After meeting with Democratic Leaders Tuesday evening, Nancy Pelosi has settled on a new strategy to ram Government Health Care down the throats of the American People.

Her new strategy appears to rely on passing a reconciliation bill along side the Senate Health Care bill in the House.  The Senate bill could not become law without the passage of the reconcilation “fix.”

From Jed Babbin and Connie Hair at Human Events…

First, it would contain the Senate-passed healthcare bill, with the Cornhusker Kickback, the Second Louisiana Purchase and every other bribe that propelled it through the Senate.

Second, it would contain a “reconciliation” bill that would make both policy amendments and purported budget fixes, making the bill palatable to even staunch abortion opponents such as Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) who promised to lead a group of a dozen abortion opponents in voting against the bill if his concerns weren’t satisfied.

Third — and this is where it gets into the “you gotta be kidding” range — it would make the passage of the first item, the Senate bill, contingent on the Senate passing the second reconciliation part.  Kinda, sort of.  And that would be based on a letter to be obtained by Pelosi with the signatures of at least 51 Senators or used car salesmen.

Both the Senate and House Parliamentarians are expected to rule of this latest strategy, and their blessing is far from assured according to the New York Times.

But Pelosi has at least one other major obstacle if she plans to use reconciliation to “fix” the abortion language in the Senate bill and appease the Stupak crowd.  At a March 2, 2010 press conference on health care, she stated that both “abortion” and “immigration” could not be addressed in a budget bill requiring only 51 votes in the Senate (she carefully avoids repeating the word “reconciliation”).  Watch the video and read the partial transcript below.

The issue of reconciliation begins around the 1:45 minute mark of the video…

Reporter’s question…

“It seems pretty clear that two of the issues that are going to be very difficult to handle procedurally, are issues that really can’t be done under reconciliation, and yet are important, abortion and immigration in particular. Can you give [us] a sense of how you plan to go about bridging the gap that is so wide in the first place. Abortion cannot be handled under reconciliation. It doesn’t seem so anyway, so how do you get [there?].”

Speaker Pelosi’s Response…

“Well, just for those of you who… we’re talking about a process where we use a simple majority to pass legislation. So, without any fancy names, a simple majority. And under… that’s a budget resolution. Under the budget resolution, you can only deal with issues that are essential to the budget. None of these policy issues are, so they won’t be dealt with in the budget. Neither of these issues is essential to the bill. This is not an immigration bill. This is not an abortion bill. It is a bill about affordable healthcare for all Americans. That is the momentum that will take us to a majority vote in the Congress.”

There you go!  According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Reconciliation cannot be used to change abortion language.

• More on “Stupak’s Folly”

• THE SLAUGHTER SOLUTION! What a name!  Trying to pass ObamaCare without a vote in the House.

  So much for an up or down vote for the American People

UPDATE

Democrats appear to be moving forward with the “Slaughter Solution” with the help of both the House and Senate Parliamentarians.  Brian Darling of RedState explains, “Behind closed doors, the Obama Administration, House and Senate Democrat leaders are cutting a secret deal on ObamaCare [again].  They have come up with a way to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare in the House WITHOUT ANY HOUSE MEMBERS HAVING TO VOTE DIRECTLY ON THE BILL” (EMPHASIS MINE).  Brian does a great job of summarizing last nights “closed door” meeting.  The Bottom line… Democrat leaders still appear confident that they will pass ObamaCare into law.  Now, they are working behind closed doors with the Parliamentarians to make this happen.  WOW!  KEEP UP THE PRESSURE!

Gorbachev in 1987. From Wikipedia

By Dr. Paul Kengor
Originally published at The Center for Vision and Values
March 10, 2010

The media jumps at anniversaries of historical figures and events. For those of us who write about history, we, too, seize these opportunities to teach history, especially history Americans should know.

Here’s one such case: Can you believe it has been 25 years since Mikhail Gorbachev came to power? Gorbachev seized the reins of the Soviet state on March 11, 1985. As an illustration of how much the world has changed since-in part because of Gorbachev-I was reminded of this anniversary by a journalist from no less than Pravda; that is, the Slovak version of Pravda.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Pravda was synonymous with the grand un-truth that was Soviet communism. I say “un-truth” because, in fact, Pravda is a Russian word that means Truth. In truth, however, for the first seven decades of its existence, nothing published in Pravda was believable. This official Soviet mouthpiece epitomized what the brilliant Czech, Vaclav Havel, called “the communist culture of the lie.”

It was Havel, recall, who was the face of the Velvet Revolution that oversaw the peaceful end of communism in Czechoslovakia. As the first elected president of Czechoslovakia, Havel also oversaw the nation’s split into two good states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. And now, today, a reporter at the Slovak version of Pravda calls me, a free-market/Reagan conservative, to ask my thoughts on the contributions of Mikhail Gorbachev. How the world has changed.

This brings me to Gorbachev. Liberals in the West woefully exaggerated Gorbachev’s positions and role in ending the Cold War. Their misunderstandings and misrepresentations were based on a fatal combination of wishful thinking, partisan politics, and blind adherence to ideology-an irrepressible desire to credit Gorbachev at the expense of Ronald Reagan.

The reality is that both men-Gorbachev and Reagan-were critical to ending the Cold War, along with Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, and Vaclav Havel, to name a few.

The most important thing that liberals got wrong-even as Gorbachev himself reiterated it a thousand times-was their failure to understand that Gorbachev’s first priority, from the outset, had been to save and sustain the USSR, not to mention the entirety of the Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe, to the point where he even initially opposed taking down the Berlin Wall. This fact is undeniable, as Gorbachev emphasized in his best-selling 1987 book Perestroika. To this day, he calls the breakup of the USSR his greatest regret. (See, for instance, “Soviet Union ‘should have been preserved,’” interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, USA Today, April 6, 2006.)

At the same time, however, Gorbachev also sought to create a peaceful USSR. He vigorously opposed totalitarianism. To get there-and here’s where conservatives need adjustments in their understanding-Gorbachev took several monumental steps that, unwittingly, led to the implosion of the USSR and the Soviet Bloc. These ranged from freedom of press, speech, assembly, and religion, to the introduction of political pluralism (democracy) by formally ending the Soviet Community Party’s constitutional monopoly on power. These were wonderful feats.

No doubt, much of what Gorbachev did was prodded by other forces, whether internal-the inherent un-workability of communism-to external: the actions of the likes of Reagan, John Paul II, Thatcher, Walesa, and Havel. In fact, all of these figures publicly called for such changes before Gorbachev, and understood far better than Gorbachev what the changes would unleash. As Ronald Reagan put it in a speech in Cambridge, England, “As is always the case, once people who have been deprived of basic freedom taste a little of it, they want all of it. It was as if Gorbachev had uncorked a magic bottle and a genie floated out, never to be put back in again.”

That’s exactly right. Nonetheless, intentionally or not, Gorbachev’s actions enabled millions throughout the USSR and Eastern Europe to remove their chains-and their walls. Those uncorked freedoms today allow a Pravda reporter from the former Czechoslovakia to call me for a frank appraisal on Mikhail Gorbachev-25 years later.

On that, I will finish with this thought: There were two other meaningful anniversaries relating to the Soviet Union in the last week: On March 5, 1953, Stalin died, leaving this world for another he murderously denied. On March 8, 1983, Ronald Reagan gave his Evil Empire speech, succinctly describing the pernicious system that annihilated some 20-70 million people beginning in 1917.

Alas, that is what Mikhail Gorbachev ended, and quite deliberately: He stopped Stalinism and closed the Evil Empire. Even as he tried to preserve the USSR, it would be neither Stalinist nor evil. He deserves our gratitude for his role as executioner and pallbearer.

Sure, the Gorbachev story is complicated, a mix of the intended and unintended. Ultimately, however, it has a happy ending. To mark the birth of Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascension to power is to also mark the death of Stalin’s Evil Empire. And that’s a moment worth celebrating.

- Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include “The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand,” “God and Ronald Reagan,” and “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.”

This is a compelling question.  Consider the following…

All of this on top of the fact that the successful and bi-partisan Welfare Reform Act of the 1990s was overturned in President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus.

