for conservatives, but a strong grass-roots campaign can more than compensate for lack of a track record and experience.

After Republicans lost in 1976, Ronald Reagan spent four years working the grass roots, speaking at dinners, answering audience questions, traveling the country by car and train (he refused to fly), making radio broadcasts and learning from average Americans. By 1980, Reagan had sharpened his conservative philosophy in sync with what Americans want from their leaders.  In the period from 1976 to 1980, grass-roots conservatives and Ronald Reagan learned from each other. That's the model conservatives should follow now and educate new leaders...

In 1996, Bob Dole failed to learn from Reagan's example. Dole remained for years in the Senate in both mind and body, and was unable or unwilling to run a grass-roots campaign against Clinton.   Clinton failed to get 50 percent of the vote in 1996 and could have been defeated by a fresh, Reagan-like approach rather than a rehash. John McCain repeated Dole's mistake, trying to run for president from inside rather than outside the Beltway.

Increasingly, voters believe we have one-party government: the party of the D.C. insiders who socialize together, appear in the media, and give handouts and bailouts to their powerful friends and favored constituencies. Conservatives can defeat that party by campaigning from the ground up, not the top down.

Obama began running for re-election in his acceptance speech in Grant Park in Chicago when he told his supporters that his "change" could take more than one term. Republicans should follow Ronald Reagan's example and focus on the grass roots with a campaign that will be a learning process for both the voters and potential candidates.

       ---Phyllis Schlafly, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
          November 25, 2008

****Mission Accomplished II****

Nineteen months after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the war in Iraq "lost" and just nine months after Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserted the war has been a "failure" because it had not brought political change leading to reconciliation, it can now be said conclusively that both were wrong.  One of the great military reversals in history is close to achieving victory. That is contributing to stability in Iraq, along with reconciliation between warring factions.  These conclusions are contained in a report compiled by retired General Barry R. McCaffrey after a recent visit to Iraq during which he consulted with Iraqi and American military leaders and diplomats.

McCaffrey, now an adjunct professor of International Affairs at the United States Military Academy at West Point, wrote a memorandum for his academic colleagues. It concludes, "The United States is now clearly in the end game in Iraq to successfully achieve what should be our principle objectives: the withdrawal of the majority of U.S. ground combat forces ... in the coming 36 months; leaving behind an operative civil state and effective Iraqi security forces; an Iraqi state which is not in open civil war among the Shia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds; and an Iraqi nation which is not at war with its six neighboring states."

While adding that the security situation is "still subject to sudden outrage at any moment by al-Qaida in Iraq" or to "degradation because of provocative behavior by the Maliki government," McCaffrey concludes that "the bottom line is a dramatic and growing momentum for economic and security stability, which is unlikely to be reversible."...

Long after any Republican can derive political credit, historians will be forced to acknowledge that freedom won and state terrorism lost in Iraq.

       ---Cal Thomas, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
          November 25, 2008

****Amnesty For Illegals Doesn't Win Hispanic Votes****

One of the lessons from this election is the destruction of the myth that Republicans who support amnesty for illegal aliens would do well among Hispanic voters.  No presidential candidate worked harder on illegal immigration amnesty than John McCain. In 2005, he sponsored an amnesty bill that became known as the McCain-Kennedy bill (co-sponsored by Sen. Kennedy). When that bill failed, he tried again the following year, with a variant of the McCain-Kennedy bill. That bill also failed. Unfazed, he tried yet again in 2007. If any one of those bills had passed, at least 10 million illegal aliens would have received amnesty.

In contrast, Sen. Barack Obama, though a supporter of amnesty, never authored a single major immigration bill. Yet, on Election Day, McCain, the Republican who had persevered on amnesty, was overwhelmingly rejected by Hispanic voters.

According to exit polls, 67 percent of Hispanic voters rejected McCain. Only 31 percent voted for him (the remaining 2 percent voted for a third candidate). The fact that more than two-thirds of Hispanic voters turned their backs on the Republican who had tried so hard to legalize millions of their fellow Hispanics disproves comprehensively the idea that Hispanic votes could be purchased at the price of amnesty.

Delving into the exit-poll statistics reveals how pervasive the Hispanic rejection of McCain was. Start with Hispanics aged 65 and over. This demographic is significant because not only are they in Sen. McCain's age group, but also many of them undoubtedly saw that his immigration bills would help today's Hispanic newcomers overcome the struggles that they first experienced years ago when they arrived here. 68 percent of them voted for Sen. Obama.

As a naturalized American who vehemently opposes amnesty for illegal aliens, I am also a conservative, and I am amazed by the sheer naivete of some Republicans who think Republican-sponsored amnesties are the way to endear Hispanics to the Republican party. These Republicans tend to dismiss their critics as arguing from anecdotal evidence.

But the evidence is hardly anecdotal -- and hardly confined to this election. The largest amnesty in history was the 1986 amnesty, which legalized 3 million illegal aliens, most of whom were Hispanic. The first presidential election in which they were eligible to vote was in 1996. The Republican candidate that year was Bob Dole -- the man who had been majority leader in the Senate in 1986 and helped pass the amnesty. The chief author of that amnesty was also a Republican, Sen. Alan Simpson. And that amnesty was signed into law by another Republican -- President Reagan. So, you would think there was resounding Hispanic support and gratitude for the Republican candidate in 1996. Wrong. Only 21 percent of Hispanics voted for the Republican.  Some Republicans make a big deal of President Bush's receiving 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004. But that also meant that 60 percent of Hispanics rejected him.

