Krauthammer On Domestic Energy

Weekly Standard via DCExaminer

There are, of course, major threats to the American economy. But there is nothing inevitable and inexorable about them. Take, for example, the threat to the dollar (as the world's reserve currency) that comes from our massive trade deficits. Here again, the China threat is vastly exaggerated.

In fact, fully two-thirds of our trade imbalance comes from imported oil. This is not a fixed fact of life. We have a choice. We have it in our power, for example, to reverse
the absurd de facto 30-year ban on new nuclear power plants. We have it in our power to release huge domestic petroleum reserves by dropping the ban on offshore and Arctic drilling. We have it in our power to institute a serious gasoline tax (refunded immediately through a payroll tax reduction) to curb consumption and induce conservation.

Nothing is written. Nothing is predetermined. We can reverse the slide, we can undo dependence if we will it.

There are things to be done. Resist retreat as a matter of strategy and principle. And provide the means to continue our dominant role in the world by keeping our economic house in order. And finally, we can follow the advice of Demosthenes when asked what was to be done about the decline of Athens. His reply? "I will give what I believe is the fairest and truest answer: Don't do what you are doing now."

This article - condensed from The Weekly Standard - is based on syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer's 2009 Wriston Lecture delivered for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in New York on October 5.

Obama has been a great success!

At one time, the active subversion of our Constitution would have be grounds for tar and feathers. In other cases, we would have seen marches, riots, and rebellion in the the streets. Rope. Tree. Politician....Some assembly required.

Many citizens in America submit that Obama and the Democrats in Congress are failing; that they are NOT helping the economy. The Right thinks that the progressive policies of the current Congress and Administration, and the recent bailouts started under Bush, are damaging to the culture and nature of the USA. Trillions have been spent with little or no accountability, all the while Congressional members posture in front of the cameras. The government is reaching into the the very fabric of our nation and tearing it apart.

Financial institutions have been harangued by irresponsible, corrupt demagogues while those same "leaders" have been selling our nation to the highest bidder for decades. Some of those financial institutions have been forced to accept TARP money:

Here's a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can't a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can't special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit -- until now.

The government cares nothing about the law. Retroactive laws and regulations are unconstitutional. The Democrats care only for increasing their power.

The banks complain about the rules that the U.S. Treasury keeps imposing on them retroactively, sometimes in ways that seem arbitrary or driven by constituents' anger.

Some say they never needed the money but were cajoled into taking it by the Treasury, which wanted a show of industry support for its program.

The Treasury basically ordered nine of the nation's biggest banks, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo & Co., to participate in the program.

“It's not something we signed up for,” Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis said in an interview last week with the Observer, referring to TARP's introduction.

Since then, legislators and regulators – fueled by popular backing – have imposed more regulations on the TARP banks, such as caps on executive pay and increased disclosure for how the loans are being spent. They also hauled the CEOs of the biggest banks to Capitol Hill for questioning.

“Congress has shown its hand – and that hand is both manipulative and actively malevolent,” said Nancy Bush, an analyst at NAB Research.

The so-called Stimulus Bill is evidence that the current regime has a different definition of success than you or I. While Keynesian economic models won't get the US out of a recession, the increased spending will shore up the Democratic power bases.

Charles Krauthammer points out the obvious to everyone, well, everyone except the 52 million that voted for the ONE:

....we are now so deep into government intervention that constitutional objections are summarily swept aside. The last Treasury secretary brought the nine largest banks into his office and informed them that henceforth he was their partner. His successor is seeking the power to seize any financial institution at his own discretion.

Obama has far different ambitions. His goal is to rewrite the American social compact, to recast the relationship between government and citizen. He wants government to narrow the nation's income and anxiety gaps. Soak the rich for reasons of revenue and justice. Nationalize health care and federalize education to grant all citizens of all classes the freedom from anxiety about health care and college that the rich enjoy. And fund this vast new social safety net through the cash cow of a disguised carbon tax.

Obama is a leveler. He has come to narrow the divide between rich and poor. For him the ultimate social value is fairness. Imposing it upon the American social order is his mission.

Fairness through leveling is the essence of Obamaism. (Asked by Charlie Gibson during a campaign debate about his support for raising capital gains taxes -- even if they caused a net revenue loss to the government -- Obama stuck to the tax hike "for purposes of fairness.") The elements are highly progressive taxation, federalized health care and higher education, and revenue-producing energy controls. But first he must deal with the sideshows. They could sink the economy and poison his public support before he gets to enact his real agenda.

The Democrats are proposing additional questionable activities. Besides stealing the census from its proper constitutional place, the Obama administration has placed the Census under Rahm Emanuel, the President's Chief of Staff, a man that is directly answerable only to the President. ACORN, another political ally of Obama, one that supports "estimating" the population, is going to be instrumental in operation of the Census.

An if stealing votes via the Census is not enough, Democrats are trying to subvert the Constitutional Amendment process by awarding Washington, D.C. representation in Congress, by congressional vote alone.

Washington Post:

Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

A finding that the voting rights bill runs afoul of the Constitution could complicate an upcoming House vote and make the measure more vulnerable to a legal challenge that probably would reach the Supreme Court if it is enacted. The bill, which would give the District a vote in the House for the first time, appeared to be on the verge of passing last month before stalling when pro-gun legislators tried to attach an amendment weakening city gun laws. Supporters say it could reach the House floor in May.