Health Care “Swing Votes” are here!

One of the main tenets of the political left is that the United States is fundamentally flawed and needs to be “fixed.” According to liberals, the best way to fix our nation is to constantly increase the size and scope of government. Liberals believe that a larger and more powerful government is the only way to solve societal problems and supply everyone with “their fair share.” Of course, there are no angels in government so a huge and pervasive bureaucracy and powerful politicians will never create fairness. However, they will limit individual freedom and liberty, as well as discourage personal responsibility (think “Cap and Trade,” “Card Check,” and “ObamaCare”). The end result of this liberal thinking is a population increasingly dependent on the government for economic survival and a much less dynamic, less energetic, less creative and weaker country - just look at Greece. But the United States is not a small country like Greece. The U.S. was the first broad based constitutional democracy in history and has been the leading free country in the world - economically, politically, artistically, scientifically, intellectually and militarily - for about one hundred years. A weak, declining America would not just be bad for Americans, it would be a tragedy for a world that would become much less stable if we become weak.

Some of this week’s headlines

On February 23, the House of Representatives (currently controlled by Liberals) passed a racist bill that is intended to create a separate government for individuals who are descendants of native Hawaiians. This bill, called the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, sets aside land, and grants special privileges and power to anyone who is “a direct lineal descendant of the aboriginal, native people who - resided in the islands that now comprise the State of Hawaii on or before January 1, 1893.” This bill is unconstitutional, is overwhelmingly rejected by the people of Hawaii (only 34% support it), and is opposed by the United States Commission on Civil Rights because it discriminates on the basis of race. But Liberals in the House passed the bill anyway largely along party lines (245 to 164).

Just last week, Harvard researchers released a study that concluded fuel prices must rise significantly if we are to achieve any meaningful reduction in atmospheric CO2 levels. According to the report, in order to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s targeted reduction in CO2 emissions of 14% from 2005 levels by 2020; our government must use new taxes to raise gasoline prices to $7 per gallon. That’s right - SEVEN DOLLARS per gallon. Do you think that would have a little negative economic impact? I wonder who will vote for this.

After ignoring numerous and repeated calls over the past 18 months for his resignation as the Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, our nation’s chief tax writer, Rep. Charlie Rangel, finally agreed to “temporarily step down” last week. Of course, Rangel reached this conclusion only after he learned that there were not enough Democrat votes in the house to save him. Rangel is under an ethics investigation on many issues, including his trips abroad that were paid for by undisclosed political supporters, his failure to pay taxes and accurately report on personal assets and income, his illegal use of rent-controlled apartments in New York and his solicitation of contributions for a university center to be named after him. Who are these angels in government who do not pursue their own interests and who are supposed to solve all of our problems? Certainly, Charlie Rangel is no angel.

But neither is Rep. Pete Stark, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s first choice to replace Rangel. Stark has said that President Bush personally enjoyed sending troops to “get their heads blown off” in Iraq. He threatened Rep. Scott McInnis (R-CO) in 2003 with physical harm and called him a “fruitcake” on the House floor. (I thought calling someone a “fruitcake” was politically incorrect, but I guess liberals are allowed to say and do pretty much anything as long as they support the “correct” policy positions advocated by liberal pressure groups and the liberal media. The word hypocrisy definitely comes to mind.) Stark called Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn) an “insurance industry whore” for opposing HillaryCare in 1995, and stated that she learned all she knew about medicine during “pillow talk” with her physician husband. This guy is unfit to be in Congress, let alone hold a committee chairmanship. Fortunately for all of us, he resigned his appointment after one day.

Similar outrageous behavior, so common among sitting Democrats in Washington D.C., is leading many Democrat Party Congress people to resign this year rather than seek reelection. On Thursday evening, liberal Massachusetts Rep. William Delahunt became the 17th retiring Democrat, ending his 40 year career in elected service. Delahunt was facing a tough reelection. His district broke for Scott Brown by a wider margin than any other in Massachusetts during the January 19th special Senate election; he has referred to Venezuela’s left wing dictator Hugo Chavez as his “excellent friend,” and voted for the PelosiCare bill last November.

Choice and Competition in Public Education

Jeremy Resnick, executive director and co-founder of Propel Charter Schools joined me on the program. Jeremy is a fantastic guy with a real vision for improving the quality of public education in Western Pennsylvania. The first Propel School opened in 2003, was located in the basement of a hospital, and served 176 students. Today, Propel serves 2,000 students (K-12) in six different school locations, and must manage a huge waiting list. Propel is now ranked among the highest public school performers in the state, and offers a real alternative to the failing Pittsburgh Public School system. The majority of students who attend Propel schools come from inner-city, poor and challenged backgrounds. School Districts are opposed to Charter Schools like Jeremy’s, because they offer families real alternatives to the status quo public education system. For more information, visit Propel’s website.

Health Care

In a nut shell, despite the Scott Brown victory in the Massachusetts special election, President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Washington D.C. are choosing to forgo bipartisanship and ram the Senate healthcare bill through the House. They are also claiming that they will use “reconciliation” to “fix” the bill once it passes.

Let’s be clear, the Senate bill provides federal funding for abortion (even President Obama admitted this at the so-called “Healthcare Summit” held at the Blair House two weeks ago), reduces Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, reduces the number of Doctors, forces tens of millions of Americans off of private insurance and onto public plans, raises taxes in the middle of difficult economic times, and busts the Federal budget. This bill does nothing to control costs, but instead will dramatically increase health care costs in the United States. It also creates an unconstitutional mandate for all Americans and businesses to purchase insurance, and empowers unelected and unaccountable healthcare advisory boards to decide what types of care are ultimately available. The Wall Street Journal has called the bill “one of the worst pieces of legislation ever.”

The House will vote on this awful Senate bill, complete with all of the special deals that were made prior to Christmas, including $300 million to secure Sen. Mary Landrieu’s vote (”The Louisiana Purchase”), $100 million to secure Ben Nelson’s vote (”The Cornhusker Kickback”), and $250 million for Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders of Vermont (maybe we’ll call this one “The Socialist Spending Spree” since Bernie Sanders is the only publicly declared socialist in the United States Senate).

Definition of Hypocrisy

In order to appease uneasy House Democrats who do not like the Senate bill, Democrat Party leadership is promising to use reconciliation to “fix” the healthcare bill. Somehow, Representatives who oppose abortion spending, and Representatives who demand abortion spending will be happy with reconciliation results. Also, a special deal will be made to exempt labor unions from paying the “Cadillac tax” on expensive healthcare plans. And those who wholeheartedly support the House bill will see a strong public option inserted into the Senate bill. Yes, President Obama appears committed to use reconciliation to ram through his health care plan.

In 2005, Republicans threatened to use reconciliation to overcome the filibustering of President Bush’s judicial nominees. The GOP argued that denying an up or down vote on qualified appointees based on political ideology was unprecedented. But Democratic Senators were outraged and called this the “nuclear option.” Then Senator Barack Obama worried that Republicans would change the character of the Senate and create “absolute power” for the majority. “And that’s just not what the founders intended” he said. Then Senator Hillary Clinton claimed that Republicans would destroy the delicate balance that our system of government has obtained “for immediate gratification of the present President.” Senator Chuck Schumer exclaimed “We are on the precipice of a Constitutional crisis.” Senator Harry Reid referred to the “arrogance” of the “Republican administration.” Senator Dianne Feinstein proclaimed, “It begins with judicial nominations, next will be executive appointments, and then legislation.” And Senator Joe Biden stated, “This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab. I say to my friends on the Republican side, you may own the field right now, but you won’t own it forever. And I pray [to] God that when the Democrats take back control, we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.” Needless to say, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the Democrats’ current power grab is beyond anything anyone could have imagined in 2005. How the Democratic Party leadership of the United States could condemn the threatened use of “reconciliation” for lower court judicial nominees back in 2005, and now gleefully flaunt their intended use of reconciliation for legislation that would impact almost 20% of our nation’s economy is a blatant and highly disturbing show of hypocrisy at its worst. These are not principled states people, but self serving, power hungry, leftist politicians who are determined to get their way no matter what it takes. The American people deserve so much better. You can listen to all of the sound bites here.