In fact, considering that Bush got only 34 percent of Hispanic votes in 2000, the 40 percent in 2004 came largely because he proposed a massive amnesty earlier that year and continued to pander to Hispanics. Nevertheless, even his massive pandering campaign was not enough to pull most Hispanic votes away from Democrats.

In this election, 74 percent of the voters were white, 13 percent were black, 9 percent Hispanic, 2 percent Asian, etc. To put it bluntly, given such a vast majority of white voters, you have to wonder why ethnic pandering would be needed at all for Republicans to win elections. What the Republicans need is a return to the conservative values that brought many victories in the past. Republicans could once again attract a resounding majority consisting of white voters and self-reliant nonwhites by loudly propounding economic and social policies that favor middle-class financial security and prosperity. But supporting liberal immigration policies is not the way. There is simply no evidence that liberal immigration policies ever made middle-class voters feel secure and prosperous.

       ---Ian de Silva, Human Events
          November 25, 2008

****"Jolting" The Economy****

Barack Obama says that we have to "jolt" the economy. That certainly makes sense, if you take the media's account of the economy seriously-- but should the media be taken seriously?  Amid all the political and media hysteria, national output has declined by less than one-half of one percent. In fact, it may not have declined even that much-- or at all-- when the statistics are revised later, as they very often are.  We are not talking about the Great Depression, when output dropped by one-third and unemployment soared to 25 percent.

What we are talking about is a golden political opportunity for politicians to use the current financial crisis to fundamentally change an economy that has been successful for more than two centuries, so that politicians can henceforth micro-manage all sorts of businesses and play Robin Hood, taking from those who are not likely to vote for them and transferring part of their earnings to those who will vote for them.  For that, the politicians need lots of hype, and that is being generously supplied by the media.

Whatever the merits of trying to shore up some financial institutions, in order to prevent a major disruption of the credit flows that keep the whole economy going, what has in fact been done has been to create a huge pot of money-- hundreds of billions of dollars-- that politicians can use to give out goodies hither and yon, to whomever they please for whatever reason they please.  No doubt we could all use a few billion dollars every now and then. But the question of who actually gets it will be strictly in the hands of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It is one of the few parts of the legacy of the Bush administration that the Democrats are not likely to criticize... 

In the light of history, this is a faith which passeth all understanding. Even in the case of the Great Depression of the 1930s, increasing numbers of economists and historians who have looked back at that era have concluded that, on net balance, government intervention prolonged the Great Depression.

Many of those who have, over the years, praised the fact that this was the first time that the federal government took responsibility for trying to get the country out of a depression do not ask what seems like the logical follow-up question: Did this depression therefore end faster than other depressions where the government stood by and did nothing?  The Great Depression of the 1930s was in fact the longest-lasting of all our depressions.  Government policy in the 1930s was another bipartisan disaster. Despite a myth that Herbert Hoover was a "do nothing" president, he was the first President of the United States to step in to try to put the economy back on track.  With the passing years, it has increasingly been recognized that what FDR did was largely a further extension of what Hoover had done. Where Hoover made things worse, FDR made them much worse.

Herbert Hoover did what Barack Obama is proposing to do. Hoover raised taxes on high-income people and put restrictions on international trade, in order to try to save American jobs. It didn't work then and it is not likely to work now.  Perhaps the most disastrous of all the counterproductive policies of the federal government was the National Industrial Recovery Act under FDR, which set out to do exactly what the politicians today want to do-- micro-manage businesses.  Fortunately, the Supreme Court declared that Act unconstitutional, sparing the country an even bigger disaster.

Today, it is unlikely that the courts will let anything as old-fashioned as the Constitution stand in the way of "change." In short, the economy today has some serious problems but things are not desperate, though they can be made desperate by politicians.

       ---Thomas Sowell, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
          November 25, 2008

****Bipartisanship: For The Common Good?****

Many say that now that Barack Obama has been elected, we should all work together for the common good. That sounds wonderful until you realize that we don't all agree on what is the common good.

Notice I don't take the position that Republicans should refuse to cooperate with Mr. Obama because Democrats have been indescribably partisan, cruel and unfair to President Bush for the past eight years. Those are certainly grounds to call them hypocrites, but we must always put the best interests of the nation above petty partisanship -- obviously.  So we must ask: Would it be in the best interest of the nation for Republicans to work with Barack Obama?  The only sensible answer is: It depends on what policies Obama pursues. As much as people want to believe that getting along is the highest good, there are many more important things.

If Democrats were being honest, they would agree with that statement. Otherwise, they owe us an explanation as to why they opposed President Bush at every turn. Could it be they think their ideas on Iraq, the war on terror, education, stem cell research, judges, the environment, immigration and the rest are more important to them than simply getting along? I thought so.  And while certain conservative "intellectuals" have anesthetized or deluded themselves with feel-good platitudes, I daresay that camaraderie in furtherance of policies that could permanently erode our liberties is hardly for the common good.  Yet with Obama's rash of Clinton-era appointments, these conservative elites are already feeling vindicated in their stated hope that Obama is not a leftist who would govern in accordance with his decidedly liberal record.

But as I anticipate the Obama presidency, I'm -- surprise, surprise -- far less sanguine. To the extent that Obama charts a course toward preserving our liberties and prosperity, I'll be more than happy to support him. To the extent that he does not, I have a duty to oppose him, for which I do not apologize...

       ---David Limbaugh, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
          November 25, 2008