Yesterday, we almost became France

I haven't seen a lot of mention of this today, so I want to make sure to get it in black and white.

We almost became France (or Russia or Venezuela) yesterday with this stupid, government-purchasing "bailout" of Wall Street. The Federal Government would have purchased mortgages. If the Federal Government purchases something, it can direct what happens with that something. This is a frightening prospect. It is called Socialism. Government owns stuff/everything, and it can direct what happens with stuff/everything. As Jeb Hensarling said yesterday, "if we lose our ability to fail, we will soon lose our ability to succeed." This is what France is. It's why nothing much comes out of France anymore, besides wine and cheese. They spend two months in the summer on government-mandated vacation, and nothing gets done. Their national productivity is awful. We don't want that. And if this "bailout" nightmare had passed, there would have been no turing back. It would have changed the American economy forever. Forever.

So, a huge "thank you" today goes to the House Republicans who stood on Free Market principles and said "no" to Socialism. Stay strong, and get some of your friends to come back to the Free Market side. The Defeat-ocrats and the Lame-Duck-in-Chief aren't going to quit anytime soon.

William F. Buckley Jr. - 1925-2008

The leader of modern conservative thinking has passed away.

He died while at work; if he had been given a choice on how to depart this world, I suspect that would have been exactly it. At home, still devoted to the war of ideas.

And what a warrior he was. See him slay the dragon of "too much conservatism is a bad thing":

Now, David Gergen was the Director of Communications at the White House for several years before pulling out a few months ago to return to private life. You will not be surprised to learn that he thinks Mr. Reagan needs to bring "new energy and ideas into a second term." You will not be surprised that new ideas always, but always, involve more social spending at home together with more regulation; and, abroad, more appeasement.

...

But the zinger is the foreign-policy plank for the New Reagan. You've guessed it? right. He must turn his "creative energies to building a different, closer relationship with Moscow." Why not a "Soviet specialist" to advise him? Say, Richard Barnet from the Institute for Policy Studies. Can't "more heavyweight strategic thinkers be found to come into the Administration in a second term"? Somebody like, oh, Herbert Scoville? You will notice that the softer you are, in that world, the heavier you are. Churchill would have been such a lightweight he'd have floated.

What Mr. Gergen has in mind for President Reagan's second term is that he should ignore conservative thought domestically and, abroad, revise weakward our policy of resistance to Soviet encroachment. Not bad, this agenda, for one man. It calls merely for undoing the Federalist Papers, and unliving Lenin. And progressing into history with the force and personality of a vanilla milkshake.

Or read his incredulity as bad weather and poor responses become the fault of the Bush Administration.

"As the water recedes," Dowd explains, "more and more decaying bodies will testify to the callous and stumblebum administration response to Katrina's rout of 90,000 square miles of the South." Another planted axiom. It is that the Bush Administration, to return to the language of Mr. Friedman, "has engaged in a tax giveaway since 9/11 that has had one underlying assumption: There will never be another rainy day."

The gravamen against Bush becomes plain: The Bush administration insisted "on cutting more taxes, even when that has contributed to incomplete levees and too small an army to deal with Katrina, Osama, and Saddam at the same time.”

The proposition that the Federal Government under George W. Bush has been shortchanging welfare is in astonishing conflict with the figures. Under Bush, federal spending increases have been at the fastest rate in 30 years. Non-defense discretionary spending under Bush has grown by 35.7 percent, the highest rate of federal government growth since the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.

Again, the planted axiom is that the New Orleans levee has been for years a national pustule that George Bush refused to lance because he didn't want to drain the money needed by Dick Cheney to buy his waterfront estate. If New Orleans was conspicuous for its vulnerability, why hadn't the city’s articulate mayor, or his fellow Democrat the articulate governor, said something about it? Why did it not figure in the demands of the Democratic party at its convention in Boston? How explain the silence on the subject of candidate John Kerry?

You can read much more at the National Review Online archives of Mr. Buckley's writings.

"What's a conservative to do?"

A sentiment voiced by many conservatives this election cycle, I'm certain. And one voiced by Playwriter Girl in a comment to my Huckabee post below. For, despite what the drive-bys would have us believe, there is no real conservative in this year's presidential race. Here are the Republican candidates as I see them.