The bottom line is that we must stop ObamaCare in the House. It must never pass, because as soon as it does, the Senate bill becomes law. Dick Morris has compiled a list of “Swing Votes” in the House. Each Representative on the list has indicated some interest in voting for the Senate bill. Find the list of these Democrat Party Representatives along with their phone numbers here. Call them and tell them that you oppose the Senate bill, and that you oppose any use of reconciliation for health care. And tell them that you expect them to vote “NO!” And if they vote to ram this health care nationalization down our throats now, let’s vote them out in November.

Thank you for your encouragement and for listening to the Glen Meakem program. I really appreciate it. If you missed my program two weekends ago on Marxism, “What it is and why it failed,” please take some time to listen to it. If you find it insightful, please encourage your friends and family to listen to it as well. And please, keep up the fight against the spread of Marxist ideas in our Country. Together, we will continue to have a positive impact.

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Arnold Beichman (1913-2010)

By Paul Kengor
Originally published at The Center for Vision and Values
March 8, 2010

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared in The American Spectator.

Some 2,000 years ago, the great Ancient Library in Alexandria, Egypt burnt to the ground, taking with it a vast reservoir of irreplaceable information, subsequently reduced to ashes, lost to history, and leaving the rest of us groping in ignorance at many questions we’ve ever since scrambled in vain to piece back together.

I know this over-dramatizes the point, but there truly are certain individuals so incredibly knowledgeable in their areas of expertise-possessing a vast reservoir of information within the invisible shelves of their minds-that when they leave this world, that information turns to ashes with them. They are, really, national treasures-irreplaceable.

When it comes to the history of arguably the most fascinating of centuries-the 20th century-and specifically the long battle against militant Soviet communism, which stretched from 1917-91 as the predominant, defining ideological conflict of the last 100 years, few figures knew as much as Arnold Beichman. (The other who comes to mind, among the living, is Herb Romerstein.) Arnold passed away on February 17 at the age of 96, gleefully outliving the miserable Soviet Union and its seedy cast of butchers and tormentors, and taking with him not only body and soul but mind-a mind overflowing with valuable information. That which Arnold was unable to record on paper, or transfer to others who recorded it on paper, has gone with him, now irretrievable.

I didn’t know Arnold well, certainly not as well as friends of Arnold’s like John Podhoretz, who wrote a beautiful tribute to the man in Commentary, but I did know him well enough to place a call or an email when I found myself in a corner on some research task, unable to find answers even with all the power of the Internet. Inevitably, I’d get to the point where I’d say to myself: “I need to call Arnold.” Arnold was a walking, talking, human search engine-and a very lively (and very short) one at that.

The first time I met him in person was when we hosted him at Grove City College a few years ago for a lecture at our Pew Fine Arts Center. Before Arnold held forth, sharing with students a quarter of his age, we sat with him at dinner and picked his fertile brain. He supplied answers easily, happily, scattered with his colorful expressions: “That son-of-a-bitch!” he exclaimed to polite company, taken aback as Arnold described a source who-by his estimation-had sold out his country during the Cold War.

I saw him again more recently at a Hoover Institution function in Washington, D.C. “What do you need to know?” he asked me with a grin, primed to pump out details. My response: “Tell me about Henry Wallace and Eleanor Roosevelt….” “Oh, my,” Arnold began with a laugh.

I wish I had brought a tape recorder.

(For the record, Henry Wallace was one of the more in-depth research efforts to which Arnold devoted a lot of time. I don’t know if he ever pulled all of that information together.)

The last time I tapped Arnold’s brain was last spring. I had a question about a certain New York Times writer from the 1940s, a well-known liberal. An extremely popular web source-Wikipedia no less, which is hardly conservative-described the writer as a “Stalinist.” Of course, this was no small charge. I knew Arnold would address it carefully. Despite the left’s caricature of Arnold as a recalcitrant Cold Warrior, he was always exceedingly cautious in drawing necessary lines of distinction, treating every individual fairly, relentlessly pursuing the truth, and never mislabeling or smearing anyone.

“No,” Arnold started. “I don’t know of any evidence that he was a Stalinist, or even a communist. He was very much on the left, but not that far on the left.”

“By the way,” he continued, as I perked up in anticipation for whatever gem might come next. “Did you know there was a communist cell at the New York Times in the 1930s? Congress looked into it. Did an investigation and a report….”

No, I did not know that. That’s another of those inconvenient things that liberal historians and journalists have studiously forgotten about. When I responded to Arnold’s tip by scouring the web, I found nothing. I soon discovered, however, via old-fashioned research-meaning a stroll to some old library shelves-that Arnold was (of course) right. Such a cell did exist at the Times.

The details on that are better delayed for another article at another time. For now, however, this gets back to my main point: I would’ve never known this if not for Arnold. Once again, the Beichman Library had been open for business.

Alas, the tragedy of the Beichman Library was that its stock was immaterial. With its namesake’s passing, it is now closed. I-we-can’t go there anymore. If only we could have downloaded its owner’s brain.

It’s a great loss, of course. But such is an even greater testimony of a life well spent, of vigorously using-in service of good, and against evil-the talent God had bestowed. May Arnold Beichman (1913-2010) rest in peace.

- Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include “The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand,” and “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.”

NEW NRCC LIST of “Swing Votes” Here!

SCROLL FOR UPDATES: Here is the bottom line. We simply cannot trust the Democrats.  Approximately half of the so-called moderate “Blue Dog” Democrats voted for PelosiCare in the House last November.  And now, some of the 39 Democrats who initially voted against PelosiCare have indicated they are undecided on how they will vote this time around on the Senate bill.

Here is a list (compiled by Dick Morris) of potential “SWING VOTES” in The House.  Please call these Representatives and urge them to vote “NO” on the Health Care legislation currently being considered in Congress.  We must keep up the pressure.  The next House vote (currently scheduled for March 18)  could be President Obama’s last shot at passing his national takeover of health care.

From Dick Morris:

Find FAX numbers here.

UPDATES:

• Robert Gibbs, President Obama’s Press Secretary indicates that Democrats will do “whatever it takes to get health care done.“
• President Obama offers judgeship to the brother of Jim Matheson (UT), who remains undecided on the upcoming healthcare vote.  More here.
• President Obama “invited” ten Democrats who initially voted “NO” on PelosiCare to the White House Wednesday evening (March 3, 2010).
• Bart Stupak announced that 12 democrats will change their vote from yes to no over abortion language in the Senate bill.
• Although Pelosi is bleeding votes right now, we must pressure Democratic Representatives to stand strong.  Apparently the Senate is preparing a powerful “gesture” meant to encourage Representatives in The House to vote in favor of the bill.
• DEMOCRATS STILL DON’T HAVE THE VOTES! PLEASE KEEP UP THE PRESSURE!
• Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) is now a “NO” on ObamaCare.
• Massa claims that The Dems got rid of me because of my healthcare vote.  Audio here.
• Here’s another count. Dan Perrin of RedState.com states, “Keep fighting. Keep pounding the Cost whip count. They do not have the votes.  If we keep hammering, they will not get the votes…”
• “WHO ARE THE SWING VOTES FOR OBAMA?” Matt Lewis states that at this point, “It’s anybody’s guess what will happen.”
• Politico is reporting that Nancy Pelosi’s grip on the House is slipping…
• KEEP UP THE PRESSURE!:  ASSOCIATED PRESS IS NOW REPORTING THAT “Prospects are good for resolving a dispute over abortion.”  Stupak stated, “I’m more optimistic than I was a week ago.”  More here.
• UPDATED VOTE COUNT: from Jim Geraghty at National Review Online. Possibly 216 no votes?
• Intrade jumps above 60% (betting on ObamaCare passing), Harkin says health care will be “done” by March 27, and Stupak thinking of voting in favor of the Senate Bill. Here is is great days end “ROUNDUP” for March 9 on health care.

————————————————————————————-

• MARCH 10 - Recycling headlines.  From DRUDGE ‘END’ OF THE ‘END GAME’ OR ‘THE END’?
• From Michael Tanner of the CATO Institute, “Final ‘Reform’ Push: Twisting Arms,” in The New York Post.

