Will a pattern of lies and deception on a major national security issue lead to calls for the impeachment of Barack Obama?
Both of these linked articles make one wonder why the calls have not already been placed. The incompetence of the Obama administration is beyond belief. If Barack Obama had any credibility at all for a second term, it has certainly now vanished.
Permanent Spin, Stephen F. Hayes, Weekly Standard
What’s really behind Obama’s Benghazi bunkum, Andrew Malcolm, Investors Business Daily
A Duplicitous Administration, Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review
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What was your favorite summer job as a kid? Mine was working at the local creamery. Oxford Creamery was a staple where I grew up. It was best known for its ice cream, lobster rolls, fried clams, cheeseburgers, French fries, and coffee frappés. On a hot Friday in July, trays of food and gallons of ice cream were served. It would be an understatement to say it was “open for business.”
Serving the hungry public was no easy task. They weren’t there to make your day. But you learned that a smile could disarm them and can get the transaction off on the right track. At the end of the summer, you knew the score by how many repeat customers you served. And we had a lot of them.
Fridays were big. Once four o’clock rolled around, you had better have your game face on. You could get a sense of how busy the night was going to be by that first rush. This was the first wave of the beach crowd. Then there were the families out for dinner, followed later by the baseball teams and the daters out for sundaes. We’d shut the door at 10:30 p.m., turn up the music, grab some food, and begin cleaning up. At the end of the shift, you realized what it was like to be open for business. And because we were busy, the shifts flew by.
I feel bad in a way when I go out for ice cream with my family and the place isn’t hopping. I think it’s important that kids get to feel what it’s like to work through a Friday rush and the satisfaction of riding your bike home at 11:00 p.m., tired but awake. When I leave a tip now, I know the kids who are really busy appreciate it the most because at the end of a summer, nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars are best when they’re compounding.
It’s hard to explain what it feels like to work for a successful business if you haven’t. You get funny looks when you tell someone that working with the line out the door is fun when you’re making minimum wage. But it’s a stepping stone. It’s an experience. And you can use that forever.
Chances are if you’re reading this you’ve been successful in your life. You probably know exactly what I’m talking about. You know how frustrating it can be to read about business today. You know, as I do, that it doesn’t have to be this way. We’re in this together. Thank you for fighting the good fight.
It’s time to bring the fight to the enemy. So we’ve compiled for you an index of states based on their business friendliness. We call it the “Open for Business Index.” Use it as a tool to see how your state compares on a number of fronts. Is your state one that we have deemed to be business friendly?
The free ride for states is over. The stock market returns of 25% per year are not going to walk through your front door and save your portfolio. Interest rates are not going lower, so forget about bonds coming to your rescue. The long-term secular decline in rates is gone. Do you remember when an 8% rate on a 30-year mortgage was considered good? The landscape you’re dealing with today is a mirage. So do your homework, like reading Richardcyoung.com, and help your friends get their heads out of the sand.
Can a state be open for business while promising 8% guaranteed rates of return to public pensions? Is your state’s government-spending-to-state-GDP ratio on the rise? If it is, it’s not acceptable. How about this? More than half the states in this great country are forced-union states. Union membership should be a choice. States continue to charge you high tax rates, for what? Funding pensions, building convention centers, and doing nothing about your children’s or grandchildren’s educations? Give me a break. Taking a look at some state balance sheets today gives you the idea that you’re looking at a pension fund that happens to run a state, not the other way around.
Use our index to fire up your friends. Get them involved. This election in November is too important not to. Now you have tools that you can point out to your elected officials so you can say with confidence, “Hey, elected official who I employ, why aren’t you doing this, or this, or that? Let’s go—we need to be open for business.” And you know what? If they don’t get what you’re saying, then they’ll never get what it feels like to be open for business.
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After we posted last week’s quotes from Cato Institute President Ed Crane, we received many letters regarding his comments. It is always great to hear from subscribers and thank you to everyone who wrote in.
Garth wrote in saying, “Ed Crane carries his libertarianism a bit too far……He is wrong in my opinion. We need nationalism as well as exceptionalism…Why doesn’t he just check with the founding fathers. I agree we do not want to meddle in other countries affairs but we will defend our country.”This gives us an opportunity to examine what nationalism means, and how Ed Crane was using the word.
Nationalism, as defined by Merriam Webster : loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially: a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups
Ed Crane Quote: “I’m a great believer in American exceptionalism, which needs to be distinguished from nationalism. Too many conservatives conflate the two. American exceptionalism is not based on our superior military capability (as the neocons would have us believe) or our material abundance (as too many conservatives focus on). Rather, it is based on the idea that we are a nation created to have a government for the purpose of allowing us to live our lives as we damn well please. Look at world history and tell me that isn’t exceptional. It is incredibly exceptional. Now we are clearly losing all the things that make American exceptionalism exceptional.”
Our take: What Garth and Ed Crane are saying are perhaps more similar than Garth suspects. Garth says he doesn’t want us to meddle, but wants to be strong. Ed implies America should be great, but shouldn’t base its power on the projection of superior military capabilities. These two points of view are fundamentally the same.
The Merriam-Webster version of Nationalism seems a bit watered down compared to the common understanding of the word today, and that which Ed is probably using. Today the word nationalism connotes, in Americans’ minds, the idea of national dominance, presumably via militarism. We believe that is how Ed is using the word, and how the majority of Americans would interpret such a reference. Garth is hewing closer to the dictionary definition of the word. In any case, it seems that conservatives or libertarians are loath to meddle in the affairs of other nations without a justifiable reason of national defense (not offense). Thanks to Garth for the opportunity to examine nationalism and to all our subscribers for writing in to discuss.
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From Thomas Sowell’s Barack Obama and the Redistribution of Power, on National Review Online.
After Obama went out into the world and worked for a time in a private business, he regarded himself as being, in his own words, “a spy behind enemy lines.”
Later, when he began his political career by running for state office in Illinois, his campaign began with a fundraiser in the home of Bill Ayers, who had been a domestic terrorist who planted bombs in public places, including the Pentagon.
When this association was later revealed, Obama said that he was still a child during Ayers’s years as a terrorist. But Obama was by no means a child when Ayers defended his years of terrorism in a statement that appeared in the New York Times — ironically, on September 11, 2001.
This is not the Barack Obama that most voters saw and elected president of the United States in 2008. What they saw was a carefully crafted image of a bright, articulate, energetic, and genial fellow who would heal our racial and partisan divides. His likability was high and remained so, even after many became disappointed with his policies.
His geniality has carried him over many rough spots. But have you ever heard of a grumpy confidence man? Geniality is a prerequisite for the job.
What many regard as a failure of Obama’s foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, may well be one of his biggest successes. His desire to redistribute wealth domestically is part of a larger ideological vision that includes a redistribution of power internationally.
Obama has long said that the United States plays too large a role internationally. His policies suggest that Islamic countries need a larger role. The troubling question is whether he sees his own role as “a spy behind enemy lines” in the White House.
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