Huckabee	A Liberal's Republican. Vote for Mike if you want your taxes raised.
Hunter	Solid conservative, but where is he? Where's his passion?
McCain	Nope. Already rejected by Republicans. Besides, Star Wars is passe—we don't need another Luke Skywalker.
Paul	Kook, kook, kook.
Romney	Accomplished businessman and Governor. But waffles too much for my taste.
Thompson	Possibly the most conservative of the bunch. Seems to have little energy. Great statesman, unproven leader.

And that leaves my choice, Rudy Giuliani.

Here is my criteria for selecting Rudy. Line up all the candidates side by side and ask yourself this question: which one of these candidates will the terrorists be most afraid of? For me, it's Rudy. Yes, he's not the most conservative of the bunch, there's no question about that. However, he has stated that he will appoint constructionists to the Supreme Court. While he is personally pro-abortion, he recognizes that it is the people's decision through the governments of their respective states. He is an accomplished administrator, having cleaned up New York City of crime before September 11 and of tragedy afterward. He is an accomplish prosecutor. He led the charge to rid New York of organized crime with tremendous success.

For what it's worth, Mr. Light Bulb recommends voting for Rudy Giuliani as the Republican candidate for President of the United States.

VICTORY!!! The amnesty monster is DEAD!

Today is a day of victory for national sovereignty.

Today is a day of victory for legal immigration.

And today is a day of victory for the rule of law.

The awful monster called the Amnesty Bill is dead.

The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.

The monster didn't even get a majority of votes (motion to invoke cloture). It died 46-53. I'm grateful to say that both of my senators (Cornyn and Hutchison) voted to kill the monster. But Teddy Kennedy couldn't leave the issue alone. He issued this threat.

"Year after year, we've had the broken borders," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "Year after year, we've seen the exploitation of workers."

After the vote, he said: "It is now clear that we are not going to complete our work on immigration reform. That is enormously disappointing for Congress and for the country." Kennedy, a chief proponent of the bill, said, "we will be back. This issue is not going away." [emphasis mine]

As always, Mary Jo Kopechne remains unavailable for comment.

France's Hillary problem may be clearing up

France's conservative candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, appears headed for victory after their debate earlier in the week.

French conservative Nicolas Sarkozy extended his lead after a television debate with Socialist rival Segolene Royal and stayed on course for victory in Sunday's election, opinion polls showed on Thursday.

A poll for the Opinionway institute showed 53 percent of viewers found Sarkozy more convincing during the sometimes fiery debate, against 31 percent who judged Royal better.

...

Sarkozy, a right-wing former interior minister and the favorite of financial markets, has hammered young hoodlums, illegal immigrants and enthused supporters with his attacks on the left wing protesters of May 1968.

Hated and feared as a dangerous authoritarian by many on the left, he has nonetheless been consistently rated the more "presidential" of the two candidates by most voters.

Lucky them.

Respect for Life returns to our country, partially

Today, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority handed anti-abortion forces a major victory Wednesday in a decision that bans a controversial abortion procedure and set the stage for further restrictions.

For the first time since the court established a woman's right to an abortion in 1973, the justices upheld a nationwide ban on a specific abortion method, labeled partial-birth abortion by its opponents.

The 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The law is constitutional despite not containing an exception that would allow the procedure if needed to preserve a woman's health, Kennedy said. "The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice," he wrote in the majority opinion.

Doctors who violate the law face up to two years in federal prison.

And, as if on cue and following the same playbook, the Defeat-ocrats bemoan a reduction of "rights". Here's Her Vileness, Mrs. Bill Clinton.

"Today's decision blatantly defies the Court's recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother. As the Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973, this issue is complex and highly personal; the rights and lives of women must be taken into account.

But apparently the rights and lives of unborn children aren't your concern. Aren't you some type of children's advocate?

"It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito."

Tell me Mrs. Clinton, with exacting specificity, where is the right to abortion located in our nation's constitution. I won't hold my breath for your answer.

And here's His Audaciousness, Barry Obama.

"I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman’s right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women,” Obama said.

No, no, no, Barry. It will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to protect a child's right to live. You got it backwards.

And the Breck Girl weighed in.

"The ban upheld by the Court is an ill-considered and sweeping prohibition that does not even take account for serious threats to the health of individual women," Edwards said. "This hard right turn is a stark reminder of why Democrats cannot afford to lose the 2008 election."

Oh, it's a stark reminder alright. Millions of unborn children can't afford for you or your ilk to win in 2008.

The budget deficit is shrinking . . . again

There's one fewer thing for the lefties to complain about: a large budget deficit.