• NRCC HAS A NEW INTERACTIVE LIST OF “SWING HEALTHCARE VOTES” HERE! PLEASE MAKE USE OF IT!

• Pelosi’s New Healthcare Plan.

The truly revolutionary American idea of government as the servant of the people may be fading away. Many of today’s so-called “civil servants” are a protected, privileged class. While Middle America struggles through a difficult recession, a lot of government employees have lived on the gravy train.
Here are some facts to buttress that assertion:

Since the recession began in 2008, a period during which approximately eight million private-sector workers lost their jobs and millions more saw their income decline, the number of federal employees is increasing at a 7 percent per-year rate and their income is holding up quite nicely. According to the Cato Institute, the average federal worker’s pay and benefits now approximates $120,000 per year, or roughly double the compensation of the average private-sector employee. Factor out the lavish government fringe benefits and look at salary only, and the civil servant is still far ahead: $71,197 vs. $49,935.

During this recession, the percentage of federal employees earning annual base salaries above $100,000 increased from 14 to 19 percent. The number of Defense Department employees being paid more than $150,000 per year increased from 1,868 to 10,100. Before, the Department of Transportation had one employee with a salary above $170,000, but now has 1,690.

As a gesture toward fiscal responsibility, President Obama reduced what was supposed to be a 2.4 percent raise in federal salaries this year to 2.0 percent. That still compares quite favorably to the zero-percent cost-of-living increase that Social Security recipients’ have received.

Also on tap are handsome pay raises for the employees of the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA has distinguished itself recently by incurring a loss of $54 billion in a mismanaged home-loan business. And of course we can’t neglect to mention the CEOs of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who have been cleared to receive as much as $6 million in salary this year while being subsidized to the tune of over $100 billion in monetary transfusions from the Treasury and the Fed.

Other federal agencies may not be losing money by the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars in such an obvious way, but money appropriated for them by Congress still seems to vanish into a black hole. For example, statistics from 2006 showed that if all the federal dollars spent by antipoverty programs had been given directly to Americans below the poverty line, a poor family of four would have received $67,000. The actual aid received by poor Americans is less than half that amount. What explains such glaring inefficiency? Most of those funds are consumed by the cushy pay packages of the army of bureaucrats who administer those programs. And let’s not even get into the Department of Agriculture, which has one bureaucrat for every nine or ten full-time farmers.

The preferential treatment received by government employees was also reflected in how last year’s stimulus money has been spent. According to ProPublica, the District of Columbia received more than four times as much money per capita as the average of the 15 states that received the most money. (Oh, did I mention that members of the Pelosi/Reid Congress voted themselves a 6 percent increase in funds for their staffs and other support?)

It isn’t just the federal government workers who have an unusually lucrative setup. Gov. Christie of New Jersey recently announced his intention to reform the pension plan for the Garden State’s public employees. Consider an incredible fact: According to Christie, a 49-year-old state employee who had contributed $124,000 toward his retirement is eligible to receive $3.3 million in pension payments and another half-million dollars in heath care benefits over the rest of his life; and a retired teacher who had put $62,000 toward her pension and not a penny for health care is scheduled to receive $1.4 million in pensions and $215,000 in health care benefits. Taxpayers pay for this.

This story is repeated over and over in a number of states that now teeter on the brink of bankruptcy due to billions of dollars of obligations to state employees. It’s hard to refer to these people-many of whom, of course, are wonderful, decent human beings-as civil “servants” when their salaries and/or benefits are so much higher than those of the taxpayers who pay for the generous compensation packages of their government “servants.”

Abraham Lincoln’s ideal of government “of the people, by the people, for the people” seems to have become government of the governing elite, by the governing elite, and for the governing elite. The current imbalance can’t continue. Something’s got to give.

- Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

This week, I take a step back from the current news flow and focus instead on the recurring failure of Marxism (communism & socialism) as a political and social ideology, and how this ideology caused so much pain, destruction, and death in the 20th Century.

NOTE: click here to access “The Lawyers’ Party”

Short primer on Marxism

One of the key tenets of Marxism is that all human history is the history of class struggle where workers - unhappy with their social position - force societies to progress through a series of economic systems, all of which are defined by the means of production. According to Marx, this struggle first manifested itself in slave societies, where slaves had no rights or guarantees, but were forced to work for their owners / the Aristocracy (such as in Greece and Rome). During the middle ages, slave societies gave way to feudal societies, and serfs (no longer slaves) were promised food, shelter, and protection (against invading armies) by the ruling class in exchange for loyal service. According to Marx, this medieval struggle eventually ushered in Capitalism during the 18th and19th centuries. Although the capitalist economic system allowed working class individuals to gain a social and economic footing, they continued to be exploited by the Bourgeoisie (the owning class). It is this continued exploitation that would eventually lead to a communist revolution and the establishment of communist society, where workers would own the means of production and there would no longer be an “exploiting class.”

Marx believed that workers are forced to compete with each other over limited economic and natural resources within a Capitalist society. As a result of this competition, workers are alienated from themselves (they do not take ownership of what they produce and therefore can only be themselves away from work) and from each other (they cannot work together with other workers).

Most importantly, Marx argued that human nature changes over time. He believed that as a result of communist revolution, people would change from being self-interested individuals who focus on their own interests and the interests of their families, to being “species beings” — individuals who would only be interested in the good of the community (over their own self interest or the interest of their families).

Marx also argued that capitalist competition creates unemployment and low wages for workers with the living standards and situation of workers growing more and more desperate until the end of the capitalist era. He also theorized that competition between capitalists who owned businesses would lead to absolute victory for some businesses and death to others, forcing the eventual creation of monopolies in each major industry with a resulting extremely small group of capitalist owners with all the wealth and power in society. The desperate workers would then eventually rise up and violently overthrow these owners establishing the class free, communist society.

Marx Plain Wrong About Many Things

Marx’s view of history was limited, flawed, and Eurocentric. The fact is, human history has never been limited to class struggle. As a result, Marx failed to account for individual leadership, individual initiative, ethnic struggle, religious struggle, philosophical development, technological innovation, organizational dynamics and economic advancement, among other things.

Marx’s view of human nature was also wrong. Human nature is a constant in both history and biology. It is natural for individuals to be motivated by self-interest, or an innate desire to provide basic necessities and comfort for themselves and their families, as well as just simply to build and achieve. Contrary to what Marx taught, it is noble for individuals to work hard and provide a safe home sanctuary for their family. Doing so nurtures young individuals and contributes productive citizens to the next generation. Every individual is different, but people naturally want to maximize their own situation in life according to what is important to them. Some want to provide for themselves and their families, make their lives better and achieve. Others seek power or pleasure. Others even just want to maximize their own internal feeling of contribution and sacrifice. No matter what, evolutionary biology teaches us that Marx was just plain wrong because none of us would be here if we or our forbearers did not look out for ourselves. (Isn’t it just a delicious irony that Darwin just blows Marx out of the water?) The truth is that people can never and will never be “species beings.” Remember Milton Friedman’s famous rhetorical question, “Where are these angels who are going to order society for us?” The flaws of human nature (the human condition) remain constant, whether individuals work for a government bureaucracy or the private sector. Both biology and history teach us very clearly that the best answer is to decentralize power through freedom and competition, not to centralize it through violence.

Marx also had the economics completely wrong. He simply failed to understand that the human race is incredibly productive, and capable of immense skill growth, innovation, and adaptation. He failed to understand that competition requires collaboration. He failed to understand the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation. He failed to understand that the “economic pie” is not fixed, but growing in size. In short, Marx failed to predict the enormous growth of the middle class and the enormous increase in the standard of living that capitalist economies have created (and continue to create) around the globe.

Finally, Marx failed to understand the benefits of personal liberty and freedom. People are happy when they are free to pursue their own economic, political, personal and religious agendas. But when a political ideology or a government based on an authoritarian or totalitarian ideology removes or restricts these human pursuits, individuals eventually rise up and rebel. I could name hundreds of examples, but think about East Germany in 1989, the Soviet Union in 1991, or Iran today.