In deciding that the measure is unconstitutional, lawyers in the department's Office of Legal Counsel matched a conclusion reached by their Bush administration counterparts nearly two years ago, when a lawyer there testified that a similar bill would not withstand legal attack.

Holder rejected the advice and sought the opinion of the solicitor general's office, where lawyers told him that they could defend the legislation if it were challenged after its enactment.

Many favor the idea of granting DC statehood, no matter that this would violate not only the letter of the law, but, also the Founders basic idea of a Federal territory being the capital of all the country. Ask yourself this question. Would Obama and company be so enamoured of statehood for DC if the city was full of conservatives?

Obama has been a great success these last few months. His agenda has increased the power of government and the opportunities for political influence immensely. His every speech has contributed to the perceived success of the progressive movement. Government intrusion into the American way of life has become impossible to remove. Our prestige and respect throughout the world is dropping, even from the supposed lows of Bush's term. Not only do our enemies laugh at us, unafraid, Obama is alienating the very allies which did stand by us. His "smart diplomacy" has angered and insulted nations from Turkey to Great Britain. He has kowtowed to Saudi Arabia. Angered the Turks by mentioning Armenia. Insulted the Queen and Prime Minister of Great Britain. He has demonstrated his lack of wit in every country that he has visited. His State Department relies on his hand picked choice, a woman that has played the fool both at home and abroad.

He is not trying to improve America. He is not trumpeting our successes or our exceptionalism. No. Obama is succeeding in leveling the playing field by criticizing America and apologizing for our actions.. He is succeeding in concentrating ever more power in his administration. He is succeeding in placing more economic power in the government's greedy hands. He is succeeding in slandering entire industries to further his aims.

Obama is a success. So far. God Help Us.

Charley Germanmallet

Iraq's Quiet Transformation
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 13, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Preoccupied as it was poring through Tom Daschle's tax returns, Washington hardly noticed a near-miracle abroad. Iraq held provincial elections. There was no Election Day violence. Security was handled by Iraqi forces with little U.S. involvement. A fabulous bazaar of 14,400 candidates representing 400 parties participated, yielding results highly favorable to both Iraq and the United States.
Iraq moved away from religious sectarianism toward more secular nationalism. "All the parties that had the words 'Islamic' or 'Arab' in their names lost," noted Middle East expert Amir Taheri. "By contrast, all those that had the words 'Iraq' or 'Iraqi' gained."
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went from leader of a small Islamic party to leader of the "State of the Law Party," campaigning on security and secular nationalism. He won a smashing victory. His chief rival, a more sectarian and pro-Iranian Shiite religious party, was devastated. Another major Islamic party, the pro-Iranian Sadr faction, went from 11 percent of the vote to 3 percent, losing badly in its stronghold of Baghdad. The Islamic Fadhila party that had dominated Basra was almost wiped out.
The once-dominant Sunni party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the erstwhile insurgency was badly set back. New grass-roots tribal ("Awakening") and secular Sunni leaders emerged.
All this barely pierced the consciousness of official Washington. After all, it fundamentally contradicts the general establishment/media narrative of Iraq as "fiasco."
One leading conservative thinker had concluded as early as 2004 that democracy in Iraq was "a childish fantasy." Another sneered that the 2005 election that brought Maliki to power was "not an election but a census" -- meaning people voted robotically according to their ethnicity and religious identity. The implication being that these primitives have no conception of democracy, and that trying to build one there is a fool's errand.
What was lacking in all this condescension is what the critics so pride themselves in having -- namely, context. What did they expect in the first elections after 30 years of totalitarian rule that destroyed civil society and systematically annihilated any independent or indigenous leadership? The only communal or social ties remaining after Saddam Hussein were those of ethnicity and sect.
But in the intervening years, while the critics washed their hands of Iraq, it began developing the sinews of civil society: a vibrant free press, a plethora of parties, the habits of negotiation and coalition-building. Reflecting these new realities, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani this time purposely and publicly backed no party, strongly signaling a return -- contra Iran -- to the Iraqi tradition of secular governance.
The big strategic winner here is the United States. The big loser is Iran. The parties Tehran backed are in retreat. The prime minister who staked his career on a strategic cooperation agreement with the United States emerged victorious. Moreover, this realignment from enemy state to emerging democratic ally, unlike Egypt's flip from Soviet to U.S. ally in the 1970s, is not the work of a single autocrat (like Anwar Sadat), but a reflection of national opinion expressed in a democratic election.
This is not to say that these astonishing gains are irreversible. There loom three possible threats: (a) a coup from a rising and relatively clean military disgusted with the corruption of civilian politicians -- the familiar post-colonial pattern of the past half-century; (b) a strongman emerging from a democratic system (Maliki?) and then subverting it, following the Russian and Venezuelan models; or (c) the collapse of the current system because of a premature U.S. withdrawal that leads to a collapse of security.
Averting the first two is the job of Iraqis. Averting the third is the job of the U.S. Which is why President Obama's reaction to these remarkable elections, a perfunctory statement noting that they "should continue the process of Iraqis taking responsibility for their future," was shockingly detached and ungenerous.
When you become president of the United States you inherit its history, even the parts you would have done differently. Obama might argue that American sacrifices in Iraq were not worth what we achieved. But for the purposes of current and future policy, that is entirely moot. Despite Obama's opposition, America went on to create a small miracle in the heart of the Arab Middle East. President Obama is now the custodian of that miracle. It is his duty as leader of the nation that gave birth to this fledgling democracy to ensure that he does nothing to undermine it.