Bumper tax receipts are shrinking the U.S. budget gap with surprising speed, but economists worry a brighter near-term picture will encourage more spending or breed complacency about the looming strains from retiring baby boomers.

...

Massive corporate and individual tax payments led to a record December surplus, which brought the deficit for the first quarter of fiscal 2007 down to $80.4 billion from $119.38 billion a year earlier.

But how can this be? President Bush lowered tax rates, that means the deficit should go up. Right?

Yes, it should, if you're a liberal and you have no clue about supply-side economics. But for all of us who live within the realm of reality, this is old news.

The best response I've seen to Michael J. Fox

Just can't beat it.

Background here and here.

Hat tip to Right Wing News.

Plain old common sense from Uncle Newt

Newt Gingrich has written a list of eleven things the House needs to do in order to achieve victory in November. It's called "The American Eleven: A Values-Led Plan for Victory in November" and it's on Human Events online. You need to read the whole thing, but here are his points summarized:

1. Make English the Official Language of Government
2. Control the Borders
3. Keep God in the Pledge
4. Require a Voter ID Card
5. Repeal the Death Tax, for Good
6. Restore Property Rights
7. Achieve Sustainable Energy Independence
8. Control Spending and Balance the Budget
9. Tie Education Funding to Teacher Accountability
10. Defend America From the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam
11. Focus on Iran and North Korea

See what I mean by common sense? Nothing here is radical. Nothing here is revolutionary, except in the sense that Republicans can't seem to accomplish some of them. But if they did, that would be revolutionary. Still, it will take a whole lot of good words to overcome the trust deficit that Republicans in Congress seem to have with the voters. In fact, there might not be enough words.

Happy Birthday, Thomas Sowell

Another day, another birthday. This time for Thomas Sowell. Dr. Sowell is one of our nation's most sound thinkers. His writings on culture, economics, race, and children are among the best you will read. They include numerous books and a regular column.

Here's a couple of paragraphs from one of my favorites of his books, The Vision of the Anointed:

To those with the vision of the anointed, the public serves not only as a general object of disdain, but as a baseline from which to measure their own lofty heights, whether in art, politics, or other fields. Systemic processes which offer channels of expression of the public's views and values are to be circumscribed and circumvented. Art, music, and ballet are to be financed by compulsory exactions from the public, while ignoring or disdaining what the public itself wants or does not want. Similarly, so-called "public television"—taxpayer-subsidized television—is in fact the least responsive to the public's desires and most reflective of the vision of the anointed. Shamelessly one-sided propaganda for the environmentalist movement, for example, has become a staple of so-called "nature" programs on "public television" for years.

Failure to use tax money to finance things not liked by the taxpaying public is routinely called "censorship." If such terminology were used consistently, virtually all of life would be just one long, unending censorship, as individuals choose whether to buy apples rather than oranges, vacations rather than violins, furniture rather than mutual funds. But of course no such consistency is intended. This strained usage of the word "censorship" appears only selectively, to describe public choices and values at variance with the choices and values of the anointed. If a public library declines to buy some avant-garde book approved by the anointed, because either the librarian of the taxpaying public does not like it, that is called "censorship"—even though the book remains freely available to all who wish to buy it and no library can possibly purchase even a tenth of all the books published, so that discretionary preferences are inevitable and the First Amendment does not guarantee either an audience of money.

There's lots more where that came from. Happy Birthday, Dr. Sowell.

Another bad week for the Lefties

Can you believe it? Two bad weeks in a row for the moral relativists. Consider:

• The Immigration compromise bill seems doomed.
  
• The House voted FOR America.
  
• The Senate voted AGAINST a troop withdrawal plan.
  
• A European leader spoke well of America.
  
• The FBI arrested seven Al-Qaeda allies in Miami who wanted to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago.
  
• The New York Times exposed a financial monitoring system we use to catch terrorists.

Yes, I know. The lefties don't really consider that last one a bad thing. But — and this is the bad part for the lefties, the part they don't understand — most Americans do consider it "a bad thing" when you sell-out your own country. Telling our enemies, the lunatics who want to destroy our civilization, exactly how their financial transactions are being monitored is "a bad thing." Telling our enemies that previously-thought-unmonitorable communications can indeed be monitored is "a bad thing."

A few weeks ago, I was having doubts that the Republicans would retain control of either the House or the Senate in November. Now it seems like the Lefties want to help us keep both. Of course, it's only June.