Results of Marxism

Marx failed to understand human history and the human spirit. And his ideology provided ruthless dictators with the pretext to kill hundreds of millions of people. Yes, during the 20th Century, Marxism became a neo religious justification for the worst tyranny and human rights abuses in human history. Marx’s followers carried out genocide, caused environmental degradation, destroyed basic human rights & freedoms, inflicted poverty, inflicted death, and inflicted modern enslavement onto their fellow human beings.

In the name of Marxism, twenty to fifty million people were killed in Russia under Stalin, and millions more died in the Soviet Union before and after Stalin’s reign. In the name of Marxism, twenty to sixty-five million people were killed in China under Mao during “The Great Leap Forward” and “The Cultural Revolution.” In the name of Marxism, at least 1.5 million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge following the fall of Pnom Penn and Saigon. In the name of Marxism, at least four million Koreans have either starved to death or been killed since 1990 in North Korea. And in the name of Marxism, Castro has killed thousands and thousands of Cubans since he seized power in the late 1950s. Even Hitler, although his National Socialist Ideology contained its own brand of racism and nationalism, used elements of Marxism to justify his rule and the killing of many millions.

But milder forms of Marxism (democratic socialism) have also produced hardships in countries around the world, including France, Spain, and Sweden. All three of these countries have experienced slow economic growth, high unemployment, lower standards of living than comparable countries, huge government bureaucracies, limits on personal freedom and fulfillment, declines in relative global authority, and societies increasingly run for the benefit of government workers.

Even Great Britain and the United States had multi-decade dips into socialist policies that culminated in the 1970s with high unemployment, high inflation, no growth, lack of entrepreneurship, and diminished expectations for the future. Fortunately, regular middle class people in Great Britain under Margaret Thatcher and in the United States under Ronald Reagan caused a massive movement back towards economic freedom and capitalism that dramatically strengthened those two countries and eventually spread to the old communist block, China, India and other countries lifting 3 billion people out of the economic misery of Marxist regimes.

The bottom line on Marxism is that at its core it was plain wrong and when it was implemented in any form; it proved to be a disaster!

The United States and Socialism

In spite of these failures, President Obama and the liberal left are trying to force a socialist agenda down the throats of the American people. Lech Walesa, the former President of Poland who spearheaded the movement that led to the fall of Communism in his country, recently voiced his concerns regarding the United States while visiting Chicago this winter. Through an interpreter, he stated that the U.S. does not “lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we have lost that hope.” When asked if America was moving towards socialism, Walesa replied, “Yes. It looks a little bit like that.”

There is no leader alive today in the world with greater credibility on these issues than Lech Walesa and we should heed his warning and make changes before it is too late!

Remembering the Thatcher and Reagan Revolution

To put even more “flesh on this bone,” Dr. Paul Kengor, Professor of Political Science at Grove City College and Director of The Center for Vision and Values joins me on the program to discuss the emergence of many socialist policies in the United Kingdom and the United States after World War II as well as the resurgence of economic freedom under Thatcher and Reagan. And together, we consider why - after all of the destruction, economic pain, and death caused by various forms of Marxism over the past 100 years - there are American citizens within the United States who still embrace Marxist political ideals.

I hope you find this program insightful and enlightening. If you know of any friends or family members (perhaps high school or college students) who are enthralled with Marx or socialist political thinking, please direct them to this episode. Remember, you can down load and share the mp3 for free (thanks to my sponsors for making this possible).

I also appreciate your encouragement and support. Please feel free to email your feedback to me at glen@meakem.com or to leave comments on the post at glenmeakem.com. Thanks for listening and thanks for reading.

Have a great week!
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On the eve of the German offensive against France in August 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm confidently asserted to some departing troops, “You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.” The German monarch was known neither for his prescience nor intellect and undoubtedly was einege Apfelstrudel short of a Dutzend, but his sentiments on this matter were not unique. Other military and political leaders were busy rummaging through their wardrobes to ensure that full dress uniforms for autumn would be available at a courier’s grasp for the inevitable march through their enemy’s capitol; after all, last summer’s garb is so-o-o-o, well, last summery. The last thing a monarch needed was to be fashion-challenged at the time of triumph.

This colossal arrogance generated colossal horrors, which, a half-century later, relegated the war’s participants to the status of effete sideliners-sideliners, that is, to greater historical dramas taking place elsewhere in the world. European hubris had political consequences far beyond the fortunes of national leaders, nearly all of whom put themselves first and their countries second. At lower levels in a political or military hierarchy, arrogance generates losses that are measured in the thousands, often multiplied many times. At higher levels, the fate of nations or entire civilizations is in the balance. In short, there is a geometric progression of consequences in the politics of arrogance, and politics informs all decisions in government, the military, and society in general. The inherent resistance to criticism and blindness to reality that are characteristic of oversized egos magnify such consequences.

Sometimes nations beat the math and survive the politics of arrogance practiced by leaders who identify their personal fortunes with the destiny of their country. For instance, in the opening campaigns of the Civil War, adulation of George B. McClellan reverberated hugely inside the echo chamber of his own ego, generating a conclusion that “God had placed a great work in [his] hands,” and the fate of his country rested solely with him. In fact, McClellan was an able organizer but an inept commander whose battlefield judgments were ludicrous and whose incompetence unquestionably lengthened the war. Unfazed by criticism, McClellan still ran against “the well-meaning baboon” Lincoln, who beat him soundly in the 1864 election. God, Grant, and “the original gorilla” saved the Republic to persevere, at least until another megalomaniac strode across the political platform to gain America’s attention.

Few fit this description better than Woodrow Wilson, particularly since he compared himself favorably to Jesus Christ, whose major shortcoming in Wilson’s view was the failure to produce a plan for peace. Wilson trumped the Ten Commandments by adding four-the Fourteen Points-and burned his life out leading a crusade for a cause few Americans cared about, the League of Nations. Wilson finally concluded that his countrymen were not ready for the grand project he had in mind for them. It’s hard to get more arrogant than that, but at least Wilson’s haughtiness produced few adverse consequences; international organizations are singularly inept at preventing war, and America’s membership in the League likely would have meant little. But Wilson’s politics of arrogance rendered him impervious to such considerations.

Which brings us to the present, with an administration filled with people whose self-esteem would make the Kaiser blush. America has a leader who reprises Sonny & Cher’s trademark song with the words, “You’ve Got Me, Babe.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s use of the personal pronoun suggests a new political formula to calculate arrogance-call it the “I-Test”-which refers to the frequency the President uses that letter in his speeches. But it’s not just him; his supporters numbered millions who were swept into the “we are the change we’ve been waiting for” movement, and the American Left still views the current political situation the way the German leadership looked upon Europe in August 1914: now is the time to strike, we may never have an opportunity like this again.

But it is almost impossible to conceive of the United States over the next decade “beating the math” to overcome a McClellan-like ego or vitiate a Wilsonian-type moral crusade. Efforts to create a European-style social democracy likely will produce a European outcome: a debt-ridden menagerie of stagnant societies smothered under a thick cloak of bureaucratic mediocrities oozing with self-importance. The prevailing politics of “never letting a serious crisis go to waste” so far has generated national debt estimates that cannot possibly be sustained without the United States suffering in economic terms what imperial Germany did in military terms during the Great War.

The question is, can this politics of arrogance be stopped? To this, another German, Otto von Bismarck, had an answer: “God protects fools, drunks, and the United States of America.” Bismarck is no longer around to give advice, which leaves America with only one alternative to combat our own politics of arrogance.

God help us.

- Dr. Marvin Folkertsma is a professor of political science and Fellow for American Studies with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The author of several books, his latest release is a high-energy novel titled “The Thirteenth Commandment.“

GOP RESPONDS

Gotta watch this Video from naked emperor news and posted at Breitbart TV…

Obama Flashback: Dems Should Not Pass Healthcare With a 50-Plus-1 Strategy

Remember, in 2005, then Senator Obama and fellow Democrats called Reconciliation an “arrogant power grab.”

Somodevilla/Getty: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Rep. Charles Rangel in 2009.

This from NBC and Hot Air.

After discovering that there were enough votes in The House to strip him of his powerful Ways and Means Committee Chairmanship (meaning that at least 39 Democrats would side with Republicans), Rangel decided to “temporarily step down” before the vote could take place. Rangel is still under an ethics investigation regarding his trips abroad, failure to pay taxes and accurately report on personal assets and income, his illegal use of rent-controlled apartments in New York and his solicitation of contributions for a university center to be named after him.

• After ignoring for more than a year numerous and repeated calls for his resignation, sources indicated yesterday afternoon (March 2, 2010), that Rangel would finally step down as Chairman.

• BUT THEN, yesterday evening (March 2, 2010), Rangel emerged from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and proclaimed that he was still the Chairman.

• NBC News reports Wednesday Morning (March 3, 2010) that Rangel had decided to take “a leave of absence” while the Ethics Committee finished its investigation.

One thing is for certain, Charlie is no angel.

Read More About Charlie Rangel’s Corruption Here

This political cartoon, originally published during the Great Depression, could easily run today.

In spite of socialism’s repeated failure throughout history, it continues to be a part of current political debate.

Click here for video of a 1948 cartoon produced by Harding college, which also eerily reflects the current political debate raging in Washington.

• Finally, Charlie Rangel Steps Down… Sorta!

• Even the New York Times calls for Rangel’s Gavel

• Just How Corrupt is Charlie Rangel?

• Charlie Needs to Resign!

• Charlie Rangel can’t pay his taxes

• Charlie’s 20 years of unreported rental income

This is a great question.

From the article…

While China rings in 2010 as the year of the tiger, American families and taxpayers might soon be able to refer to 2010 as the year school choice became the norm. Five states in particular are worth watching: Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Virginia and New Jersey.

Ironically perhaps, Illinois is home to the most notable opponents of school choice in D.C. - Senator Durbin, the chief architect of the plan to eliminate the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, Education Secretary Arne Duncan who exercised school choice by purchasing a home in northern Virginia where the schools - unlike those in the District - are acceptable, but who opposes school choice for low-income students in that same District, and President Obama, himself a scholarship recipient as a child and who has enrolled his two children in the poshest private school in D.C. Yet in Illinois, a robust voucher initiative has been introduced by an unlikely champion: the Rev. James Meeks, a Democratic state senator.

Find the entire article here.

Find more articles on education here.

You may have seen the recent story about the 41-year-old doctor who graduated from medical school in 2003 with student-loan indebtedness of $250,000 that has since swelled to more than $555,000. She is now scheduled to pay $990 per month until she is 70 years old. Ouch!

This is an extreme example of a widespread problem. Only 40 percent of the $730 billion of outstanding student loans are actively being repaid. This isn’t healthy for financial institutions and it isn’t healthy for many young Americans. Just as was the case with the ongoing mortgage fiasco, there is plenty of blame to go around for this sorry state of affairs.

It’s easy to say that those who borrow to pursue their post-secondary education bear the primary responsibility. The first rule of survival in a market economy is caveat emptor (”let the buyer beware”). Nobody forced anyone to go into debt.

Still, it is significant that almost all student loans are taken out by Americans too young to know what it takes to pay their bills and make a living on their own. Undoubtedly, some unscrupulous students will borrow money with every intention of avoiding repayment; however, I believe that most borrowers sincerely intend to fully repay their debt. The problem is-due to their lack of maturity and, yes, intellectual development-they literally have no idea how hard it can be to repay $50,000 or $100,000 of debt.

My wife and I recently entertained two of her former college students-intelligent, talented young ladies laden with considerable debt. The one owes over $100,000 and has a bachelor’s degree in theatre. She has an entry-level position with a business, and no realistic prospect of repaying her debt before she turns 40. Much wiser now at age 23, she realizes the gravity of her predicament. She most emphatically wouldn’t have sustained such debt if she had known then what she knows now, but now she’s stuck.

Like many young adults in her position, the price for her indebtedness is more than monetary. There are very few young men out there who are willing to marry somebody with a six-figure debt chained to her ankle. (Apologies to all the romantics out there, but that’s the way it is.) Here you have someone whose strongest desire is to be a wife and a mother, but her student-loan debt makes her a leper to most men in the marriage market. Sad.

I have heard people suggest that colleges and universities provide debt counseling to students so they don’t get in too deep. My employer, Grove City College, requires students to attend debt management seminars as a requirement for participating in its privately-funded loan program. That is a wonderful program, but the reality is that colleges are businesses and, like all businesses, are hungry for revenue. Expecting them to counsel students to drop out or transfer to an inexpensive junior college is like expecting a fox to warn chickens not to go into foxholes because they might be eaten. It just isn’t the nature of the beast.

That leaves the lenders. As was the case with defaulted mortgages, lenders protest that they explained the dollars and cents of the student loans thoroughly. And again, it is safe to assume that some of them really did, just as some of them really did not alert starry-eyed, naïve youngsters to the pitfalls inherent in taking on large debts. Let’s face it, if loan officers profit from issuing loans, they have every incentive to write as many as they can.

Normally, I would say there is nothing objectionable about that, but in this case, I believe that public policy once again is guilty of having altered normal market incentives. I refer to laws that make it almost impossible for student loans to be erased through bankruptcy.

Now don’t get me wrong-I believe strongly that debts should be repaid. A society that makes it too easy for individuals to walk away from their financial obligations does not sufficiently uphold the foundation of economic progress-property rights-and consequently jeopardizes economic progress. But in the student-loan market, government has created moral hazard: Knowing that government will take extraordinary measures (even garnishing unemployment checks) to see that student loans are repaid, issuers of student loans feel bulletproof, and proceed to crank out as many loans as they can. If they knew that they might lose their loans through normal bankruptcy proceedings, they would do what prudent lenders always should do: Assess risk very carefully and issue fewer loans to starry-eyed kids who want to pay $30,000 per year for a degree with minimal market value.

I don’t pretend to know how to get out of the current mess. It would have been much preferable had we never gotten into it. I do believe, though, that it isn’t right for financially incompetent young Americans to be penalized for decades because no adult who knew better stopped them from making a foolish financial mistake. Let’s have some mercy here.

- Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

I read excerpts from this column on the air during my February 27-28, 2010 radio broadcast.

Click here to access the entire column.

Click here to visit the show archives.

Somodevilla/Getty: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Rep. Charles Rangel in 2009.

In an editorial “Relieve the Chairman of His Gavel,” The New York Times, calls on Congress to strip Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) of his Chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

So far, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has refused to remove or punish Rangel for his  behavior.

Congressman Charles Rangel was far from humbled after the ethics committee admonished him for taking corporate-paid Caribbean junkets in violation of the House ethics code. Rather, the New York Democrat berated the panel’s leaders on the House floor.

The moment was characteristic of Mr. Rangel’s arrogance throughout the investigation, which continues into more serious allegations about his official behavior. It is one more reason why Speaker Nancy Pelosi - who championed ethics reform - should stop protecting him and relieve him of his crucial role as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Find the entire article here.

Learn more about Rangel’s history of corruption here.

Rangel reminds me of Milton Friedman’s famous quote, “Who are these angels in government, who are going to order our society for us?”

Amazing hypocrisy!

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared in The Weekly Standard.
A few years ago, I wrote a book on the faith of Hillary Clinton. Released in 2007, the book flopped, dismissed by conservatives who didn’t believe Hillary believed in God and liberals who didn’t care that Hillary believed in God.

I felt compelled to insert a word of caution in the book’s preface: I noted that the Clintons are like a hurricane to those who come near them. I hoped this wasn’t likewise true for their biographers, leaving us, too, in a wreckage of misleading information.

Lo and behold, a possible case in point is provided by reporter Emily Belz in World magazine, in a story getting coverage from only a handful of sources. Belz caught Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s keynote at the National Prayer Breakfast, where Clinton extolled the “common ground” she once found with Mother Teresa. The two had come together to open an adoption center, the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children, near the northwest section of Washington, DC. In a 30-minute address, Clinton devoted five minutes to the home.

I certainly wasn’t surprised by the reference. The home is a warm example of Hillary Clinton and Mother Teresa-rabid “abortion rights” advocate and tireless abortion opponent-joining in a wonderful cause. Mrs. Clinton touts it whenever she can.

Belz, however, had a thought: Why not call the home to see how things are going? She did just that, only to find it closed-for almost 10 years now.

Hmmm, Clinton and her spokespersons never mentioned that.

Let me back up a bit, to give a fuller glimpse of the saga:

Hillary Clinton’s encounter with Mother Teresa began, ironically, at the National Prayer Breakfast, way back in 1994. That year, the keynoter was a special guest: Mother Teresa. Nearly 3,000 packed a huge room. Near the dais were the president and first lady-the Clintons.

Unlike in typical years, where the keynoter sits among the assembled waiting for others to finish speaking, Mother Teresa appeared from behind a curtain only when called to the platform, and then slowly hunched toward the microphone. She began talking about Jesus and John the Baptist in their wombs, about their mothers, and how the “unborn child” in the womb of Elizabeth-John-leapt with joy, heralding the arrival of Christ as Mary neared Elizabeth.

Mother Teresa next spoke of love, of selfishness, of a lack of love for the unborn-and a lack of want of the unborn because of selfishness. Then, the gentle sister made this elite group uncomfortable: “But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because Jesus said, ‘If you receive a little child, you receive me.’ So every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus.”

After an awkward silence, the entire ballroom erupted in a standing ovation that seemed to last minutes. It felt even longer to the embarrassed Clintons (and Al and Tipper Gore), who remained seated and did not clap.

Undeterred by the Clintons’ coldness, the tiny, aged lady was only warming up: “By abortion, the mother does not learn to love,” she admonished, “but kills even her own child to solve her problems.” Abortion was, said Mother, “really a war against the child, and I hate the killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that the mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? … This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”

Hillary Clinton was shaken. But it wasn’t over.

After the talk, the weak nun persisted, taking the matter directly to the first lady. As Clinton recalled, “[S]he wanted to talk to me. Mother Teresa was unerringly direct. She disagreed with my views on a woman’s right to choose and told me so.”

Mother Teresa said something that resounded with Hillary. She offered an olive branch: “Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Give me the child. I’m willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.” She said, “I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption.”

That was something Hillary Clinton could applaud. She made clear that while she supported legalized abortion, she preferred more adoptions as an alternative. The nun told the first lady she had placed over 3,000 orphaned babies into adoptive homes in India, and informed the first lady of her goal of establishing a home in Washington, DC. She invited Hillary to India for a tour, and Mrs. Clinton obliged.

To Hillary’s great credit, when she returned to Washington, she went to bat for Mother, rounding up pro bono lawyers, fighting the DC bureaucracy, telephoning community leaders and pastors, calling them to the White House to see how they could help.

Mother Teresa was equally relentless. When she feared the project was lagging, she sent letters, emissaries, and called the first lady. “She called me from Vietnam,” remembered Hillary, “she called me from India, always with the same message: ‘When do I get my center for babies?’”

On June 19, 1995, she got her center. That moment is captured by a photo of Hillary and Mother Teresa smiling and clasping hands in the nursery. Mother Teresa died two years later.

My compliments to Mrs. Clinton: Unlike so many pro-choice liberals who insist they want abortion to be “safe and legal” but “rare,” here was one who finally lifted a finger to promote the birth and adoption of unborn babies rather than feed them into the jaws of Planned Parenthood clinics. Hillary Clinton, lifelong Methodist, did a good work.

It turns out, however, that the work didn’t bear the fruit we hoped. It reportedly lasted a handful of years, closing by 2002. World’s Emily Belz called the Washington, DC branch of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. The nun who answered didn’t go into details on the home’s closure, noting that the nuns are not permitted to talk to the press, but did confirm that the order sold the Chevy Chase house in 2002.

So, that’s it. The adoption home that Clinton and her advocates have justifiably touted as a genuine display of her Christian compassion has been out of operation for a long time.

This prompts some questions:

Has Mrs. Clinton known that the home has been shut down, all the while boasting about it in books, statements, interviews, and no less than the keynote at the 2010 National Prayer Breakfast?

FoxNews sought an explanation from Clinton’s spokesman, Philippe Reines, who said: “[Hillary Clinton] remains very proud of her work with Mother Teresa in opening this home in 1995. Their partnership is a success story to be emulated.”

Yes, but what kind of success?

This begs another question-actually, more of a request:

Where’s Mrs. Clinton’s commitment? Why not strive to keep the home open? The Clintons know more wealthy liberals than any couple in America. Why not tap into these liberals’ professed compassion for the needy?

I have a sincere suggestion for Mrs. Clinton: What would Mother Teresa have done? This frail little woman got on her mangled hands and knees and fed and held the dying of Calcutta. She declared it “a poverty” when a child died from abortion. Why not rekindle the tenacity Mother Teresa had shown in wanting that home, and which Hillary Clinton seemed to share?

With the breathtaking number of abortions performed in the nation’s capital, and with the Obama administration and Pelosi-Reid Democratic Congress having approved taxpayer funding of abortions in the District, there’s an urgent need.

I opened my 2007 book with a quote from Mother Teresa, directed at Mrs. Clinton: “My prayer for you is that you come to understand and have the courage to answer.”

I was thinking of Hillary Clinton’s need to understand the tragedy of abortion. Now I’m also thinking of the need to answer the call to continue one’s service. She stepped up to the plate once. Why not do so again?

- Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include “God and Ronald Reagan,” “God and George W. Bush,” and “God and Hillary Clinton.”

Alexander Haig passed away over the weekend at the age of 85. A military man, a war veteran, no less than a four-star general, a chief of staff to two Republicans presidents (Nixon and Ford), a secretary of state to a third Republican president (Ronald Reagan), and once widely (but wrongly) suspected as the “Deep Throat” Watergate figure who gave the dirty laundry to Woodward and Bernstein, Haig was often controversial, often egotistical, often mercurial, and always interesting and entertaining.

I never knew Al Haig, though I did interview him for books I wrote on Ronald Reagan and on Reagan’s closest adviser, Bill Clark, who had the thrill of serving as Haig’s deputy at the State Department in that critical first year of the Reagan administration. I learned plenty about Haig from others. What I grasped about Haig-from a policy perspective-was not the conventional wisdom among pundits and historians: though Haig was the prototypical tough-talking, take-no-prisoners military general, he more often assumed the role of dove in the early Reagan administration. He at times sided with the Western Europeans who refused to join Reagan, Cap Weinberger, Bill Clark (once Clark had left State for the National Security Council in January 1982), Ed Meese, and Bill Casey in turning the screws on the Soviets.

A case in point was Reagan’s remarkable strategy to detonate Soviet hard-currency earnings by blocking the construction of the Siberian gas pipeline. Haig took the side of the French. He was wrong on that one. Indeed, here was one of innumerable moments when Haig, upon learning that the Clark-Cap-Casey coterie had prevailed, yet again blew a gasket.

Specifically, Haig had been absent from the decisive meeting where Reagan gave the go-ahead to obstruct the Soviet pipeline. He was in New York, chatting with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko. When he learned what had happened in his absence, Haig was fit to be tied. He believed that Bill Clark-again, head of the NSC at this point-had scheduled the meeting because Haig was out of town.

Clark had not, but Haig was, characteristically, still smoldering when he later arrived for a briefing session in the Situation Room. Clark was there, as was Secretary of Labor William Brock. Brock had just returned from Western Europe. During the session, Brock was debriefed on the Western European reaction to Reagan’s pipeline decision-which was hardly euphoric. Brock described being “lambasted, savaged” by the Western Europeans on the decision.

Already incensed, Haig was now purple with rage. Veins protruded from his neck and forehead. He blew up. He pointed at Clark and raised his voice, accusing Clark of sandbagging him, of waiting until he left for New York to call the meeting. “YOU did this!” snapped Haig at Clark.

It was the kind of behavior that would eventually prompt Reagan to accept Haig’s resignation. More than that, it was the kind behavior-so antithetical to a successful chief executive-that probably prevented Haig from rising to the next level; that is, from being elected president himself one day. General Haig lacked the cool-head needed for the job. When it came to the basic but utterly essential skill of dealing with people-a crucial intangible of the presidency-Haig simply didn’t seem to have the patience for the presidency, nor for the singular project of governing the globe; a much larger ambition which he seemed to think he alone could do.

A classic insight in this respect is provided by Richard Pipes, the terrific longtime Harvard Sovietologist who served on the Reagan NSC. Pipes recorded: “Although I have said that he liked everyone, I believe Reagan from the outset did not like Alexander Haig…. Haig’s aggressive bearing, his mocking expression, his superior airs visibly annoyed Reagan.” At NSC meetings, said Pipes, “Haig would roll his eyes to express scorn for the foreign policy pronouncements of various people around the table, as if imploring heaven to witness his suffering.”

Of course, this is not to say that no one liked Al Haig. Bill Clark, who liked everyone, especially liked the man. “He was very kind, very gracious,” said Clark of Haig. “I got along with him well.”

Clark was referring particularly to the year he and Haig spent together at the State Department. “We worked wonderfully together,” said Clark, remembering Haig as always smiling and always smoking a cigarette. “[We were] soon addressing each other, when alone, as ‘Uncle Al’ and ‘Uncle Bill.’”

Clark recalls his first meeting with Haig, which was extremely revealing of Haig’s complex personality. Like all of their subsequent meetings, it was cordial. And it began, as did so most introductions to Al Haig, with a bang rather than a whimper; it still makes Clark grin. “I’ll tell you what your job is,” the general informed an attentive Clark, keenly interested. “You, Bill, are going to run the building. I’m going to run the world.”

Says Clark today: “He was serious.”

He certainly was. Al Haig informed the wider world that he would be the Reagan administration’s “vicar” of foreign policy-or so he thought. It was a marriage that did not last two full years, with Haig departing the scene in June 1982, replaced by an infinitely milder George Shultz.

“No one tried to talk Al out of resigning,” a senior Reagan administration official told the Washington Post.

As a parting observation, I’ll end on a charitable note, which is not only in order at the time of anyone’s death, but especially given the most notable component of the Haig record-the one area where Haig is most vulnerable, and which, predictably, has led every obituary. It is another necessary clarification, if not correction, on the life of Al Haig, again courtesy of Bill Clark.

Of course, I’m referring to the events of March 30, 1981. At 2:25 p.m., President Ronald Reagan was struck by a bullet as he exited the Washington Hilton after a speech. For decades, Haig’s subsequent reaction has been portrayed in the press as petulant and dictatorial. Bill Clark, however, as Haig’s deputy at State, was there to observe each and every Haig step. He retraced those steps for me a few years ago:

Clark was at the State Department when he got word that Reagan had been shot. He was with Secretary Haig, who said to him, “I’ll go over there,” meaning the White House, “and you man the ship here.” Haig steadily ordered: “Bill, stand by. We’ll have to get out a proper statement for the benefit of our allies and ‘non-friends,’ assuring them that all is well.”

Haig raced to the White House to the center of activity in the Situation Room. He and Clark remained in direct communication by secure phone.

The common wisdom is that Haig then over-asserted himself by trying to seize the reins of government. “I’m in charge!” he reportedly declared as he stomped into the Situation Room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Clark here interjects: He says it is unfair to characterize Haig’s infamous words as reflective of a desire to take over the presidency, to leapfrog the Constitutional process requiring Vice President Bush to fill the gap. Importantly, the vice president was not present at that moment, meaning that someone needed to take command, and right away. Rather, says Clark, Haig was merely seeking order in the Situation Room and wanted to quickly issue statements making it clear to the world that all was operating smoothly atop the world’s greatest power. This was, after all, a tense Cold War period, and one never knew how the Soviets might react.

“That place was in great confusion and the vice president was in the air,” says Clark. “Al reminded people that as the primary cabinet member he was going to take charge of the meeting, not of the White House. So some of his detractors I think overplayed the meaning of what he said…. What he said was correct-that he heads the national security interest, that he’s the primary cabinet member. So, he did take charge in attempting to get a statement written and in trying to calm the others who were present.”

Moreover, Al Haig knew what to do because of his difficult experiences in the tumultuous Nixon administration. “He had been through a lot in the Nixon years,” adds Clark. There had been low periods for Nixon during which Haig effectively served as president. So, on March 30, 1981, Haig knew what to do better than anyone in that room. “He was not trying to take over the government,” says Clark. “That is inaccurate.”

Establishing order was Al Haig’s charge that day. He did the right thing.

Overall, Clark summed up Al Haig nicely: “Haig would drive us nuts,” said Clark. “He always felt he could do a better job than Ronald Reagan. But I loved the guy anyway.”

Alexander Haig was far from perfect, but aren’t we all? He left the world a more interesting place, and one not as black-and-white as his critics suggest.

- Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include “The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand,” “God and Ronald Reagan,” and “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.“

By Ralph Peters
Published in the Journal of International Security Affairs
Spring 2009

The most troubling aspect of international security for the United States is not the killing power of our immediate enemies, which remains modest in historical terms, but our increasingly effete view of warfare. The greatest advantage our opponents enjoy is an uncompromising strength of will, their readiness to “pay any price and bear any burden” to hurt and humble us. As our enemies’ view of what is permissible in war expands apocalyptically, our self-limiting definitions of allowable targets and acceptable casualties-hostile, civilian and our own-continue to narrow fatefully. Our enemies cannot defeat us in direct confrontations, but we appear determined to defeat ourselves.

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Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer, a strategist, an author, a journalist who has reported from various war zones, and a lifelong traveler. He is the author of 24 books, including Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World and the forthcoming The War after Armageddon, a novel set in the Levant after the nuclear destruction of Israel.

see http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2787.cfm

On my radio program this weekend, I discuss how the tax, borrow, and spend policies of the liberal left are destroying our wealth, our liberty, and our individual ability to pursue happiness. Our social problems can not be solved by a government that is constantly growing in size and increasing its scope of power. There are simply no angels in government. Like other people, politicians and government bureaucrats are far from perfect and make decisions that benefit and empower themselves. For this reason, power must be dispersed, not centralized.

This is precisely why Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s proposed budget, which imposes a host of new taxes (in the form of expanded sales taxes) to cover increased and out of control spending, will create even more economic pain for all Pennsylvanians. Rendell wants to raise Pennsylvania state government spending by over $1 billion (4.1%) in the next fiscal year when we have a $3 billion dollar deficit funded for only one more year by President Obama’s stimulus (I mean “porkulus”) plan. He then wants to fund all of this new bloat by attacking job creating and job sustaining businesses with a natural gas extraction tax that is unjust and will cripple a fledgling industry, as well as new sales taxes on all kinds of services which will move thousands of businesses out of Pennsylvania and destroy tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of jobs. Rendell’s proposals would severely damage Pennsylvania’s economy and destroy its future tax base. This is beyond self defeating; it is stupid. That’s right. These liberal, progressive policies are just stupid! Instead, Governor Rendell should follow newly elected New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s approach to balancing budgets. Enact immediate spending freezes, cut programs that are redundant and insolvent, and reform bloated public pension and health plans. This then paves the way for tax cuts and a positive business environment that can charge up future growth that benefits everyone. Anything less is irresponsible and foolish, and simply sells out our children and grandchildren.

We want Pennsylvania and all of America to be vibrant, competitive and growing, not a bloated economic basket case like Greece. Let’s save America for our children, grandchildren and the world!

Have a great week, and remember to tune in next week to hear my special radio program on Marxism. I will discuss how all forms of socialism - not just the Eastern European totalitarian model - rob people of their lives, their futures and their happiness.

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February 15, 2010

An excerpt:

As it happens, after touching on the KSM trial issue in a recent column, I received email comments from a prosecutor with both federal and state experience. Over a couple of exchanges, he raised a number of issues reflecting prosecutorial experience, issues that have been overlooked in the Cheney-Biden exchange and many other discussions of the issue.

Mr. Cheney said he was concerned that the Administration lacked seriousness in the war on terror. This prosecutor shares that concern.

Read the entire article here.